Everyone who saw what happened held their breath at once, and they didn't dare to even shift their gaze a little.

Hot and powerful energy waves ravaged that enormous body in the fire.

In the blink of an eye, the energy waves had forcibly thrown it more than 100 meters upward.

Roughly one to two seconds later…

Roar~!

The furious roar was filled with a sense of brutal tyranny and also brimming with energy at the same time. Black gas that looked like burning flames appeared around the enormous creature, and its terrifying might forcibly suppressed even the fire from the A-bomb.

In the base, shock and horror filled several pairs of eyes. One must know that that was an A-bomb they had used. The temperatures upon explosion could go as high as 10,000 degrees Celsius.

The powerful energy waves were nearly enough to destroy a several-hundred-meters-tall mountain, and yet at this moment, it was as if they hadn't caused any substantial damage to the Hui at all.

"Activate the C-missile," said an elderly man calmly and steadily.

"Understood," someone replied.

Three seconds later, a bit of spark suddenly flashed on a mountain peak about 1,000 meters away, and a shadow approached the Hui at high speed.

It crossed the distance of almost 1,000 meters and reached the Hui in one second flat.

The Hui had already regained its senses. However, because of its fury, coupled with the fact that it had never seen such an object before; it didn't duck. Rather, even more powerful, surging black flames started to rise around its whole body, and it went toward the shadow with a savage look on its face.

Boom!

An explosion—several times stronger than the one just now—rang out, blasting all the mountains nearby. The mountain underneath straight-up broke and thoroughly crumbled into pieces.

High-temperature fire and energy waves—capable of even destroying mountains and rivers—filled the whole area within several hundred meters of the explosion.

Roar~!

Roars filled with extreme rage and hints of pain and agony mixed in rang out amid the explosion.

When the fire began to die down and the explosion's might decreased, through the monitors, the people in the base could see that the Hui was bleeding all over, and one of its wings was half-destroyed. It was evidently heavily injured.

The black flames burning around it had also significantly diminished.

The sight delighted but also astonished many. Their delight stemmed from the fact that the Hui had definitely suffered grievous injuries while their astonishment was because—apart from nuclear weapons—the C-missile was already China's strongest weapon at the moment, and yet it actually couldn't kill that monster and could only injure it.

"Activate Grade 1 nuclear weapon at the same place."

The elderly man gave another order.

"Understood."

In midair, the Hui was already close to going berserk.

It hadn't even seen any enemy, and yet some unidentified object had already substantially wounded it.

Frustration and rage made it wish that it could rip everything in front of it into shreds. At the same time, however, a mild sense of alarm and fear was also welling up within.

Roar~!

It roared furiously, "Who's there?! Get out here!"

When it saw that there was no response whatsoever, it calmed down a little and prepared to leave the area first.

Just as it made the decision, the next moment…

Boom!

An ultimate spark of light flashed in the distance a thousand meters away, and a horrifying explosion went off in an instant, drowning out every other sound.

A gigantic mushroom cloud rushed into the sky. High temperatures of almost 100,000,000 degrees Celsius and terrifying energy waves swept into the surroundings.

The Hui had only flown about 100 meters away before the explosion's might engulfed it. Its body broke into pieces, and it vanished.

Without waiting for the explosion's might to die down, the elderly man immediately ordered, "Frontliners are to pack everything up as soon as possible and withdraw with immediate effect."

"Understood."

…

About ten minutes later, Dong Pingtao and the rest of China's higher management officials received the news that the plan had gone smoothly.

At once, even they couldn't help but secretly heave sighs of relief.

"Let's disperse for now. We'll reconvene one day later to listen to the results of the research," said Dong Pingtao.

All the higher management officials nodded.

A day passed in a flash, and China's higher management officials gathered once more.

On the large screen, the same elderly man appeared again. Without any superfluous rubbish, he said straightaway, "If we base it solely on its size, this Hui that we'd chosen can only be considered fairly strong among the weaker end of Third Realm cultivators.

"Based on the whole hunting process, our preliminary judgment is that the missiles that we currently have are likely not strong enough to kill Third Realm cultivators unless there are large numbers of them dealing a concentrated blow.

"Against Third Realm experts, nuclear weapons are still the only thing we can use.

"Grade 1 nuclear weapons should be powerful enough to exterminate the vast majority of Third Realm experts, but because we lack sufficient data and information, we cannot be sure.

"However, we can say with 60% confidence that the nuclear weapons—which China currently holds—should be powerful enough to exterminate any kind of Third Realm experts."

There wasn't much joy on China's dozen-or-so higher management officials' faces. They continued to listen quietly.

"There are two main problems with this, however. Firstly, they must hit the target. Against Third Realm cultivators, nuclear weapons can only deal damage in two ways—high temperatures and energy waves. Everything else doesn't work. However, Third Realm cultivators' speed is too fast.

