The screen in front of Xu Chan disappeared abruptly, leaving behind only white light.

He looked at the company. This was a sign that a martial artist had used mental energy to suppress the bioweapons. They all lost consciousness.

Based on the distance, this martial artist’s mental suppression range was around two hundred meters, which meant that he was really strong.

If such a person was around, the bioweapons wouldn’t be of much use anymore.

Even though they could continue sending out bioweapons to drain the martial artist’s mental energy, the person could take medicine to reinvigorate themselves and replenish stamina. Such a fight could drag on for at least half a day with no problems on the martial artist’s end.

But they needed to end this before the Fu-Mu Entity finished propagating. They couldn’t drag the fight out.

Still, Xu Chan and the tactical advisors had expected this. There was no way Ferris Wheel could be taken down that easily. After all, this company had been getting ready for a war between companies for a long time, so there was no way they didn’t have any trump cards.

Xu Chan was able to see their weakness, though.

They could have kept such a person behind to launch an ambush, but they had been brought forward, which meant that Ferris Wheel had used up all their trump cards. They could do nothing but call on this person to save themselves.

It was time for the martial artists to move out.

“Captain Wang, Captain Lu, come with me,” Xu Chan said to two development squad members from Unit One through his Realm Pass.

They were from different departments and had their own fighting styles, but there were two things similar about them: They had all learned the Heartborn Force and were above thirty. 𝚏𝕣𝕖𝚎𝚠𝚎𝚋𝚗𝐨𝐯𝕖𝕝.𝕔𝐨𝕞

In such battles, regular Third Limit martial artists who weren’t at the rank of squad captains or its equivalent couldn’t compete in terms of raw strength, which meant that they were practically useless.

When it came to destructive power, speed, and strength, regular Third Limit martial artists were lacking before those who knew the Heartborn Force. If they joined recklessly, they would just end up throwing their lives away.

After Xu Chan got downstairs, he ordered the group to check their equipment and weapons. Once they were sure nothing was wrong, he walked toward Ferris Wheel while facing the ocean breeze.

Behind the Ferris wheel and the company building was an endless, raging ocean, so they looked like the only things between the ocean and sky. Their dark shadows fell on the area, as if they had been here since time immemorial.

But after today, things would be different.

***

Guanshang Jing was observing the situation through his Realm Pass and saw five people walking calmly over from the building across from theirs.

They stood approximately forty meters away from each other. They looked different and had different heights, but all of them wore uniforms from either the Resolution Department or the World Ring Defense System.

Guanshang Jing’s expression changed.

As the security director of Ferris Wheel, he recognized Xu Chan. He also knew just how strong the others were, but Xu Chan stood out. He had been the heavy hitter of the Resolution Department for a long time, and it wouldn’t be an exaggeration to call him their trump card. The other two from the Resolution Department were no slouches either. They were squad captains.

As for the remaining two, they were from the merged space. While Guanshang Jing didn’t know who they were, he could tell based on their positions and gait that they were about as strong as Xu Chan was.

This brought him immense pressure.

Just then, a subordinate contacted him and asked whether he wanted to send someone up to snipe these five men.

He immediately rejected the suggestion. Regular bullets wouldn’t be able to hit them. Instead, it would just make them angry. Right now, they were taking their sweet time walking over, which gave him some time to prepare.

He turned to Tiecheng Peng—the martial artist who made all the bioweapons collapse—and bowed to him. “Mr. Tiecheng, they’re here. We need your help.”

Tiecheng Peng finished the tube of nutritional paste and stood up. Once he reached his full height, he was more than three meters tall. His large body cast a huge shadow in the room.

When he turned around, Guanshang Jing saw that he had a flat face. His hair was done in a topknot. He was broad and had thick limbs, though his muscles weren’t well-defined, since they were covered in thick fat.

The man bowed to Guanshang Jing as well and said in a rich voice, “As thanks for taking care of me, I will fulfill my promise.”

Upon hearing his answer, Guanshang Jing felt the pressure in his heart lessen. At the same time, he found the situation regrettable.

The company had scouted Tiecheng Peng according to Wu Qi’s suggestion. Apparently, if Tiecheng Peng continued training by the book and had enough resources, he had a high chance of reaching a higher limit.

After Ferris Wheel found him, they started training him in secret and gave him the Elephant Strike Force, a secret technique from Treading Seal School, one of the twenty-one martial arts schools among the island nations in the old era. It was all so that he could become one of the company’s trump cards.

If they had another ten years, they might have been able to turn him into a martial arts master. Yet now, they had to send him out to deal with the company’s current crisis.

