As Yang Zicang recounted, Sigurd also learned about the seawater tributaries, nuclear bombs bombarding the earth. There were also the methods using Bonnie sparks and employing the movement of sheep to transmit information about the health of civilization’s existence—these ways to evade attacks from the Iron Vines.
“To have such an impact. “
“You didn’t expect that it would consequently influence the changes in the pattern of surface civilization, either? “
Sigurd listened quietly to the end, then looked up and said:
“This is humanity as a race. “
Yang Zicang was silent for a moment.
He was being slightly too sentimental. The other party didn’t care much about surface civilization at all; the fact that he could maintain this job itself was already a kind of responsibility and benevolent act for him.
“However, I still hold great respect for the strategies of the proposer and executor of these four plans. “
The Equipment Maintainer glanced at the device beside him, a slight liveliness in his tone.
“Human wisdom seems to have no end; this machine, then, was born from that ethereal and ungraspable energy. “
“Ha, um… ” Yang Zicang rubbed his nose. “I didn’t understand before, but now I know. Sometimes, they do it to hide some precious ancient information, preventing it from losing a certain valuable quality. “
“Hehe. ” Behind the Equipment Maintainer’s thick helmet, a smiling voice said to the young man:
“I also just learned about it. I feel the deed of the land civilization is very precious. So for you, too, this trip was rewarding, right? “
“Of course. “
Phantom images emerged in Yang Zicang’s mind along with his memories.
｛Ancient Gold…｝
Then followed another vision.
An ancient gene storage device that had plunged several civilizations into despair.
And the desperate struggle and extinction of the civilization where that device existed.
Moreover…
It seemed the person before him had also gained something from the continental civilization information he had disclosed.
……
Before the dark wooden counter, Edgar Jin Christie, with a look of shock on his face, watched the Fogfolk man who tried to snatch his key.
With two swift chops, like a steel executioner cutting rock, the Machinist Guard sent him crashing to the ground, his body slid apart, misaligned. The man with the small black obsidian earring, in his dying moment, lowered his head and stared wide-eyed at his two incomplete arms lying severed on the floor.
“No…els, you— ” His lips faltered several times trying to produce sound, andTHUD, his whole body collapsed to the ground.
Galartin also stared wide-eyed at his companion. Dying so easily—the man had been arrogant enough to skip even temporal amplification or internal organ protection.
“Don’t just stand there. ” The young man beside them, who had witnessed Yang Zicang’s sea chase and the wounding of the Full Moon Angel aboard thePrenight Train, and who also possessed the Five-Ring Bloodline, spoke in a voice eerily steady and aged:
“We’ve been exposed. Act early, now is our chance while Yang Buchen and Zhao Anlong are both busy. Go get the person. “
With that, Charles Knowles erupted in a distorted phantom form, his eyes, ablaze with five double-rein force super rings, drilling coldly into Edgar, who was frozen against the counter in shock.
“We… ” Galartin hesitated less than two seconds before, under Knowles’ sharp side glance filled with brutal intent, gritted his teeth and turned to sprint for the stairs. “Rafigal! “
At door 405, the person holding the key and waiting here entered the room.
Soon, several figures, thoroughly soaked, appeared inside the room. They stared at the room’s decor, trembling with excitement.
“Quickly, down to the first floor, move fast. I’ll continue to get the others.“
Rafaigal, cold and arrogant like the master of the place, gave the order, and his figure rippled and vanished from the room.
These six people swiftly moved through the door and ran downstairs.
Behind door 404, on the other side of the peephole that was sealed with an iron sheet.
Zhao Anlong, with his shoulder-length black hair, a red sweatband tied around his forehead, and his face utterly expressionless, stood silently facing the door, which was right in front of him.
He listened to the voices of those few, quietly laughing “hey-ha ” as they ran past the corridor.
In less than twenty seconds, sounds of questioning, surprise, and cheering passed by the door of the room once again.
“There’s one more batch, and then we can handle the Radiance of the accommodations in most rooms,” said the person outside in such a way.
Suddenly, Zhao Anlong’s ears twitched. He heard faint screams and shouts from downstairs, followed by a rumbling vibration of the building.
