There were three mbers in Uenoshi’s forr Chosen Team: herself, Moon Fate, and the Faceless One.
Just as her na had been assigned by the Divine Child, the nas of her two teammates were also gifts from the Divine Child, each matching their respective abilities.
The Faceless One’s ability was disguise. She could use her Mind Power to impersonate anyone. As long as her ntal energy didn’t run out, she could sustain the disguise indefinitely.
Her ability had another trait: once the disguise was complete, she not only took on the target’s face, body, and voice, she could even mimic the target’s abilities.
How well those abilities worked depended on the relative Mind Power positions between her and the impersonated target.
Because of this special talent, the Divine Child selected her for the Chosen Team, assigning her to support Uenoshi and to carry out infiltration and assassination missions when needed.
The other teammate, Moon Fate, had an exclusive Mind Power item called the Moon Wheel. When used, it summoned a huge lunar disc, like a toy children once played with.
The wheel could trap a target inside, spinning them until they lost balance and eventually passed out.
Both of these teammates’ destructive potential was far inferior to Uenoshi’s; they were functional specialists.
That fit the Divine Child’s grouping logic: one destroyer per squad was enough, the rest were to serve as that destroyer’s support.
Previously, the Chosen Team’s destroyer, Uenoshi, had been placed under house arrest, and the other two mbers were under investigation. Now that Uenoshi appeared to have been abducted by Shadow, it amounted to outright betrayal.
As her teammates, Moon Fate and the Faceless One were imdiately placed under strict surveillance. When they received contact from Uenoshi, they agreed at once to assist in the capture to prove their innocence.
As for Shadow…
Action team personnel gathered at headquarters to coordinate with the Special Investigation Team. This ti the two sides would operate jointly, with the Special Investigation Team providing intelligence and the Action Team executing the arrest.
“The Divine Child’s order is to capture Shadow if possible. If live capture isn’t feasible, eliminate him on the spot,” the Action Team’s commander announced.
mbers of the Special Investigation Team exchanged looks, feeling the directive was sowhat off.
An older investigator frowned and said, “I don’t an to disrespect the Divine Child, but Shadow only took one person; he hasn’t killed any of our people. What if we go all-out and fail?”
“Right. Shadow’s power is too strong. Making him our mortal enemy… it doesn’t make tactical sense. If the operation fails and he launches indiscriminate attacks, we won’t be able to cope.”
“You bastards, are you questioning our capability?” a heavily tattooed man from the Action Team snapped, his gaze vicious.
The Special Investigation Team fell silent. The Action Team commander spoke, “This strike team is composed of four Ascendant squads. We are confident we can handle Shadow. We know his abilities, but he knows nothing about ours.”
“Also.” The commander looked at a woman in the Special Investigation Team, “Your na is Suzuki, right? You’ve been assigned to the action group as well. Your Profiling ability might prove useful.”
“Yes! I’m honored to serve!” Suzuki said proudly.
Soone entered from outside, looking grim. “The foreign affairs departnt just received a ssage from Beixing.”
“What ssage?”
“First, they asked us to provide evidence that the suspect is Shadow. We don’t have that.”
The conclusion that Shadow was behind the abduction ca entirely from Suzuki’s Profiling results. But that cannot be accepted by Beixing as hard evidence.
“Secondly… Beixing advised caution if the suspect truly is Shadow. They said they no longer have any official channels of contact with Shadow.”
“Hmph, they don’t want to get involved,” the Action Team commander snorted. “Ignore Beixing. We proceed as planned. Depart in ten minutes, head to the rendezvous point Uenoshi agreed on.”
“Yes!”
Uenoshi was now in a forest, wearing an earpiece.
She scanned her surroundings and asked, “Why did you choose this place?”
Her voice traveled through the earpiece to Guan Tong’s ear, though he was not with her.
“Because I’m familiar with this forest,” he replied.
That was true.
When Guan Tong first arrived in Andai State, after burning down Basong’s manor, he lived here for a while.
That ti made him intimately familiar with every part of these woods, so he had chosen it as his battlefield.
Undoubtedly, Uenoshi contacting Moon Fate and the Faceless One was his plan.
The goal was to draw out the Divine Child’s trusted subordinate.
Because Uenoshi was important to the Divine Child, once news reached him he would send at least one trusted aide to participate in the capture.
If Guan Tong could control that person, he could in turn obtain the Divine Child’s whereabouts.
Although he could have caused a big scene to achieve his aim, he disliked widening the conflict. His target was the Divine Child, not other unrelated people of Sakura Prayer, so he used this thod to find them.
