As Yang Zicang and Ma Shuo conversed, from a distance across the dusty Marlenlint Fort…
Inside an agricultural building on a hillside, a man leaned against the wall, fixing his gaze through a long-focus telescope.
In his lens, the two men were little bigger than grains of rice.
A slight, faint energy—a small bee—appeared from the window.
The figure behind the telescope watched for a while, as the Goatherd clutching either a little black sheep or some creature under a hat concluded their conversation with “Yang Buchen ” and turned away.
“Alas, there are also many people on the opponent’s side. ” This man, draped in a cloak embroidered with many ornate patterns, harbored both anger and anxiety in his heart as he shifted his telescope again to look at the collapsed Marlenlint Fort.
The small bee, having finished collecting, slowly drifted away outside the window through the air.
Through the telescope, the tiny figures beside the Marlenlint Fort were lifting the fallen debris near the untouched rocks, as if searching for other items that might be hidden below.
“Trying to find the Secret Envoy’s carrier? Hah, this will not succeed. “
Thinking that he had already witnessed one failure of his own, only to have to report that the deeply hidden Secret Envoy had failed once more, this man let out a long, turbid sigh, put down his telescope, and glanced at a small gem-studded leather wristband he wore.
“Mr. Distributor, this risky observation of mine has come to an end. “
After waiting for a short while, no beacon message from the Distributor had yet appeared on his wrist.
The man in the long robe shifted his eyes slightly sideways to look around the room: brown-gray wooden floors, wooden walls, simple wooden benches, and a small rustic round table—all silent, with nothing else appearing.
But the man in the cloak dared not be careless. Suddenly, he sensed something and swept his gaze outward around him, his eyes finally settling on the dense forest swaying in the wind.
Instantly, a ripple of danger surged from the depths of his heart.
Ding~!
In the forest, several devices attached to the warning lines emitted a sound of shattering.
The man, approximately one meter sixty-five in height, rose immediately, telescoping the cylinder telescope he held in his hand before turning around and dashing out of the room.
He leaped nimbly without the slightest hesitation, landing on a small windowsill outside the corridor that had no window sash but was covered with fine lines. Breaking through these lines, he jumped down toward the sloping hillside behind the house.
As the fine lines on the window shattered, bursts of burning smoke emerged from beneath the wooden floor. Within seconds, flames began to rise from some of the cracks.
After about ten seconds, with a loud boom, this idle farmhouse built against the mountain erupted in a violent cloud of smoke and leaping flames.
The intense firelight cast a faint orange glow on the treetops of the dense forest nearby.
……
Before long, inside the tent, Yang Zicang, who was having some ointment applied by an army medic, saw two soldier-type warriors walk in through the entrance, followed closely by a young man who had come along with him.
“Hey there, Chairman! He ran away! Here, returning this to you. It’s not very useful. “
She Liqing, who had walked in, tossed the small object in her hand to Yang Zicang.
“Hah. ” Yang Zicang let out a wry laugh as he caught it. He looked at the departing She Liqing, who was already mingling near the refugee camp at the World Ark headquarters as a wanderer young adult.
“It couldn’t be, could it? It’s supposed to be able to detect people in the no-man’s-land who harbor hostility toward us. “
“Hmph, ” She Liqing shrugged, “Having it really is convenient. It quickly led us to find traces of people in an abandoned farming area that even Stellar Yuan couldn’t detect. But perhaps its appearance made the target feel something was off, so they slipped away. “
Yang Zicang, sitting on the chair, had one arm resting carelessly across a small wooden stand placed by the military medic. With his other hand, he tossed the small beehive lightly, his eyes narrowed in thought as he glanced at it.
At that moment, a soldier from the Soldier Army (Army-type) stepped in and stood steadily by the tent entrance, reporting in a calm voice:
“The target has high alertness. They set up warning devices in the woods; I suspect they are connected to this hostage incident. But by the time we arrived, the target had already lit the explosives they had set and escaped. “
“Well, it’s already quite something that we could locate them. ” Yang Zicang pinched the fog-enshrouded little beehive between two fingers and said:
“I was just speculating. If one of their people was keeping watch on the perimeter, then our failed setup here would definitely rattle them into some kind of action. This can then use the anger or similar malice stirred up in their emotions to identify them. “
The soldier’s gaze fell on the hand of Chairman Yang Buchen of the World Ark.