Manager Shirley gave a comforting smile as she glanced at Kim Glencrest, who had run to her side.
Then she continued looking toward the hall—where a strange metallic mechanical guard stood upright in the center of the blood-red, butchershop-like hall, having just sliced three people apart and flipped them to the ground.
Following that, the six arrivals cascaded down the stairs, leaping and bounding from the top to the first floor, their bodies soaked through from the waters of Juhai.
Huh?!
These men had only just glanced toward the counter when a ripple in the air swayed toward them from behind.
Immediately, the visitors from the Divine Hotel all turned their heads in unison, looking upward.
Wham!
The entire building vibrated even more violently as gusts of wind howled, setting their eardrums buzzing.
The startled exclamations that had just echoed from above were silenced instantly.
Charlie Knowles of the Five Rings had been merely scrutinizing the unexpected visitors before him, but now, with a twitch at the corner of his eye, he slowly turned his head to gaze up at the higher floor.
“With power like that from the sound… that guy, at a time like this, is he still inside the hotel? “
Zhao Anlong wiped the blood off the doorknob of Room 405 with a piece of torn cloth before pushing it open; then, he turned and began his descent toward the stairs below.
Around him emanated countless ethereal and elusive phantoms that contained visions of his form engaging in various acts of destruction.
These phantoms gradually spread from the fourth floor down to the third, then to the second, continuing to descend along with his moving figure.
“Don’t waste time waiting! “
Galardin, on the staircase, called out, his voice slightly strained:
“Get the timeline ready, everyone! We have to strike together. Otherwise, there’s no way we’ll block that fiend! “
The several men exchanged glances with one another from side to side.
“I don’t buy it. He’s merely the holder of a Fourth-Ring Annihilation bloodline after all. “
“What gives him the right to be so formidable? “
“Everyone up! Charge! “
About a dozen roaring warriors roared as they stormed towards the staircase leading up to the fourth floor.
BOOM!
BOOM!
Outside the four-story-high wall on the right side of the hotel.
A circular brick fortification, about two to three meters high, had been built. Shaped like an oversized firecracker chimney, it hung off the side and stretched up into the sky.
The busy velveteen rats, dressed in white apron-style work uniforms, all clutched their heads and shrank down simultaneously amid the tremors.
Gray dust fell in a shower. One of two glowing orbs high above swooped down whoosh—and entered the Costella Hotel through the main gate.
A rat lay prone on a patch of bamboo-woven rack within the bricks being laid. It raised its head, glanced at the precarious/unsteady ground below, shook its head in response to a whistle, and got to its feet.
Wham! A stream of slurry mixed with crushed brick debris poured out of a cast-iron kettle on an elevated support frame to the side, accurately falling into a finely woven bamboo lattice tray, a neat match for the size of the slightly curved bricks.
When the rat inside vaulted out and fled, another rat beside it picked up a small rake, reached out, and twirled and pushed the slurry, smoothing it flush with the bamboo rim. Then, several rats came over to sprinkle a few hundred pinches of quicklime onto it.
……
“Marco, ” dressed in a yellow striped robe, clenched his bloodied jaw. Beneath the rippling, wide-blurred /roving sight and wind, he crept close to a wall.
He dared not use the telescope; it would soon be detected by someone.
Now he could only look up to the sky with him the naked eye.
“President! When… will you ever show! “
From afar came the sounds of battle cries and gunfire.
Is there something wrong? But if so, there wouldn’t be such an aberration.
Beside the surrounding city buildings, and in the darkness, faint, shadowy structures emerged beneath the drifting light and mist.
They still belonged to Talco, but seemed even more dilapidated and devoid of life.
Yet, upon closer inspection, nothing was truly clear.
Marcko, anxious at having his burning gaze diverted, stole a glance at them and then looked upward.
But in that fleeting moment of shifting his gaze, he caught sight of a bomber soaring from the direction of the World Ark headquarters.
“A Science Demon plane. “
At this point, that’s pretty much all they could get into the air.
It must be off delivering intel somewhere. Damn it!
Marcko cast an angry glance at the equally displeasing, churning arc of golden thread in the night sky.
