"Listen up, humans of Qi! Hand over Zhang Lie and an additional one million humans, or the sura will raze this city to the ground!" the sura elder shouted

The humans within the city began to panic. The sura wanted Zhang Lie? Why? Had they learned about the limit fragments that he had come up with?

Naturally, the governor refused to agree.

The sura king turned to Wang Yanyi, who had been tied up. "Concubine, how many humans are there in this city?"

Wang Yanyi's eyes were glassy like those of a salted fish. He had lost his hope and all motivation to live on. "Kill me."

The sura king tilted Wang Yanyi's chin upwards. "Concubine, how could I be willing to kill you? I love having sex with you. Don't you think it would be nice to do that with all my troops watching you?"

Life flared into Wang Yanyi's eyes. "I don't know how many people there are in the city, but it has to be at least three or four million."

One of the sura commented idly, "To think that there aren't even five million humans inside!"

This was part of the reason why the humans were such a weak faction in the second realm: there ultimately weren't many hunters that ascended from the first realm and beyond. A single human planet would be able to provide no more than a few tens of millions of hunters.

The sura elder yelled once more, "Human, I'll give you one last chance. Hand over a million humans, or your city will perish!"

Xiao Zhengyang clenched his fists and yelled out, "Even if Qi were to fall, we won't hand over a single hunter!"

The sura elder laughed coldly. "Think about it carefully. It wouldn't take us any effort at all to crush your city!"

"Attack if you dare—we won't back down, and we won't submit to you sura!"

A million hunters would be a third of the city's population. If Xiao Zhengyang were to accede to the sura's demands now, he would set a dangerous precedent and undermine human sovereignty. If he were to do so, no one would be willing to live in Qi.

To Xiao Zhengyang, either the humans would slaughter the sura to the last, or the sura would do the same to them. 

The sura elder hadn't expected that the humans would resist so stubbornly that they wouldn't even leave room for negotiation.

The sura king smiled at the sura elder. "Elder, it looks like things aren't going to plan."

His troops all began to laugh.

"These damned humans, how dare they?!"

"How could livestock understand our reasoning?"

"It's been a few days since I've had human flesh—I'll be able to eat my fill now!"

"I've heard that humans are all weaklings, and there's nothing to fear at all."

"Of course they're weak! My family used to own a human slave, and I could knock him over with just a slap. He wouldn't retaliate no matter how I beat or scolded him, but unfortunately I was too harsh once and beat him right to death."

"If these people won't listen to reason, then let's beat fear into them. Break their spines and their pride—let them know who the true overlords of this realm are!"

"Kill them all!" the elder howled, and the sura began to charge forward.

"Loose arrows!" Xiao Zhengyang commanded.

Bright genetic energy suddenly covered the city walls, as though they had been illuminated by a glowing beam of sunlight. Arrows charged with genetic energy filled the skies like raindrops in a thunderstorm.

The sura yelled; their skin turned red. They had no understanding of technique or tactics, only seemingly limitless brawn and brute strength. Indeed, they were challenging foes simply because of their tremendous physical strength and resilience. They could harden their skin with an explosion of genetic energy, allowing them to block most attacks with ease.

Except for a few unlucky sura who were struck in weak spots by the arrows, most of the sura warriors were able to dash to the city walls, then leap up and over them. Despite the fact that the walls were hundreds of meters tall, the sura were still able to get over them with boosts from their comrades.

As such, fighting began in the interior of the city as well. 

The human hunters fought without cowardice or desertion, knowing that, if the city were to fall and their teleportation apparatus broken, they wouldn't be able to return to the real world. Even if they were to return to the real world now, they would lose all their possessions in Qi. This was a matter of personal interest, so these hunters wouldn't easily back down.

Xiao Zhengyang stood at the highest point in the city, where he oversaw the battle from above. The human troops were faring so well that he could hardly believe it. In the past, the sura had always overwhelmed the human hunters, no matter what strategies or tactics they employed. Against absolute strength, they simply couldn't do anything.

This time, however, the humans were no longer just sitting ducks. 

It was clear that the sura had also realized this— in the past, it had taken three or four second-realm hunters working in tandem to kill a single sura, but now, just one or two hunters could do the same.

The humans were so much stronger than expected that even the sura were taken aback. Could the hunters of Qi be far stronger than the hunters elsewhere?

In truth, that wasn't the case—the entire human race's strength was increasing as a whole, an improvement that resulted from Zhang Lie's theory of limit fragments. Almost all new hunters would now take part in the foundational breakthrough, and quite a few of them had even consumed Potion #1, especially those from China. These hunters would start out with sixty basic limit fragments, and they were far stronger than their original counterparts.

Furthermore, as a result of the bounty placed against the Musi clan, quite a lot more hunters had obtained Potion #1, and there were all sorts of weaker or reduced-efficiency copies and substitutes now floating around the black markets.

These limit fragments were far more impactful than they seemed at first glance.

For instance, a hunter who had capped his mutated gene fragments wouldn't be able to defeat a superior-grade lifeform without making use of some special technique or another, but limit fragments could help breach this gulf.

The boost provided by these limit fragments would continue to propagate, speeding up the acquisition of more and more gene fragments exponentially. And now, the effects of this growth were making themselves known.