Honda Masaharu looked at the map on the table. In fact, their ground self-defense force had been constantly retreating, and their current position was ten kilometers away from Mount Fuji.
Honda Masaharu knew that in present-day Japan, and even the whole world, although many people were advocating the "monster threat theory," there were hardly any who truly saw these monsters as adversaries!
Those guys were just using these arguments to achieve their own ends!
Fame, promotion, or financial gain. There were hardly any people who truly recognized the threat posed by these monsters!
But Honda Masaharu was clear that after just a day of attack and defense, he understood that the metal monster army in front of him was not something that could be dealt with so easily!
The force they were facing now was just a group of over three hundred metal monsters!
The rest of the metal monsters had disappeared along the roads, vanishing into the mountains or side paths.
Their fifteen hundred troops were only facing a mere three hundred odd monsters!
Yet even so, they couldn't hold them back!
"Do you see? I'm not stopping the other monsters, just defending against this group. Can you see why? Because if we retreat, this group can use the road behind us to reach—the Tokyo metropolitan area! Can you imagine the scene if these monsters breach the Tokyo metropolitan area?"
Honda Masaharu's bitter smile deepened.
The big shots in the rear were still arguing endlessly, but as the commander of this battlefield, he was the one who understood the combat capabilities of these monsters best!
The individual combat strength of these monsters was too formidable! And in groups of three to five, after leaving the range of Mount Fuji, they dispersed directly. Relying on their formidable individual combat strength, they attacked and killed towns in small groups!
This kind of dispersion made it impossible to use powerful weapons to wipe them all out in one go!
How could this war be fought? Honda Masaharu even thought that if the sacred mountain of Fuji in their hearts continued to spew out these monsters, Japan would truly be more than just "chaotic"!
It would become a veritable forbidden zone of life, engulfed in flames and deep waters!
"How could I dare to retreat?! If I do, the responsibility will be too great!" Honda Masaharu thought helplessly.
But before he could come up with a good plan, a streak of red light, like a meteor from outer space, directly struck the house!
Boom!!
The deafening sound rang out, and then the "Sage" of Japan, the commander Honda Masaharu, didn't even have time to come up with a good plan before he was crushed under the collapsed building!
The first high-level Japanese military officer to die since World War II!
And this was only the first day of the war with the metal monsters!
The whole country was shocked. Truly, this storm was beyond description!
But what was even more terrifying was that these metal monsters had opened up the road to the Tokyo metropolitan area. Finally, they plunged into this road and rushed forward at a speed not much slower than a car's!
Seeing one of the most populous cities on the entire planet about to fall under the threat of monsters!
The entire violent machine of Japan, the so-called "Self-Defense Forces", which was in fact the military, finally sprang into action!
Prepared for the worst!
Japan's land was precious, and the damage caused by these monsters to houses, people's property, and lives in just over a day was already incalculable!
Now the top echelons of Japan finally took the metal monsters seriously. They slightly restrained their desire to exploit this crisis for political and economic gain and began to unite from top to bottom to deal with this world-shocking crisis!
However, lurking beneath all of this was an even more worrisome situation: Mount Fuji, although it had gradually ceased erupting...
Yet, in the crater of that volcano, there were still continuous appearances of metal monsters!
This news was like a bucket of cold water, pouring over all the confident people who trusted in the Japanese Self-Defense Forces, leaving them feeling as if their hearts had been doused with cold water!
Two days had passed since the eruption of Mount Fuji.
The number of metal monsters suddenly increased to five thousand!
Five thousand, and these terrifying metal monsters' combat capabilities were formidable. Now Japan as a whole could no longer sit still!
Messages requesting foreign reinforcements flew out like pieces of paper, heading to one country after another!
People didn't know when these nightmare monsters, seemingly emerging from the depths of the earth, would end. If they kept appearing like this forever...
People didn't dare to imagine!
And in the depths of the sea, Jia Yan, who was undergoing changes, couldn't focus on the matter of the metal monsters!
He seemed to be asleep, but this time, his sleep was not like the coma during the previous mutation process; this time, it felt like he was drifting in and out of consciousness, vaguely enjoying the feeling of being in the mother's womb!
He was just a mosquito, although born in the water, but he hadn't really experienced the comfort that water flow could bring him.
All the noise of the world disappeared in this deep-sea world, far away from the worldly affairs and the surface of the earth.
