The flood in Chijing City quickly became public knowledge, hitting the news like a massive boulder dropped into a calm lake, instantly creating a huge uproar.
More accurately, it was a "maritime disaster."
It was hard to imagine that an industrial city located deep inland could be submerged by seawater.
At first, many people dismissed the news as a ridiculous rumor—until a large number of shocking videos and photos from the scene began to go viral across various platforms.
Azure seawater flooded streets and high-rises, strange oceanic supernatural creatures rampaged through the city, and survivors wailed in despair from rooftops.
After the initial shock came a wave of fierce questioning.
Where was the Chijing City Investigation Bureau? Where were their people? Why hadn't they organized an effective rescue?
For the moment, no one could answer these questions.
Consequently, it didn't take long for people to begin to stir the pot online. Claims surfaced that the Chijing City Investigation Bureau had committed dereliction of duty, and that the entire staff had fled as soon as things took a turn for the worse.
Such voices were intentionally or unintentionally guided and amplified, leading to public outrage.
Immediately afterward, people began to dig up the dark history of the Chijing City Investigation Bureau.
Anonymous sources claimed that the Chijing City Investigation Bureau frequently framed and persecuted non-official transcendents, and even their peers from outside the city.
More dirt was thrown by anonymous whistleblowers, some even attaching highly impactful evidence.
As these old grievances were unearthed, the public's anger was ignited, even against the backdrop of the disaster.
Of course, there were also rational voices online.
"In the face of a major disaster, we should focus on the rescue instead of dwelling on other minor matters. Accountability can come later."
Others turned to conspiracy theories: "To release dirt on the Chijing City Investigation Bureau at a time like this, there must be someone with ulterior motives trying to muddy the waters!"
The internet was a mess of noise and conflicting opinions.
But regardless of how loud the outside world became, Amber City remained calm and peaceful.
Even when the city itself experienced a disaster, it didn't stop the residents from living their lives. Why would a disaster in another city thousands of miles away be any different? It had almost no impact at all.
Power and water supplies had returned to normal, and the order of life was well-maintained.
Inside the director's office, the dedicated line from headquarters rang again and again, but no one ever picked up.
The call was eventually transferred to Ling Xun.
Facing the call from headquarters, Ling Xun's tone was steady as he brushed them off with official platitudes. "Yes, I understand the situation. I will relay the headquarters' words to Director Tang exactly as they were... My apologies, the director's current whereabouts cannot be disclosed, and I am not very clear on other specific details."
No matter what the other party said, he remained airtight, pushing all responsibility and unknowns onto Director Tang.
In the Special Operations Section office, the atmosphere was as relaxed as usual.
The sisters talked about the catastrophe in Chijing City as gossip for a while, but the conversation quickly shifted to newly released nail art styles and popular colors.
During the lunch break, the two sisters saw the injured Bai Wanyang and couldn't help but tease him. "Little Bai, you've been quite unlucky these past two days, haven't you?"
Bai Wanyang gave a sheepish smile. He currently had gauze on his forehead and walked with a limp.
Yesterday, he had tripped on flat ground and hit his head. Today, while coming to work, he stepped on his shoelaces and tumbled down the stairs.
He was also full of confusion. "I don't know what's going on. Suddenly, I just started having a run of bad luck."
This succession of accidents was starting to make him feel a bit uneasy.
On the way to the cafeteria, Bai Wanyang ran into Zhang Songyun. The two had been getting along exceptionally well over the past two days, and their friendship had progressed rapidly.
Bai Wanyang tried to call Yue Shi, but the receiver only gave a busy tone. The messages he had sent earlier had also disappeared into the void, receiving no response.
He couldn't help but feel a bit worried.
"Don't worry too much..." Zhang Songyun comforted him warmly, then smoothly steered the conversation toward the cafeteria's new dishes, seemingly unwilling to talk much about Yue Shi.
...
Meanwhile, on the other side.
Yue Shi hadn't even thought about answering calls or sending messages. He didn't have many friends or family to begin with. Any calls at a time like this, aside from a few useless words of concern, would likely be people trying to pry into what had happened in Chijing City.
He couldn't be bothered to deal with them.
His and Ghost's search journey was not going smoothly.
Although they had roughly pinpointed the location of Lab 0, they had been driving for a long time without finding the entrance or even a trace of it.
Compared to half a year ago when they had first escaped, the terrain and features of the area seemed to have changed significantly. Most of the original landmarks had disappeared, making positioning much more difficult.
The vehicle gradually drove into an inhabited Chaos Zone.
Although this was a lawless place filled with many outlaws, anyone with even a bit of discernment didn't dare to stop Yue Shi's car.
Anyone who could drive so arrogantly through the Chaos Zone was certainly not simple. They were either a lunatic or a powerful person with absolute strength.
