Chapter 170 : Chapter 170
Chapter 170. The Beast Tide Recedes—A Special Class Merit?
Beneath the darkened sky, the blue-white sword qi wind dragon coiled and swept forward.
With a shrill howl of sword qi, it swallowed up the freshly airborne Cerberus once more. After spiraling through the air for a moment, it smashed heavily into the Great Rift Valley in the distance.
In an instant, heaven and earth fell silent.
Su Zhan turned stiffly toward Chu Ningfeng. “Old Chu, does Sword Like the Wind not require you to exhaust everything you have just to unleash a single strike?”
Tang Wuji also stared at him blankly, his eyes full of confusion.
They had been friends for many years and knew each other inside and out.
Chu Ningfeng thought for a moment, then said slowly, “I do not know either. After I used one strike, I felt like I could still use another, so I gave it a try.”
“And... after using that strike, I did not feel the slightest bit drained. On the contrary, I am still in peak condition.”
He tried using his ultimate move again, and two more sword qi wind dragons roared out. Chu Ningfeng’s face did not change in the slightest, and there was no sign of weakness in him at all.
???
That sight left Tang Wuji and Su Zhan completely dumbfounded.
Then Su Zhan stopped the hands on the gigantic clock face beneath his feet and actually froze time for another full minute.
Normally, he could never use time stop consecutively like this. Worse, using it would shave away part of his lifespan.
And yet now, after using it twice in a row, he had not suffered the slightest negative effect.
It was simply too strange.
“Old Tang, there is something strange about this place. It feels as though I have gained unlimited time stop, and without any side effects.”
What?
Hearing that, Tang Wuji was even more bewildered. Unlimited time stop... this...
He could not make sense of it, and in the end, he turned his gaze toward Cerberus, who was still being battered by the sword qi wind dragon.
If this place really allowed people to use their abilities without limit, then he might as well go all out and test it.
Tang Wuji clenched both fists. The clothes on his upper body burst apart as he charged toward Cerberus like a raging bull at terrifying speed.
“How is this possible?! How can lowly humans like you be this strong?!”
Cerberus, its entire body covered in sword wounds, looked at Tang Wuji streaking toward it like a beam of light, its eyes filled with shock.
In that instant of stunned disbelief, an indestructible fist and drill-like flying knives tore through both sides of its body.
Its entire body stiffened. The middle head turned left and right, and its eyes flew wide open.
The head on the left had been blasted to pieces by a single punch.
The one on the right had been carved clean off by the sharp flying knives and rolled onto the ground.
A dense aura of death engulfed Cerberus.
But under the restraints of frozen time, it had no ability to resist.
At last, under Chu Ningfeng’s sword, which was as swift as a gale, the middle head too was severed and fell to the ground.
Cerberus’s corpse collapsed limply, utterly devoid of life.
“We won!”
When the members of the Divine Battle Department, Su Linyu, and the others saw this, smiles immediately bloomed across their faces.
Up on the watchtower, Jiang Yichen had just finished cracking his melon seeds. That battle had perfectly demonstrated just how terrifying the Infinite Stamina Array truly was.
With Cerberus, the beast controlling the tide, now dead, the Demonic Beasts pouring out of the Great Rift Valley began to scatter in all directions and flee. The Beast Tide Beyond S-Rank completely fell apart.
Jiang Yichen smiled faintly, withdrew the Infinite Stamina Array, and was just about to walk down from the watchtower.
“Old Chu, try it again. See if you can really release it infinitely.”
But then he heard Tang Wuji urging Chu Ningfeng to fire off another ultimate move into empty air.
Jiang Yichen was about to stop him, but Chu Ningfeng had already thrown out the move. The blue-white sword qi wind dragon roared away.
Chu Ningfeng overexerted himself and dropped straight into sleep.
Jiang Yichen: “...”
Tang Wuji and Su Zhan both froze, staring at Chu Ningfeng lying pale on the ground like statues.
Wait, had he not still been full of life after using Sword Like the Wind just a moment ago?
How had he suddenly gone straight to sleep?
Tang Wuji turned to Su Zhan. “Old Su, you try it again—”
“Get lost. Are you trying to make me die early?!” Su Zhan immediately shook his head.
His martial talent, One-Minute Time Stop, required him to pay with his lifespan.
Tang Wuji’s expression stiffened, and he had no choice but to give up. He turned his head and glanced at the retreating Beast Tide.
“The Beast Tide crisis is over. Let us take Cerberus’s corpse back first. The military will come clean up the battlefield.”
