As the ripple enveloping Ma Shuo and the other two figures spread out, they all paused in unison, observing the attire of two men staring at them from within the room.
“Where is Mr. Rocmont and the others… “
As Rayne spoke, Haili Huikewen only then realized with a start that Rocmont and the other two, who had been standing there after entering the room, had vanished.
Moreover, the room’s décor had completely changed!
Rayne immediately felt his skin brushed by a tangible, solid sensation, as if a feather-soft brush had probed every inch of skin and follicle.
Then he saw the man in front let out a soft exclamation, his gaze fixed on Mr. Huikewen beside him.
“What is this room? ” Haili Huikewen asked, surveying its layout.
“Never mind what it is for now, ” said Kieras, who wore a doeskin leather jacket. With a flicker in his eyes, he gestured to the man with a sword on his back to touch the key in his hand against the back of Ma Shuo’s hand. Ma Shuo had taken a step forward, a cheerful smile on his face.
Then Ma Shuo froze on the spot.
The two in front turned their deep gaze back to Haili Huikewen. The man with the sword withdrew the key from Ma Shuo’s now-dazed hand, took a step closer, and moved before Huikewen.
“You’ve never been tainted by demonic blood? “
“No, ” Haili Huikewen replied.
“If you haven’t… ” the man mused for a moment.
As for the matter of this mysterious inn, in the past two months, everyone had already learned some information about it through their own channels.
Strange rooms had occasionally appeared in the world before.
Those tainted by blood or those who’d encountered special incidents might travel through such a room to a legendary inn.
There are three managers in the inn, as well as some guest rooms that can be checked into by telling your own special experiences…
But, at that time, in these corners of the world abnormal rooms appeared, not everyone who entered them would have a special encounter.
According to some baseless speculation, those who could enter such places through a room, aside from being abnormal themselves, at least had to have some kind of strange experience. But they weren’t too sure about that.
“Excellent, sir. Being able to enter means you are special in some sense. “
“The establishment of the World Ark was proposed by our family. “
Hailikewen’s words made the two people in the room nod thoughtfully.
“Thank you, ” the man said, as he touched the key in his hand to the hand of Hailikewen, whose aura had returned to calm.
Weahow, dressed in a long shirt and jacket, looked down and saw the key touch the back of his hand. Before his doubts could even rise, it was as if something extremely important was bursting forth in his mind!
His lips parted slightly, his eyes widened involuntarily. In his mind, like a flood breaking through a dam, countless scenes from today suddenly surfaced.
On duty, resting. News, chaos! Campfire, slander!!
And roaring cheers and gnashing hatred from all over the world; coupled with countless incidents that various nations rapidly attempted to cover up, yet were stirred up by some invisible hand, pulling the hidden levers of signals in each country to spread at a fierce pace — the “terrifying truth “!
Despair…
Fear so intense it made his skin tremble, Wi K’sai’s gaze froze, fixed on the deeply staring person before him.
This broad-jawed man nodded to him, then, observed by Rayne on the left, transferred the key to the guard’s hands.
A piercing scream followed, causing Wi K’sai and the man in the room with the slightly raised eyes to glance at Ma Shuo, who was shouting beside them.
This bare-armed man, with inexpressible terror, clutched his head with both palms.
“What are you waiting for!” He panicked, stepping forward to rush out of the room, but then faltered back, “I should…“
Ma Shuo muttered in confused urgency, “Wait, wait, do you know—no, only we know—this!“
He shook his clenched fists twice, swinging them like lifting a dumbbell, then turned to the two people in the room and said:
“Do you have any idea, the danger of this world stems from…!“
“Isn’t this already common knowledge?“
“No, it’s not!” Ma Shuo shouted, “Right here, in this gathering—it’s just like so-called nuclear radiation protection!“
The few people in the room stared at the man.
As he shouted, Ma Shuo’s eyelids blinked. He froze, coming to a slow halt, paused for two seconds… then spoke with confusion in his voice:
“The Goatherd?“
……
A pitch-black canopy, forming a heavy cover, shrouded the whole wilderness.
Wade and Thomas Wild, the goatherds, felt the trembling beneath their seats gradually cease as the aircraft came to a halt.
“Sirs, we have arrived at our destination. “
A man wearing a slightly dark blue-green triangular pilot’s cap, with deep-set eyes, grabbed the cabin door handle at the aircraft’s doorway, pushed down firmly on the door valve, and thrust the heavy door outward.
Wade turned back to glance at his goatherding whip.
“We should go too. ” Thomas unfastened his seatbelt, leaned over, and picked up the long handle, which had grown sweaty from his grip.
At that moment, a crowd had gathered noisily in the open space outside.
Amidst the sound of bleating sheep everywhere, people who appeared to be coordinators ran around the spacious yet crowded area, shouting for transport planes that had already opened their holds and unloaded the sheep to pull away to other spots nearby.
Several goats with their hooves tied up were dragged aside under streetlights that dispelled the night’s darkness, where they were freed by soldiers.
Soon after, two more planes hummed in, gliding at a low speed.
Above several large inclined nets laid out in advance, the suspended sheep could be seen falling precisely from the planes, from just above the ground.
