High Martial Arts: Slay enemies to become stronger, forge invincibility from billions of corpses.

In the evening, my phone rang. It was my mother, Li Xiuying, calling.

"Son, when are you coming back?"

Li Xiuying's voice came through the communicator, accompanied by the unique background noise of the kitchen: the clanging of spatulas against the iron pot, the sizzling of oil hitting the pan, and the buzzing of the exhaust fan.

Even now, she still maintains the habit of cooking for herself.

These sounds blended together, giving Song Chen a fleeting illusion that he was just on a regular business trip, rather than sitting in an alien spaceship.

"Mom, I'm going into seclusion soon and won't be able to come back for a while."

"Another seclusion?" Li Xiuying's tone shifted from excitement to disappointment, and then from disappointment to worry, all within two seconds.

"You only stayed at home for a few days last time before leaving again, and Qingxue didn't care anymore. Your dad tossed and turned in bed at night, unable to sleep, and kept saying that you've lost weight."

"Mom," Song Chen interrupted her.

"I'm really fine. I'll go back as soon as I get out of quarantine."

There was a moment of silence on the other end, and Song Chen could hear his mother sighing.

That sigh contained so much: a mother's worry for her son, an ordinary woman's helplessness in the face of the strongest human being, and a woman who had cooked for decades' obsession with the phrase "come home for dinner."

"Alright," Li Xiuying said, her voice softening.

"You go about your business, I'll talk to your dad, but remember one thing: come back alive for dinner."

"Mm," Song Chen replied.

After the call ended, he sat holding his phone for a long time.

The simulated starry sky on the spaceship's dome slowly rotated above his head; the stars were fake, but his mother's voice was real.

Late that night, Lin Qingxue also called.

Her voice was soft; there were no opening remarks, no pleasantries, she went straight to the point: "Are you leaving again?"

Song Chen looked at the slowly rotating fake stars on the dome and said after several seconds, "I need to go on a long trip."

"How far?"

Song Chen didn't want to lie to her, but he also didn't want to scare her: "It's very far, we have to leave Blue Star."

There was silence on the other end. Song Chen heard her take a deep breath and then slowly exhale.

Lin Qingxue didn't cry, nor did she ask "Why are you going?" "How long will you be gone?" "Will there be any danger?" She wanted to ask all these questions, but she didn't ask any of them.

She knew that Song Chen never spoke nonsense. Since he said he wanted to "leave Blue Star," there must be a reason why he had to leave Blue Star.

The silence lasted for about ten seconds before Lin Qingxue spoke: "Then I'll wait for you to come back."

The phone hangs up.

Song Chen stopped sitting still. He stood up, walked around the spaceship's main hall twice, and then sat down again, forcing himself into a meditative state.

The star core in his dantian began to rotate faster, and a pale golden light emanated from his body, forming a thin film of light on his skin.

……

Day 5, outside the East Sea of ​​Great Xia.

Song Chen sat upright in the air cultivating when a deep voice came from above.

That was the sound of millions of strange beasts being driven away at the same time. The scales of first- and second-tier fish-like beasts rubbed against each other, the shells of third-tier crustacean-like beasts collided, and the roars of fourth-tier beasts pierced through layers of seawater from underwater and reached our ears.

These sounds combined to form a continuous buzzing.

Song Chen stood up and looked down; the view on the sea had begun to change.

Below, in the area where the East China Sea meets the Pacific Ocean, the color of the seawater changed from deep blue to grayish-black.

The herd of strange beasts that had been driven in was so dense that their bodies covered the sea surface, turning the blue waters into a gray carpet of scales, shells, and bones.

The first group to be driven in were first-order mutated sardines. They were generally about two meters long, and although they were inconspicuous individually, their numbers were so great that it was physically uncomfortable.

Song Chen glanced at it briefly and saw that this batch alone numbered at least three million, crammed together, covering the sea surface for tens of kilometers in radius.

The fish were too densely packed, and there was a severe lack of oxygen on the surface of the sea. The mutated sardines rolled around frantically, their mouths opening and closing, their fins slapping against each other's bodies, and silver scales were scraped off and floated on the surface of the water.

On the sixth day, hordes of crustacean beasts were driven over.

Mutant crabs, mutant lobsters, and mutant mantis shrimps range in length from two to ten meters, and their carapaces come in a variety of colors, including red, blue, green, and patterned.

When the crustacean and the sardine school collided, chaos erupted on the sea surface. Mantis shrimp began smashing crab shells with their claws, which could shatter steel plates, while crabs snapped off lobster tentacles with their pincers, and lobsters lashed out at the mantis shrimp's eyes with their tails.

Different species of strange beasts fought fiercely in the confined space, and blood gushed up from underwater, turning the gray sea surface into a deep red.

On the seventh day, third and fourth-tier beasts began to appear.

The mutated sharks, hundreds of meters long, were driven up from the depths of the Pacific Ocean by the sound waves of the whale tribe. Their bodies were too large to squeeze into the core area, which was already filled with low-level alien beasts, so they could only swim anxiously on the periphery.

Giant squid rolled around them, their bony plates reflecting a pale white light in the sunlight, their tentacles occasionally reaching out to slap the water's surface.

The bioluminescent giant squid was driven to deeper waters, its bioluminescence shimmering through the blood-red seawater.

The mutated sharks' fins slice across the water like blades, and their teeth are ten times longer than those of the great white sharks of the old era. In one bite, they can swallow a mutated seal whole, bones and skin.

On the eighth day, the smell of blood on the sea became so strong that it was almost tangible.

When Song Chen saw the designated sea area, it had completely turned into a giant pot filled with blood and flesh.

Fragments of the beast's corpse floated on the water's surface. Severed tentacles, shattered shells, and half-eaten fish bodies were mixed together to form a floating carpet of minced meat, nearly half a meter thick in the densest areas.

Carrion-eating birds and monsters flew in from the direction of the coast, swirling in the sky like a dark vortex, but they dared not land, for the monsters still alive on the sea surface could drag them into the water at any moment.

At dawn on the ninth day, the guards of the Sea Dragon Clan and the Giant Whale Clan began to establish a defensive line at the edge of the designated sea area.

Yuan Qian dispatched the entire fighting force of the Sea Dragon Clan. Four hundred fifth-tier Sea Dragons swam along the boundary of the designated sea area. They were all over five hundred meters long and swam slowly in a single file under the sea, forming a living wall.

Whale Moon also dispatched guards from the whale clan. Three hundred fifth-tier whales patrolled the other side of the border, emitting low-frequency sound waves every ten minutes to repel any beasts attempting to escape.

The two royal families, along with their respective vassal royal families, the Octopus Clan, the Jellyfish Clan, the Shell Clan, the Swordfish Clan...

All high-level alien beasts were mobilized, and more than 5,000 fifth-level sea beasts formed a circular driving line with a diameter of 300 kilometers around the designated sea area.

On the tenth day, the Pacific Ocean was no longer visible under the moonlight.

More than 100 million strange beasts are crammed into a sea area with a diameter of 200 kilometers, with an average of hundreds of thousands of strange beasts per square kilometer.

The sea surface was covered with thrashing fins, tentacles protruding from the water, gaping mouths, and rolling tails.

Moonlight shone on the scales and shell, reflecting countless silver and colorful spots of light.