"Although I know that in this situation, being able to save one's life is already a victory, how can humans protect themselves in such a one-sided massacre?" Joel was so anxious that his mouth was about to blister.

Not long ago, Joel, who was managed to keep calm by Julius, first ordered the people in the city to conduct a defensive battle, and then tried to find out when Cyril could increase his elemental power to the same level as his physical condition.

The former is what he is doing now, and the latter... it is simply a length of time that seems to have no end at the moment.

"Even if you ask me about this, I have no way of knowing." Julius' arm was broken. He simply tied it up with clothes and hung the broken arm around his neck. He tried his best to use his other intact left hand to continue holding the weapon and fighting.

“It’s easy to give up, but death is when you’re really gone.”

"Think about whether there is anything you care about. If so, live hard for those things. Don't wait until you die, leaving you no chance to regret."

"A child shouldn't say such profound things!" Joel turned the weapon in his hand to block an attack from behind for Julius. "Just because an adult occasionally blurts out his inner thoughts uncontrollably doesn't mean he is really unable to hold on."

The beast's claws and Joel's weapon emitted sparks that were particularly obvious even in the daytime.

"I'm glad you're still in this condition." Julius' face was still stained with the monster's blood, and he was filled with murderous aura.

But everyone knew that neither of them could hold out for long.

Not as strong as the monsters, and not as strong as the elements.

The only thing is that compared to monsters, humans have slightly more sophisticated elemental operations.

But the problem is that the enemy's purpose is not to fight, but to kill...

"No, that's impossible." Even though Joel was shaking with fear, he couldn't put down the weapon used to protect himself. "Compared to me, it's Suli who has truly seen the king respected by these monsters."

"That child looks like he's only one or two years older than you at most, but no matter if he's one or two years old, in the end, both of you are not adults."

"And the worst part is that now I can only hope for the rescue of another child (Cyril)."

Julius' eyebrows twitched uncontrollably. "Calm down. Your attitude has clearly become abnormal."

Sometimes he feels very good and has a resolute face, and sometimes he looks miserable as if he can't bear the reality.

"I'll try my best." Joel felt that it was impossible to fight without saying a word.

Especially in this situation where two people were besieged, but not long ago, there were not only two of them, but those people fell in the middle of holding their weapons to protect themselves.

"I suddenly understand why you wanted me to have a fight with Addison..." Joel was in a very bad condition. Apart from his limbs, his head was the most seriously injured.

At this time, his brain had been attacked by several elements, and the only reason he could still stand here was because of his willpower.

"The difference in power can only be felt if one clearly recognizes it." Joel regretted not recognizing the reality sooner.

His head was covered in blood, and the red blood had blurred his eyes, making his vision in front of him blurry.

"I feel like this might be the end of my life. I really want to become so powerful that I can smack all these monsters into the ground..."

Here, humans are still able to encourage each other through thinking and consciousness, but on the other side, Addison, who is fighting the giant rhino, is almost going crazy.

"This kind of fighting... is really disgusting!"

The giant rhino, a monster that did not expect Addison to appear here, suddenly discovered something interesting after fighting with a familiar opponent.

That is, this opponent who had hated him countless times no longer flew high and attacked him continuously, but could only fight him at close range from a position that was neither too high nor too low. His movements were like...

Prevent him from destroying the surrounding buildings and killing those humans at will.

The giant rhino didn't care what the reason was. He just knew that he had finally found a chance to kill his old rival: "Although I don't know why you are here, but since you don't want to leave, then stay here completely!"

Addison gnashed his teeth and trash-talked without mercy: "Who do you want to talk about? If you have the ability, do it. If you can't do it, don't just shout slogans. What you say will be like a joke, making people laugh."

"If you think so." The giant rhino took a big step back, dodged Addison's attack, and then turned into a human form, pointing his finger to the side and back of Addison.

That place was where the gap was first torn apart by the group of monsters.

At first glance, the butterfly spirit, whose five senses were enhanced by the elements and were extremely strong, saw the humans who were difficult to resist.

"It is not my mission to kill you. This is just my personal opinion. The order I received is to kill all humans in this city as much as possible."

"Out of selfishness, I chose to be restrained by you here instead of ignoring you directly so that I can enter the inner part of this city." The giant rhino looked at Addison, whose face fell in an instant, and he became more and more excited about killing his old rival.

