721: Chapter 721: Having an Excellent Teammate (Large Chapter for Monthly Votes) 721: Chapter 721: Having an Excellent Teammate (Large Chapter for Monthly Votes) Crack—
Accompanied by the sound of the solid concrete ground being ripped apart, a little giant over three ters tall with a body drenched in red smashed through a large pane of glass, and, followed by a shower of glass shards, landed back on the ground.
“Hao Yi?!”
He stared at the train that was half in reality and half obscured by the void, furrowing his brows tightly.
“You save people.”
He Ao glanced at Wu Lan, swiftly spoke, then leaped out of the carriage.
“Okay!”
Wu Lan tossed aside the shackles on his hands.
The Velora restarted, once again entering the void, and then from the other side of the hall, Wu Lan reached out his hand and pulled up Xia Ye, who had just been injured, onto the train.
Then, the Velora continued forward, pushing directly through the guards in its way, arriving in front of the controlled ‘Sacrifices’.
Throughout this process, Wester, who had just scrambled back up, didn’t make any move.
He coldly watched He Ao, seemingly trying to discern sothing from him as he still held onto the thin thread, with a faint red glow pulsing within his body.
“Have you been in Newland City-State all this ti?”
He looked at He Ao, his voice hoarse, “Did you start your investigation here a long ti ago?”
“When I arrived, didn’t we et?”
He Ao calmly looked at Wester, shrugging his shoulders.
“How is that possible?”
Wester’s eyes, bloodshot, slightly widened, “Are you saying that you saw through my plan in just one day?
What kind of joke is that?”
“I think it wasn’t very difficult.”
He Ao looked at him, grasping the Shadowless Sword, his gaze calm, “To be precise, ‘seeing through’ it took just over half a day.”
The entire investigation process wasn’t complicated.
In fact, Xia Ye had already conducted so preliminary investigations, leaving a report on the missing case that pointed out the possible connection between the disappearances at the Research Institute branch and the large-scale disappearances in Newland City-State.
Beyond that, Xia Ye might have also guessed through so clues that the disappearances were related to mirrors, so when the problem arose, her ergency arrangents in the office avoided a direct ‘disappearance’ outco.
This allowed her ti to leave traces of resistance.
These traces, in turn, told the people who ca to investigate later that there was sothing in the office that could resist ‘vanishing’.
And the only significant difference between the office and the hall was the destroyed lamp.
At first, both He Ao and Wu Lan thought there was sothing wrong with the light—that it differentiated so kind of boundary between vanishing and not vanishing, and the light might have been so sort of ‘dium’ that devoured people.
However, while on the phone with Wu Lan, He Ao, with the mory of Lunke who had been absorbed in his mind and his knowledge of mysticism, thought of another possibility.
Mirrors.
The day of the incident was a heavily overcast day; at around nine or ten in the morning, the brightness outside was almost like nightfall, and under such conditions, lights in the office would inevitably be on.
Indeed, that was the operation at the Research Institute branch at the ti.
And with a large difference in brightness between the interior and the exterior, the glass windows would exhibit the characteristics of mirrors, capable of reflecting human figures—effectively, omnipresent mirrors.
Using mirrors as a Transcendent dium and a type of conduit was much more convenient than directly using light.
Of course, such rapid association was also possible because of a na He Ao had once heard.
In the Copy World of the Leader of the Wilderness Wanderers, Ronald, an A-level exotic beast that had migrated near Dawn City was called ‘Mirror Butterfly’.
So, at that ti, He Ao had Wu Lan check the condition of the curtains and found that they were drawn shut, with bloodstains deliberately splattered on them by Xia Ye, which also served as a kind of hint.
Following this train of thought, He Ao flipped through the missing persons case files collected by the Research Institute and indeed saw records related to ‘mirrors’ in many of the cases, which might have also inspired Xia Ye’s thinking.
However, the Research Institute was not an official investigator, and its information was incomplete, so He Ao could not be certain whether the thod used by the person behind the scenes to make people ‘disappear’ was definitely related to mirrors.
But in mysticism, a mirror generally represents so kind of ‘portal,’ rarely associated with slaughter.
