"A half-human half-beast creature?"
Facing Lin Li’s inquiry, Wei Fan shook his head decisively:
"I’ve never heard of it.
Captain Lin, you should know.
The Si Ming Ancestor loved collecting all kinds of information and even personally went to the Demon Outpost to train.
His experiences surpass many Core Formation Realm cultivators.
Yet, in neither his memoirs nor in our own life experiences,
have we ever heard of such a creature existing.
However, in the Damo Realm, there is a rumor that Tier Four demon beasts can transform into a complete human shape after breaking some limit.
Therefore, Tier Four demon beasts are often called Transforming Demon Kings."
Beside them, Ma Ning couldn’t help but speculate:
"Then could this young girl... be a mixed-blood offspring of a Tier Four demon beast and a human?"
Ma Ning’s speculation was simple:
If a Demon King can fully transform into a human form, then producing a mixed-blood offspring with a human isn’t all that strange.
However, unexpectedly, Wang Qiang shook his head:
"Professor Ma, I think the probability of your speculation is low.
Even if a Tier Four Demon King can turn human, I personally believe it’s just a physical transformation, possibly involving some form of evolutionary change.
But for such a form to break the reproductive isolation between species... that would involve genetic modification.
We have seen images of Nascent Soul Realm beasts and cultivators that lead me to believe this realm cannot yet self-modify genetic expressions, at least not at this level."
"I think Xiao Wang makes a good point,"
Hua Jun expressed his support for Wang Qiang, pointing at five Sealing Talismans:
Without considering concave polyhedra, three points form a plane, four points form a geometric space, and five points create an independent space.
And the symbols that can build a Sealing Escape Space precisely consist of five talismans, and according to previously captured footage, the distribution of these five talismans fits exactly at five nodal points.
Their specific interconnectivity needs further study, but in terms of spatial construction, they actually adhere to basic rules.
Many of our previous discoveries have proven this point, showing that cultivation and science are indeed related.
So I agree with Xiao Wang’s point, the speed of a Tier Four Demon King is only about twice the speed of sound, and though their energy is formidable, it should not yet reverse life expressions."
"Then this is odd...."
Lin Li, somewhat puzzled, pinched his chin and turned to Dai Chaohong: "Teacher Dai, please share your team’s assessment with everyone."
Dai Chaohong nodded, walked to the center of the group, and began:
"While Professor Ma and the others went to receive the wooden cage, a dozen or so top experts and scholars in our camp had a discussion and arrived at a progressive guess."
Ma Ning asked curiously, "What guess?"
"The origin of this beast-eared girl is extraordinary; she is likely the cause of this beast tide outbreak, and whether to receive her or hunt her down, the mastermind behind it is probably at the early stage of Tier Four."
Seeing everyone with a ’how the heck did you deduce so much’ expression, a smile involuntarily appeared on Dai Chaohong’s face:
"Gentlemen, do not underestimate our advisory team; it is one of the country’s finest strategic groups, far from those who just sit around doing nothing." Original content can be found at noᴠelfire.net
He then placed his hands behind his back and slowly said:
"Why do we think this young girl caused the beast tide outbreak?
I wonder if anyone noticed that this beast tide is much fiercer than what is recorded in Wei Mansion’s past records.
The original message received at Chixian City was that only three Tier Two demon beasts would attack, but suddenly, during battle, it became eight.
Not only Chixian City, but even neighboring towns faced more Tier Two demon beasts than expected.
Within a five-hundred-mile radius, five cities have fallen this time.
As for the number within a thousand miles, it’s even greater.
This is very unusual, as if the beast tide’s mission is to breach cities.
Does everyone still remember the beast tide of Xiaolianzi Mountain?
The beasts were willing to risk staying in the Damo Realm to break Celestial Cloud City, leaving only after a pyrrhic victory with the city’s cultivators.
Combining the appearance of this young girl and the two peculiar items she carried, we believe she’s the key to this anomaly.
While Wenqin City and Celestial Fate City are in the same direction, albeit far apart, fleeing from Celestial Fate City to Wenqin City at fifty to sixty miles a day isn’t impossible."
After listening to Dai Chaohong’s explanation, the onlookers couldn’t help but show varied expressions.
"Then Teacher Dai, how did you ascertain the mastermind’s realm is only at the early Tier Four stage?"
Dai Chaohong picked up a tablet from the table beside him and tapped a few times, answering:
"This involves a social cluster structure system, which is a generalized biological model.
This model initially studied the social structure of ants but was later introduced into the social humanities research field to help judge and adjust the proportions of different classes.
The Hu Run Team currently employs this model.
Post-arrival in the Damo Realm, some teachers from Zhejiang University, using the supercomputer ’Mango’—the one we use for language sample analysis—optimized the hierarchical model for cultivators and demon beasts.
We gathered beast tide data within a thousand-mile radius, reverse-analyzing through comparison of various realms, arriving at a pyramid’s summit point:
a 75% probability of early-stage Tier Four, 25% probability of just entering mid-stage Tier Four."
"Early Tier Four huh...."
As a weapons expert, Hua Jun appeared sensitive to the issue of realms:
"With our current technology reserves, sparing no expense should allow us to kill anything below the Fourth-Layer Nascent Soul.
Even if it’s moving at twice the speed of sound, we still have the capability to take it down.
However, such cost is enormously steep, and our foundation limits such actions to very few attempts, potentially at a loss of five to eight thousand lives."
After hearing Hua Jun’s words, Lin Li fell into deep thought.
Based on the current situation, Dai Chaohong and his team’s conjecture seems quite accurate.
As the total person in charge of the camp, Lin Li is privy to information not well known to project leaders—although the beast tide also hit Ziqiong City where the Wei Mansion caravan is heading, its intensity was about the same as in previous years.
If counting in units of a thousand miles, it seems that only Chixian City, or rather, the region where Celestial Fate City is located, suffered intensely from the demon beast attacks.
Now, with this batch of beast tide returning empty-handed.
It’s almost certain that the next beast tide will feature more high-realm demon beasts.
High-level Tier Three, Tier Three Perfection; if the mobilizable Tier Three demon beasts are limited, it’s not impossible for the mastermind himself to appear.
Additionally, judging by the cautious and precise style of the rabbits,
they still need to consider the possibility that the mastermind’s realm has been underestimated.
What if some sneaky demon beast has reached Tier Four Perfection but pretends to be a newbie?
Or what if there was a breakthrough in their cultivation during this period?
If the rabbits hold the capability to eliminate a Tier Five demon beast, then facing it directly is feasible.
But the question is.....
Is there enough time?