"Dream on!" Addison was not as depressed as the giant rhino imagined. Instead, he resisted even harder.

Until the two were fighting, a sound that almost spread throughout the city appeared...

“——Boom!”

Before that——

"Wait..." Just when Joe was feeling dizzy and thought he was going to fall down at any moment, in his blurry vision, he seemed to suddenly see a loud explosion on another street across a few houses, which was close to the hotel where Cyril was staying.

The scene that appeared later was just like what Joel had imagined...

Those monsters that could easily jump several meters high were all slammed into the ground by the wind element.

"Is that Cyril?!" Julius and Joel said in unison.

"The answer is correct, but there is no reward." Cyril, who smashed through several walls in succession, appeared in front of the two in the shortest straight distance.

The dragon-born boy looked very ferocious now. The elemental power in his body was forcibly interrupted before it could be absorbed to Addison's level.

The reason why he won was that when the butterfly fairy strengthened his body, it was genuine and not fake at all.

Therefore, even though his body was so weak that Cyril felt he could devour all the monsters present alive, he could still rely on his strong body to engage in close combat with those monsters.

Compared to using weapons, with a strong body and an element storage capacity that is more than ten times greater than before, many ideas that were previously impossible to realize due to the scarcity of elements can now be realized.

For example, he pressed those particularly jumping monsters into the ground. These actions were impossible before, but now, they have become a common move.

Cyril greeted Julius, who had a broken bone: "Are you okay?"

"Not bad." With a fake smile on his face, he didn't look sincere, but just coping. Then Julius said what he really thought, "Although in reality, I'm almost so annoyed that I want to slice these monsters into pieces and throw them to Caster..."

No matter how hard Julius tried to kill the enemy, as long as he thought about the monsters he killed, they meant nothing to the Tiger and the entire beast race. He felt like he was trying his best but couldn't even compete with the enemy heroes. He could only fight with the minions...

This feeling is terrible.

"That's good!" Cyril nodded with satisfaction.

He has gradually figured out the tricks of fighting against monsters.

This is different from the various combat techniques learned at the Elemental Academy.

The monsters here compete in terms of strength in various aspects.

But humans are not monsters after all.

Cyril looked up at Julius, and when the boy looked back, he said calmly, "It's time to counterattack. You must carefully observe the flow trajectory of the wind element. After all, for humans, when fighting monsters, the biggest disadvantage is to compete with them in terms of physical strength and elemental reserves."

"What we have to do is to use possibilities that they have never considered and create attacks that they cannot imagine defending against."

"What do you mean?" Julius approached Cyril on his own initiative. He felt an inexplicable self-confidence from the dragon-born boy.

It's not arrogance, but knowing that it can be done and achieved, and it can give them the power to control the battle.

Cyril was waiting for this question, and he quickly said, "My wind element and your light element, although they cannot spread as fast as wind and fire elements, can also create super high heat that spreads quickly."

"I call this - high temperature hell." Cyril suddenly frowned, "But even if this is achieved, it is only limited by the environment. The elemental power of you and me is not enough for us to burn the bodies of those monsters into ashes."

"It is Joel's water element that can actually cause extremely high damage."

"Me?" Joel asked stupidly, pointing at his nose.

Cyril nodded. "When we use elemental power, we usually transform the elemental power in our bodies into various physical substances. Such as strong winds and raging flames. But no matter how real these things are, they all have one characteristic, that is, Suli cannot see them."

Julius wanted to drag this suspenseful person out and give him a beating: "What does this have to do with Sully at this time?!"

"Of course there is! I have thought about the difference between what Suli can see and what he can't see. Suli can see water and fire, but not wind. He can see the water that the mermaids created to create a lake in the Mercenary City, but he can't see the absolutely quiet space created by the wind element when the dragon landed in front of him."

"Water and fire are physical substances, and wind is generated by kinetic energy. The lake created by the mermaids is the water element directly transformed into a stream. The water element we use is both water and an element, but it is neither a pure element nor pure water."

"Because of his lack of strength, Sully couldn't see most of the fights between humans clearly. Sometimes, you could see confusion and bewilderment on his face." Cyril smiled.

"Okay, let's not talk about that nonsense. The main point I'm talking about is that the elemental qualities that are both solid and intangible can be wrapped by pure wind."