Tiecheng Peng was alone, though. How long could he hold those five back?

While Guanshang Jing was thinking about it, Tiecheng Peng walked past him with thundering footsteps and headed outside.

***

Xu Chan and the other four reached the building. Despite keeping an eye out, they didn’t run into any obstacles on their way. Clearly, Ferris Wheel knew that trying to attack them was meaningless.

In order to ensure nothing went wrong, Xu Chan split the group into two. He and the other two squad captains would be in charge of breaking in, while Unit One was in charge of waiting for them outside to liaise with them later.

Based on the current situation, aside from the wave of mental energy Ferris Wheel released earlier, the company couldn’t send anyone else whose power was on par with theirs. Unless, of course, they sent out their active biosentient entity.

Since they had attacked Ferris Wheel, of course they had considered this possibility, so they had done ample preparation before coming here.

When the three squad captains entered the company building, they saw a person standing ahead of them. He had a round belly, a firm body, and such solid muscles as well as fat that his loose robes were stretched to the brim. From the distance, he looked like an iron mound.

Behind him were two combat puppets. They wore Ferris Wheel’s uniforms, but based on their style, they were most likely from Proto-Being.

Tiecheng Peng brought his hands up and slammed his thick palms together before bowing to the squad captains.

“I’m Tiecheng Peng. Let’s have a good fight.” His voice boomed in the empty hall.

Xu Chan observed the man and made a general evaluation. Without a doubt, this man was the one who released the mental energy.

“Careful, you two. Don’t be impatient. Stand your ground and fight. They can’t run, so we need to save our energy,” he said.

The two squad captains agreed and released their mental energy at Tiecheng Peng.

But it was as if they had run into an iron wall, and the impact caused them to shake their heads. Tiecheng Peng swayed a little as well and staggered a bit.

When it came to mental clashes, the one attacking first would always have the upper hand. This was similar to the Heartborn Force. Without special defenses, the defender would always end up at a disadvantage, because offensive mental techniques were usually much stronger than defensive ones.

The fight might also end due to a slight bit of carelessness.

Tiecheng Peng’s mental training seemed to be focused in the same area as that of Xu Chan. He also had a unique defensive technique, so it didn’t seem likely that Xu Chan could crush his mind in a direct confrontation.

It wasn’t as if this attack was meaningless, though, because Captain Lu said confidently from the left, “The Elephant Strike Force from the Treading Seal School.”

“He’s an all-rounder,” Captain Wang said from the right.

Xu Chan took a moment to go through his memories. The Elephant Strike Force was a secret takedown technique. While it placed an emphasis on offense, its main focus was on strengthening the body and on defense. It had few weaknesses in terms of offense and defense, which was its strength.

But it did have one clear weakness: Its practitioners weren’t flexible and agile, which was unavoidable for large bodies. However, if the practitioner was on the defensive in the fight, they could minimize this issue to a certain degree.

Anyone going against Tiecheng Peng alone would have a hard time taking him down without using any special methods, but Xu Chan had two comrades with him.

Captain Lu appeared to Tiecheng Peng’s right and pushed a palm toward his shoulder, but halfway through, he tilted back. A large hand tried to grab him and almost succeeded.

Tiecheng Peng might be huge, but he wasn’t slow at all. Captain Wang arrived by his side and kicked Tiecheng Peng’s calf, which caused a loud, explosive sound. A shockwave blasted outward. At the same time, his custom-made martial arts pants swelled up like a balloon.

Captain Wang had used the Heartborn Force, but only managed to make Tiecheng Peng bend his calf a little. The thick muscles and fat blocked the powerful Heartborn Force.

Even so, he had felt the impact from the kick and froze for a moment.

As for Captain Lu, while he had tilted back to avoid getting grabbed, it didn’t mean that his legs were glued to the floor. His body bounced back like a spring, and he punched the spot between Tiecheng Peng’s waist and ribs.

The moment he hit, ripples appeared on Tiecheng Peng’s fat, but the attack didn’t deal any damage.

His fat and subcutaneous layer were filled with dense and firm mutated tissue. If he got hit by refined force in a relaxed state, his fat could disperse the impact through tremors. His muscles would then tense up to prevent the remaining refined force from penetrating his body.

Once Captain Lu and Captain Wang attacked, the two combat puppets moved, but after taking a step forward, they froze.

Xu Chan was staring at them, and his eyes were shining.

Aside from their original brains, combat puppets usually had a supplementary brain. When enemies attacked them with mental energy, the other brain would take over the body so that they could respond.

But there was a limit to how much they could bear. If the mental energy crossed the threshold, the supplementary brain was useless.