"The Eastern nation has already seized the initiative in this opportunity. Their philosophy, ideology, and culture are destined to differ from ours."
"While our nation has fallen into true freedom, they still maintain their previous order. This is truly admirable."
Crimson eyes gazed at the nation before him as the corners of his mouth curved upward slightly:
"But this is a new era. Old things should naturally be discarded."
"Using evolutionary theory to let humanity establish a new civilization more suited to this era—that is the correct ideology."
"In the future, we will inevitably battle the East."
"We will win."
This was his confidence in both his own strength and his teammates'. Unfortunately, the others didn't share his opinion.
"Keep your feet on the ground. Don't daydream."
Gentle wings shifted slightly. Light golden pupils glanced at the man beside him.
"I already told you—that nation seized the greatest advantage in this opportunity. The four powerhouses they've promoted to maintain order all possess talent no less than ours, or even greater strength."
"White Emperor, Dragon Emperor, Ice Emperor, Flame Emperor."
"We've all seen the videos circulating from Huaxia."
"White Emperor is the most mysterious. There are only two videos of him taking action. He occasionally appears in other videos—though he doesn't act, they demonstrate his status in Huaxia."
"Dragon Emperor's ability is related to the Eastern Divine Dragon. The dragon is Huaxia's totem. From this alone, his ability is no less than mine."
"That armor still lacks concrete information. There are only rumors it's something from a tokusatsu series transformed from fantasy into reality—not a shred of credibility. It's probably technology Huaxia manufactured targeting spiritual energy and Dragon Emperor's ability, capable of amplifying strength."
"Ice Emperor and Flame Emperor have both displayed terrifying power in videos as well."
"Forget the future—if we faced them now, we'd only get crushed. Even escaping wouldn't be easy. And you still want to win?"
"What will you fight with? Your head?"
Among 1.4 billion people, the four ability users with the strongest talent and power—even though his ability was Angel, he only felt he could go fifty-fifty with that Dragon Emperor at best. What basis did this guy have for saying they could win in the future?
Their faction was indeed formidable—but it depended on who they were compared to.
Compared to an entire nation?
Was his brain broken?
No matter how strong a faction was, it depended on how many talented ability users they could recruit. But those people were all arrogant by nature. Couldn't they form their own factions? Why would they join together?
Even if they joined—who would be the leader?
"Stop talking about meaningless things."
"We came to this city because an ability user displayed value worth recruiting."
This was why they'd come here.
As long as there was possibility, they wouldn't pass up any genius.
"Gravity manipulation—an extremely terrifying ability."
"When he first awakened, he failed to control his ability properly and suddenly increased gravity within a hundred-meter radius. Countless people died because of it."
"Though brutal, his talent is self-evident."
Even among all abilities, gravity ranked among the foremost. Whether for combat or support, it possessed extremely high value.
Moreover, this person had displayed powerful lethality the moment he awakened his ability. His talent was the highest even among them.
No less than this Angel.
"But before that—should we go kill those mutant beasts undergoing transformation?"
"If we leave them here, they might cause greater harm to this city?"
One figure who had remained silent suddenly spoke up.
"With such powerful energy fluctuations, even we would have to pay an enormous price to kill it."
"Not worth it."
"Understood."
He didn't speak again.
Using Huaxia's sequence classification, the mutant beasts he'd mentioned were all First Sequence level. Their current faction possessed only one First Sequence, three with Second Sequence talent, and six Third Sequence.
Such numbers were already terrifying enough—after all, they were merely one faction.
But wanting to use such strength to deal with a First Sequence mutant creature was completely impossible.
This Angel with First Sequence talent didn't have an entire nation providing resources, nor did he possess treasures like Five Elements Armor or Devil Fruits. On top of that, he'd formed his own faction—the time he spent on cultivation wasn't particularly abundant.
At least not as much as Firewing and the others.
Though they also had missions to handle, that was only because initially there had been too many mutant beasts within the city and they were short-handed—they'd been forced to waste their time. But after things stabilized, they no longer had such concerns.
Unless it was a necessary mission, they controlled their own time.
Furthermore, they had the nation providing cultivation resources. They had absolutely no worries about heavenly treasures and earthly rarities.
Though this Angel's current strength far exceeded Second Sequence, compared to normal First Sequence, he was somewhat weaker.
Even if they all ganged up together to besiege a First Sequence mutant creature, the creature would merely waste a minute first eliminating the Second and Third Sequence members, then continue one-on-one.
Not to say certain death—but fleeing in panic was the more likely outcome.
Just to save some completely unrelated people? Not worth it.
"Right now, humanity still has technological advantages. We don't need to fear any mutant creatures."
"But as demonic energy grows increasingly dense and mutant creatures grow stronger and stronger, we'll eventually lose our advantage completely."
"Find him quickly. Then we need to work hard at cultivation."
With a sigh, these figures slowly vanished.
At the same time, in Huaxia's Cloud City—
"According to information from Vantora Capital's General Spiritual Energy Bureau, this spiritual energy anomaly is not a Spiritual Energy Tide."
"The specific reason is still under analysis."
"But even so, we cannot slacken. Monitor the biological conditions within the city and the situation with mutant beasts outside the city."
"Have them stay vigilant. Sound the alarm immediately at the slightest irregularity."
The Cloud City Spiritual Energy Bureau director sat in his chair, his face full of exhaustion.
There were simply too many matters to handle in this position. He was only forty-five this year, yet now he looked like he was fifty-five.
Spiritual energy did indeed have life-extending effects. If one absorbed enough, even rejuvenation wasn't difficult.
But his talent wasn't good enough.
He aged far faster than he could grow younger.
"Though Cloud City is just a small city, many famous people emerged from here in the past. We even produced several emperors."
"Our fortune can't be that bad."
"But even Ning City produced a First Sequence like Nathaniel Gray, while Cloud City only has a few Second Sequence holding down the fort."
He shook his head somewhat helplessly.
(End of Chapter)