"So you’re saying that Paxiu took out the bullet from his body right in front of you all, returned to his rented apartnt, took a shower, and even changed his clothes?"
The man, wearing glasses and looking sowhat refined, lowered his head, staring at the young man fully ard in front of him, and asked coldly, "Did he also dry his hair and style it?"
"He didn’t do that, at least when we arrived, his hair was still wet," the young man whispered, "Sir, you know, his hair isn’t very long, so he doesn’t really need to dry it after washing."
"Should I be praising you for your keen observation?" Upon hearing the young man’s response, the glasses-wearing man took a deep breath, his voice lowering slightly, akin to the growl of a beast, "Are you all useless? He destroyed the drone, made it back to his apartnt, and you still gave him so much ti."
"Sir," seeing the anger of the glasses-wearing man, the young man tensed his body slightly, hesitating to speak, "It was the Federal Bureau of Investigation that obstructed us, affected our speed, and what we initially planned, the fog mixed with Blood of the Venus placed in the drone, should have worked on Paxiu, in theory, but he absorbed the mist without passing out, which led to the entire plan getting out of control."
"You were already at the apartnt building’s bottom, and a regional Federal Bureau of Investigation chief, just a D-class transcendent, could hold you off for so long?" Hearing the young man’s response, the glasses-wearing man took another deep breath, "And don’t tell you went up by stairs."
"Yes, sir," the young man glanced at the man with glasses, whispering, "The apartnt building is too old, the elevator’s broken, we had to take the stairs up."
"Hiss—"
A long inhaling sound resonated under the bright lights, as the man with glasses looked at the young man in front of him, seemingly unable to speak.
Trembling, he raised his hand, veins bulging, pulled out a cigar from his pocket with stiff arms, clipped the cigar’s tip, and clamped it in his mouth.
Crack——
A long fla was ignited, the burning match of the cigar coincidentally appearing before the cigar, lighting the cigar in the mouth of the man with glasses.
"Inhale——Exhale——"
Taking a deep draw on the cigar, exhaling dense smoke, the man with glasses looked at the young man who handed over the match to light it, supposedly calming his emotions a bit.
"Sir, it seems Paxiu calculated our timing. Although what he did seed like a lot, the action was very fast, not giving us much ti, by the ti we got up the stairs, he had finished handling everything."
Seeing the man with glasses calm down a bit, the young man flicked the match in his hand, extinguishing the remnant fla on it, cautiously explaining, "I have already arranged for people and drones to blockade the nearby district, conducting a carpet search, he can’t have gone far."
"Have you found him now?" Removing the cigar from his mouth, the man with glasses hoarsely asked.
The young man’s face stiffened.
"Has the building he lived in been searched?" the man with glasses continued to ask.
"He jumped directly from the window," the young man opened his mouth slightly, just about to explain, but upon seeing the look in the man with glasses’ eyes, imdiately said, "But we checked it all, no trace of him."
In conclusion, he added promptly, "From the first floor to the top, we’ve checked it all, he shouldn’t be in that building."
"What about the rooftop?" the man with glasses suddenly asked sharply.
"The rooftop was checked too," the young man quickly said, "We checked it right from the start and even had drones scan it thoroughly."
"Exhale——" The man with glasses exhaled, looking at the young man, his complexion eased, "I just received news from Ains, the President’s condition is very poor right now, this ti only we ca along, it’s the President whom we follow,"
He looked at the young man, his body silhouetted against the light, his head slightly lowered, so shadow covering his eyes and nose bridge, "If we fail to protect the President and can’t even capture an assassin, what face will we have when we return to Ains, to et the Bureau Chief and our colleagues?"
He sighed slightly, his fingers pinching the slightly sparking cigar, "The pressure is heavy on both you and , we’ve worked so many years, done so much, earned so much, we all understand the Bureau’s ways."
"Yes, yes," the young man lowered his head, beads of sweat seeping from his forehead, "I’ve already contacted Dawn City’s police departnt, they’re calling everyone back to cooperate with our overti, but,"
He hesitated, taking a glance at the man with glasses, continued softly, "This incident is still too sudden, we’re short on people here, I need so to protect the scene, and I’m relying on the drones for search, but the drones, after all, cannot completely replace humans, even though Denno City is a small city, it’s not easy to operate, plus the Federal Bureau of Investigation here will···"
"You don’t need to worry about the Federal Bureau of Investigation," the man with glasses put the cigar back in his mouth, "I’ve already got a permit from Ains, they must cooperate with us."
