The Species Extinction Plan

If the public ever learned that these precious gems could be scooped up by the handful just inside the Threshold, they wouldn't fetch high prices anymore—and security there would become a nightmare.

The Federation's ruling plutocrats always thought several steps ahead.

Once the area was cleared, they dispatched elite troops to explore the Threshold.

The primary objective was to locate mineral deposits, especially rare ores.

Ideally, they'd bring back a few samples to verify quality and assess whether it was worth investing manpower and resources there.

Despite thorough preparations before every departure, only one in ten soldiers ever made it back.

The reasons were many. First, weaponry was limited—many powerful modern weapons simply couldn't reach their full potential inside the Threshold.

Second, even though teams set out in large groups, everyone was teleported to different locations upon entry. Each person fought alone, and encounters were almost nonexistent.

That she and Xie Xu had managed to cross paths last time now seemed like a miracle among miracles.

Third, the timing of the Threshold's openings was utterly unpredictable.

Since records began, the Threshold had opened over a hundred times. Sometimes the interval stretched to three months; other times, only three days passed.

To get out, anyone inside had to be at the right place at the right time.

These stacked difficulties meant that, in the end, only ten or twenty percent of the soldiers who set out ever returned, and the ores they brought back were pathetically few.

Casualties were so severe that no one volunteered, no matter how generous the Federation's incentives.

But by then, the Federation had already assessed the Threshold's development value from the meager ore samples retrieved.

Worth it! More than worth it! Not only were the mineral resources valuable, but the fertile land there was exactly what the Federation desperately needed.

According to this year's demographic statistics, the Federation's forty-two states had already surpassed the ten-billion population mark.

Overpopulation had become a pressing, urgent problem.

And this sudden otherworld was like God opening a window for the Federation government.

Occupy it.

Wipe out every species there, reshape it into an environment suitable for human habitation, and then immigration could begin.

The Species Extinction Plan became the most prominent and heavily prioritized proposal among the Federation's many agendas.

With a goal in sight, the next step was to move toward it.

To carry out the Species Extinction Plan, they needed to understand their target.

Know your enemy and know yourself, and you'll never be defeated.

Of course, "them" meant not just the monsters, but everything inside the Threshold—the terrain and geography, mineral resources, natural climate, vegetation and fauna, even bacteria and fungi, as well as the viruses those creatures carried. All of it was subject to study.

But by now, no military unit was willing to accept a mission from which there was no returning.

The Federation's initial solution was to reveal the Threshold's secret and let ordinary citizens seeking quick wealth volunteer to go in. The Federation would supply every entrant with weapons and first-aid supplies, on one condition: before entering, each person had to take a government-issued camera and record the entire journey, and surrender one-third of whatever they brought back to the Federation.

This way, as long as anyone made it back alive, the Federation could obtain a massive trove of information to analyze and catalog.

Given enough time, or enough survivors, they could eventually understand the Threshold fully and accurately.

But that approach didn't work.

Too few people ever came back.