Chapter 362: Hostility
The entire sky, as far as the eye could see, was dyed a golden yellow by hundreds of meteors radiating terrifying heat. The crowd in the stands looked up at the sky, where that gigantic entity, still burning fiercely, stood like a god of flames.
Chen Bo's ability—Heating—while simple in principle, became the nightmare of countless enemies once its accumulated power reached catastrophic levels.
The heat raised the sparse air within several kilometers to over a thousand degrees Celsius, rapidly creating massive convection currents at the interfaces where hot and cold air met.
The strong winds generated by the convection carried the heatwaves thousands of meters down to the arena, leaving many ordinary people who had only come for the spectacle gasping for breath, almost unable to breathe from the scorching air.
All of this, in fact, was already under Chen Bo's control. He had only directly heated the air in front, behind, to the sides, and above, without applying his ability to the air directly below. Otherwise, the people below wouldn't merely have found breathing a little difficult.
Over a thousand degrees Celsius was entirely sufficient to leave barely a few survivors in the stands within ten seconds.
However, neither the impact comparable to a Category 10 hurricane nor the meteor shower that seemed to incinerate everything could make Shi Huachong retreat a single step.
Even without using his nearly pre-cognitive "Mind's Eye" to dodge, such a move, typically used for clearing minor foes, couldn't harm a single hair on his head.
"Then it's my turn." Relying on movement approaching ten times the speed of sound, with virtually no time interval, he appeared before the burning giant spirit. With his right arm, completely enveloped by his Dharma Body, he threw a punch utterly devoid of flair.
Such a powerful punch, yet eerily, it did not produce a deafening sound at the moment of impact, because all the air medium capable of transmitting sound in the surroundings had been swept away by the force of the punch.
"BOOM!!!!" A second later, the returning air finally revealed the full might of the punch, and a deafening sonic wave erupted from the center of the impact, reverberating throughout the entire sky!
Even after multiple layers of attenuation, this thunderous roar, upon reaching the ground, still exceeded one hundred and ten decibels. Most people could only desperately cover their ears to prevent hearing damage.
"Are these the kind of monsters we're supposed to fight?" The members of the One-Wheel Cult participating in the operation were completely stunned by this astonishing display.
"And this is just the first round..."
"Such monsters shouldn't exist on Earth..."
"Is this our Huaxia's guardian god?"
"Is resistance truly meaningful?"
"A year ago, we actually had the courage to challenge such a catastrophe..."
All sorts of thoughts emerged in the minds of different people—some proud, some worried, some resigned to despair.
The confrontation between Bai Mo, Ramdo, and Ying Huo in Maysuo several years ago, surprisingly, didn't cause as great a public reaction as this one, because almost everyone who witnessed it died shortly after...
Only the high-ranking officials of various countries, through military satellites, had remotely witnessed the details of the battle. After that, all related information was strictly sealed off. Ordinary citizens only knew that Maysuo had experienced an unprecedented experimental accident, leading to the destruction of the city and the deaths of its inhabitants.
But this time was different. Tens of thousands of spectators, less than ten kilometers from the central battlefield, personally experienced this unimaginable power.
They were also intentionally protected, unharmed by the aftershocks. With the aid of advanced communication tools, these live spectators would become the staunchest disseminators, instilling in everyone around them the belief that resistance was utterly meaningless.
"In terms of energy output, the two of us have already reached about eighty percent of his strength at that time..." After one round, Chen Bo paused. He hadn't forgotten that this was merely a performance, and the audience below needed a little time to process it.
Regarding the positioning of their strength, the only thing he could do was take that battle from several years ago and make a rough comparison between himself and the individuals involved at that time.
"However, his progress has never stopped either. Rather, it's like a snowball that just keeps growing. It's unclear just how much strength he truly revealed in Maysuo. We still have to race against time... to find a glimmer of hope."
As research deepened day by day, and most importantly, after Chen Bo gained his primal spirit, he gradually began to understand the true uses of the mysterious Spirit Energy Network system.
When he personally inspected the underground structure of the Spirit Energy Network system, he discovered traces of Primal Matter having existed there. These traces, which only cultivators of the same level could detect, gave him many conjectures.
After a large amount of manpower and resources were dedicated to verifying these conjectures, Chen Bo, using various intelligence from the Spirit Energy Network system, finally deduced the network's true value for cultivation.
After obtaining this crucial information, he continued with the network, which had been dormant for some time, and began laying out his own sections. His internal explanation for this was to strengthen control over the entire nation.
After all, as long as one hadn't reached the Chemosynthesis stage, there was temporarily no other way to observe the existence of Primal Matter and primal spirits. Since Bai Mo could use this system to enhance his strength, then he certainly could as well.
"I hope I can catch up." Chen Bo now only hoped that person would stay for a few more years, preferably with a buffer period of ten or so years.
The Spirit Energy Network system had been under construction for six or seven years prior to this, meaning Bai Mo likely began using this method to enhance his strength from that time. Chen Bo felt that the time it would take him to catch up would certainly be no less than what the other party had spent.
"Report, Speaker. The Hostility Beacon has detected anomalies in several deep red points." Just as Chen Bo once again fell into contemplation, an urgent report from the communication network pulled him back.
This type of instrument, capable of detecting the hostility levels of most people towards a specific entity, ever since its blueprints were discovered in the Tianqing proving ground database, had been secretly produced in small batches, and then equipped to the National Security Bureau to maintain national security and stability.
However, for various reasons, this instrument, prone to inciting public outrage, had always remained confidential. From its production to its use, all responsible parties were under a gag order.
This time, to ensure the smooth progress of the celebration, the Security Bureau specifically arranged for the three sets of instruments that could be deployed to be carried by cleaners disguised as operating cleaning machinery, executing monitoring tasks in several key locations.
The depth of hostility was indicated by red. Every deep red point already had corresponding intelligence personnel following up. However, until the targets made any move, they couldn't be arrested prematurely on false charges; they could only be closely watched.
Comments