“This time, we also owe a great deal to Yichen’s ninth-rank talisman, as well as these brave youngsters.”
Tang Wuji gazed for a long moment at the Divine Battle Department, Su Linyu, and the others in the distance, then nodded with hope in his eyes.
Su Zhan agreed completely. To have held back an SS-rank Beast Tide for so long, they had all rendered tremendous service.
“For an SS-rank Beast Tide, they will probably be awarded a Special Class Merit. New recruits earning a Special Class Merit during an internship... this is the first time I have ever seen such a thing!”
Tang Wuji sighed. “The younger generation is truly formidable.”
There was no need to elaborate on the weight carried by a Special Class Merit.
It stood at the very pinnacle of Huaxia’s military honors system, a distinction so rare that decades could pass without anyone receiving it.
Its difficulty bordered on the impossible. One had to fulfill all three conditions: a major contribution, extreme danger, and irreplaceability. Jiang Yichen and the others met all three perfectly.
No one could have imagined that a border watchtower with only a few dozen defenders, together with the Divine Battle Department and Jiang Yichen’s group of five, could actually withstand an SS-rank Beast Tide.
And the treatment that came with a Special Class Merit was equally exceptional.
Promotions in the military, retirement placement, living security, and every other aspect of one’s future came with extraordinarily generous benefits.
In all of Huaxia, only the five Martial Gods and two veteran elders at headquarters—those who had made outstanding contributions during the Great Cataclysm—had ever received it.
“Who would have thought? One day, these children we watched grow up would nearly catch up to us,” Su Zhan said with a sigh of wonder.
Tang Wuji patted him on the shoulder, then hoisted up Chu Ningfeng, who had fallen unconscious from overexertion. “Let us go.”
Su Zhan stored Cerberus’s corpse in his Spatial Bag, gave his daughter an approving look, then turned and left.
“Dad, do not go! You have not returned my Golden Shield yet! How am I supposed to live without it?”
“Dad! Dad!”
When Tang Long saw his father trying to leave with the ninth-rank Golden Shield, he immediately wailed and chased after him, his big belly wobbling and his short legs pumping furiously.
Tang Wuji’s face darkened at once. After hesitating for a moment, he tossed both the Dustcrossing Sword and the Golden Shield back to Tang Long.
“Look at how spineless you are.” Tang Wuji snorted coldly and paid no more attention to his foolish son.
Tang Long, on the other hand, hugged the Golden Shield and rubbed his face against it, grinning like an idiot.
Jiang Yichen, who had just come down from the watchtower, could not help laughing at the sight.
“Brother Yichen, we won. It was all thanks to your ninth-rank talisman.” Su Linyu’s face was stained with Demonic Beast blood as she ran over, trying to give him all the credit.
Jiang Yichen smiled faintly and raised a hand to wipe the bloodstains from her face. “This victory belongs to all of you as well.”
As Su Linyu felt the warmth of Brother Yichen’s fingertips brush across her cheek, a blush spread across her face.
Brother Yichen really dotes on me.
She quietly took out her phone, switched the camera around, and snapped a photo of Brother Yichen wiping the blood from her face.
Jiang Yichen was momentarily taken aback when he saw that, but when he noticed the sweet smile on Su Linyu’s lips as she looked down at the photo, he could only shake his head helplessly.
“Hey, the Beast Tide has retreated. Why do you still look unhappy?”
Nearby, Lingling, still in soul form, looked at Jiang Feng’s cold expression and asked curiously.
Jiang Feng’s eyes trembled slightly. As he watched the joyful smiles of victory on Sentry Captain Feng and the other border-defense soldiers, he found that he simply could not feel happy.
In the end, part of the reason this Beast Tide had erupted was because of him.
While Jiang Feng remained silent, a jumble of footsteps suddenly reached his ears.
He lifted his head slightly and saw a group of plainly dressed townsfolk walking over with baskets in hand.
“Sentry Captain Feng, these are some of the foods the townspeople prepared. We wanted to bring them over as soon as the Beast Tide alarm sounded, but the mayor would not allow it.”
“It was only after the roars of the Demonic Beasts grew quieter that the mayor finally let us come. You have all worked hard killing Demonic Beasts. We could not help much, so this is only a small token of our gratitude.”
The elderly women in headscarves placed baskets of steaming hot food into the hands of Feng Xiazi and the others.
Their eyes were sincere and utterly genuine.
“Young man, thank you for your hard work.”
One of the women placed a baked flatbread into Jiang Feng’s hand.
Feeling the warmth of the flatbread, Jiang Feng stood there in a daze.