My whole family was brutally murdered? I awakened the thug system and went on a killing spree.

The underground base in Jiangcheng originally housed an abandoned civil defense garage on the first basement level.

The current setup isn't even rudimentary; two of the incandescent bulbs on the ceiling are even short-circuiting and flickering.

The concrete floor was covered with oil stains left by heavy machinery.

This place, where even the air conditioning system smelled musty, was now filled with the highest echelons of power in the country.

The commander-in-chief of the Northwest Military Region, the head of the Southwest financial magnates, the leader of the Central Plains Martial Arts Alliance... any one of these thirty-odd people could be a big shot who could shake an entire province with a stomp of his foot.

These people came alone, without any attendants.

According to the ultimatum issued by Jiangcheng, they must arrive and report within three days.

More than thirty seventh and eighth-level experts stood ramrod straight in the dilapidated garage, not daring to even breathe loudly.

No one complained about the poor environment, and no one asked for a chair.

The group had watched the live footage of Beijing transmitted back by satellite countless times.

Ji Wudao's higher-dimensional projection was captured and torn apart alive.

One hundred thousand Northern Garrison troops, along with Starship-class destroyers, were used as rations.

Even the tenth-tier abyss monster that crawled out from underground was skinned alive and eaten until not a trace was left.

Faced with absolute physical dominance, these powerful figures, accustomed to power struggles and the exchange of interests, finally recalled the fear of being dominated by biological instincts.

The man named Qin Meng has completely transcended the category of "human martial artist" and become a natural disaster that needs to be revered and sacrificed.

Five underground floors.

The core energy supply area has been urgently converted into a private canteen.

A heavy-duty track, originally used to transport industrial ore, is now carrying a whole cut-up piece of Tier 8 armored rhinoceros meat to the end of the long table.

Qin Meng, shirtless, sat imposingly on an iron chair welded from the chassis of an armored vehicle.

The microstructural changes brought about by 2,050 points of physique have given his skin a restrained, dark gold matte texture.

Even though he had tried his best to control the passive characteristics of "absolute mass", the iron chair beneath him was still groaning under the weight, and its four legs had sunk deep into the high-grade concrete floor.

He grabbed the rhinoceros's hind leg, which weighed several hundred pounds, with one hand and stuffed it, skin and bone, directly into his mouth.

There is no chewing motion; the upper and lower jaws are closed.

The cracking sound of bones breaking drowned out the noise of the track motor.

The black hole engine was running at a low speed inside the body. The flesh and blood of this eighth-tier alien beast had just entered the esophagus...

It is directly broken down into the most basic energy particles by the extremely violent high temperature and gravitational field, without even producing excrement.

But Qin Meng frowned as he ate.

"Tasteless, firewood." He spat out a piece of unchewable eighth-grade alloy spur, the metal block smashing through a load-bearing wall ten meters away.

Jiang Nuonuo stood to the side holding a stack of encrypted files that was half her height, her eyes twitching.

That was the core defensive armor of an eighth-tier Ironclad Rhino, which could be exchanged for the equipment of an entire heavy combined arms battalion on the black market, but in this guy's mouth it was just bone fragments.

"Boss, the people in the lobby upstairs have been waiting for four hours. Ninety percent of the actual controllers of the 127 large bases across the country have arrived."

Jiang Nuonuo handed over the tablet, which was filled with a dense list of assets and personnel who had surrendered.

"Money, mining rights, shares, land, plus control of thirty-seven high-level martial arts academies, everything is listed."

Qin Meng took the tablet, didn't even look at it, and casually swiped his finger across the screen twice, instantly cracking the cheap screen glass.

"Make them take this waste paper back to wipe their butts."

Qin Meng threw the tablet back on the table, tore off a rhinoceros rib, and popped it into his mouth.

Jiang Nuonuo froze, stopping her pen from taking notes.

"I don't have time to care how many properties they own or how much savings they have. The old economic system doesn't work for me."

Qin Meng swallowed the meat and bone in his mouth. The sound wasn't loud, but it made the basement exhaust fan vibrate.

"Go tell those people up there that the rules have changed."

"Jiangcheng only collects one type of tax: high-energy materials, meat of beasts of the seventh rank or above, crystal cores of the ninth rank or above, and special ley line ores. These are paid quarterly. If you can't pay, wash your neck clean and wait for me to come and check your water meter."

"Also, delete all the useless files on the list whose combat power is below level seven. They're annoying to look at."

Jiang Nuonuo quickly typed on the memo and nodded in agreement.

She knew Qin Meng's style of doing things all too well. In this man's eyes, everything was garbage except for things that could be converted into calories.

"There's another situation." Jiang Nuonuo put away her tablet and took out a top-secret red paper file from her pocket. "People from four different locations didn't come."

Qin Meng paused for half a second while tearing the meat.

"They ran away?"

"They didn't run away, they've gone missing."

Jiang Nuonuo projected a high-precision military holographic map into the air and drew a circle with her finger over the southeastern coastal area.

"The three major coastal fortresses of the Southeast Theater, plus the Seventh Deep Sea Fleet stationed on the edge of the East China Sea."

Forty-eight hours ago, all communication signals, satellite positioning, and even quantum entanglement frequency bands at these four outposts were completely cut off.

Qin Meng stared at the dark red area on the map, his eyes, as black as holes, devoid of any emotion.

"Have you sent someone to check it out?"

"Three waves of high-altitude reconnaissance aircraft were dispatched, but they failed to fly in."

Jiang Nuonuo retrieved the last footage transmitted by the reconnaissance plane before it crashed.

On the holographic projection, the coastline of the southeastern coast was shrouded in a thick layer of gray-black fog.

That wasn't a natural weather phenomenon; dark purple lightning flickered faintly within the fog.

The moment the reconnaissance aircraft touched the edge of the fog, its instrument panel instantly overloaded and exploded. The pilot didn't even have time to input the command to eject before he and the aircraft were pulverized by some higher-dimensional force.

"Physically cutting off communications, coupled with this level of defensive barrier, doesn't seem like the methods of human martial artists."

Jiang Nuonuo offered her assessment: "Moreover, with a full 300,000 permanent garrison troops, plus the fleet, even if a mutiny occurred, it would be impossible for no sound to be heard. These four strongholds seem to have been swallowed whole."

Qin Meng leaned back in his iron chair, tapping his fingers on the table.

The dull thud caused a brief disruption to the gravity field of the entire fifth underground level. Jiang Nuonuo felt a sudden difficulty breathing and her legs went weak.

Retracting some of the leaked mass pressure, Qin Meng sneered: "Three hundred thousand people, and not a sound. Looks like someone's got too much to do and's trying to steal my food."

The heavy lead door to the basement was pushed open.

Hu Biao strode in, carrying a black metal box that was still dripping coolant.

The box was made from the same material used for the black boxes of warships, and it was also imprinted with the emblem of the Capital Martial God Tower.

"Boss, the technical department spent 72 hours deciphering the artifacts unearthed in Beijing, sacrificing three brain enhancement users, but finally pieced together the most crucial fragments."