Chapter 160 "A Minor Matter"

After Bai Tangjing and Quan Zhixin stood up, they walked together toward the woods behind the small hill.

"After the manual on Nen that I gave to the Sea Emperor was handed over to him, what was his reaction?"

On the way, Bai Tangjing started the conversation.

A month ago, after obliterating Julius's head, he had revealed the existence of this power to the enhanced humans participating in the battle.

The power of a monster, even just its remnants, could turn this world upside down.

If compared to the orthodox Godzilla:

Even after the Battle of Tokyo, Bai Tangjing, whose physical body had transcended limits to break the 200,000-horsepower threshold of behemoth strength, currently had no means to truly harm her.

Compared to the Titans, humanity was simply too insignificant.

To keep methods that could enhance the strength of the human side hidden away now was not caution, but sheer stupidity.

Because the political situation in the Republic had been chaotic at the time and various factions were on edge, it was inconvenient for him to go in person.

Bai Tangjing had instead sent his own notebook, with a malice-free burst of [Nen] attached to the very last word.

Judging by the various legends he had heard about the Sea Emperor himself, even if only a quarter of those accounts were not exaggerated,

the man would certainly not make a fool of himself over a mere "difficult-to-tame life energy."

In a world devoid of miracles, he had used brute force in his youth to subdue all martial arts schools in the Republic, and in his old age, he had locked in his vitality through pure pugilism and martial theory.

He was now one hundred and forty years old, having fathered the healthy and extraordinarily talented Guo Chuncheng at the age of one hundred and twenty.

To handle his berserk state after the Titan gene transplant, his surgery was deliberately delayed until all twelve Sea Kings of the Republic had completed theirs before he dared to begin.

Yet on the day of the surgery, the old man did not lose control for even a single fraction of a second, calmly and effortlessly pushing the behemoth power beyond 100,000 horsepower,

achieving the "transcendence of beastification."

...No matter how one thought about it, he was the ultimate boss-level ancient monster.

Quan Zhixin's previously rather relaxed expression suddenly stiffened upon hearing Bai Tangjing's words.

This was a man who, when his behemoth power was only a little over 100,000 horsepower, could remain calm even while losing over fifty kilograms of flesh from his body under the ravages of Julius's 200,000-plus horsepower.

Yet now, he seemed to have been reminded of a terrifying memory by a mere sentence.

Cold sweat poured from his forehead as if out of control, and he offered a dry laugh.

"Ha... Haha."

Even Bai Tangjing found it somewhat hard to imagine what kind of scene could force a man like Quan Zhixin to make such an expression.

"Ah! I remembered!"

As if eager to change the subject and banish the horrifying image from his mind, Quan Zhixin blurted out:

"The Sea Emperor said that Nen and the bodies of enhanced humans are a very good match. But it doesn't look like an ability you naturally comprehended; it feels more like someone first endured a certain stimulation to give birth to the power, and then worked backward to summarize the theory behind it."

"Insightful."

Bai Tangjing praised sincerely.

Before Godzilla came ashore, this world was undoubtedly one without miracles.

No matter how powerful the armed violence groups were, no one could resist them, and no one could kill without leaving a trace or a form.

Still less could anyone imperceptibly influence the mind of an important figure.

Yet before the Tokyo disaster, Bai Tangjing had already mastered supernatural abilities—a fact capable of piercing the heavens.

Now, the two of them spoke of it as if it were a trivial matter, chatting casually.

This was entirely normal.

If Bai Tangjing were currently unable to treat five Mach speeds as a casual stroll, if Bai Tangjing's fists could not punch a giant hole through the clouds ten thousand meters in the air...

Then this matter would indeed be a heaven-shattering event that implicated the family and friends around him.

However, now that forty-two monsters were ravaging Tokyo, while modern military forces proved utterly helpless against such superhuman enemies,

this was merely a "minor matter."

The two walked all the way to the depths of the woods.

A disheveled, muscular, handsome young man with a wild demeanor was sitting cross-legged under a tree.

The majestic Nen surging around Guo Chuncheng, with just a slight ripple, made the entire forest feel as though it had entered some kind of "bloody horror film" atmosphere.

The mottled sunlight beneath the tree shade was cold and glaring, and the swaying leaf shadows suddenly seemed sharp and ferocious...

This was the imposing aura possessed by Nen mixed with personal will.

As Bai Tangjing and Quan Zhixin arrived before Guo Chuncheng,

he happened to pull the churning Nen back into his body with a slightly awkward expression, making it circulate and revolve.

Then, he opened his eyes.

"Hah! I thought your state of mind was inferior to Doppo Katsumi's, which is why I ranked you last. I never expected you to master [Ten] ten minutes faster than him."

Bai Tangjing poked at Guo Chuncheng's layer of Nen with great interest.

