High Martial Arts: Slay enemies to become stronger, forge invincibility from billions of corpses.

Lin Zhao stood up, clapped his hands, and walked away.

"Alright, that's all. Let's go, I'll take you to your place."

"Be careful on the island. You're not a core member like me, so those sea creatures won't be polite to you. Don't lose your life."

Song Chen followed.

Throughout the journey, he kept thinking about how the Sea Clan had spent decades capturing people from all over the world to build a complete nuclear industry system.

The scale, duration, and organization of this project far exceed human understanding of mythical beasts.

The textbooks of the Great Xia state that "mythical beasts evolved intelligence, and high-level mythical beasts can speak human language," but there is a world of difference between "intelligence" and "establishing an industrial system."

Now, the sea creatures have clearly overcome this hurdle.

They are not a herd of beasts that only rely on numbers to charge; they are a civilization with strategy, patience, and execution.

This understanding may be more important than the nuclear bomb itself.

Song Chen followed Lin Zhao through the orchard and headed towards the rest area in the center of the island.

Night had completely fallen, and the eerie blue light of the psionic lamps shone through the windows of the stone houses, illuminating the street in a half-light, half-dark manner.

Residents passing by occasionally glanced up at them, their gazes lingering on Lin Zhao, then sweeping over Song Chen, before moving away.

After walking about two hundred meters, Song Chen spoke.

"Where is the nuclear facility located on this island?"

Lin Zhao paused, turned her head to look at him, and her gaze held a hint of scrutiny.

Why are you asking this?

Song Chen didn't answer directly, but instead asked, "Do you want to go home?"

Lin Zhao was silent for two seconds, then nodded slightly.

She continued walking forward, her voice lowered and her pace slower, as if she were carefully considering what she could and could not say.

"Of course I want to."

"As for the core facilities, they are inside the mountain. The sea creatures hollowed out the entire mountain, and there are three layers inside."

"The topmost area is the living quarters, the middle area is the experimental area, and the bottommost area is the raw material storage and reactor. Some of the marine operators we train stay on the island to work at the experimental reactor."

"Experimental reactor. Is it operational?"

"Yes, the power is not high, but it is enough to conduct critical experiments."

Song Chen nodded and didn't ask any more questions.

The two walked in silence for a while.

As the mountain drew closer, Song Chen saw a ring of buildings at its foot.

Lin Zhao stopped in front of the wall, turned around, and looked at Song Chen.

"Why did you ask me where the nuclear facility is located? And why did you ask if I wanted to go home?"

"You're not just asking casually, what do you want to do?"

Her gaze turned serious.

Song Chen met her gaze.

On his way from the cliff to here, he had already mentally reviewed the whole incident.

The sea creatures are systematically learning nuclear technology, and the construction of this island has taken decades.

Destroying this place is more valuable than killing a thousand fourth-tier sea beasts.

But he couldn't say it outright; he had just arrived on the island, and everyone was wary of him.

Saying directly, "I want to blow up your reactor," is like revealing your hand to a stranger; you need to test the waters.

Song Chen hesitated for a moment and then said, "If... I mean, if someone wanted to destroy the nuclear facility on this island to save everyone, what would be necessary?"

Lin Zhao's expression changed, becoming somewhat surprised.

It's like watching a young man who doesn't know his place talk big, but you can't be completely sure he's just talking big.

Her lips moved slightly, but she only managed to utter three words.

"impossible."

Why?

Lin Zhao stared at him for two seconds, then turned her head and looked toward the cave behind the low wall.

Her voice was so low that only two people could hear it.

"Because there is a fifth-tier beast king on the island."

Song Chen frowned. Before going to the island, he had used his Illusionary Eye to scan the distribution of spiritual energy across the entire island.

He sensed a large number of second and third-tier auras, as well as seven or eight fourth-tier auras, but he did not sense any fifth-tier auras.

The fifth-tier beast king possesses immense mental power; if it were on the island, it would be impossible for him to miss it.

Unless, it's not on an island, but underwater.

deep sea.

Before landing on the island, he only scanned the island's surface and the surrounding shallow waters. If the fifth-tier beast king was in the deep sea beneath the island, he wouldn't be able to sense it with his mental strength.

"Fifth tier what?"

"Abyssal Sea Monster, Fifth Rank, Initial Stage." Lin Zhao's fingers unconsciously clenched as he uttered this name.

"It is the guardian of this island, and it does not usually show itself. It spends most of its time sleeping in the deep sea beneath the island."

"If it awakens, everyone on this island, everyone, will die."

After she finished speaking, she looked at Song Chen, waiting for his reaction.

Song Chen did not react. Her expression remained unchanged.

The fifth-tier early stage abyssal sea monster was a small tier lower than the giant deep-sea octopus he encountered during his breakout.

The Deep Sea Giant Octopus is at the mid-stage of the fifth tier. When he has 500 points of health, he can blind one of its eyes.

With his current Qi and Blood stats at 903, he has a more than 60% chance of winning a one-on-one fight against a low-level fifth-tier opponent.

But Lin Zhao was unaware of these things.

In her eyes, he was just a mid-level second-tier drifter with a broken knife hanging at his waist, who didn't dare to say much when questioned by the ghost-faced fish demon.

For a second-tier martial artist to say he wants to destroy a nuclear facility guarded by a fifth-tier beast king is indeed like talking in his sleep.

Song Chen didn't explain; explaining wouldn't have helped. The fastest way to change someone's opinion isn't through words.

He raised his right hand, but did not draw his sword. His five fingers naturally came together, using his hand as a sword.

He slashed forward with his hand.

There was no outward release of qi and blood, no explosions of lightning, and no special effects visible to the naked eye.

It was just a simple chop to the right of his body, a slash from his chest into the air.

The movements were so slow that Lin Zhao could see every inch of his arm moving.

But Lin Zhao's pupils suddenly contracted; she saw the trajectory.

Five barely perceptible cracks appeared in the air along the path of the hand strike.

The trajectory lingered in the air for a long time without dissipating, and Lin Zhao could see it clearly.

Five cracks, each precisely parallel, with perfectly equal spacing and length.

This is the essence of the sword, solidified into a tangible form; it is the memory left in space by the blade after thousands upon thousands of swings.

Lin Zhao's eyes changed. She was a mid-stage third-tier martial artist who had seen the fourth-tier sea beasts on the island take action and witnessed the oppressive aura of the fifth-tier beast king rising from the deep sea.

But she had never seen such a sword technique before. There was no fluctuation of qi or blood, no release of spiritual energy. She simply waved her hand lightly, leaving five sword intent cracks in the air.

This means that this person's knife skills have reached the point where he can cut without a knife.

Moreover, those five cracks were of the same length, the same depth, and the same spacing.

This was not a casual strike in battle; it was precise control of power.

At the moment of swinging the knife, the force is evenly distributed along the five lines, neither too much nor too little, without bias.

She had only ever seen this kind of control in textbooks.

"You..." Lin Zhao's voice seemed to catch in her throat.

Song Chen withdrew his hand and looked at her seriously: "A fifth-tier beast king, I might be able to fight him."

Lin Zhao didn't speak; she stared at Song Chen for a long time.

She spoke, but her voice was very low.

"Come with me."

She turned around and, instead of walking towards the wall, walked along the side of the mountain.

Song Chen followed.

The two walked along the low wall for about six or seven hundred meters and came to a depression in the mountain.

There is a very narrow crack here, only wide enough for one person to pass sideways.

The entrance to the crack was partially hidden by a clump of bushes; if Lin Zhao hadn't pushed the bushes aside, Song Chen would never have noticed it.