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I have just found out that the company had previously purchased some beast corpses for research. They have now been turned into skeletal specimens for sale, but this is still good news for me.

They should have just approached me from the start – I can get those corpses up and running as if they were alive. The deep hibernation of their souls could prove problematic, though. The amount of sacrifices required might be excessive.

However, I’m confident the company will still agree. After all, I’ve earned them so much profit already. We’re practically partners.

—– From: Karlston’s Diaries

On the holographic screen, a group of ten or so skeletal beasts raced across the deliberately ancient streets of Southern Plains. Their bodies were as large as hover cars, and their heads seemed to contain a strange mote of green flame that danced about with the wind.

From a cursory glance, these skeletal beasts had the body of a wolf, forward-curving horns of a ram and the curved tail of a scorpion. However, unlike a normal scorpion, these monsters’ tail ends seemed more like a spear than a sting. From the way they nimbly waved their tails about, one could only imagine the fearsome speed they could bring to bear in an attack.

One of the exosuit-clad policemen immediately took up a stance at the monster charging at him.

Armed with dual two-meter long blades, he first sliced clean the field in front of him, then activated the laser cannons in his wrists. Target locked, he fired off two blue beams right at the monster’s head!

The powerful attack instantly melted a hole in the monster’s skull, piercing right into the soul flame within and extinguishing it. Without the energy of that soul flame, the skeletal construct crumbled to ground.

Successful, that policeman heaved a sigh of relief.

He honestly thought the monster would be a tough foe, based solely on its appearance. Yet here it was, dead from just a single laser blast. Morale restored, even his limbs seemed lighter now.

These elite forces of the police force often worked in teams of five. However, today’s exceptional circumstances had meant they could only spare three to a team.

These combat exosuits were nothing like the toys Mo Ke and the girls used in their games. These exosuits had the strength equivalent to a five-star fighter in the Western Human Realms. Depending on the pilot’s skills, they might even exhibit the power of a six-star. However, if one were to take into account the sturdiness of the exosuits, such a fighter might not even be able to penetrate the armor of the suits, even if they were at the same star level.

(TL: The author used Nicole instead of girls. I’m assuming it’s typo, but girls should be general enough to cover that either way.)

With practised ease, this team of three exosuit-wearing policemen quickly destroyed four of the skeletal beasts.

Yet just when it looked like the tides were in their favour, the remaining skeletal beasts suddenly sped up. Winds roaring behind them and ram horns glistening in the sunlight that seemed oddly cold right now, they charged fearlessly at the policemen!

Each exosuit came with its own assisted targeting system that would handle the actual firing, as long as the pilot was able to lock onto the target first. However, while these beasts might have been massive, their speeds were anything but slow. With a leap, they even managed to jump onto some of the lower roofs nearby and enact an instant encirclement around the policemen, all the while nimbly dodging the targeting system of the policemen.

Faced with such speedy foes, three of them simply weren’t enough. Thankfully, their exosuits weren’t slouches either. The moment one of the skeletal beasts lunged at them, the seasoned veterans that they were swiftly and in an orderly fashion dodged to the side.

Unfortunately, the skeletal beasts had the advantage of numbers on their side. It wasn’t long before these three were suddenly set upon by another bunch of skeletal beasts.

The monsters lunged at the unsuspecting policemen, toppling them to the floor, claw and fang savagely tearing at the metallic exosuit, leaving a horrific gash behind.

Yet that wasn’t the end of the policemen’s woes either. Lest one forgot, these monsters still had a spearlike tailend, and these tails were not only swift, they easily punctured the armor of the exosuits!

With that, the curtains were lowered on the battle of these brave policemen, at the same time signalling the advent of new enemies…

“What are these monsters…” Shentu muttered aloud, unable to recognise their beastly nature due to their stunning skeletal appearance.

“They should be the skeletons of… Primal beasts. Scorpids, who specialise in frontal assaults and tail attacks. These beasts are stronger than their arachnid cousins…

Nalan had once spent time on the Primal planet. Back then, he had to slay countless Primal beasts just to stay alive everyday. There was no one more familiar with the shape of a scorpid than him.

“A scorpid? Primal beasts?” Shentu turned in shock to look at the colonel. “How did those bastards at Life Unbound even get such a monster’s skeleton to move…”

Unthinkable! Was what he wanted to say. The ability to animate bones was practically in the realm of magic. Which it actually was. Unfortunately, the majority of Gaia’s denizens had no way of knowing that.

Even now, the Federation still believed that it was the Life Unbound company who had engineered this disaster…

When the crisis first started, the Federation tried multiple times to contact the board of directors of Life Unbound. Unfortunately, the other party did not respond to them at all.

Even when they approached the family members of the directors, none of them seemed to know anything. In fact, they could not contact them either, as if they had been abandoned as well.

It was only now that some in the Federation were beginning to wonder if Life Unbound was simply an unfortunate victim themselves…

Yet just as the Chief of Police was lost in his shock, the entire police headquarters started to shake. So violent were the tremors that their otherwise sturdy headquarters seemed more like a house of cards, and that house was about to be smashed by a brat…

“What’s going on?”

The ground below them continued to quake. The 231 meter tall, over fifty stories high skyscraper began to sway like a slender palm tree…

Within the command center, a number of staff members had already fallen off their seats and were now on the ground.

A second later, a giant skeleton clawed its way out of the ground near the police headquarters….

The giant skeleton was eighteen meters tall and had the appearance similar to a snake. There was that same signature green flames in its head, while its mouth sported a deadly rack of fangs. Its hands were clawed, and even its wrists had a swordlike weapon with serrated edges sticking out!

This was the equivalent of a seven-star, a Primal beast of the Disaster class, the Giant Sirenidae!

The skeletal giant sirenidae punched its head into the police headquarters, drilling through its sturdy exterior like soft soil, devastating its support infrastructure in seconds. Barely two minutes later, the entire building collapsed. There were no survivors in this tragedy. The Chief of Police, Shentu Congyang, was… killed in the line of duty…