Yet while Guo Chuncheng's eyebrows kept twitching, he merely looked at Bai Tangjing's fingers with a speechless expression.

"I can understand being behind Katsumi, but why is Baki... no, why is Wu Rian ahead of me too?!"

Guo Chuncheng complained with a downturned mouth.

After being forcibly beaten to the point of having his spine snapped by Bai Tangjing, this guy seemed to have realized that his previous invincibility in the Republic's martial arts world was solely due to his old man's face.

Yet instead of sinking into depression, this arrogant, overbearing, and self-important fellow recognized his own level like a passionate youth striving to chase the peak.

He was currently undergoing basic martial arts training under the guidance of Retsu Kaio.

Judging by the sense of closeness in his words, he seemed to have even become friends with Doppo Katsumi.

"You're young, after all. I was afraid your Nen would go out of control, which is why I arranged the order that way."

Bai Tangjing shrugged indifferently.

Although he had made up his mind to help the enhanced humans awaken their Nen, he had laid down a rule: anyone who failed to complete [Ten] to standard was not allowed to leave this small hill.

The vitality of enhanced humans was simply too powerful.

After awakening Nen, there was virtually no risk of running out of life force due to fully opened pores before mastering [Ten].

However, conversely, because their Nen was so massive, the moment it was developed, it would basically affect everything within a radius of one kilometer.

If [Ten] was not condensed enough, forming a shell with a radius of over a dozen meters was entirely possible.

If someone like that were let out onto the streets...

For ordinary people, awakening Nen and participating in a random Titan gene enhancement surgery had practically the same mortality rate.

Having confirmed that Guo Chuncheng's [Ten] met the standard, the group shifted the topic of conversation.

"By the way, has there been any progress regarding the situation in Europe?"

Guo Chuncheng asked while continuing to compress his [Ten].

Quan Zhixin shook his head with a wry smile, while Bai Tangjing remained noncommittal.

A day after the disaster in Tokyo, with careful investigation, it was easy to reconstruct whose fault this "accident" really was.

The answer was the MI6 agents, who failed to obtain the cutting-edge research results, resorted to underhanded tactics to muddy the waters, and ultimately lost control of the situation.

But so what even if they knew?

They had an alibi. Albeit a crude one.

Still, the global financial system that had been painstakingly pulled together could not be allowed to collapse again just because of sanctions against the United Kingdom, could it?

There had only ever been five chairs in the United Nations from the beginning, and any ripple from them translated into a major earthquake in the financial markets.

Therefore, even though so many people were blown to death, crushed, burned, or disabled amidst cries of agony...

Even though it caused so many tragedies and so much destruction...

No one would take responsibility or be punished for it.

This was a tragedy officially classified as an "accident."

And precisely because "no one would take responsibility," all those in the know were well aware of the truth.

After the monsters in Tokyo proved to the entire world the impotence of conventional military forces against single-target super combatants,

the ambition of the UK—or rather, Europe—to research Titan behemoths would definitely not be extinguished.