Suddenly, it struck him.
There were many people now watching that spot, wondering who President Yangliner was. And most were just like that.
“They… don’t know President Greiner is in there. Oh, my god! ” Worry began to gnaw at Marcko’s heart.
He watched that tiny, mosquito-sized canopy tarp, waving in a wind that could die out at any moment, finally wavering upwards as if it might just reach the stable hidden shelf above.
“What if they take a wrong look. “
“Don’t go! ” A hoarse voice yelled as someone ran past from another street. “Don’t look! There’s a dead man in there! “
A buzz echoed in Marcko’s head.
In an instant, his eyes turned fierce as he rushed down the street toward the next intersection.
Suddenly, several armed soldiers passed by; two of them turned around upon hearing his footsteps, taking aim.
Marco immediately forced a smile and gradually came to a halt, raising both hands.
“I’m just passing through. “
Suddenly, Marco’s gaze caught a glimpse of the highest point above.
A tarpaulin, which had already struggled to rise further due to the wind’s weakening in the air, began to drift and fall rapidly downward. Someone must have sliced the canvas from the top.
Could some of our people be climbing up there?
Hope that person can keep thinking of a way. Better yet, let him go rescue the Chairman.
Right at that moment, Marco saw with a stiffened expression that one of the tarpaulin baskets—which had initially drifted far away due to the wind—was now tilting downward from the dark heights they’d never paid attention to. After struggling to rise a bit more, it quickly swooped closer to the black vine cabinet.
“God! ” Marco couldn’t help but exclaim tensely.
Seeing his panicked look, several soldiers turned back, squinting and looking up. When they spotted what seemed like someone finally nearing that eerie black cabinet suspended in the air, two of them couldn’t help but let out cheers.
“Is the man inside that thing the one called President Yangliner? “
“Not necessarily, ” one soldier said. “Those saboteurs might also cook up something else. “
The black-vision-armed soldier wearing the steel helmet said worriedly:
“I just hope whoever’s getting close won’t run into trouble. Thank heavens for that. “
……
Beside the vine cabinet.
At last, the tarpaulin that had returned from the dark night drew near to it.
As a blurry golden trajectory came swiftly slanting in from the distant sky across the way.
In the basket, Li Weite, with his dry and chapped lips, gripped the basket’s edge and looked ahead at that strange black cabinet.
He felt as if he were seeing it from a closer distance this time.
“There’s really someone? “
Then, like a true and lucid torrent, energy began to surge forth from the rolling storm around them.
“What’s going on?! ” Li Weite stared in shock, feeling the strange, warm energy brushing past him.
Wasthisthe real change finally beginning?
It felt as if the entire sky and earth began to bulge and pulse with a mirror-like curvature.
All the formless energy of the world started to emerge, converging swiftly towards the box in front of him, pouring into the cabinet.
Li Weite’s mind went blank for a second as he felt his skin wrinkle and then quickly smooth out, yet a wave of weariness clung to him. Gripping the basket, he felt as if the basket itself had aged by a year or two.
The golden trajectory veered from the other side at an angle. The figure wrapped in the cloak upon it merely opened its eyes to look, and its path sharply cut through the rattan cabinet, crashing directly into Li Weite inside the basket.
{Quick, jump down! }
“I… ” Li Weite faltered, and then watched as countless tiny, dense energies erupted across his skin, “What… is this?! “
The golden trail materialized abruptly on the ground. In a spin, Lin Site’s phantom aligned with the figure silent within the doorway. He opened his eyes and rushed to the threshold:
“Get out of the way! What’s up there isn’t something we can handle! “
“What? “
“You’re finally awake. ” The few onlookers looked at Lin Site as he ran out.
Just as they finished speaking, they felt the sky suddenly grow heavy, as countless dense, churning dark clouds appeared and floated overhead. A torrential downpour could fall at any moment.
“What is that?! “
{What a great influence! } A small ball of light appeared outside the door, Grain-Latite Teeth looking up at the sky.
Inside the black cabinet, it seemed as if a hand was touching the opening of the rattan chest.
A soft whisper arose:
“The River of Fate, come with me. “
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