The Almighty Ring

The first thing that came to Jiang Fei’s mind when Qin Tian mentioned the beast was Beowulf.

That man had relied on the powers of an Alien Beast to reach Level 5. Not to mention that Jiang Fei was still holding the Rebirth Egg with him. To be fair, the insides of the ring’s inventory was not suitable to incubate the egg since all the items that were stored inside the ring would be placed in suspended animation—time seemed to freeze in there.

“Should I let him out for a bit?”

Figuring whether or not he should risk it, Jiang Fei contemplated about releasing the egg into the world. He had been so busy with other matters that he had completely forgotten about the egg.

“Captain, may I suggest again that you extract the powers from the egg,” said 0542 when Jiang Fei was still deciding about the egg.

“Enough about that. I will incubate the egg, as soon as I’m done with the power-sucking beast,” Jiang Fei roared in his mind. It was morally the right thing to do. Even though he himself agreed that he was no saint, there was still a line that he would never cross.

Putting the egg matter aside, Jiang Fei focused his attention on engaging with Qin Tian.

Qin Tian came all the way to met Jiang Fei with a clear sense of purpose. That was what Jiang Fei could see. The man was well prepared and informed about the incident. He had even brought along a small computer that contained information and footage of the beast.

“I’ve pulled footage from one of the affected power stations. Here, please watch this,” said Qin Tian, sliding over the small computer to the other side of the table where Jiang Fei was seated.

The footage showed many information water-marked on the corner of the video. One of which was particularly interesting. The entire footage was captured in high 960 frames per second speed. At which, the beast was seen moving so fast that even with the high-speed camera rolling, only a glimpse of its enormous body was captured. In the first second, a silhouette of the beast could be seen charging into the station, destroying many of the power generators. Although it was as bright as day, the blast of electricity blew out the footage. When the camera automatically adjusted the brightness, the beast was seen absorbing all the electricity into its body. Not a single spark of electricity was allowed to escape into the air.

“He’s fast,” Jiang Fei gasped. Without a shred of doubt, Jiang Fei could tell that the beast was at the Pinnacle stage of Level 4. That speed, matched with its enormous body size, would make it a lethal charging tank. Jiang Fei continued to watch the video and saw how strong the beast was. There were military personnel seen firing regular rounds towards the beast yet they failed to leave even a tiny amount of damage. To make things worse, Androids were deployed yet they could not do anything to the beast as their weapons had a wide attack range. Firing at that distance would inevitably destroy all the nearby facilities. They could allow the beast to take all the electrical energy in the plant, but they could not afford to let the central nuclear reactor to take a shred of damage.

“As you can see, the monsters are too strong for any military men to handle. We… we are currently helpless against them,” said Qin Tian, sulking and frowning genuinely. Jiang Fei picked up his subtle expression and could tell from the way he spoke, there was more than one beast.

“So, what do you want me to do?” said Jiang Fei, playing hard to get.

“We hope that you and the martial artist alliance could help us in dealing with this problem,” said Qin Tian, smiling.

“The alliance… Hmmm. I’m afraid things are a little out of hand here,” said Jiang Fei. He was not playing hard to get but he genuinely thought that the alliance would not help him even if it was him asking them to do so.

To start, the relationship between the alliance and the Chinese military was not going well.

It was established that martial artists had been selfish and egoistic in all manners of behavior. Helping others with their problems could be said to be a taboo even. Helping the military to attack invaders of China was probably the only time martial artists could lend their assistance but when it came to electrical power-sucking monsters? Martial artists could not give a damn about it.

Moreover, the military had gone through with the Supreme Android Project and that alerted the martial artists of their threat. Right now, the best outcome that everyone could enjoy was peace between the two. It was best not to rattle the cage while the lions are asleep.

“Mr. Jiang Fei! We need your help! The nation needs your help!” cried Qin Tian desperately. Unlike Jiang Fei, Qin Tian was completely oblivious about how martial artists behaved. Nonetheless, his true motive of coming to Jiang Fei was not for the alliance but for Jiang Fei to make a move.

“I’ll… I’ll see what I can do.”

Jiang Fei was incredibly hesitant about this since he would be helping the military to do their bidding. On the other hand, there was a monster or monsters that terrorized the peace of the Chinese citizens. There was also his curiosity about the beast. According to 0541, there should not be any other alien beasts on Earth besides the Void Manta and Doomsday. He wanted to know the true identity of the beast and understand it.

The footage was clear but Jiang Fei could not gauge the beast’s real strength properly just by seeing how fast it could move. He needed to be physically close to the beast in order to check its energy reading.

“Thank you! With Mr. Jiang Fei helping, we could surely solve this problem!” cried Qin Tian, shamelessly praising Jiang Fei.

“Mhm. If that’s all there is, I’ll be taking my leave now,” said Jiang Fei before leaving the cafe. To be honest, he had little to no worries about handling the beast. For one, he had two Level 5 bodyguards with him all the time. Not to mention the lethal Zhanlu Sword. Even if the beast turned out to be a Level 5 beast, he was strong enough to handle it.

After heading back for a bit and informing his parents about the situation, Jiang Fei brought Isabella and Ariel out in the open to hunt for the beast. That being said, hunting for a beast in China was not easy. The bastard was appearing at random places and at random times during the day. There were more than enough power plants in China and it was hard for Jiang Fei to be at all places at anytime. Hence, after blindly chasing the beast for two days, he got lucky and managed to catch one in the act.

It was during noon when Jiang Fei received a distress call from the military while heading towards the Southwest of China. He was then informed that there was a beast appearing in the Eastern seaboard of China. Knowing the exact location, Jiang Fei immediately turned around and headed towards the said destination.

Just as Jiang Fei was close to the beast, the beast was just finishing its “meal” and about to leave. If Jiang Fei was slower by a fraction of a second, he would have failed to see it. Fortunately, with the help of Ariel and Isabella, Jiang Fei was able to catch a glimpse of the beast.

“0542, lockon to the target and initiate scanning!”

“Affirmative.”

With sufficient power, Jiang Fei commanded 0542 to spent some energy to use its wide-range radar system to identify the beast and its properties.

“Hoho…”

At that moment, before 0542 could even start scanning, Isabella chuckled a little, which made Jiang Fei curious about it. When Jiang Fei turned to ask her, she merely shook her head and remained quiet. Even so, Jiang Fei could see that there was something that she was not willing to tell him.

“Captain. Scanning complete.”

“Result?”

“I have identified the target to be at the Beginner stage of Level 4. All of its power is only directed towards speed. Target is being identified as a mechanical robot,” said 0542.

“Robot?”

“Correct. In fact, the structure of the robot was not too strong as it have many exposed parts and thin armor. I am detecting many moving parts and rotors that used most of the robot’s power source.”

“Mhm. They almost fooled me there!” said Jiang Fei to himself. He quickly stopped chasing after the “beast” and made his way to the decimated power plant where Qin Tian was standing by.

Feinting extreme fatigue, Jiang Fei panted heavily like a tired dog and informed Qin Tian about the “bad news”.

“Hah… I’m… Let me catch my breath… Hah… That bastard is too fast for me…”

“Is that so? Alright then. Thank you for your help. I’m sure that the military will come up with something to deal with the beast. Thank you for your assistance…”

Jiang Fei was pretending to ignore Qin Tian but when Jiang Fei told him about his failure to catch the beast, he caught Qin Tian sighing, as if he was relieved that Jiang Fei could not chase after the beast. His tone was almost calm and stress-free, unlike how he was pleading Jiang Fei to help him.