Chapter 275: The Source of the Disaster

When Zhou Ying stepped into the dimensional world, she was stunned by the sight she saw. Carcasses and corpses littered the ground in such quantity that she could barely process the sight. She began moving immediately: the faster she moved, the more lives she would be able to save.

The Blacksteel settlement was quickly restored thanks to the help of the hunters in the region, and the injured were being taken care of. However, repairing the infrastructure within the settlement would take at least a few months, given that the beast stampede had destroyed more than half of the buildings within.

After the affairs at the Blacksteel settlement were in order, Team Zenith, under Zhang Lie's direction, began to provide assistance to nearby settlements as well.

At the same time, Su Feng's forces finally arrived in the Fengxing settlement. Just like Zhou Ying, Su Feng was stunned at the macabre sight, but as soldiers of China, he and his forces quickly recovered and immediately split up into search parties that wandered the city and helped out those in need.

By then, the Fengxing settlement was nothing more than a pile of smoking ruins. There were still a considerable number of lifeforms in the area, along with wounded hunters.

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Su Feng was very glad that, despite the surprising lack of information, he had chosen to believe Zhou Ying and Zhang Lie's words. Before entering the dimensional world, he had passed on the information to Yan Long, allowing the Chinese search-and-rescue operation to begin over fifteen minutes before the other countries', an advantage that could be counted in the number of lives saved.

However, no matter how fast they were able to provide aid, a disaster had still occurred, and they could hardly revert time and prevent it entirely. Most of the settlements would be able to reconstruct after the disaster, but some had been completely destroyed by the beast stampede, and there would be no point in reclaiming those.

The search-and-rescue operation lasted over a week before the dimensional world returned to normalcy, the lifeforms having returned to their natural habitats and the hunters having secured their settlements.

Only then did the authorities begin to investigate the source of this calamity. The most suspicious country was naturally China. After all, before the start of the disaster, China had given advance warning, and they were the first to prepare a search-and-rescue operation.

All this implied that China knew much more about the disaster than any other country, but in truth, the officers and commanders of the Chinese military didn't know much at all. They turned to the person who had been the source of all their information: Zhang Lie.

In the Zenith Dojo, Zhang Lie sat facing Yan Long and Su Feng.

"Zhang Lie, you brat, you know what we're doing here, don't you?"

Zhang Lie beamed. "Of course! You must be here to thank me for my efforts, Commander Yan. As a hot-blooded youth of China, of course I'd participate in such an operation. Furthermore, as a dragonlord warrior of China, I naturally have to stand out in times of crisis. There's no need to come personally—we know each other so well by this point, after all!"

Zhang Lie had decided to hide all traces of what had actually happened in the first realm of the dimensional world, so he began spouting all sorts of nonsense.

"The Zenith Dojo has indeed made invaluable contributions to this operation, and on behalf of all the hunters of the first realm, Su Feng and I thank you for all your efforts. However, we're here today for some other reason," Yan Long replied.

Zhang Lie blinked innocently. "What other matter could there be?"

Su Feng rolled his eyes. "Enough! Zhang Lie, you're really a magnet for trouble, aren't you? What happened this time?"

"What do you mean, what happened? Commander Su, what could you be asking about?"

"Just what happened in the dimensional world? How did you know there was an impending disaster, and just what happened during this disaster?" Su Feng clarified.

"Ah, well, you've all seen the aftermath, haven't you? I'm not privy to any other information beyond that," Zhang Lie replied.

"Oh? In that case, how were you able to give us advance warning of the event, as well as the best time to counter-attack?" Zhang Lie's duplicity was starting to anger Yan Long.

"I began having a bad premonition a few days before the calamity, so I sent Zhou Ying to speak with the two of you just in case. Unexpectedly, my premonition actually came true!"

Yan Long and Su Feng gaped at how Zhang Lie had managed to say all this with a straight face.

"In that case, what about the Galewind Lake?" Su Feng pressed. "What happened there a week ago? We haven't been able to recover the corpses of any of the hunters that purportedly made their way there."