I raised stunning young ladies, but they all wanted to possess me.

Gu Yan let them hug her.

He could feel Yuzuru's fingers tightening gently around his waist, and he could feel Lin Jinyu's face buried in his shoulder, still breathing rapidly. She had clearly given it her all in that battle.

He raised his hand and gently patted her back, then touched the back of Yuzuru's hand that was resting on his waist.

Pei Youyi stood quietly a few steps away.

The wind barrier had been retracted, and the dark blue outfit fluttered gently in the wind.

She looked at the three young people in front of her, and watched Yu Sheng hug Lin Jinyu and then rush over to her again. The corners of her mouth curved slightly.

She didn't step forward, but turned around to face the mountains of ruins in the square and the young soldiers lying among the rubble who would never get up again, and bowed her head in silent mourning for a moment.

"Let's settle the wounded first; we can deal with other things once the defense is stable."

The smoke from the battle had not yet cleared in the square, and soldiers were rescuing survivors.

Gu Yan squatted down beside the remains of the communications soldier, gently pulled the charred letter from his hand, folded it, and put it in her pocket.

Upon arriving at the command post, Lin Jinyu was the first to frown.

"What a coincidence."

"We had just withdrawn from the third line of defense when the core fortress of the fourth line of defense was attacked."

"It's not a frontal attack, it's an assassination."

"The SS-class Titan and the two S-class skeletal dragons were clearly targeting the transport plane that had just landed."

Yuzuru nodded, placed the pheasant sword on the command table, and a hint of seriousness flashed in his deep brown eyes.

"The Black Tide Calamity once possessed wisdom, but that was the wisdom of a beast."

"It knows how to bypass the outer defenses and directly attack the core fortress, launching its attack precisely at the moment when our combat strength is weakest."

"This level of intelligence is already comparable to that of humans."

Lin Jinyu replied, her tone turning cold.

"It's not just similar, it's even more cunning."

"It knows that we have just withdrawn from the Russian Federation, that our defenses are not yet in place, and that our reinforcements have not yet arrived."

"This assassination was meticulously planned."

"In the future, we may have to face more than just wild beasts."

Gu Yan squatted silently beside the fallen communications soldier for a long time before suddenly speaking, her voice very soft.

"It's that young man who just got his marriage certificate less than three days ago. His wife is still waiting for him to come back to Kyoto to try on his wedding dress."

"Whose sons, whose fathers, whose young men never got to propose to these fallen warriors?"

Lin Jinyu squatted down next to him, reached out and pried open his clenched fingers one by one, and put her own palm into his palm.

Her palms were very hot, a temperature unique to fire-type ability users.

"He is a hero."

"They are all heroes."

"After the Kuroshio Current recedes, we will erect a monument in this square and engrave everyone's name on it."

Yuzuru walked behind him and gently placed his hand on his back.

"In the future, there will be a cemetery in Hiroshima, facing the sea."

"Whether it's soldiers from the Land of Cherry Blossoms, the Great Xia Expeditionary Force, or troops from the Russian Federation."

"All those who died on the fourth line of defense will be buried there."

Every spring, people present them with flowers.

Gu Yan squatted down beside the body of the fallen communications soldier, gently pulled the charred letter from his hand, folded it, and put it in her pocket.

He stood up and looked at the young faces being carried onto stretchers in the square.

"Heroes should not be forgotten."

"After this battle is over, we will erect a monument in this square and engrave everyone's name on it."

"So that future generations will know that they are alive today because someone guarded this wall for them."

The next day, headlines from major media outlets around the world poured down like a torrential downpour.

The first reported death was Anderson, an S-class barrier master who was the core pillar of the Nordic Theater's mental defense array and ranked seventeenth on the global combat power list.

In the early hours of the morning, a miniature Titan-class creature broke through seven layers of runic barriers and entered the bedroom, turning the entire villa to ashes.

Then came Martinez, the vice president of the South American War Zone Superpower Association and a martial arts expert ranked 21st on the combat power list. On his way back to his residence from the command post, he was ambushed by a skeletal dragon, and the entire convoy was wiped out.

Okocha, the chief healer of the Central African theater and an S-class healing ability user ranked nineteenth on the combat power list, was directly hit by the mental attack of the Gorgon while performing emergency surgery on a seriously wounded soldier in the wounded camp.

Huo Zhenshan, a retired general from the Great Xia War Zone and a master of ancient martial arts, was attacked by the Kuroshio Rift on a high-speed train on his way back to his hometown. The entire train carriage was swallowed up.

In a single day, six of the world's top superhumans died in targeted assassinations.

The world forum exploded, with the comments section filled with cries of panic and anger.

The war has dragged on to this point, with soldiers dying on the front lines and civilians dying in the rear, but the fact that an S-class superhuman was precisely hunted down in his own bedroom is something that has never happened before.

But amidst the panic, another flame is burning.

In popular posts in the Nordic theater, some people have started to list the ancient forces of various countries that have never appeared on the power rankings or in the media, but are regarded as the pillars of strength in their respective theaters.

"Besides Commander Fu Shiwei and several suitable candidates for the God-Making Project, the Nordic Theater also includes the Royal Knights of England."

"With a history of three hundred years, all the leaders of the troupe have entered the royal secret chamber after retiring."

"That was a reclusive guard team composed entirely of S-rank members, each of whom was a veteran who had survived at least two Black Tide Wars."

"They never attend press conferences, but whenever the North Sea defense line is at its most dangerous, it is always those silver-haired old men wearing old-fashioned knight armor who are at the forefront."

The pinned post in the South American theater was quickly pushed to the top.

"Captain Shen's psychic special forces team has earned a formidable reputation on the front lines, but do you know who's supporting her?"

"They are the ancient tribes in the entire South American rainforest that were never conquered by colonists."

"The voodoo priests of the Amazon basin, the descendants of the Inca Empire deep in the Andes Mountains, and the ancient relics on the Peruvian plateau that have been sealed with golden runes for thousands of years."

"These tribes usually don't even give face to the Superpower Association, but when the Black Tide came, they took the initiative to leave the rainforest and handed over their most precious heritage to Shen Youyao for allocation."

Discussions were equally heated in the North American theater.

"Cecilia Chen's magnetic field is the core pillar of the North American theater defense line, but the fact that her superpower was able to break through to SS level in such a short time is also due to the full support of several superpowered families in North America whose identities have never been revealed."

"The Oliver family of New England mastered the technology of purifying supernatural bloodlines three hundred years ago. After Cecilia was seriously injured in Vancouver, she offered to use her family's heritage to help her stabilize her mental power."

"The Hawthorne family in Boston is more low-key and specializes in researching the mental energy depletion problem of superhumans. Half of the technology in the rune grenades you use was made public by them free of charge."

"These families are never on the combat power rankings, but they have made a significant contribution to the North American theater's ability to survive to this day."