Cyril likes to speculate on the properties of the elements.

Regarding the dragon's absolute control over the wind, is it because there are too many elements in its body, or is it because it has a special understanding of the wind?

These dragon boys were not clear about this, he could only think from his own perspective and determine that his current elemental quality was enough to allow him to achieve his dream.

Elemental factors are like dust, and the element absorption device provides this thing with kinetic energy to move toward the device.

However, the water element wrapped in pure wind will not be burned and gradually evaporate like water under the influence of light and heat.

On the contrary, in the continuous high heat provided by the light element, the wind diffuses this high temperature, and the water element hidden in the center does not suffer any loss.

Compressed by the wind and with the power of Joel's active compression, Julius only needs to terminate the light and heat effect of the light element and convert that part of the power into pure light. Then this controllable explosive force will directly become a weapon against the enemy...

“Bang—!”

At that moment, the huge noise almost spread throughout Rota County.

Julius was stunned.

Joel said in disbelief: "Is this the damage that can be caused by my participation?!"

The enemies that they had fought so hard against were turned into pieces, without even a complete body left.

"Yes!" Cyril nodded decisively.

"In fact, I think the element that works better with it is not water, but fire and darkness. As for water, at the moment of its explosion, it will reduce the damage of the effect of the High Temperature Inferno."

The power of the explosion will also be reduced.

Julius didn't want to think about how outrageous the effect Cyril had imagined was. "So how strong do you want this power to be? Those are strong monsters! Not everyone is as fragile as Sully! If he were here, the sound of the explosion alone would be enough to deafen him!"

Cyril's head was buzzing after being yelled at. He slapped his forehead hard and then said, "You only need to tell me whether the killing power is strong or not."

Julius could not utter a word to deny it.

Finally, he took a deep breath and said, "Try to reduce this power to use on individuals. If possible, please explain to others clearly what the principle is, using words that normal people can't understand. Also, you'd better let them all learn it."

"Remember to prepare your notes. Even if you can't make copies, you should hand-copy them to the extent that everyone has one copy."

Cyril's eyes went dark.

But even so, he still has to join this battle that has not yet ended.

Addison, who had never thought in her life that one day she would be supported by humans...

I fell into an endless hell of thoughts...

This... this means you have the ability to fight back?

Addison looked at the giant rhino, which was being chased all the time because it was unable to resist being controlled by the wind, but was unable to avoid the attack and had to choose a tactical retreat...

He turned his head mechanically and said in a dry tone: "So compared to melee combat, the development of elements is the right path?"

"I can't answer this question." Cyril brushed off the dust on his body and looked at the badly destroyed city buildings with a pang in his heart, leaving only ruins on the ground.

"The only way I can think of to fight is because we have no other options now."

"As for whether it is right or not, I suggest you let people hundreds of years from now answer this question... Well, I sincerely hope you can live to that time." Cyril's tone was extremely serious, and the sincerity in his eyes was so strong that it seemed to be overflowing.

"...For a monster that has suicidal thoughts, this is not a blessing, it's a curse." Addison turned his head away.

"Just take it as you say." Cyril said nothing.

After a while, the dragon boy changed the subject directly: "By the way, do you know why these monsters suddenly want to attack here?"

Addison organized his words and repeated what the giant rhino had revealed: "The attack was Clemens' order. The giant rhino didn't say why Tiger suddenly gave this order."

"But after all, there are only a few possibilities. First, Suli has become so powerful that even the Tiger will be wary of it. In order to prevent more humans of this type from appearing, it is very likely that the human living space will be cut off in advance."

Addison glanced at Cyril when he said this. No matter whether it was a human or a monster, his words would probably be heard as him complaining that the hatred brought by Surila needed to be borne by others.

After finding out whether humans had any special ideas, Addison added a second possibility with some shame: "Another point is that in order to prevent the defeated Feather Tribe, we need to replenish new forces."

"My intuition tells me that these two reasons are not the reasons." Cyril acknowledged his intuition, "Because one human is strong, he wants to attack everyone... After all, the beast king must have seen the power of Suli a few times before he would act like this."

In Cyril's cognition, Sully has always been very strong. After many cognitive enhancements, Cyril believes that when Sully was weak, he was just not very good at this kind of thing. And when Sully is strong, he just has one more advantage.

