A big fat question mark popped up over Li Xi's head.
She didn't get it. She'd been minding her own business, killing monsters, and hadn't done a thing to provoke or offend him. So why was he cursing at her?
Were computer-generated people really this rude?
Li Xi was still wondering how to answer his abuse when a soldier clutching a tablet hurried over and blurted, "Sir! We have a serious problem!"
Chen Lei frowned, displeased. The Beast Tide had already been beaten back — that was the best news possible. What could possibly be worse?
"According to drone reconnaissance, another massive Beast Tide has appeared on the plains six kilometers from the fortress! Preliminary estimates put the monster count at no less than two hundred thousand! They're charging toward the fortress at full speed!" Naked terror was written all over the soldier's face as he spoke.
His words hit them like a bucket of ice water over the head, dousing the flames of excitement in their hearts in an instant. A bone-deep chill crept over every inch of their skin.
A Beast Tide of at least two hundred thousand monsters?!
That was a full five times more terrifying than the last wave. Could they even hold against that? With what?
Without a word, Chen Lei snatched the tablet from the soldier's hands. The drone's live feed filled the screen, and sure enough, a vast, densely packed flood of beasts was stampeding across the open plains. The AI had overlaid its estimate of their numbers and their distance from the fortress.
Six kilometers!
Five and a half kilometers!
Five kilometers!
"Alert! Alert! Beast Tide less than five kilometers from the fortress!"
The AI blared its shrill alarm.
Chen Lei's head snapped up. There it was: a dark mass of shapes on the distant horizon.
"Too close!"
Chen Lei's face drained of color. At this distance, even nuclear weapons would cause irreversible damage to Jianglin Fortress itself.
"There's no other option now. If we let these monsters reach the walls, the fortress will fall. We fight them with everything we've got!"
Chen Lei clenched his jaw, resolved to stop the Beast Tide at any cost.
That was when—
BOOM!
An earth-shattering explosion erupted right in front of him.
***
Through her scope, Li Xi saw an even bigger flood of beasts rolling toward them in the distance. Without a moment's hesitation, she opened the shop and spent 10,000 gold coins on a single Rocket Missile Launcher round, lined up her shot, and pulled the trigger with absolute resolve.
And then, the tens of thousands of soldiers stationed on the fortress walls witnessed something that shattered their understanding of reality.
A missile — 5.5 meters long, 0.5 meters in diameter — came rocketing out of a 5.56-millimeter rifle barrel!
Trailing a long wake of shockwaves, it hurtled forward, unstoppable, and plunged straight into the heart of the Beast Tide!
BOOM!!
A devastating explosion thundered across the land, and the earth cracked and caved in. Every monster at ground zero was vaporized by the heat — not even a scrap of them remained. Those a little farther from the center were turned to paste and flung several kilometers away, unrecognizable as anything they had once been.
"Ow!"
Li Xi had already raised her Strength to 9, but the Rocket Missile Launcher's recoil still knocked her flat on her butt.
【Killed 31,208 monsters. Earned 93,625 gold coins. Earned 9,460,000 EXP.】
【Player leveled up to Lv. 18. Earned two skill points.】
Chen Lei and everyone else gaped up at the enormous mushroom cloud rising into the sky.
A miracle!
An absolute miracle!!
You shot a f***ing MISSILE from a sniper rifle! The gun isn't even one-fifth the size of the round! You're goddamn more monstrous than the monsters!
If he hadn't seen it with his own eyes, you could have beaten Chen Lei to death and he still wouldn't have believed anything this absurd. In that moment, he truly believed Li Xi was a divine messenger sent down from the heavens to save Jianglin Fortress.
"Comrade!"
Chen Lei rushed over to help Li Xi up, all concern. "Are you goddamn alright?"
Li Xi: "I..."
She shook off his hand and scrambled to her feet. The monsters that had survived the Rocket Missile Launcher's blast were badly spooked, and every last one of them was galloping frantically straight toward the fortress, as if something terrifying were on their heels.
Unfortunately for them, they'd run in the wrong direction. A fatal mistake.
Li Xi opened the shop and, without hesitation, spent 100,000 gold coins on the strongest weapon she could buy — the 【Laser Cannon】.
The instant she hit the purchase button, her mind buzzed, and she knew exactly how to fire the Laser Cannon. She aimed the barrel at the front rank of charging monsters and pulled the trigger hard.
BANG!
A blue laser beam shot out dead straight for more than ten kilometers, and in an instant every monster in its line was pierced clean through. Momentum kept them running even with holes bored through their bodies — but their flesh and bone split apart effortlessly under the laser, and their organs slid out of them like a landslide and spilled across the ground.
Li Xi clenched her jaw. She showed zero mercy to the monsters that had destroyed her homeland. Gripping the stock, she swung the rifle hard to the right.
With that single sweep, the beam, more than ten kilometers long, became the Grim Reaper's scythe. Well over a hundred thousand monsters didn't even have time to react before their massive bodies were cleaved cleanly in two.
Bang, bang, bang, bang...
Monsters collapsed in droves, their severed bodies reeking of charred flesh. Crimson blood gushed out of them and pooled into a lake of red. Countless half-dead monsters howled in despair.
Back at the fortress, everyone had gone dead silent, staring at Li Xi in abject horror.
Shock!
Absolute shock!!!
Slaughtering well over a hundred thousand monsters single-handedly — what terrifying, spine-chilling power that was!
A moment later, the laser beam that had stretched over ten kilometers from the rifle barrel slowly faded away.
CRASH!
In the distance, a mountain had been cut through at the waist. Its upper half came crashing down with a ground-shaking impact that threw dust and debris high into the sky, and roaring flames erupted from the cut.
"Hssss!"
The Supreme Commander was the Supreme Commander for a reason: he was the first to react to the miracle before his eyes, sucking in a breath so hard he seemed to be trying to fill his lungs to bursting.
Officers from Sector Two's military command had once praised Chen Lei's extraordinary composure, saying he could watch Mount Tai crumble before him without batting an eye. Now that a mountain really had crumbled before his eyes, all Chen Lei wanted was to drop to his knees and worship Li Xi.
"Hssss!"
"Hssss!"
"..."
The soldiers followed their commander's lead, every single one of them sucking in a sharp breath in unison, until Li Xi found it a little hard to breathe. Everyone else had sucked up all the air.
【Killed 168,801 monsters. Earned 506,433 gold coins. Earned 50,783,000 EXP.】
【Player leveled up to Lv. 20. Earned two skill points.】
【Main quest complete. Successfully helped Jianglin Fortress repel the Beast Tide.】
【Rewards issued. All player base attributes increased by 10 points.】