Dawn of a New Era

Chapter 599 - 573: Ominous Signs

The Shell Lady looked extremely pitiful.

She cried so hard that she was gasping for breath, like a left-behind child about to be separated from her parents, clutching tightly to her pants leg, refusing to let him go.

Chen Shouyi felt a bit heartbroken seeing this, but ultimately he couldn’t take her with him.

On a battlefield filled with nuclear explosions, he couldn’t even guarantee his own safety, let alone protect her.

Looking at the desolate wilds here, he thought he had been hasty back then.

Such a tiny thing, nestling alone in a small cave every day, with unfathomable fears in her heart.

...

He shot up into the sky, heading swiftly towards the command post.

The command post was over three hundred kilometers away, and with his current flying speed, it would take no more than half an hour.

...

Inside the command post, deep underground by a hundred meters.

It was a scene of tense activity, with people even jogging as they walked.

Upon hearing the news of Chen Shouyi’s return, the political commissar of the combat district hastily came to him.

"General Manager Chen, has something happened?"

"Nothing much, just here to handle some minor matters," said Chen Shouyi as he walked.

The political commissar breathed a sigh of relief upon hearing this.

The Land of Radiance hadn’t restored electricity, let alone phone lines; their overall technology was still at the stage before World War I, so intelligence was relayed back and forth by helicopter, with a half-day delay in information:

"That’s good, that’s good!"

As for General Manager Chen’s casual return to the command post from the front line, which was a clear violation of military orders,

he didn’t mention it at all.

He even felt it was entirely normal.

Such a figure, comparable to a True God, had long been beyond worldly constraints, not bound by secular rules.

"By the way, is my room still there?" Chen Shouyi asked.

Political Commissar: !?

He, as a high-ranking official in a large military district, couldn’t possibly care about such trivial matters, but he figured there wouldn’t be any changes.

"It’s certainly there, I’ll ask the logistics department to check!"

...

As soon as he returned to the familiar residence, the Shell Lady immediately crawled out from his embrace and went onto the bed.

Chen Shouyi placed her toys, math books, and picture books before her, and asked with a smile, "Little one, is this place good?"

"Yes... but without the good Giant, it’s not good at all!" the Shell Lady said pitifully, seeming resigned, sighing dramatically, and listlessly said:

"Alright then, good Giant, you can go. Little one will be very obedient, but good Giant, you must come back soon!"

"Once the bad Giant is defeated, the good Giant will come back!" Chen Shouyi promised quickly.

After arranging the Shell Lady’s meals for the next few days, he pulled the curtains shut, stepped out, and said to the orderly standing outside:

"I’ve taken in a little creature inside, it’s a bit timid, so don’t let anyone into my room in the coming days, and no need to tidy up!"

"Yes, General Manager Chen!"

Chen Shouyi nodded and hurried back.

...

Inside the front-line military camp.

Chen Shouyi was half-naked, his skin as red as fire.

Bands of compact muscle groups rapidly transformed with his movements, creating ripples in the surrounding air that made his body appear somewhat blurred.

During this time, as his will reached 19.8.

He could distinctly feel he was close to a transformation, just a trigger away.

Once.

Twice.

Three times.

...

By the ninth repetition of the Horizontal Training Thirty-Six Forms.

He suddenly spat out a mouthful of fresh blood, cutting off his movements.

Looking down, he saw his entire body was drenched in blood, his skin covered with blood vessels, and his body was on the verge of collapse.

The strength of the Horizontally Trained Thirty-Six Forms, optimized four times, was not only the impending fear of life extinction with each training, but also that this fear would continue to softly accumulate if not interrupted.

And nine repetitions were already his body’s limit.

However, these injuries...

To him, were only a small matter.

Chen Shouyi was unfazed.

He cleared his body with his will, consumed a pound of Divine Flesh to replenish his energy, and drank down a large cup of salty water in gulps; within little more than a minute, his body had fully recovered to its peak.

Outside, the faint sound of the national anthem drifted in, filled with grandeur and enthusiasm.

On this battlefield of blood and fire,

In this war against the Barbarian God from another world,

The song filled one with inexplicable passion.

Chen Shouyi listened quietly and intently.

He always admired those ordinary soldiers; they didn’t have his formidable power or survival abilities, facing such dreadful nuclear war and the battlefield of gods and demons, their lives were as fragile as soap bubbles, extinguished by a ripple.

He couldn’t imagine, if he were one of them.

Would he, like these soldiers, face death unflinchingly?

This was an unanswerable question.

Because he had never been a soldier!

Chen Shouyi snapped back to reality; these days, he often had bouts of inexplicable sentimentalism.

"Is this an ominous sign?"

He immediately shook his head:

"Maybe I’ve been on the battlefield for too long?"

But this thought still cast a slight shadow on his heart.

He took out the Armor Ball from his space, examined it, armed his body, and his body suddenly sank, with both feet deeply embedded in the ground.

He then linked his mind to the armor.

The golden patterns on its surface lit up rapidly.

The previously lifeless armor awoke like a living thing, an invisible field radiated instantly, airflow surged, and the tent shook continuously, exuding a faint Divine Power.

Faith Value began to burn, thoughts raced, the once difficult-to-control armor became immediately manageable as intelligence soared to 22.7, moving with his mind.

His feet slowly lifted off the ground, floating.

The black and gold pattern made him look like a descending Demon God.

Menacing and dignified.

His mind was slowly being consumed.

But compared to before, Chen Shouyi felt it was much slower.

It was.

When he first got the armor, his perception was only 17.4, now it had soared to 19.9, more than tripling in total.

This was his last desperate resort.

Chen Shouyi calculated, under normal conditions, his attack power could be increased by at least... 66 times.

This was easy to calculate.

After the armor was activated, though it felt weightless to him, lacking any inertia, in reality, the armor weighed thirteen tons, 65 times his body weight; the kinetic energy of a punch with the same speed was 66 times greater than the latter.

Of course, after Giant Transformation, it wouldn’t be as much.

His nine-meter tall massive body weighed as much as 24 tons, and with the 13-ton armor, his attack power only increased by about fifty to sixty percent.

However.

In real combat, it’s not a simple punch-for-punch comparison, determining victory by sheer attack power... Reaction speed in the blink of an eye is far more crucial, otherwise, no amount of strength would make anything but a live target.

The most formidable aspect of this armor was.

It could let him move entirely without inertia in combat, allowing movement at will.

He could instantly shift from high-speed motion to complete stillness, or from total stillness to high-speed motion, as long as... his mind could withstand the consumption.

"Just... not sure how long my 19.9 perception will last in fierce combat?"

Chen Shouyi frowned slightly.