High-level martial arts: Starting with a heart of steel, stats crush everything.

"Yes, he was cut in two by my great-grandfather, but he's not quite dead yet."

Guan Xia nodded, her expression somewhat strange.

"His left half was imprisoned in a deep-sea prison, while his right half was imprisoned in a military research center as a test subject..."

"..." Upon hearing this, everyone was at a loss for words.

A regionally extinct powerhouse ultimately became a test subject.

That's rather tragic.

Just then, a commotion suddenly broke out outside the camp.

When Chen Yi opened the door, a group of martial arts academy students, all limping, walked in.

"Report! We have annihilated 317 enemy soldiers. Our side has 16 seriously wounded, 153 lightly wounded, and the rest are unharmed!"

The boy who was in the lead stepped forward and spoke to Guan Zhenyuan, who was sitting at the door waiting for them to return.

"waste!"

Guan Zhenyuan roared angrily, scaring the boy so much that he almost fell to the ground.

"You outnumbered them by nearly a hundred, yet you still suffered serious injuries!"

"What were my demands of you back then?"

"At least in a one-on-one fight against an alien race of the same level, one-on-two, minor injuries; and one-on-three, no death!"

"And you guys!"

"To suffer a serious injury against an opponent of the same level, or even weaker, requires extra training!"

The martial arts students shrank back; they had indeed made a very basic mistake and deserved to be scolded.

"Medical team! Take those seriously injured kids away, and those with minor injuries, get them to extra training!"

Guan Zhenyuan was quite angry. Ever since he took over as the commander of the Harbin Military Command, he had become even stricter with the students he had personally taught.

"Grandpa, is it really that serious?"

Guan Xia walked over and stood beside Guan Zhenyuan, asking a question.

"They didn't have much combat experience before, mostly small-scale skirmishes. This is their first time fighting such a large-scale operation."

"Don't you dare run away, you little brat! You can't even do something as simple as sending that little girl Chen Yi away!"

Guan Zhenyuan kicked Guan Xia in the butt, and Guan Xia rolled away like a ball.

"Nothing major is happening now, it's just a simple encirclement and suppression."

Guan Xia rubbed his buttocks. Luckily, the old man hadn't used too much force, or his buttocks would have exploded.

"You think it's simple, right?"

Guan Zhenyuan grew angrier the more he listened. How could his son be so untidy!

"Do you know how big the Ice Abyss is now after merging with the Abyss?"

"Do you even realize how powerful those beasts of the abyss and the assimilated snow women are?"

"Still just trying to encircle and annihilate them? Don't they know that the Queen's Palace is still in the hands of the Abyss Warriors?"

"Did you know that the container holding the ice storm is in the Queen's Palace?"

"Once they discover the Heart of the Ice Storm, not only you, but even your grandpa will be frozen into an ice sculpture!"

Guan Zhenyuan used the Nine Yin White Bone Claw technique to grab Guan Xia's crown.

"Kid, you're not only bad at cooking, but you didn't even inherit your father's military acumen!"

"Your dad may not be great, but he's a genius at commanding. You're such a simpleton..."

"You can't blame me for that. My dad died when I was three or four years old. I wasn't even close to him."

"Not to mention, I've never even met my mother; I've been like an orphan since I was little!"

Guan Xia was sweating profusely; he felt like the top of his head was about to be lifted off his head.

"..."

Guan Zhenyuan's expression darkened at the mention of this.

"That's true, no wonder."

With a sigh, Guan Zhenyuan released Guan Xia's pressure point.

"You received very little love and care growing up..."

"It seems it's time to tell you some things."

Guan Zhenyuan patted Guan Xia on the shoulder and led him into his tent.

"Aren't you afraid your kids will laugh at me for telling this? This should be considered something you inherit from the Guan family bloodline, right?"

"Gulp." Guan Xia swallowed hard. He had a feeling that his grandfather was about to say something really shocking.

"Everyone knows about your great-grandfather's affair with the Snow Woman Queen."

Guan Zhenyuan glanced at Chen Yi and the others, who were full of curiosity, and finally spoke up.

"One of the reasons why I'm not in the military but in the martial arts academy is that your great-grandfather forbade me to have any contact with the Snow Maiden."

"Because your first grandmother was a snow woman..."

"But later he found a normal, respectable woman, who was your grandmother who passed away many years ago."

"Your father was of pure human blood."

"I don't know why, but your dad was the same way, he was particularly fond of snow women."

Guan Zhenyuan's thick Northeastern accent couldn't hide the despair in his voice. Was their Guan family cursed?

"Neither your great-grandfather nor I could stop him. He had an affair with a snow woman, which caused his health to decline rapidly..."

"When we found her, the snow woman was already very pregnant."

"...?" Guan Xia stared blankly, and the people around her also had a question mark above their heads.

"Do you want to know why we guys have been living in this harsh, cold place all this time?"

Guan Zhenyuan's old face turned a little red. Currently, apart from Guan Xia, his whole family is controlled by the white-haired snow woman.

"Besides the duty to protect Harbin, I also can't live without it."

"Whether it's my snow woman or your great-grandfather's, they're both alive..."

"This is why the ice caves in Harbin are the quietest and safest among all the ice caves."

Guan Zhenyuan glanced at the several snow maidens walking in the camp and couldn't help but sigh.

"Normally there are only minor skirmishes; that's just the Snow Woman Queen using us to eliminate some factions that are not loyal to her."

"We'd be happy to, it'll be good training for us."

"Haven't you noticed that there have been very few deaths and injuries over the years...?"

"So, every time my great-grandfather went to suppress the Snow Woman Queen, did he...?"

Guan Xia's face was grim. How could these old men be like this!

"Well... not entirely, we do fight occasionally."

Guan Zhenyuan scratched his face awkwardly, feeling ashamed of what his father had done.

Especially after my mother passed away, the old man became even more unscrupulous.

"Where is my mother?" Guan Xia didn't care about anything else now; he just wanted to know where his mother, whom he had never met, was.

She died when she gave birth to you.

Guan Zhenyuan anticipated that this topic would eventually come up, so he simply laid it all out.

"Humans need a lot of vital energy to give birth to offspring, which is why pregnant women need a lot of proper nutrition during pregnancy."

"But the Snow Women are different. They are very averse to blood and qi, and they use the power of ice and snow, which is why you were stillborn at first."

"Later, in order to save you, your mother secretly took tonics to replenish your qi and blood every day without anyone knowing."

"That's how you came to be."

"But this also caused her body to nearly collapse, and she lost vital signs while giving birth to you."

"Your father is also blaming himself, and his health is getting worse."

"And you are the only half-human, half-snow woman."

Everyone was shocked and cast incredulous glances at Guan Xia.

"Is my slow growth in strength also related to this?"

Guan Xia himself was actually somewhat aware that he did not dislike low-temperature environments; on the contrary, he felt very energetic in them.

His talent in terms of Qi and blood is quite average; he has been struggling at the middle fourth level for many years.

"No, you're just a simple dish."

Guan Zhenyuan shook his head, and the originally sad atmosphere instantly turned somewhat comical.

"..." Guan Xia.

You really are my grandfather!