Now Uenoshi was inside the forest, while Guan Tong stayed outside. He intended to remotely control Shadow to fight, keeping himself off the battlefield to maintain an overall view.
Partly he was avoiding remote area-saturation strikes—although Sakura Prayer’s military strength dropped after relocation and they hadn’t brought many weapons, they might have bought more recently from the Suroma Empire.
After Sakura Prayer’s move, military anxiety was inevitable. Even if it required spending many Ascension Coins, they would seek channels to buy arms. As a major arms-selling nation, Suroma would hardly pass up such business.
If the Divine Child went mad and found Uenoshi and Guan Tong in the forest and ordered a remote bombardnt, things could turn dangerous.
As for Uenoshi in the woods, her scale-covered body could defend against most thermal weapons. She also knew she couldn’t expect to be completely risk-free as bait.
“They’re here.”
Guan Tong’s voice ca through Uenoshi’s earpiece.
“Two people entered the forest; they should be your teammates.”
“Only them?” Uenoshi asked curiously. “They didn’t tell others?”
“No, probably to avoid alerting the beast. Only they entered the forest, but both carry communicators.”
Guan Tong had spread many shadow lines through the forest to monitor the two entrants from multiple angles.
“I suspect as soon as they see you, they’ll alert the capture team. To ambush us, those people will likely use teleportation items to appear at fixed points.”
Guan Tong knew his powers had manifested so many tis that people would prepare counterasures.
There might even be teams tasked daily with gathering intelligence and studying his abilities.
No organization would foolishly attack him head-on now. Any assault would aim for surprise. What works better for surprise than teleportation items?
“They’re heading toward you.”
“When will you act?”
“I won’t move if they don’t. I won’t strike before their main force appears.”
A few minutes later, Moon Fate and the Faceless One found Uenoshi.
When the three t, the atmosphere turned tense.
Uenoshi spoke first. “I contacted you, invited you to leave with . Now that you’re here, you agree, right?”
“Yes. We are willing to stand with our leader,” Moon Fate said.
The Faceless One asked, “Leader, the one who rescued you is Shadow, right? Why can’t we see him?”
“You’ll et my rescuer if you leave this country with .”
The Faceless One and Moon Fate exchanged glances and ceased their disguises.
Moon Fate said coldly, “Leader, do you really think after you’re taken we could still move freely?”
“…”
“We don’t understand why you would betray the Divine Child and us. Instructor Mu Tiancheng killed himself in despair; you bear so responsibility for that… Do you truly lack any sense of gratitude?”
Uenoshi said lightly, “Grateful for their training so they could send
out to turn people into serpent servants? Grateful for their plan to use my ability to realize their delusions of ruling the world?”
“Isn’t that how it should be?” Moon Fate looked incredulous. “This era is survival of the fittest!”
The Faceless One added, “Leader, the Divine Child only asked you to convert ordinary people into serpent servants. Don’t you know that in this age ordinary lives an nothing? Ordinary people will sooner or later die under so rule; they might as well beco serpent servants and contribute value.”
Listening from outside the forest, Guan Tong felt sorrow more than anger at their words.
Such rhetoric proved the Fire Thief had succeeded in dividing humanity. At least within Sakura Prayer, Ascendants who no longer regard ordinary people as human had beco the dominant ideology among the higher-ups.
Perhaps one reason Uenoshi gave him the Kimos Star fragnt was that she saw the environnt as hopeless, and that acquiring more power would only bring greater harm to humanity.
“Leader, it seems you’re beyond saving.” Moon Fate pulled out a scepter-type item and planted it in the ground.
A ring of light imdiately flared centered on the scepter.
“We know we can’t match you, so there will be specialists to deal with you. As for where Shadow is, I expect we’ll interrogate it after we capture you.”
As the light expanded, over a dozen figures appeared.
They were the Action Team who had arrived via collective teleportation. Counting the four Ascendant squads, the commander, and Suzuki, there were fourteen people.
The commander, who had been listening in through his earpiece, ordered on arrival: “Arrest Yamata no Orochi imdiately.”
The four Ascendant squads moved to surround Yamata no Orochi. One threw several smoke grenades, and thick smoke instantly spread.
These people understood Uenoshi’s ability well. They knew they had to block her vision at once; otherwise, if those vertical pupils activated, it could cause hallucinations or even turn them into serpent servants.
Watching remotely, Guan Tong knew the fish had taken the bait and it was ti to start reeling in the line.
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