Trapped by Zhang Lie's runic tablets, the mystical beast was defenseless as the dragons bombarded it. Wounded, it began to fall.

"[Fists of the Silent Sea: Hundred Dragons Soaring]!" Zhang Lie punched forward with both fists, sending dragon after dragon, a whole barrage, flying toward the mystical beast as though it were a leaf caught in a storm.

As it fell, Zhang Lie continued pummeling it, until it finally landed on the tall tower's platform like a meteor. Such was its momentum that the tower cracked halfway down its height, but Zhang Lie's punches never stopped.

[You successfully killed a peak-grade garuda and obtained its soulshard. By consuming the flesh of the peak-grade garuda, you may receive one to ten peak gene fragments.]

The garuda fell limp to the ground. Only when Zhang Lie heard the will of the world's announcement did he finally stop attacking its body.

The fight was simpler than he had anticipated. Not only was Zhang Lie extremely strong to begin with, the thousand-poison bloodsoul fruit had played an important role in debilitating the garuda. Otherwise, the fight would have taken far longer, especially because the garuda would force an aerial battle.

The most exciting part of the kill was that he had obtained a fire-attuned peak-grade soulshard, and he expected it would be particularly beneficial to Sun Mengmeng.

He headed back to the capital to find the hunters massed and preparing to return to Qi. 

"What's going on?"

Sun Mengmeng reported, "The alien races around Qi are preparing for another assault on Qi!"

"What?! Don't they know that I'll defend Qi?" Zhang Lie clenched his fists tightly as a pair of black wings sprouted from his back. "Return to Qi as quickly as possible. I'll head there now!"

Zhang Lie wasn't the only one angry at the alien races' repeated invasion.

"What's going on with them? If they're going to invade, they might as well commit to it—why would they retreat and then try to invade again? Do they really think we're helpless?!"

"I bet they're doing it because they've realized that Zhang Lie's not in Qi anymore—I bet they found out that he and most of the remaining forces in Qi have gone to attack the sura's capital. That's why they dared to strike!"

"In that case, will Qi be safe?"

"Everything is Zhang Lie's fault! If he hadn't left Qi undefended and taken three thousand hunters with him, nothing bad would have happened!"

Back in Qi, an ancient, withered tree commanded its forces, "Level Qi and swallow all the humans within!"

Xiao Zhengyang, governor of Qi, stood at the tallest point of the city as he glanced at the forces invading outside. He sighed, his wounds barely having recovered in the meantime. "Is Qi doomed to fall?"

Qi was, at this point, much like the capital of the sura that Zhang Lie had just taken down: after Zhang Lie left for the sura lands with the battle-ready hunters of Qi, there were only a few weak and wounded hunters remaining.

The walls of Qi had barely been repaired in the short time since their destruction, and they were hardly able to provide any defense at all. The remaining hunters of Qi had no choice but to block the alien races' invasion with their own bodies.

Given that the alternative was for Qi to fall entirely, no one hesitated to charge forward, and no one fell back. Every hunter rushed forward like a flood.

An old hunter pulled a youthful one back. "You're younger than I am, and there's still a long future ahead of you. Let me go first!"

The young hunter shook his head. "If Qi falls, all of us will die."

"Even so, there's no reason for you young hunters to die before us veterans! Stand back!" The old man rushed forward, brandishing a sword in his hands, and met a noble death against a group of treemen.

As Xiao Zhengyang watched his own kind die to the other races of the second realm, he pounded his fists on the floor until they began to bleed. He hated his weakness, his inability to protect his city or even become one of the hunters guarding its perimeter.

The invaders began to laugh. "Haha, this is how weak you humans are! Do you think defeating the sura changes anything? What awaits you is only a worse fate. You weak humans will be nothing more than livestock for other races; you have no better destiny!

"Your resistance is futile. If you want something to blame, blame your own weakness, blame the man who defeated the sura king and discarded all of you! With him gone, there's no reason for you to keep struggling. Surrender now!"

One human retorted, "We don't even fear the sura! Why would we fear you?"

"Ha! If not for that man, Qi would have perished long ago. Or did you think you actually contributed to saving Qi? Now that he's gone with all of Qi's manpower, we'll easily claim Qi for ourselves. You humans will always be at the very bottom of the food chain. The more you struggle, the more you'll suffer for it."

As the voices of the invaders gathered outside the city, the hunters of Qi fell into despair once more.

Suddenly, a dark streak flashed through the air like a shooting star.

"Look! What's that?" Some of the humans pointed at it as it passed them by.

"It doesn't matter—no one will be able to save you now!"

As the black streak grew closer, a whirlwind of black flame suddenly spawned over the ground and sucked huge numbers of the alien invaders within, burning them to a crisp. In shock, the invaders cried out and began to retreat, but they had no time to do so.

The black streak cut apart a wide swathe of the invading forces, but just before it was about to hit Qi, it suddenly soared up into the air.

The hunters of Qi sighed in relief as black ripples of genetic energy spread through the sky and swept through the invading forces, causing them to yell out in pain.

"Look at that!" The hunters of Qi stared at the man standing in mid-air, their eyes widening in recognition. His face was a mask of determination, his black wings outstretched, and his body radiated with tremendous genetic energy. 

"Zhang Lie!"

"Zhang Lie's here to save us, I knew he wouldn't abandon Qi!"

"Now that Zhang Lie's here, these invaders are dead!"

Zhang Lie glanced at the hostile forces with killing intent. "What did you say about humanity?"