"Local Federal Bureau of Investigation has high autonomy, that Vigina Chief seems a bit···" the young man hoarsely said.
"That woman had other intentions coming to Denno City to begin with, don’t worry about her," the man with glasses calmly said.
"Understood," the young man lowered his head, gave a slight sigh, "If they were dead at the hands of that assassin Paxiu, it would be better."
"Hmm?"
The man with glasses lifted his head, glanced at the young man.
The young man realized his slip of the tongue, imdiately closed his mouth.
"You don’t need to worry too much about manpower," the man with glasses didn’t continue on this topic, instead said, "The Kewort Group has contacted , their rcenary corps have quite a few rcenaries in Denno City who can work with us."
"Kewort Group?" the young man was slightly dumbfounded, whispered, "Can they be trusted?"
"They are ’friends’ with many connections to the President in Denno City," the man with glasses hoarsely said, "Should anything happen to the President, they’re probably more anxious than we are,"
He looked downward, peering at the young man, "However, whether they’re trustworthy will depend on your thods."
"Yes!" The young man nodded heavily, "I will imdiately arrange for staff, expand the blockade, and set up checkpoints on all possible streets for investigation."
"Including hospitals and all pharmacies, both above and underground," the man with glasses calmly stated, "An injured person needs dicine."
"Yes!"
The young man stood up straight, nodded heavily.
——
"The President returned to Ains late last night, under treatnt by Stars Pharma’s top dical team, but according to the Ains Post, the President is still not out of life-threatening danger."
"The mayors of several cities including Dawn City, Vitland City, Yilan City, and Wint City called Ains last night to express concern about the President’s condition."
"Currently, the two leading presidential candidates have both expressed strong condemnation of the assassination attempt on social dia."
"The Senate and the House of Representatives have imdiately activated ergency procedures. Given the President’s condition, the Federal Vice President submitted a written statent to both houses’ speakers last night, assuming the role of acting President during the President’s incapacity."
"According to the Federal Constitutional Andnt, ’Whenever the Vice President and a majority of the principal officers of the executive departnts transmit to the President pro tempore of the Senate and the Speaker of the House of Representatives their written declaration that the President is unable to discharge the powers and duties of his office, the Vice President shall assu the powers and duties of the office as Acting President.’"
"······"
The news broadcast echoed between the gap of city buildings.
In the midst of this noise, He Ao slightly opened his eyes.
He raised his hand, glanced at his palm where there used to be slight wounds.
At this mont, those fine wounds had completely disappeared, leaving only smooth skin.
The weakness and fatigue from last night had mostly dissipated, with surging power erging within He Ao’s body.
After the first rest at the beginning of the Copy World, the system would often repair all injuries on He Ao’s body.
He Ao stretched his body slightly, sensing that the sound of drones outside was no longer dense, through the optical reflective mirror left by Paxiu, looking at the outside sky, it had cleared up a lot too.
"Cough——"
At this mont, he felt an itch in his throat, covered his mouth and coughed lightly.
Then he let go of his hand and glanced at the palm, where there was a little bit of fine, purple-tinged, blue-glowing blood.
The amount of blood was not much, only a very tiny, dense, raindrop-like dot, but the purple in that blood was slightly denser than it was last night.
Although the system had repaired the injuries of this body, it hadn’t reconciled the conflict between He Ao’s soul and body.
At this mont, the imnse power from the soul was still continuously damaging this body.
Currently, He Ao could clearly sense that his condition was deteriorating.
He raised his wristband, checking the ssages on it.
At this mont, an unread ssage was floating on his wristband’s screen.
This ssage was from the Scavenger Leader in Vitland City and the underground world’s ’Queen’, Heish.
Denno City is located in the western part of the Federation, and traditionally, the western part of the Federation is within Vitland’s sphere of influence, so all important intelligence and ssages would typically pass through Vitland.
Paxiu had a brief interaction with Heish, and the secret dicine formula for Lone Wolf was told to him by Heish, so He Ao didn’t use the identity of ’K’.
He sent a ssage directly to Heish before ’sleep’ last night, sending her the materials required by the Honorary Noble and asked if she knew any information about the related materials.
However, He Ao didn’t expect Heish to respond so quickly.
He Ao quickly opened the unread ssage.
Heish didn’t ask any other questions and quickly responded to He Ao’s ’inquiry’.