Fogfolk always have a knack for peculiar gadgets and gizmos, so this wasn’t seen as anything unusual.
“Alright, thank you all. I’ll be more careful using it in the future. ” Yang Zicang, with a hint of disappointment, put the beehive away.
She Liqing saw this, hesitated, and said, “President, actually, about half of what I said was a joke. “
He gestured with his fingers pinched together.
“It’s not necessarily the bees that exposed us. If the target of this thing isn’t very perceptive, it’s still surprisingly effective. “
The military medic next to him, while applying ointment, thought for a moment and said:
“President Buchen, now that there are so many vicious criminals wishing for the end of the world, it would be good if we could have more of these things placed in densely populated immigrant zones. “
“……“
Yang Zicang, She Liqing, and the Army captain at the tent entrance all fell silent for a moment.
She Liqing waved his arm and gave a dry laugh, “Well, that’s certainly more terrifying than the ornaments sold by distributors. “
“Let’s not talk about that anymore. I don’t know how to make it either. “
Yang Zicang turned his head and looked at the Army captain.
“Captain, do you know if the ability of this beehive comes from that kind of demon blood ability? “
The captain thought for a moment and said, “It’s probably related to Radiance: subtitle…, but based on your description, sir, it shouldn’t be. Perhaps it’s related to the Corrosion of Thought ability. “
Corrosion of Thought. Having heard this bloodline name before, Yang Zicang immediately thought of those telekinetic tape cartridges.
The Army captain said:
“However, any other Demonic Blood, when mixed with the Corrupted Blood Lineage that you Mist folk can purify, will give birth to strange new abilities. So, I suspect it might be an alchemical treasure formed by the fusion of Murky Moonlight, Corrupted Blood Lineage, and small amounts of other polluted Demonic Blood. “
“For example? ” Yang Zicang lifted his head.
“Mm, it might also carry some Abundant Accumulation. Or maybe Primordial Nurturing… ” As he spoke, the Army Captain lost some confidence and shrugged.
“An alchemical item with three types of murky bloodline. ” Yang Zicang lowered his head, gazing at the object in his hand.
Three bloodlines…
Was this why, when it was directly integrated into a human body, the new groups of strong individuals who evolved the World’s Fate chose to alter that world’s power system, reconstructing something like… a mind-mantra model that wouldn’t hurt the physical body?
Thinking it over further, Yang Zicang felt that it still didn’t seem quite right.
“It’s like how plants and soil rely on each other. Even without wanting to use the power of the Soul Hall in the Moon Realm, the true Otherworld has already become like that. The focus should be on dealing with the crisis that led to the destruction of their world. “
From what he currently knew regarding the information about that world’s destruction, there was no intelligence related to crises caused by the use of bloodline abilities.
Even in “Agent of Eminence, ” the novel adapted from Lin Feng’s memoirs, bloodline abilities were the foundation that kept that world stable.
As for why they had to create a new ability system to suppress these bloodline powers, Yang Zicang shook his head, without understanding.
Anyway, it was now confirmed that the objects collected by this honeycomb to brew the energy mist were almost certainly just ordinary citizens.
For Haili Koni on the other side, who was surrounded by strong individuals everywhere, having her use such a thing would have the same effect as when he first used the Silent Night.
Just as he was thinking about this, Yang Zicang suddenly sensed a small bee flying back near the honeycomb with a trailing afterimage.
“Back?“
Yang Zicang looked at the honeycomb in astonishment. This was the third energy bee. Moreover, compared to the previous two, this one appeared plumper in size.
Amid the chatter between She Liqing and the lieutenant, Yang Zicang, who had applied ointment, watched it slip into the small honeycomb.
A blur of hazy colors.
Then, his perception of this small bee became clear in his mind.
After waiting for about ten seconds, the small bee’s figure reappeared from the honeycomb’s opening, through the thickened haze. This time, he saw it clearly: the little creature dashed far away with a slight trembling ripple in the air. In Musing Night’s perception, it flew swiftly down toward the castle below.
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