"Let's not dwell on the cause for now." Cyril thought about it for a moment and then dismissed the possibility.

"Like Julius said before, I should tell everyone my thoughts so that the self-defense capabilities of humans in this city can be improved as much as possible in the short term. Of course, I also look forward to everyone growing up to follow Sully and declare war on the inhuman monsters together."

Cyril wondered how to make her words more understandable.

"But... it was you who protected this city." One of the Feather Tribe soldiers brought by Addison said, "But the attitude you show is as if it was the Suli you mentioned who protected this city."

This is not an attempt to sow discord, it is simply a statement of reality.

But even though she was stating the reality, Cyril was still unhappy.

"I don't feel like I've protected the city."

"In a war where humans' survival is victory, everyone who survived has already tried their best. I don't want to push Suli to the position of the benefactor of this city. I think Suli is worthy of everyone's following only because fighting against monsters should not be the job of a single human being."

Cyril puts a noticeable emphasis on the word “one”.

He looked at the monster and said coldly, "I hope I won't hear any doubts about Suli from you in the future."

The monster couldn't utter another word after that.

When Cyril stares at you, it's like being stared at by a beast.

It's not like he will die.

But it will definitely be torn into a mess.

Compared to death, in a way, the latter is more terrifying.

The battle is over.

The surviving members of Rota County who temporarily repelled the enemy began to count the death toll.

This time, the clear statement that more than half of the population had died was like a steel needle, piercing the hearts of those who were still alive.

In a simple conference room with a few wooden tables put together randomly.

Joel smiled bitterly and rested his arms on the table. He lowered his head and said, "I never thought that we were so vulnerable."

Addison looked as if he wanted to say something but hesitated.

"Just say whatever you want to say." Cyril looked in the direction of Addison.

Addison thought about it for a moment and said without further hesitation, "Except for the 100 people who are taken away every month, the successful conversion rate will increase. At least 90% of the people who are taken away will die."

The air seemed frozen.

No one present was able to speak.

Death at the hands of monsters. Because of the generations of people who have fought against monsters, it seems to be a memory chain engraved in their genes, and humans are never able to have much awareness of the number of deaths of their own kind.

After all, they killed more monsters, and those monsters turned into various resources.

Whether it is insulting the monster or spitting on it, the human concept is that if you want to kill the monster, you must be prepared to be killed by it.

But the data on successful conversion is too unbalanced.

"…Although it was expected, it turns out that humans have always been oppressed by civilized monsters." Cyril's tone became much lighter.

It seems that if it gets a little more serious, it will easily hurt many people's hearts.

"I don't know what it was like in the past, but now, it seems that all the group leaders among the monsters have become transformed monsters. The existence that was once human has long become the source of new persecution of humans."

Addison lowered his head in shame and apologized: "I'm sorry."

"There's nothing to apologize for. Sully showed up here to change this situation, didn't he? I chose to follow in his footsteps and come here because I recognized his choice." Cyril finally said a few simple words and started to discuss a new topic.

That is, what should Rota County do next?

"My suggestion is to directly announce the dissolution of Rota County." Julius tapped the table with his good hand to attract everyone's attention, and then continued, "If Tiger can order an attack once, he can order a second and third attack, and each one will be stronger than the last."

"It is better to evacuate proactively rather than bear the damage that may follow."

"Of course, I'm not saying this for no reason. In my opinion, the danger of staying in this city is far greater than the battles that humans may encounter after leaving in groups."

Julius said: "Besides that, I think we also need to find a suitable place to build a new teleportation array that can transport humans from Amicbi to the monster society in large numbers."

"The power I have now is so scarce that I can hardly bear to look at it."

He looked around and concluded his speech.

Cyril then added: "I agree with Julius."

"I am not a human being, so I cannot say whether I agree or disagree, but I also suggest that Rota County 'cease to exist,' " Addison said.

"Why are everyone looking at me all of a sudden?" Joel scratched his head stupidly. "If you ask me, my opinion is that it doesn't matter. Staying here to defend or taking the initiative to find a new direction is good."

Joel smiled suddenly: "...At least, we see the reality."

Before the meeting, another of his still-living friends told him that the other member of the trio had died.