Worries and pains seemed nonexistent in this underwater world, seemingly detached from the world.
Jia Yan seemed to be half awake and half asleep. He could sense that the giant shark had nibbled on the cocoon-like shell on his surface, and he could also feel the small fish and shrimp reproducing and thriving around the huge substance he had condensed.
Although it seemed like a long time had passed, it had only been a few days. In just a few days, Jia Yan could hear the constantly repeating simplest food chain in his surroundings: microscopic organisms devouring plankton in the sea, small fish and shrimp devouring them, followed by big fish eating small fish, giant fish devouring these big fish, and then these giant fish being eaten by sea predators like sharks...
Jia Yan could also feel the water currents through the water, even though he couldn't see the outside world in the "cocoon," his gradually forming ears had unbelievable hearing.
The sea, the birthplace of life. All creatures on Earth evolved from the sea, gradually evolving into various forms we see today. Each species itself, in the long history of the Earth, is just a flash in the pan, fleeting through time!
Human civilization has only existed for a few thousand years since its inception. Although it claims to dominate the Earth, for the planet itself, humans are just an ordinary species living on its surface.
Who can be sure that in the long history of life on Earth, there hasn't been an intelligent life like humans that once burst into a brilliant civilization, then disappeared in an unknown way, leaving no trace behind, swallowed by the sands of time, becoming an unsolved mystery?
So, the self-proclaimed "dominant" humans are just deceiving themselves. In the evolutionary history of the Earth, humans are just a fleeting glory. If things don't go well in the future, they will end up being wiped out in the long river of time!
Time is the existence that can erase everything.
Drifting in and out of sleep, Jia Yan seemed to have contemplated many profound truths, yet appeared to have pondered nothing at all.
The duration of this mutation was lengthy, seemingly surpassing the effects of any previous mutations due to the azure crystal and liquid.
Jia Yan remained in slumber.
However, unbeknownst to him, the consequences of his actions were immense!
Perhaps by damaging the metallic conduits, some mysterious entity deemed a threat, leading to an incessant surge of metallic monsters gushing forth from these conduits!
It wasn't just Japan!
Finally, three days after the eruption of conflict at Mount Fuji, when metallic monsters emerged on the surface, their numbers suddenly soared to ten thousand!
The United States, a country renowned for its geological park, Yellowstone, found itself in a dire situation!
Yellowstone National Park, though a natural volcanic caldera, differed from Mount Fuji in Japan. It was dubbed a "super volcano"!
A "super volcano" implied colossal proportions, unlike Mount Fuji, which, even in eruption, would cause only localized calamities. If Yellowstone erupted, the resulting natural disaster could affect the entire Earth's climate, triggering a chain of catastrophic events, truly terrifying in nature!
Yet, on this fateful day, within Yellowstone National Park, already under close scrutiny by American authorities, shadowy figures slowly emerged from the searing depths!
They possessed grotesque appearances, metallic bodies, and a semblance of flesh yet distinctly different external features!
They were virtually replicas of the metallic monsters crawling out of Mount Fuji in Japan!
Boom! Boom! Boom!!!
As beams of red light tore through the bodies of countless tourists in Yellowstone National Park, rending them into pieces.
The most powerful nation in the world, the United States, was in dire straits!
It was on this day, whether due to a ripple effect or not, that similar scenes unfolded worldwide!
Some occurred not from volcanoes but from subterranean caverns—well-known and unknown ones, even those undiscovered by humans. Reports surfaced from each of these locations, detailing sightings of metallic monsters!
Overnight, the tally of sightings, albeit crudely estimated, reached a staggering fifty thousand!
Boom! Boom! Boom!!!
Countless beams of red light illuminated the surface world, the pride of humanity, tearing down the edifices constructed at exorbitant costs, one by one, reducing them to rubble!
The metallic monsters from the underworld continued to multiply.
They appeared in every continent, every region!
The world was in uproar!
A monumental transformation was underway!
The monster crisis, since China's initial discovery of giant monsters, had, for the first time, become a global catastrophe!
And amidst this impending upheaval in the world,
In the depths of the ocean, that ethereal, drifting mass remained in slumber.
The azure substance, amidst the dark matter's surface, faintly shimmered.
Jia Yan still slept, perhaps awaiting an eternal slumber upon awakening, or perhaps, the emergence of a colossal mosquito...
Bringing forth yet another step closer!
The extent of its might remained unknown to all!