Soldiers from the Army, who had been waiting nearby, quickly moved in, pulling away the nets and disassembling them for redistribution.
The planes, meanwhile, hummed as they slid upward and away from the area.
……
“Mr. Goatherds, sirs. “
The two men at the door of the private jet gazed into the distant silhouettes of buildings. There, faint, flickering lights seemed to be scattered like tiny stars.
An officer wearing a peaked military cap stepped briskly and steadily from the side toward the lowered gangway of the plane, which had nearly reached the ground.
Resting one hand on the railing, the officer looked up at the two farmers standing at the cabin door, who were simultaneously donning their rolled-brim felt hats and peering into the dark distance.
“Hello, Colonel, ” Thomas replied, lowering his gaze, his cheeks slightly gaunt.
Beside him, Wade, whose face was chiseled and sharp from years in the wind, asked with a hint of puzzlement:
“Sir, far off in the distance… is that a castle spire? This couldn’t be Marlenlint Fort, could it? “
“Come on down, ” the Colonel beckoned from below, tilting his head. “Never mind where we are. This battlefield won’t be a large one. “
Wade stepped down the gangway.
“Even if it’s not large, ” he said, “based on our past two experiences, we’d need an estimated casualty ratio of at least four to seven times our number just to effectively avoid the emergence of that demonic presence. “
The officer clasped the iron railing with a large hand sheathed in a black leather glove. With a slight chuckle, he looked up and added:
“Gentlemen, you’re truly among the most seasoned advisors the Hevinksik Army has. Our Air Force has fully taken your advice to heart. “
Turning, he raised his arm and pointed into the distance:
“Hear the sound of trucks and some commotion? The small flocks of goats in the nearby villages and the refuge areas’ reserves have already begun to be urgently dispatched under the pretext of delivering meals for us.“
“Because when one goat is slaughtered, there are inevitably four more beside it,” the colonel chuckled with a backward glance, “so you don’t need to worry about any area being beyond the reach of the flocks.“
The people in the black Winkenzer army uniforms passing by noticed the two men dressed like farmers disembarking from the officers’ exclusive aircraft.
Though suspicions had crossed their minds, it wasn’t until this moment that the busy young men, upon seeing these two figures, felt a tangible, solid unease thud in their hearts.
At a time like this, the Goatherd has still appeared in Marlenlint Fort, this small city crammed with refuge-seekers!
……
General‘s Office.
When the Special Defense Command remodeled the general’s office building, they selected construction workers and craftsmen exclusively from the kingdomʿʰs most core noble families. Every single one of them worked under special supervision.
An apparently plain and ordinary building that actually carries many specially engineered designs easily unnoticed by common folks.
These blueprints were all reviewed by the kingdom’s expert panel, and the construction was carried out according to the most standard techniques.
Some special structures—such as the placement positions of certain celebrity statues, or the routing and material choices of doorframes and flooring—were also installed by professional master craftsmen.
In the private line room, the busy operators finally had a moment to relax because the general had gone out.
This brought their workload straight down, with other teams now having to step up and get busy instead.
A girl of about seventeen or eighteen, by the window, turned her head to look at the thick, unopenable glass pane. It was actually two layers thick, with a slanted, fine metal mesh barrier in between.
The maiden listened quietly to her own breathing, her mind drifting back to an earlier piece of intel she’d gotten through a swapped-out communication wire that extended into the sealed comms room.
Right now, the Air Force was working for the Goatherd.
Out of the corner of her eye, she glanced at the wire connector peeking out from under her headset.
This particular wire was incredibly stealthy; it was tucked snugly within that flexible communication cable. Without the most expert technician, pinpointing it on a hunch alone would be impossible— to say nothing of fishing it out from that gnarly tangle of dense, interwoven metal strands.
But if someone discovered it existed, they’d suss it out easily just by noticing the difference in material.
Thus, they’d know that someone within the “Private Line ｛Radiance: subtitle…｝” secured chamber was using a special method to exact intel— a room so sensitive even a single whiff of blood taint would raise alarm across half its structural blocks.
And now, before she left for the day, she had better cut and isolate the fine line running from that self-tapped wire to the comms room’s phone mic.
That way, she could avoid blowing her cover too soon.
The girl let out a quiet sigh.
She mulled over the info she’d gotten moments ago: War— at this kind of hour? The first thing the General had done after taking command of the Air Force was to deploy the Goatherd.
Where could it be, and which country would be the enemy? As she quickly ran through the names of neighboring countries in her mind, the door suddenly swung open.
A squad of soldiers filed in.
The girl swiftly adjusted her posture, standing up beside her seat just like all the other girls around her.
“We need to conduct an inspection, ” said the armed soldier.
Then a team of engineer-like soldiers swiftly entered the room. The young girl, only seventeen or eighteen, steadied her breath as she watched a boy start examining the area right by her seat.
She also noticed a man standing at the door with slightly dry skin. ‘He probably wouldn’t dare to unleash mana-miasma here in the private communication chamber,’ she thought.
Because doing so might trigger something within the chamber, or even destroy any residues left behind by a possible contamination ability that had been used.
Suddenly, the male officer’s voice sounded from the front, right beside her.
“Ma’am, would you mind telling me how you transmitted those documents out? “
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