The heart was taken out and the corpse's facial features showed an expression of obvious disbelief.

It's not that they can't accept their own death, but that they are unwilling to accept the person who killed them.

In the pupil of the corpse there was a figure with a similar face to his, except that the figure had round bear ears on its head, and even its hands were extremely thick bear paws.

——"He was killed by his own sister." said another friend.

——"Transformed monsters are a tragedy. I admit that I used to be unable to have too much hatred for transformed monsters because of this statement. After all, compared to their later self-consolation of not wanting to admit that they are human, they did not necessarily want to become transformed monsters in the beginning."

——"The mere existence of a transformed monster is already a sin."

——"I want to put an end to this sin."

These are the exact words spoken by another friend after he finished his practice.

What Joel said was true, that they had finally gotten rid of that... naivety.

A group of people who have struggled through all kinds of complex environments, yet they still have that kind of inappropriate naivety...

If the price of seeing through reality is losing a friend, then Joel hopes he will never see it.

Then he raised his chin, widened the traces of his smile, and changed the expression on his face from stupid to smiling: "Anyway, my opinion is not important."

"Everyone, just make the decision. If there is any need for a battle next time, please let me know."

"I hope that every transformed monster will eventually die at the hands of humans. And I hope that I can become the new executioner."

It's not that the others didn't notice his sadness, but even though they were sad, they couldn't find any appropriate words of comfort.

We can only discuss more seriously how to make Rota County disintegrate naturally...

Two flowers bloom, each showing its own beauty.

On Suli's side, when the mermaids and other monsters finally got the news that the beast king had sent troops to attack Rota County, the aquatic monsters who hurried there to investigate the situation and provide sufficient support saw only an area of ​​​​ruined buildings with no human figures.

The place was deserted.

Not any human being.

Did they all die or escape?

After investigating this issue, we reached a general conclusion.

The human population has become too low to sustain Rota County.

If we cannot continue to maintain the status quo, it will only cause more loss of the interests that have been preserved, so it is better to give up and maintain the status quo.

But there is another problem...

Where will humanity go?

The only city where one can stay is Rota County. If the humans who survived leave here, where should they go?

Suli finally took the map and pointed out several possible areas. When the aquatic monster went to search according to these coordinates, it found that it was one step slower.

Although there are traces of human camping, it is just camping.

The aquatic monsters that were sent to investigate almost turned the nearby land upside down, but they did not find any traces of movement of surviving humans.

When people talked about this incident, Roy said, "You can't say that the long-legged bird flew away, right?"

Egbert was stunned for a moment before his eyes lit up: "It's really possible. Asgari, do you remember the snowy owl? He has been sending people to contact the feathered monsters and the people of Rota County."

"Of course I remember. If he left through Asgari's men, it's no wonder that those aquatic monsters didn't find any trace." Lan Zhe thought thoughtfully.

Du Ya agreed: "This is very likely. And if this is true, we don't have to worry about the safety of those people in the short term."

"Asgari is harmless to them, and will definitely help those humans so that they can avoid seeing other monsters."

Only in this way can humans avoid being transformed into monsters.

You won't become a target of death in Asgard.

"Let's just leave it at that." Suli took a deep breath and didn't exhale for a long time.

After holding it in for a long time, he finally said, "Putting hope on a monster, this feels really ironic."

"Lord Sully..." Egbert was a little worried.

"Ah." Suli responded, but did not continue to discuss the above topic. Instead, he said, "Since Rota County is deserted, we should think about how the beastmen who have occupied the city will attack us next."

"The current location is very delicate. Ergonikin is sandwiched between more orc cities and Rota County." Suli pointed to the coordinates of Ergonikin on the map.

Su Li pointed his pale finger at the coordinate area of ​​Rota County: "The King of the Beast Tribe chose to order an attack on Rota County. I'm afraid it was also to prevent us from joining forces with the Feather Tribe, which we haven't contacted yet, to encircle the Beast Tribe."

"On the other hand, we have been surrounded by the Beast Tribe because we have not been able to contact the Feather Tribe."

"Rota County is no longer our retreat. If we choose to retreat, we will have no choice but to return to the water tribe. And if we choose to attack, it will be meaningless to seize Rota County."

Sully pointed out this unpleasant fact.

