Ch.9191. The End of the False Empire

After learning that the Chinese Empire—provisionally called North China—had begun to extend its reach into Manchuria and North Korea, areas that appeared to be occupied only by monsters and thus seemingly unproblematic to take over.

‘········Are they idiots?’

I sighed at these foolish humans steeped in Sino-fascism, thinking they were digging their own graves.

Even though many monsters had been swept away by recent major incidents, North Korea was still crawling with hundreds of mid-level and above Hive Minds (fake ones), and Manchuria, which my influence hadn’t properly reached yet, still had high-level warlord monsters each controlling their own territories.

And they want to send people directly to incorporate such lands into their territory? Even dispatching troops for hunting would be difficult enough.

This is just plain stupid.

Although the current Emperor is supposedly the strongest high-level Hunter in the Chinese Empire, he is ultimately the head of a nation.

Having essentially gained his position as head of state through force, he can’t easily leave his post without risking rebellion or invasion from other Chinese states. So in the end, all he can deploy is his own military…

But how could an army of such scale, with several emperor-sanctioned unofficial factions within it, possibly function normally?

If he were to dispatch armed forces, those troops could potentially turn their guns on him in cooperation with high-level Hunter generals. This option is nearly impossible.

At best, the Emperor’s personal guard might be able to occupy a territory the size of a city, but the problem is that these guards are needed to defend against monsters like the winter wolf packs that roam Siberia and continuously attack the Chinese Empire, leaving them with no capacity for covert operations elsewhere.

Unable to predict their intentions, I decided to use psychic powers to check directly—

[Activating Primal Psychic: Record Reading (A)]

‘What in the world…’

Surprisingly, the answer revealed by my psychic check was that the Emperor, who issued the order, had no real plan at all.

The Emperor had simply sent spies into this extremely dangerous territory because he genuinely believed he could reclaim his people’s ancestral lands (which they weren’t).

He had even used brain surgery to brainwash and modify orphans with no connections, ensuring that even if their identities were discovered, it wouldn’t cause major problems.

They were equipped with stealth or invisibility psychic abilities, and their equipment completely concealed traces of psychic energy and presence. Ordinary security networks would never have detected them…

But infiltrating this jungle (Teio’s domain) that Teio personally manages was these Chinese agents’ most fatal mistake.

When Teio monitors the entire domain, what happens to people trying to hide themselves as they enter?

Rather, the absence of any detectable presence becomes suspicious, so Teio sent heavily armed Dragonian soldiers to those locations—that’s the outline of this incident.

And when a demigod learns of such facts—

‘How dare they… enter my domain without permission?’

Naturally, they become enraged and, since they already disliked them, decide to simply erase them.

※ ※ ※

The Chinese Empire.

An anachronistic dictatorship ruled by an Emperor with absolute power, as if it had emerged straight from history. Its territory covers roughly the North China region and the western part of Liaodong, making it the second largest Chinese state.

Openly claiming to be the successor to Communist China—which in this world is regarded similarly to Nazi Germany—this insane nation implements all sorts of irrational policies that even the Communist Party never openly practiced.

Steeped in eugenics, they’ve implemented a caste system—a social hierarchy based on psychic abilities and bloodlines—in this modern era, and they openly abduct dissidents to turn them into modified soldiers.

Even though the era has become somewhat cyberpunk, this is too extreme, so naturally the entire world treats them not just as a non-state but as an international criminal organization.

Thus, internally it’s a corrupt dystopia while externally it’s like North Korea of this era, but there’s one reason the Chinese Empire maintains itself despite this terrible situation:

Due to their unique social system where strength allows one to rise to the upper echelons of the state, their military power is exceptional.

With Hunters who want to rule without caring about others immigrating or seeking asylum there, they have over 30 high-level Hunters, and the fifth highest number of mid-level Hunters in the world.

Moreover, having absorbed the weapons and technology of the old Communist China, they can produce most materials themselves, and the monster crisis has conveniently reduced the population enough to avoid resource shortages.

They are literally like large-scale terrorists, and the collapse of the Chinese Empire was currently my goal.

Therefore, I began to formulate a plan to bring down the Chinese Empire, considering the means I could use without burden—and before long, I reached a conclusion.

‘Should I just take a few high-level specimens from the Manchurian base, disguise them as wild monsters, and have them charge in?’

Having taken control of more than half of Manchuria’s underground, a few high-level monsters wouldn’t be a burden, and since I enjoy monster movies where giant creatures appear and destroy everything, why not create a real-life monster movie?

※ ※ ※

All events in reality, even when they appear otherwise, occur under strict causality.

Even seemingly brainless people like Japan in World War II, the Japanese Army, Mutaguchi, or Renya—their seemingly stupid and dull judgments must have some self-justification and causal relationship—and the same applies to this situation.

If a metal giant appeared out of nowhere and started destroying the Chinese Empire, humans would certainly suspect there was someone behind it, but if an animal-like monster emerged from Manchuria, they’d just think it was a common monster invasion.

Therefore, to give plausibility to the appearance of a monster attacking the Chinese Empire, I began designing a monster underground in some nameless shrubland (though over 6 meters tall, it at least appears that way externally) in Manchuria.

And the most plausible monster that could suddenly appear in Manchuria without seeming out of place was, of course, the winter wolf.

Winter Wolf. A monster that mainly inhabits Siberia, Manchuria, and similar regions, taking the form of a wolf as its name suggests—specifically, a large and beautiful wolf with blue-white fur.

The typical adult has a height of about 6 meters and a length of about 12 meters, and as can be inferred from its name, it’s a psychic user specialized in using psychic cold.

Additionally, it’s quite fast, has bones and teeth similar to mythril, and its fur and skin contain mythril-like components, making it a very powerful monster… but its true danger comes from its growth rate and social nature.

Cubs become sub-adults in about 3 weeks, and even sub-adults are level 6 monsters. Fully grown adults are level 4, and if they survive for just 1-2 years, they easily become level 3 high-grade monsters—their growth rate is that fast.

Basically, they form packs of 16-20 adults, and dozens of such packs may join under a high-level wolf. Furthermore, if a level 1 Winter Wolf appears, all Winter Wolves in Siberia might unite under it, showing their strong tendency to submit to powerful leaders.

And for a Winter Wolf to evolve into a level 1 high-ranking individual, there’s a setting—a consideration from the operators to prevent Winter Wolves from becoming too difficult to defeat—that when they reach level 3, they leave their pack and survive alone, which is actually the most important part.

Given this setting that an individual who leaves its pack can suddenly evolve to level 1 and form a new pack, it wouldn’t be strange at all if a suddenly appearing Winter Wolf led other Winter Wolves.

So the identity of the monster attacking the Chinese Empire would be a Winter Wolf, but… honestly, this feels more like just an animal than a movie monster, which seems somewhat lacking.

Therefore, the method I chose was to create a monster based on this wolf that would feel like some kind of mutant Winter Wolf.

After all, a proper movie monster protagonist needs arms to really feel like a monster.