"That one second just before it hits them may already be enough for them to fly 1,000—or even several thousand—meters away, thereby allowing them to avoid some low-grade nuclear weapons' range at which the power is at the maximum.

"The main issue here is that, in the alternate world, we cannot lock on to the target and shoot at maximum speed when dealing with powerful alternate world experts. It's highly likely that we won't be able to hit some Third Realm experts with high agility.

"The second problem is even more serious—pollution resulting from nuclear radiation. This is useless against experts, but if we use it within our borders, it's completely something that'll also deal half the damage that we deal onto the enemy to ourselves.

"Also, according to our deductions that we made based on Zhang Dingguo's legacy, nuclear weapons are likely useless against the Fourth Realm.

"Therefore, we suggest giving up the focus on nuclear weapon research and putting full effort into developing other aspects from now on instead.

"I've already sent all the data to the computers. Everyone, please take a look."

He gave a nod after he was done speaking. When he saw that Dong Pingtao had no intentions to speak, he switched off the screen.

The higher management officials sank into silence at the end of his report.

Some were frowning, some had their eyes closed, and some had balled up their fists.

In any case, not a single one of them was relaxed or happy.

Even if they knew that China's nuclear weapons were powerful enough to kill any Third Realm experts and that when coupled with the super-high speed of ICBMs1, they almost didn't need to fear any Third Realm expert on Earth; what if the enemy showed up in China?

Were they supposed to fire nuclear weapons in the country?

It wasn't so bad if there were only one or two enemies, but what if there were more? Were they supposed to also fire at them?

There was no way they could do that.

In other words, their most powerful weapon actually wasn't as useful as what they had imagined.

Moreover, while they could still deal with Third Realm enemies, what about Fourth Realm enemies?

Perhaps Fourth Realm enemies would only appear after a very long time, but as the older generation, how could they not consider that as well?

One could then easily imagine why they, who were aware of all these factors, couldn't possibly be happy about anything, as well as how immense the pressure on them was.

Their most powerful weapon and the biggest trump card, giving them confidence all this while, was suddenly gone just like that… and they had even been told to give up on it.

After a few minutes of silence, Dong Pingtao slowly spoke up, instantly attracting everyone's attention.

"Everyone, there's no need to say any further by now. I suggest giving up our focus on nuclear weapon research and development and focusing our full efforts on developing other aspects instead.

"There's no need to express your stance yet. We'll do it together in two days instead."

After solemnly saying all that, Dong Pingtao gave a nod, got up, and left. Everyone else present also left with heavy hearts.

Two days later, a policy that determined China's future was released.

Ten days later, the powerful state apparatuses began to operate at full force once more. The vast majority of people didn't even realize that China, that behemoth of a country, was concentrating all of its efforts on a single aspect this time—cultivation.

They were going full-force with cultivation and the concept of strengthening oneself as the core.

More than four years after the awakening of spiritual energy, China finally laid down this basic national policy.

Wang Hu didn't know what had happened among China's higher management officials, but it didn't take long before he realized a bit of a problem—China's cultivation trend seemed to have suddenly greatly strengthened.

In fact, special privileges given to cultivators officially made their first appearance in the law, sparking huge controversy within China as well as overseas.

Even if these were just a bit of seemingly insignificant special privileges, they held great importance in different aspects. Many people, including Wang Hu, were somewhat aware of this, of course.

The introduction of special privileges was akin to creating an opening. As cultivators became stronger and stronger, the opening would also become bigger and bigger.

How would things change in the future?

The unknown was fear itself. The normal people, especially, were even more scared.

However, no matter how dissatisfied they were, it was useless.

This had already become reality.

As Wang Hu mulled over this, the pressure he was feeling also intensified.

Had the pressure on China already forced them to such an extent?

Temporarily putting aside how this signified that the world environment was becoming increasingly worse, humans were ultimately still the ones standing at the frontline at the moment. Wang Hu didn't need to overly worry about this.

What he was thinking about was something else instead. When one's cultivation and individual strength became increasingly important among humans and they gain more and more special privileges, some things would inevitably happen… such as destabilization of human laws.

Perhaps the real big change in China—or even humanity itself—was about to begin.

Moreover, humans—as the hegemonic species on Earth—would undoubtedly also impact all the other species on Earth, including him and his family.

Wang Hu took a light breath and started to cultivate.

Simply put, everything was still about how strong one was at the end of the day.

If he didn't wish to be implicated or affected, if he wished for his family to be safe and sound, and if he wished to dominate a part of the world; then everything would still go back to how strong he was.

He needed to become even stronger.

This is an acronym for Intercontinental Ballistic Missile, a missile with a minimum range of 5,500 kilometers primarily designed for nuclear weapons delivery.