The sharp Dragon Tooth Steel Blade pierced the Follower’s brow, plunging deep into its brain, finally emerging from the back of its head without any hesitation!

Immediately after, Captain Fang endured the soul-deep pain and twisted the hilt of the blade with all his might.

The scorching blade turned inside the Follower's skull, shattering large swathes of its brain tissue!

A rush of intense pain and dizziness overwhelmed it. The Follower's vitality was extraordinarily strong. Even with its skull pierced and much of its nervous system destroyed, it didn't immediately fall into a coma.

It roared, smashing the lightning spear in its hand fiercely against Captain Fang's mangled remains, once, twice…

In the blink of an eye, it had struck three times in quick succession.

The result of these three attacks was that Captain Fang's remaining torso became charred and fragmented, with only a half-burnt skeleton hanging from the blade's hilt!

Captain Fang had already been severely wounded. Now, after being struck three more times, his vitality had plummeted to the brink of death. Even the formidable power of a Second Order Evolver couldn't withstand such a brutal onslaught.

The Follower, enduring the intense pain and dizziness, reached with its left hand to grab the hilt of the steel blade embedded in its brain, attempting to pull it out.

But the next moment, another steel blade pierced its body.

Then a third, and a fourth…

Eleven steel blades, all plunged into its flesh!

After Captain Fang gave the order to attack at all costs, the Pioneers braved the energy cannons on the Follower's armor, their bodies riddled with holes like sieves. But their hands, gripping their blades, remained strong, accurately striking the Follower.

"Got you!" one Pioneer snarled, his wounds bleeding freely, his flesh charred and rotting, but his smile was one of exhilaration.

In this extremely brutal way, they had finally managed to restrain the Follower's movements.

"You bunch of…" The Follower trembled. It hadn't expected its opponents to be so fearless. With eleven steel blades simultaneously piercing its body, it felt a torrent of vitality draining from its wounds.

Among those eleven blades, one had struck its life flaw!

"You want to kill me?" Sensing the approach of death, the Follower revealed no hint of fear. Instead, it became even more savage. Its brow twitched violently, and the lightning spear in its hand fell a fourth time upon Captain Fang’s charred remains.

Boom!

With this strike, Captain Fang's body was completely obliterated.

His life flaw was shattered, and he was truly dead!

"Captain!"

"Old Fang!"

The remaining ten Pioneers roared, their eyes bloodshot as they watched their commander die before them. Their steel blades flashed, severing the Follower’s legs and arms. The repulsor platform beneath its feet was also destroyed, leaving it unable to fly.

"Cao ni ma…" The Pioneers stared at the fallen enemy, their eyes burning with rage.

One raised his steel blade, ready to hack it into mincemeat.

"This time, you managed to stop me, but do you think you’ve won? No, you’ve lost miserably!" The Follower, on the verge of being butchered, still wore a look of intense mockery. It laughed, "Do you see? I alone can cause your human defense line to collapse. I killed all the high-ranking officers in this city right in front of your so-called strongest soldiers!"

"I even took out your commander. If I hadn't been careless, I could have escaped unscathed today!"

"You killed me today, but you didn't win! Do you know how many members we have? Do you know how much equipment we have? If this is all the fighting strength you can muster, we don't even need to launch a full-scale war. A few hundred Followers like me, fully armed, could completely destroy your civilization!"

The Follower laughed, its face devoid of the fear of impending death, filled only with contempt for the Pioneers.

These words were broadcast to the entire human world through the video equipment on its chest.

Although filled with rage, the Pioneers had to admit that what it said was true. Today's battle could only be described as devastating. If Captain Fang hadn't sacrificed his life to freeze the Follower for a second, it might have wreaked havoc in the city and escaped.

"Your technology is far too backward. Li Tianran, that idiot… We thought that after he obtained the Sky Citadel, he would quickly decipher the core of our technology, but we never expected that you would still be clueless and unable to do anything!" The Follower laughed. Its life force was nearly exhausted, but until its last breath, it showed the human world only its scorn and ridicule.

Pfft!

The Pioneers had no patience to listen to its incessant chatter. Their steel blades fell in unison, hacking the Follower into a pile of minced meat!

The broadcast to the entire human world finally ended.

The Pioneers stood in the command building. Although they had killed the enemy, they felt a deep sense of frustration. Since the Pioneer Corps was formed, they had been invincible in war, but today…

They had lost. Although they lost due to inferior equipment, a loss was a loss. Recalling their powerlessness, they fell into a long silence.

…

Li Tianran took a deep breath.

The battle that took place in Southeast City, although short and small in scale, had a significant impact.

The entire human world had witnessed the Pioneers struggling to save their commander against a fully revived Follower. This would deal a serious blow to the confidence that the human world had worked so hard to build.

The equipment issue was indeed a weakness for the Pioneers.

After Li Tianran obtained the Sky Citadel, he had considered directly modifying the Sky Clan's equipment manufacturing technology for use by the Pioneer Corps.

But after careful consideration, Li Tianran rejected the idea.

Because the core concept of this equipment was to serve the Sky Clan, forcibly modifying it would be very difficult, and even if it could be modified, the technology could not reach the same level as the ancient civilization in a short period of time.

Using these forcibly modified half-finished products for the Pioneers would be no match for the equipment that the ancient civilization had used for countless years, equipment with which their bodies had developed muscle memory. Ultimately, it would only weaken their fighting power!

What Li Tianran really wanted was for Mad Wraith Island's own armory to produce equipment that met the needs of Second Order Evolvers as soon as possible!

"In terms of life level, Second Order Evolver Pioneers are no weaker than Followers, but they lose only in terms of equipment…" Li Tianran took a deep breath. The Pioneers were the sharpest blade in his hand. He had seen the tragic scene just now, and he naturally felt very sad.

The most urgent thing now was to urge Damian to manufacture new armor and equipment as soon as possible!

…

On Mad Wraith Island.

As Li Tianran's base, it had not been invaded after the revival of the ancient civilization. The reason was simple: the defense here was too strong. Two Apostles had already fallen on this land. Even the fully revived ancient civilization dared not easily bring its troops here.

Inside the armory, Damian and Bai Jingyan looked grave as they stared at the data reports, their faces filled with frustration.

They had conducted tens of thousands of experiments, but they still couldn't find a way to fuse the Marine Apostle gene with metal. The Marine Apostle gene was extremely domineering and aggressive. The metals couldn't control its characteristics at all. The armor produced couldn't provide protection. Instead, it would become a magic armor that devoured life, completely draining the life force of anyone who wore it!