She ntioned that at the end of last year, she saw soone on the black market requesting to purchase materials related to ’Nine-colored Flower’, ’Cannibal Vine’ and ’Blood Cal’.
Of course, these purchase requests were mixed in a batch of other transcendent materials.
Heish had collected so part of the transcendent materials for the buyer at that ti, including the corpse of a Blood Cal, and the transaction location given by the buyer was in a city not far from Denno City.
Of course, many traders, to avoid eavesdropping, often choose to have the transaction point in a remote small city and then find a way to transport the items out.
However, out of the sensitivity of an interdiary and intelligence worker, Heish took note of these materials.
So, when He Ao asked, she replied to He Ao directly; as for the intelligence on the other materials, she was still collecting them.
At the end of the entire ssage, she reminded him that after the President was assassinated, Denno City was in a major storm, advising He Ao to leave Denno City as soon as possible if he had nothing important to do.
But obviously, He Ao had so ’business’ to take care of in Denno City at this point.
He Ao swiftly replied with a ’thanks’, then put away the wristband.
The end of last year was just when Paxiu had ’t’ Moli and had just returned to Denno City.
Calculating the ti, they were preparing to investigate the Dark Lizard incident back then.
If they had started gathering ’Honorary Noble’ materials since then, they would likely have collected enough by the ti Paxiu discovered the ’truth’.
Then Moli would inquire about Paxiu’s needs, if Paxiu wanted a promotion, counting the ti needed for ritual preparations, they would likely have completed the promotion just before the old President arrived in Denno City.
If that was indeed the case, then by the ti Moli t Paxiu, all subsequent events were already arranged.
But they ultimately couldn’t influence Paxiu’s decision; Paxiu chose weapon enhancent.
However, this was probably also part of their ’plan’, as they had prepared weapon enhancent materials, so they didn’t attempt to change Paxiu’s decision at that ti. Perhaps they made additional ’preparations’.
After all, the fact is the ’assassin’ who attempted the President’s assassination wasn’t only Paxiu.
B-level items are expensive, the entire thing involves several sets, the ones behind this ’assassination’ can be said to have abundant financial resources.
Following this hypothesis, if their secret dicine was collected not long before eting Paxiu, the whole secret dicine was crafted either for Paxiu, or rather, for assassinating the President.
If so, would this secret dicine or the collected materials of it be placed far from Paxiu?
He Ao fished out a black device from his pocket, staring at its pitch-black screen— this might need to find ’Moli’s superior.
He
He had already fiddled with this device on the road yesterday; no matter what, the device wouldn’t respond. Either it required a complex activation thod, or there was sothing wrong internally.
To check or unlock this device, he would first need to open it and find the entrance.
However, this device, though small, was filled with intricate structures, and even He Ao couldn’t just open it with bare hands.
He needed a ’laboratory’ capable of dismantling the device; it didn’t need to reach the precision level of the device itself, just functional enough, as he could compensate for other conditions manually.
Theoretically, the best place to dismantle it should be Nolanka Group’s laboratory, but obviously, He Ao didn’t have that much ti.
Click—
He Ao gently lifted the tal sheet, glancing at the vast sky above and the hovering drones in the distance.
At this mont, the drones in the sky weren’t as dense as before; most drones had descended near the streets, searching the ground one by one.
And the drones in the sky seed to have marked this building as a kind of low-risk area, without arranging dense control.
He Ao sensed the specific state of his body.
He estimated that from now, it would take at most two days for this body to completely collapse.
The system’s repair effect only works once, so any subsequent injuries will not be repaired.
This ans he must find a way to advance to B-level within these two days, allowing his body to barely withstand the soul power dissipating from it.
He Ao raised his hand, a hint of purple brilliance spreading from his fingertips, showing that as his body collapsed, his power had grown stronger than it was last night.
This seed counterintuitive, but He Ao soon understood the principle.
Because his body’s collapse was due to the spreading of the Angel Soul power.
Conversely, the more his body collapsed, the stronger soul power he could unleash. At the mont when the entire body is about to completely collapse, it might be when this C-level body can exert its greatest strength.
Without a single material, formulas had just been found, two days to ascend to B-level.
The ’difficulty’ of this instance task lies not just in the instance but also in himself.
Yet, according to the rule, the harder the task, the higher the reward.
He Ao walked to the edge of the rooftop, glanced around at the drones, and his lips curled up slightly into a smile.
Let’s give it a try.
He leaped off, his body dropping into the midst of this bustling city.
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