After all, apart from prolonging the lives of those in power, cheap and useful enhanced humans would themselves become an alternative kind of "arms race."

~~~~~~~~

After Quan Zhixin and Guo Chuncheng flew away directly amidst sonic booms, part of the crowd of fans at the foot of the hill cheered and dispersed.

The special magnetic field inherent to the bodies of Titan behemoths possessed the efficacy of restoring the natural environment.

This was no longer a secret after Monarch made most of its data public.

Whether it was because the enhanced humans inherited this power, the woods on this small hill had grown significantly lusher in just these few months.

Bai Tangjing sat on a protruding tree root.

A chill suddenly emanated from his body.

The Dragon Blood Internal Energy began to circulate accordingly.

The extraordinary energy within his meridians first stimulated the purple fluorescent blood coursing through his blood vessels.

Once the thermonuclear reaction originating from Tokyo's Godzilla began to take effect, the nuclear radiation was absorbed by the blood of the orthodox Godzilla.

Meanwhile, the heat was converted into spiritual energy by the [Spirit Absorption] on the surface of his body, which was then swept into his body by the Dragon Blood Internal Energy.

A somewhat crude yet closed-loop energy circulation and conversion system was operating inside the young man's body.

His heart region seemed to emit a blue-purple light source from deep within his organs.

The highly penetrating light not only gave his muscles and bones a translucent texture,

but even in the daylight, it shone through his clothing and illuminated Bai Tangjing's chin.

Yet just as the skin at the corners of his eyes was about to split open under the abundant energy, Bai Tangjing suddenly began to reduce the circulation of energy.

Finally, after expelling a breath of cold air from his mouth, he ended his practice.

"Without the pressure of a life-or-death battle, once a day should be the appropriate frequency."

The young man stared expressionlessly at his palm, repeatedly opening and closing it.

Divided according to the newly confirmed "horsepower" system, his recent exercise—excluding the growth of internal energy and Nen,

and considering physical development alone—had pushed his behemoth power from 230,000 horsepower toward 240,000 horsepower, progressing by a little less than half.

This efficiency, compared to the standard model of enhanced humans who generally relied on "absorbing radiation plus physical exercise," was roughly equivalent to the results of five days of bitter cultivation at average efficiency.

As the subsequent enhancement of behemoth power grew increasingly difficult, this ratio would only increase, not decrease.

Because as enhanced humans grew stronger, draining their physical stamina was becoming increasingly difficult.

When the body became too tough, it actually became harder to tear muscle fibers during exercise and grow even stronger cells under the baptism of nuclear radiation.

Even so, Bai Tangjing still found it hard to be satisfied with this efficiency.

Because compared to the life-or-death battle with Julius that lasted less than twenty minutes:

Under the hyper-limit state stimulated by the Dragon Blood Internal Energy, the stress-induced evolution ability originating from Tokyo's Godzilla allowed him to break through his limits in one go, leaping from 190,000 horsepower to 210,000 horsepower.

His current gains were simply... too negligible.

However, in daily life outside of life-or-death combat, although the hyper-limit state could still be entered voluntarily, the evolutionary reaction was extremely minimal due to the lack of external pressure stimulation.

When factoring in that the weakness period following the hyper-limit state prevented him from using his power for training or fighting,

overall, it was still inferior to lingering on the edge of the hyper-limit state during normal times and improving slowly.

After exhaling a mouthful of stale air, his phone rang with a "jingle-ling" sound.

Bai Tangjing took out his phone, looked at the name "Takayuki Yagami" displayed on the screen, and smiled faintly.

"Hello, Yagami. Is work going smoothly?"

Ever since Godzilla came ashore, Detective Yagami and his associates, who had been forcibly drafted by Monarch, had been unable to extricate themselves.

Although Monarch had been recruiting people all over the world after transforming into a multinational organization,

as a professional organization related to monsters, the fellows who managed to get in were clearly the forces infiltrated by various countries.

Although Professor Serizawa knew that an influential international organization balanced and operated amidst the constant wrestling of various national forces within it,

that was simply the law of organizational operation.

Yet Yagami and the others, who had clean records, upright character, strong abilities, and had personally handled the Godzilla incident, remained talents he was reluctant to let go of.

Since they were useful and reassuring, of course he was going to work them to the bone!

And the members of the Yagami Detective Agency were quite content to have something to rely on in a world where monsters had emerged and turbulence was clearly on the horizon.

Thus, they hit it off immediately.

"Aah! My hair is falling out, Jing!"

True to form, his old friend's familiar complaint came through the earpiece.

"Right now, Professor Serizawa is driving me to exhaustion over the affairs of the UK and France!"

Bai Tangjing responded with the expression of someone watching a friend make a fool of himself.

"Mm-hmm, go on."

A brief silence ensued.

"After a tragedy like the one in Tokyo happened, not a single person has had to pay the price afterward! Their greed for Titan genes will never be extinguished!"

Yagami's tone grew angry and heavy at this point; back when he was a lawyer, he had been someone with a deep sense of justice and compassion.

Upon learning the truth about the disaster, he had nearly taken the data from within Monarch and leaked it to the public.

It was only because Dr. Ichiro Serizawa personally placed the death toll caused by the financial fluctuations in the wake of the Tokyo disaster before his eyes that he forced himself to swallow that bitter pill.

If the global financial system collapsed, it wouldn't just be tens of thousands of people dying.

Under the chain reaction, tens of millions would starve to death. With industry paralyzed, humanity would even lose the qualification to tremble before the behemoths.

"So, what does this call mean?"

Realizing that his old friend was not calling just to chat, Bai Tangjing's tone turned serious.

"The slumber locations of the Titans that have been identified have basically had Monarch outposts established near them. Although those within the borders of the Permanent Five countries are mostly controlled by their respective nations, the organization still has jurisdictional authority in name."

"Dr. Serizawa and I intend to use this as a foothold to form an assault inspection team to conduct inspections at the outposts, in order to hinder the research progress of the UK and France. At the very least, we must ensure that the research is safe and controllable. You were a witness to this disaster and the one who finally resolved it; do you have any ideas to help me?"

"You're a sick man turning to any doctor for a cure! Please figure out clearly that I'm just the guy responsible for fighting!" Bai Tangjing chuckled, then turned serious. "Can't you find anything from the activity logs of the outposts? There shouldn't be that many outposts within their spheres of influence."

"That's the problem!" Yagami said with a bitter smile.

"To conduct experiments related to Titan behemoths, they must need massive amounts of Titan samples to keep up with the current cutting-edge progress. Yet right now, the samples at all outposts are completely normal in both quantity and quality."