"There are eight beast cities in total. In addition to the six cities that are said to be home to a large number of powerful beast-fighting warriors, the other two are support cities that include Ergonkin."

Suli fixed his sights on Ergonikin on the map, and then crossed almost half of the map. Far away from Ergonikin, on the other side of the orc territory, the name of another support city was displayed.

Simply put, the defeat of Ergonkin was not a big loss to the King of Beasts.

"We can't reach another support city, and taking down Ergonkin is a surprise attack. No matter from which angle we look at it, we have no choice but to fight head-on."

"But if you ask me whether I am against direct combat, I can only say that I am not. I even thought about defeating the Beast King so that I can return to the small building in the Mercenary City to live out my good life."

"What are these?" the mermaid asked in surprise.

"What I mean is, are you really ready to lead the aquatic tribe and follow me to fight?" Suli didn't want to use the word "follow", but he couldn't organize more appropriate language.

"Of course." Leia said firmly, and the mermaid wished everything happened faster.

If Matilda hadn't stopped him, he would have already taken action.

"Then make preparations. Logistics, the possibility of extending the front line, advance preparations for encountering strong people who are likely to break through the team, battle formations, the determination to fight as a clan... and, the achievement after achieving the goal. Most importantly, it is best to let every monster understand that this declaration of war involves the presence of humans." Suli thought this was somewhat important.

Although the power that made Suli stop fighting before was too shocking, the advantage is that we know who he is, his exact identity, and his specific origin, which is still only a small part of the monster.

"I'll do it."

"But..." Leia put her hands behind her back and clenched them so hard that the blue veins were visible.

The mermaid could clearly feel that her heart was beating much faster than before.

This is not a good thing.

But the mermaid still firmly said what she wanted to say.

"I want to know if you think you can beat Clemens..."

Suli was puzzled and looked in the direction of the mermaid with his green eyes.

"Why do you want me to think so? Defeating him, the king of the strongest tribe among the three tribes, is something that must be done. Just like when the Water Tribe and the Feather Tribe knew that the Beast Tribe was going to wage war against the other two tribes, didn't you also think about uniting to resist?"

Otherwise, both tribes would be wiped out by the beastmen.

"After all, the reason we are in a position of cooperation now is only because we have a common enemy, Tiger. And what will happen after we defeat him? At least in my opinion, that is what will happen after we defeat him."

"And can we defeat Clemens? It's not a question of whether we can win, but we must do it."

"Otherwise no one can afford the cost."

The Feather Tribe will not leave even the remnants behind, and Leia will be chased to the depths of the sea and killed in the true sense of the word.

Human beings are even more miserable. They either give birth to children from generation to generation and create new transformed monsters, or they are completely stripped dry in this era without leaving any legacy, leading to the extinction of the human race.

— Extinction of mankind.

In modern society, even if one doesn't pay much attention to ecology, one still knows how cruel species extinction means. Suli exhaled softly, but his eyes were as sharp as a knife as he stared at Leia.

"If you are not willing to bear the cost, then make sure the worst outcome never comes."

Leia smiled.

"You are right."

The instinct to seek profit and avoid harm makes species do things that ensure that the worst outcome will never come to pass.

But this quality of Leia had never been pointed out so bluntly before.

The feeling of being seen through resurfaced again, the good and the bad, all reflected in those green pupils.

It was as if Sully had seen through him, and by asking this question, he was planning to push all of Clemens' responsibility onto Sully alone.

In other words, leave it all to humans to deal with.

But it's just like what the human boy said.

This will only increase the likelihood of the worst possible outcome.

The mermaid was about to startle selfish thoughts, and she tried desperately to suppress them. For a moment, her heart seemed to ache.

But Leia smiled.

Some things formed by instinct will also be changed because of this boy, who is an external object to an independent individual.

For example, now, even though a queen had just reminded her that she seemed to be bewitched, the mermaid was still uncontrollably attracted to Sully.

Being unwilling to bear the cost is essentially a manifestation of irresponsibility. But in the eyes of the teenager, no one should have to bear the cost of failure. If failure does not happen, then everything will be fine.

As in the ideal best possible.

I have thought of places that others have not thought of, and seen the world that others have not reached.

Leia suddenly envied Egbert, who had known all this a long time ago.

He repeated: "As long as the worst outcome never comes, everything will be the same as it is now.