Chapter 46: The Fourth Layer of Defense

After closing the communication page, Lin Huang felt a heavy weight settle in his heart. What was meant to come had come at last...

He immediately led his group toward the valley entrance. The air along the way was tense, thick with silence as everyone kept their heads down and pressed forward.

More than half an hour later, they arrived at the valley mouth. From afar, Lin Huang saw that most of the dozens of kilometers of the valley entrance had already been blocked by boulders, but there remained an open stretch of two or three kilometers. His heart sank—this gap was far larger than he had anticipated. Originally, he had hoped to block the entrance until only a few hundred meters remained, minimizing the difference in numbers between the two sides. But time had run out; before the defensive layer of boulders could be completed, the beast tide had erupted.

This opening, stretching for two or three kilometers, was now under a frenzied assault by countless monsters. The residents who had been transporting rocks were retreating under the hunters’ cover. The battle had begun; if they stayed, they’d only become targets for slaughter.

Except for the hunters brought back by Yi Yeyu, every remaining hunter in the stronghold had joined the fight. Yet the number of hunters was still far less than the swarming monsters. Over a thousand hunters, if scattered to fight alone, would soon be worn down by the endless onslaught. Under Yi Zheng’s command, they began dividing the line of defense into several layers.

At the very front stood just over twenty Gold-tier hunters. Each was clad in battle armor—at least gold equipment, with some pieces even being relics. As long as their life force held out, these monsters of Iron and Bronze rank could not break their defenses.

The twenty-odd Gold-tier hunters spread out, each separated by about a hundred meters, blocking the space meant for boulders and slaughtering the surging beast horde with wild abandon.

Despite being maddened, many monsters still retained a shred of reason, sensing the danger from these powerful humans. They darted through the gaps between them.

The Gold-tier hunters had no time to pursue them all, doing their utmost to kill as many as possible, leaving the next wave to the group of Silver-tier hunters stationed not far behind.

The Silver-tier hunters, more than a thousand in number, formed an arc less than a hundred meters behind the Golds, each separated by only a few meters.

They too wore battle armor, slaughtering any monsters that breached the first line.

The remaining Bronze-tier hunters guarded the final line of defense, a hundred meters behind the Silvers. There were just over a hundred of them, each spaced about thirty meters apart. Fortunately, the previous two lines filtered the monsters, so few made it through to the third. Their pressure was relatively light. Any monster that broke through the second line was promptly dispatched.

Behind the Bronze hunters was a fourth line—more than twenty elders. Once renowned hunters, they had retired here due to injury or other reasons. Now they stood ready with heavy firearms. Though they could no longer wield life force, their marksmanship had not diminished much.

From atop the boulders, Yi Yeyu spotted Lin Huang and his group approaching. She said nothing, merely pointed to her Imperial Heart Ring. Lin Huang understood—amid the deafening roars and battle cries, she had chosen to relay messages through the ring.

Moments later, Lin Huang’s Imperial Heart Ring vibrated. He opened the message from Yi Yeyu: “There’s no room left in the third defensive layer—you’ll have to take up the last line. The elders may be armed, but some monsters might be immune to bullets. Keep a close watch.”

“Understood,” Lin Huang replied simply, then turned to inform the others.

Upon hearing this, the group of young men grumbled.

“This is clearly because they look down on us, afraid we’ll drag them down, so they stuck us at the back,” Zhou Le fumed.

“Exactly. By the time we got here, everyone else was already fighting. We were obviously told later than everyone else—they don’t trust us at all! If I’d known, I would have left with Bai Yan and the others,” Yu Guang said angrily.

“This isn’t the time for such talk,” Lin Huang’s gaze swept over the group. “You all agreed to obey orders. The examiner arranged this partly for our safety, and likely also because we might not withstand the pressure. We’re not professional hunters yet—our overall abilities can’t compare to true Bronze-tier hunters.”

“Think about it: if they truly didn’t trust us, they wouldn’t have entrusted us with the last line. It looks easy, but it’s actually the most crucial. If any monster gets past us, two hundred thousand residents will be in danger. The first three lines can let some monsters through, but we cannot let a single one slip by. The responsibility is immense!”

Hearing this, the group of youths fell silent, their blood boiling once more.

Yet Lin Huang chuckled inwardly. “A bunch of kids—so easy to convince.”

He understood Yi Yeyu and Yi Zheng’s intentions well. They didn’t care whether a fourth line existed; their real goal was to annihilate all monsters at the third line. His team had simply been sidelined.

In a beast tide of this scale, humans were already few in number. Every link in the chain had to work flawlessly; if one failed, the entire defense could collapse. Yi Yeyu and the others would never risk putting this group of rookies in such a crucial position. If they failed at a key moment, everyone would suffer.

Lin Huang was well aware of his team’s issues—their abilities were unstable, discipline was weak, their coordination inferior to professional hunters, and their psychological resilience and stress tolerance untested. If it were up to him, he wouldn’t have given them an important role either. Thus, he took it calmly.

For him, the best outcome would be for the first three defensive lines to completely withstand the beast tide. Hopefully, he wouldn’t need to lift a finger for two days, and then the extraordinary human would arrive in time to slay the extraordinary monster and bring the crisis to an end.

It was a nice thought, but things rarely went as hoped.

Barely an hour had passed when, from the north, several hundred meters away, a disturbance erupted—several monsters suddenly broke through the third defensive line and charged straight for the stronghold...

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