A True Warrior — Reinforcing Camp 306

A Guard Corps soldier who had been loosing arrows from a drawn bow cut down a low-rank, Second-rank Elite Feral Beast with a single sword strike, then looked around at the thinning horde and blinked.

"Is... is the Beast Tide ending?"

"What? Already?!"

The soldiers nearby wore identically dazed expressions.

When it became clear that the beasts really were thinning out, eyes lit up and faces broke into stunned, disbelieving grins.

"The Beast Tide is ending! Push harder — come on, everyone!"

The shout spread down the wall. Soldiers who had gone numb with exhaustion lit up as if jolted back to life, pouring everything they had left into their attacks. Spirit Power surged; Combat Techniques flew across the battlefield; the rolling thunder of explosions thickened once again.

Lu Yuan had been directing his Mechanical Guardians throughout. The moment the beast count began dropping, he was the first to notice.

A quiet excitement stirred in his chest. The Evolution Cube still hadn't transformed — but if the Beast Tide was ending, then the soldiers defending this camp wouldn't have to die anymore.

*That was worth celebrating.*

*Too many people died in this one.*

Still, in this final wave he had thrown everything into eliminating beasts as fast as possible, and the casualty numbers had been far lower for it. That brought him a measure of quiet satisfaction.

A short while later, no more Feral Beasts came charging out of the forest. Everyone stared toward the treeline, exchanging uncertain glances. They could barely believe it was over so soon.

Then Luo Xiu launched himself skyward, a streak of light shooting into the forest. He returned a moment later and hovered in the air, the corners of his mouth curling upward, eyes creasing with a genuine smile.

"Brothers!" he called out. "Let it out — the Beast Tide is over! There isn't a single beast track left in the area!"

For one suspended moment, the entire defense camp went silent.

Then the wall erupted.

"That cursed Beast Tide is finally done!"

"I can't believe we made it — and so fast!"

"We're alive. We actually made it, and it's because of Commander Lu!"

"Commander Lu? Get the title right — it's *Legion Commander* Lu! He's the commander of the Mechanical Corps!"

Someone corrected the slip. Others quickly nodded along.

"Right, right — Legion Commander Lu!"

"We owe him for this one. Without Legion Commander Lu, I don't want to think about how many of us wouldn't be standing here."

On the southern wall, Togeluo and the others near Lu Yuan rushed over and threw their arms around him.

"Brother! You absolute legend!"

"Seriously! Our casualties being this low — that's all you!"

Lu Yuan laughed, a little embarrassed. "It's what I was here to do."

Yang Qiu and Ding Wen exchanged a grin, grabbed Lu Yuan by the arms, and hoisted him into the air.

"Legion Commander Lu, you absolute legend!!"

"Legion Commander Lu — long may he reign!!"

The others surged in around them, laughing and shouting, swept up in the same tide of relief and joy.

From a distance, Luo Xiu, Tracy, and Jiang Ming watched the scene unfold.

Jiang Ming crossed his arms. His mechanical eyes tracked Lu Yuan's body as it was tossed up and caught, up and caught, and he gave a faint, disapproving sniff.

"Hmph. The Beast Tide ends and all military discipline goes out the window."

Tracy watched Lu Yuan with warm, glittering eyes. "His standing among these men might already be higher than ours."

Luo Xiu nodded slowly, still smiling. "Let them enjoy it. We owe Lu Yuan this one. Without him, we'd have no idea how many more would be dead."

The other two said nothing to contradict him.

On another section of the wall, Zhu Zhengyang's face had gone pale, his breathing shallow with exhaustion. Throughout the entire engagement he had squeezed every drop of Spirit Power out of himself, relying almost entirely on high-grade Spirit Power recovery potions to keep going, with almost no time to rest — all so he could kill a few more beasts.

He couldn't even explain why, exactly. He'd just looked at the Guard Corps soldiers around him — men and women roaring as they threw themselves at the horde — and something in his blood had answered. His head had gone hot, and the next thing he knew, he was in it with them.

Now, though, he stood a little dazed. Luo Xiu's announcement drifted in from somewhere down the wall. The beasts in front of him had stopped coming.

"...The Beast Tide is over?"

Without warning, an arm dropped around his shoulders.

Zhu Zhengyang turned. It was his squad captain — normally a stern, expressionless man who wore his authority like armor. But right now, that same man was grinning at him, white teeth flashing in the sunlight.

"Ha! Beast Tide's over, Xiao Zhu! You did incredible out there. This section had it easier than anywhere else today, and that's because of you."

Before Zhu Zhengyang could respond, another soldier slung an arm around his other shoulder — a young man who had barely spared him a warm word all week. Now he was beaming.