Occasionally, a few short-sighted fools or pawns sent to test the waters would try to rob Yue Shi's car.
Unfortunately, before they could even finish their sentences, Yue Shi would tie them to the back of the car and drag them along until they were dead, leaving behind terrifying trails of blood.
The gruesome corpses served as a warning to others.
After clearing two waves of small fry, no one else dared to come forward and offend them.
Despite not having found the entrance to Lab 0 yet, Yue Shi wandered through the nearby area in a grand and unhurried manner.
Ghost didn't hide by possessing anything either; he drifted in the passenger seat in his translucent form, making no attempt to conceal himself. It had been a long time since he had appeared before others so openly.
This was undoubtedly a sting operation.
And the fish took the bait very quickly.
As the vehicle entered a canyon filled with jagged rocks, the attack came suddenly.
From the cliffs on both sides of the road, behind the boulders, and even from underground, a massive number of attackers surged out in an instant!
Most of them were of various forms with hideous faces, twisted and deformed limbs, and unnaturally colored skin; some were even covered in keratinous scales.
Very few could maintain a basic human shape; most were Stitched Abominations, appearing like failed experimental products.
Mixed among the attackers were some pure supernatural creatures, their forms even more bizarre. These supernatural creatures were clearly being controlled, which was why they could gather together and act in an orderly fashion.
These were the first wave of expendables sent by the Glory Association—half-finished artificial transcendents and controlled supernatural creatures from the laboratory!
Facing these menacing monsters, Yue Shi's gaze didn't change at all, even carrying a hint of mockery that suggested, "Finally."
He slowed the car down and directly activated 【Labyrinth】 with himself as the center.
No sound was made.
The physical space within a thousand-meter radius instantly underwent a violent distortion. Light shifted and the scene blurred; the originally clear road looked like a mirror being shattered and rearranged.
The monsters charging forward with roars felt their vision blur. Targets that were clearly within reach suddenly became distant, and the companions beside them mysteriously vanished. With every step they took, the surrounding scenery changed as if they were being teleported from one location to another. After walking for a while, they would find themselves back at the starting point.
This was a never-ending loop of corridors; every path led to a dead end. Even a sane person couldn't walk out of it, let alone these monsters with no intelligence.
In just a single second, the massive number of attackers was easily locked away by Yue Shi in the labyrinth he had casually woven.
Yue Shi stopped the car and carefully observed the situation inside the labyrinth.
He quickly discovered that the vast majority of these trapped monsters could not be communicated with. They had even lost the ability to speak, leaving only certain instincts that allowed them to execute simple commands.
"Are these all 'products' of Lab 0?" Yue Shi's voice carried a hint of realization.
"What a sin..."
Lamentations aside, he didn't hesitate in his actions. With a slight shift of his consciousness, the spatial structure inside the labyrinth changed again, adding many extra-dimensional space traps. Once stepped into, they would be packed away.
These monsters were all gathered by Yue Shi into a separate extra-dimensional space, waiting to be dealt with later.
The fishing rod had been cast, and the first wave of fish had been caught. Yue Shi believed that the true mastermind would eventually lose their patience and show themselves.
Yue Shi's efficiency and methods in dealing with the first wave of attacks clearly exceeded the Glory Association's expectations.
So many monsters hadn't even managed to make a decent splash before they were all gone.
However, the Glory Association's preparations clearly didn't stop there. Almost the moment the first wave of attackers was cleared, the second wave followed immediately.
This time, those who appeared were no longer those hideous, failed experimental products.
Several figures slowly walked out from the shadows of the canyon, looking quite powerful.
The Insight vision on Yue Shi's forehead opened, quickly scanning these new enemies.
One was a little girl wearing a pink ballet tutu, though the tutu was already covered in filth. She stood on her tiptoes in a graceful posture. But on her face, the place where her features should have been was a blank space, save for a large mouth filled with layers of spiral-nested serrated teeth.
【Sweet Plum Fairy】: Can expand a unique "Sugar-Coated Domain" around herself, changing the basic attributes of space to make it viscous and stable.
Yue Shi raised an eyebrow slightly. The 【Sweet Plum Fairy】 was clearly meant to counter spatial supernatural powers.
How could Yue Shi allow an existence that could counter him to live?
Aside from the ballet girl, there was also a middle-aged man who looked ordinary, wearing a plaid shirt and looking listless.
His ability was 【Let's Hurt Each Other】: When he takes damage, the source of the damage will suffer the exact same amount of damage. This effect ignores all defense and immunity.
Then there was a thin man with wild eyes. His ability was 【The Ripper】: Whenever he suffers fatal damage, his body instantly disintegrates into countless tiny worms. These worms quickly proliferate and reorganize into more individuals, and the reorganized individuals' strength increases to a certain extent.
Besides these three, Yue Shi's Insight vision also captured two other troublesome targets.