"That's a Talent Camp prodigy for you. When you actually commit, you're terrifying."

Zhu Zhengyang blinked.

The young soldier pressed on: "Hey, don't let it just sit there — Xiao Zhu earned serious merit today. Let's go petition the captain for a commendation. I heard Talent Camp students exchange military merit for Credits. We can't let him get shortchanged."

"Agreed. The captain had better give Xiao Zhu something substantial, or we'll have words about it."

His teammates fell over each other talking, and Zhu Zhengyang stood among them, eyes wide, mouth slightly open, mildly overwhelmed.

The captain gave his shoulder a firm pat. His smile had softened into something genuinely warm.

"Xiao Zhu. Today, you've earned the right to call yourself a true warrior."

The young soldier beside him grinned and thrust a thumb up in Zhu Zhengyang's direction.

"The future of the Red Maple Empire rests with young talent like you. The rest of us — we'll cap out at Second or Third-rank. The Gene Locks beyond that aren't opening for us."

Zhu Zhengyang felt something press at the back of his eyes. He blinked it away and smiled back, nodding slowly.

"When I graduate — when I come to serve on the front lines — will you have me?"

"What kind of question is that?! Of course we will!"

It wasn't only Zhu Zhengyang. Yan Jing and the other Talent Camp students were surrounded in much the same way — comrades pressing close, smiles and laughter filling the air. The young men and women of the Talent Camp stood among them wearing complicated expressions, feeling things they couldn't quite put into words.

Even Maige and Yu Wa, stuck in logistics, got swept up into the celebration by their own colleagues.

The two of them looked at each other, and a creeping melancholy settled in.

Honestly — apart from their supply runs up to the wall, where they'd stolen brief glimpses of the battle before being sent back — they had contributed essentially nothing to this Beast Tide. Their participation amounted to a handful of glances at the carnage, and nothing more.

It stung.

After being tossed into the air a few more times, Lu Yuan was finally set down. The cheering gradually wound down. The initial rush of relief gave way to a calmer, quieter mood.

Luo Xiu issued the order for a full headcount — casualties and losses to be tallied.

Everyone already knew, in their hearts, what the numbers would look like. Aside from the supplies burned through, the camp had almost no one to mourn. The beasts had never made it over the wall. No breach. No destruction. Nothing to count.

That was why everyone had reacted the way they did. Even soldiers who had long since made peace with dying would choose to live, when living was an option.

Luo Xiu and the two deputies walked over to Lu Yuan.

Luo Xiu clapped him on the shoulder. "I already thanked you once, but I'll say it again. Without you, this Beast Tide would not have gone the way it did. Brothers who are still breathing today owe that to you."

A quiet warmth moved through Lu Yuan at that. He hadn't been able to destroy the Forbidden Zone — his strength wasn't there yet. But at his current level, he had still done something that mattered. He'd saved lives.

*At least that's something.*

He smiled. "I'm a soldier of the 257th too, Commander. It's what I'm here for."

Luo Xiu smiled back. Tracy and Jiang Ming relaxed into smiles of their own.

Over these past days, all three had come to genuinely like Lu Yuan. His strength was frightening, his talent bordering on the absurd — and yet there wasn't a shred of arrogance in him. He was easy to be around.

"By the way, Commander," Lu Yuan said, still smiling, "the merit records — you won't forget to log those, right?"

All three of them: "..."

Luo Xiu's mouth twitched. "Yes. You have my word."

Then he paused. He pulled out a black communication device, and whatever warmth had been in his expression drained away, replaced by something hard and serious.

Tracy and Jiang Ming both noticed immediately.

Jiang Ming frowned. "What's wrong?"

"Camp 306 has sent a distress signal," Luo Xiu said. "The beasts have entered the city."

"What?!"

Both commanders stiffened. Beside them, Lu Yuan's expression shifted.

"Beasts in the city? How is that possible?"

Tracy's face went still for a moment, then rigid. Her eyes flicked to Lu Yuan.

If not for him — given the scale and ferocity of what they'd faced — their own camp might easily have fallen the same way. The beasts might well have breached this wall too. It took a moment for that reality to fully settle.

Jiang Ming had reached the same conclusion. He glanced at Lu Yuan as well. Then he turned, expression grim, and looked toward Luo Xiu.

"Camp 306 is to our southwest. What do we do? Do we move now to help them?"

Luo Xiu's brow furrowed. He was quiet for a moment.

"I need to hold here," he said at last. "We can't know whether another wave is coming." He turned to Lu Yuan. "The Mechanical Corps' combined combat power rivals our entire 257th Legion. If Lu Yuan goes, it's as good as sending all of us." He looked at Tracy. "Take Lu Yuan and get over there. They're fellow soldiers. We help each other."