One was a woman with sickly blue-grey skin and gill slits on both sides of her neck. Her ability was 【Siren Song】: Through singing, she can emit high-frequency vibrations and mental shocks, while also performing large-scale sensing.
This seemed to be designed to target hiding abilities.
The last was a hunched-over man carrying a twisted carapace covered in barnacles and seaweed on his back.
The carapace itself was the entity, 【Hermit Crab Shell】: It possesses ultra-strong defense while granting the bearer great strength and recovery. The price is that movement becomes extremely slow. After the bearer is killed, the killer will be chosen as the new bearer.
Yue Shi's eyes narrowed slightly. This group of people was clearly the elite the Glory Association was truly using to wear down his strength and test his trump cards. Their abilities were each more insidious than the last.
Especially 【Let's Hurt Each Other】 and 【Hermit Crab Shell】. The former's rule-based damage reflection made any direct attack problematic. For the latter, the shell would transfer to the killer upon death.
Fortunately, Yue Shi had 【Insight】 and could see their abilities at a glance. Otherwise, if he had acted recklessly, he would have certainly suffered a great loss.
Yue Shi summoned a raven and made a tentative move, attacking the middle-aged man in the plaid shirt.
The raven scratched the other's clothes, and Yue Shi immediately felt the same scratches appear on his own body. It completely ignored his defenses, and the damage didn't reflect onto the raven but directly onto Yue Shi.
What an overbearing ability!
Yue Shi's eyes lit up. At this moment, the middle-aged man was no longer a transcendent in his eyes, but an item!
An item that could be used for a one-for-one trade at the limit!
【The Ripper】 had already charged forward fearlessly. After being heavily injured, he indeed turned into a floor full of worms. Only one worm died, and the swarm immediately proliferated and reorganized into two 【The Ripper】s, their aura seemingly a bit stronger. Then they approached again step by step, attempting a physical brawl.
【Sweet Plum Fairy】 spun and leaped with her eyes closed, dancing ballet. That terrifying serrated mouthpart began to rotate like clockwork. Space became viscous; an ordinary person might not feel it, but Yue Shi was extremely sensitive to changes in space.
【Hermit Crab Shell】 and 【Siren Song】 stood near the Sweet Plum Fairy. The Ripper was still constantly approaching Yue Shi—if he hit him, he would just multiply.
The situation seemed to have fallen into a stalemate for a moment.
"The guys the Glory Association sent this time are really troublesome. But this lineup seems to lack someone responsible for offense, and there are no control-type abilities," Yue Shi commented.
Ghost said, "The events in Chijing City were too sudden. They probably didn't expect you to appear here at this time, especially with me. No matter what plans they originally had, they've all been hastily disrupted. This should be a team that was hurriedly pulled together. How do we kill them?"
Yue Shi waved his hand. "Who said I have to kill them?"
"Our primary goal is to head to Lab 0, not to waste our energy here against a group of difficult guys."
The two of them chatted as if no one else was there, and Ghost hadn't even gotten out of the car.
This was blatant contempt.
But the five people from the Glory Association seemed to have no emotions and didn't show any anger.
However, from the increasingly frantic movements of the Ripper, it could be seen that they weren't entirely without feeling.
"Go interfere with that awkward dancer. Don't let her keep dancing," Yue Shi said to Ghost.
Ghost immediately drifted from the passenger seat toward the Sweet Plum Fairy. Acting with him were countless ravens surging out from the shadows.
The Siren began to sing loudly. The sound was extremely sharp and piercing; the ravens exploded one after another, merging back into the shadows.
Ghost, however, was unaffected.
However, the people from the Glory Association seemed to understand Ghost's abilities well. Knowing that he had almost no combat power without possessing something, they directly cleared away everything nearby that could be possessed and had killing potential.
But in the next second, a strange "crack" sounded, and the entire space was distorted into a labyrinth.
The Sweet Plum Fairy immediately collapsed to the ground, spitting out a mouthful of blood. The Sugar-Coated Domain she had expanded had been forcibly shattered.
The spatial abilities Yue Shi mastered were of a very high tier; they weren't something just anyone could challenge.
"You guys who can't be killed and can't be touched... I'll find a quiet place for you all to play by yourselves."
The first to be targeted in the labyrinth was 【Let's Hurt Each Other】, who was directly tossed into an extra-dimensional space by Yue Shi.
Next was 【The Ripper】. Yue Shi prepared a looping, nested space for him; it didn't matter how many worms he produced.
The others were even easier to handle.
In just a dozen seconds, the second wave of attackers, who had been so menacing just a moment ago, were one by one imprisoned and sealed away in different spatial rifts by Yue Shi.
They hadn't been defeated; they were just "stored" in different spatial pockets, temporarily isolated from the world.
Yue Shi brushed the dust off his clothes. "These five look like they can be communicated with. I'll interrogate them separately later..."
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