Tracy nodded. "Understood."

Luo Xiu looked at Lu Yuan. "Any problems?"

Lu Yuan's first thought was that he still hadn't accumulated enough Aberrant beasts for the Evolution Cube to transform — and this mission would deliver exactly that. He had no objections at all.

Besides...

"One small matter," Lu Yuan began.

Luo Xiu seemed to already know exactly what was coming. He pressed a hand to his forehead. "The combat contributions will be counted. All of them. You have my word."

Lu Yuan nodded. "Then I'm ready. We should move — time isn't on their side. How are we getting there?"

All three commanders' mouths twitched simultaneously.

Tracy spoke up. "We run. The sky is unpredictable right now — if we take a fighter craft and get swarmed by aerial beasts on the way, we're in serious trouble."

Lu Yuan nodded. He had Black Bear No. 1, but in this environment he wouldn't dare launch it. Its defenses were Second-rank at best. If a pack of aerial beasts surrounded it, the thing would be scrap before he could react.

"Then let's move."

Tracy leaped off the wall and dropped cleanly to the ground outside the camp. Lu Yuan followed right behind her.

The two of them set off toward the mountain.

Not far away, Groat and the others from Lu Yuan's group watched them go, bewildered. They turned hurriedly to Wang Jiashu.

"Squad Leader! Where is Deputy Commander Tracy taking A-Yuan?"

Wang Jiashu had no idea either.

He shook his head. "Not sure." He glanced toward Luo Xiu and Jiang Ming in the distance. "I'll go ask."

He jogged over.

Luo Xiu looked up as he approached, a slight smile already forming.

"Came to find out where that kid went?"

Wang Jiashu had barely opened his mouth before he froze.

He forced a sheepish grin. "You read me perfectly, Commander."

"They've gone to reinforce Camp 306."

Wang Jiashu's expression sobered instantly. "Camp 306 is in trouble?"

"Beasts entered the city. It's bad."

Luo Xiu's face was grave. When beasts entered a city during a Beast Tide, it signaled the start of the worst kind of fighting — a phase where casualty rates climbed to horrifying heights.

Truthfully, given the intensity of this Beast Tide, a breach somewhere was the expected outcome. What happened here at Camp 257 was the exception, not the rule.

Wang Jiashu exhaled slowly. "Thank the stars we had Legion Commander Lu."

Luo Xiu and Jiang Ming both nodded.

Outside the camp, the moment Lu Yuan's boots hit the ground, they were soaked through with red.

He looked down. The earth itself had been saturated with blood. The entire mountainside was stained crimson — so many Feral Beasts had fallen here that the slope had been painted with their deaths. The stench that hit him was so overwhelming he had no choice but to shut down his sense of smell entirely, or the reek of blood and gore would have been suffocating.

Even a Second-rank Gene Warrior still had to breathe — their breath-holding endurance was far beyond an ordinary person's, but they weren't past needing air. He'd heard that Battle King Rank and above could survive in a vacuum. Life evolving to that point was genuinely difficult to fathom.

The two of them blurred into motion, flickering between rocks as they descended, and reached the mountain's base quickly.

Feral Beast corpses blanketed the ground as far as the eye could see.

Lu Yuan grimaced.

Tracy's red hair lifted slightly in the wind. She glanced at him with a small smile. "Don't pull a face — those corpses are worth a fortune. The camp will send recovery teams out later to harvest materials from them."

Lu Yuan blinked. Then something else occurred to him.

He scanned the nearest bodies. The tentacles — the Aberrant growths — were gone. Every corpse was clean of them.

*So they disappear when the Aberrant entity dies. Same as what happened with Xue Ren.*

Still, he said aloud, "These beasts were Aberrant. Whoever goes out to harvest should take precautions — we don't fully understand what that does to the remains."

Tracy paused, her expression becoming serious. She nodded. "You're right. I'll pass that on to the Commander."

As they ran into the forest, she relayed the warning to Luo Xiu.

Deeper among the trees, the stench finally began to thin. Lu Yuan let out a slow breath.

They ran for a while in silence before Tracy glanced over at him, something glimmering in her eyes.

"Lu Yuan. Funny — I didn't expect we'd end up working together again."

Lu Yuan thought for a moment, then understood. She was referring to the Fourth-rank Feral Beast encounter, the time she'd arrived to deliver the killing blow.

He smiled. "Funny how it works out."

Tracy studied him for a beat, a playful smile taking shape.

"You know... you look a lot like my late younger brother." She tilted her head. "Would you like to call me big sister?"

Lu Yuan: *??*

He stared at her, utterly at a loss. *Is she serious? At the drop of a hat, she's already claiming a little brother?*

The thought brought Li Qinghe suddenly, unbidden, to mind.