If it truly had sothing to do with mirrors, then it was very likely that the missing people were still alive.
This raised another question, why would the person who abducted them want them to be alive?
Furthermore, He Ao had just co into contact with the Church of Chaos, which led him to a new idea.
Could the ‘culprit’ behind this spate of disappearances be the Church of the God of Chaos?
And were the abducted Transcendents actually so sort of ready ‘sacrifices’?
So, during his fight with the Right Preacher, he deliberately marked the Right Preacher, probing the thoughts in the Preacher’s mind.
Although the guy’s mind was already in turmoil, among the confusion, he still revealed so kind of ‘sacrifice’ ssage.
With this information in hand, He Ao reviewed everything all over again.
If the Church of Chaos was orchestrating the disappearance case at the Research Institute’s branch and their goal was to prepare sacrifices for a certain kind of ritual, and they had crafted multiple disappearances within the Newland City-State to collect sacrifices,
then the question was, what role did the ‘Moonlight’ branch of Newland City-State play in all this?
The Research Institute had managed to unearth these disappearances, could they really be unaware of them?
And why would the Church of Chaos dare to attack a Research Institute branch?
Although the Research Institute mostly seed harmless, it was still currently the most powerful Transcendent organization in the main world.
Did they not consider the consequences of provoking such a behemoth?
Of course, if their Leader had already been corrupted to madness, then they might indeed dare to do anything.
So, He Ao specifically talked about so of the chaotic doctrines and the Leader of the Church of Chaos went as far as to initiate a phone call with him.
Through that call, he could clearly determine that not only was the Leader not mad, but he was also very calm, and he could even, to so extent, act against the thoughts of the Divine Being for his own interests.
At this point, everything beca simple; there was one answer to two questions, why didn’t Moonlight do anything about the Church of Chaos?
Why did the Church of Chaos act fearlessly?
Because this was the territory of the Church of Chaos, the Moonlight branch in Newland was probably completely under their control.
Afterward, He Ao contacted Wu Lan to specially investigate the power structure of the Moonlight branch in Newland, learning about the division of powers within the branch, between the local director Wester and the deputy director who was parachuted in from elsewhere.
He knew there was a problem with Moonlight, but he couldn’t be sure whether it was the director or the deputy director who had the issue, or if both had problems.
The key here was that the real Church Leader might have a spatial Prop, and the missing people may not be hidden in the main world.
If He Ao targeted the wrong person, or couldn’t counter the spatial Prop, it could prompt a desperate reaction from the other side, potentially leading to the hostages being killed.
So although He Ao was more inclined to believe that Wester was the problem, he dared not make a hasty judgnt.
If He Ao had enough ti, he could set a trap to lure out the true culprit and rescue the captured people.
But clearly, he didn’t have ti.
Even if the Church of Chaos had complete control over Newland, this didn’t an they could withstand the wrath of the Research Institute.
This was sothing not even the main branch of Moonlight could necessarily manage.
So the mont they made a move on the Research Institute branch, they probably already had a plan in place for the aftermath.
The Research Institute would definitely send a C-level from nearby to investigate, and the nearest C-level in the area was Wu Lan of the Field Operations Departnt.
Their targets were not only the Transcendents at the Research Institute’s branch but also Wu Lan.
He Ao deduced that their plan was probably to seize Wu Lan and then carry out the sacrifice as quickly as possible.
If it hadn’t been for He Ao’s visit here yesterday under the na of Hao Yi, they might have acted last night.
And to speculate this far, all things considered, had actually only taken him most of the day.
“Are you mocking ?”
Upon hearing He Ao’s ‘half a day’, Wester’s expression was as dark as water, “Do you think you are a prophet?
Do you have so kind of prophetic prop?”
“I have no prop, but I do have an excellent companion.”
He Ao placed his sword horizontally in front of him and said calmly.
Wu Lan, who had just pulled Xia Ye onto the carriage, looked at He Ao’s back and paused for a mont before it turned into a shallow smile.
The Velora sped through the hall at high speed, crashing through several guards, and as it passed the corner where the items taken from the captives were stashed, Wu Lan quickly reached out and grabbed back her whip and dagger.
Then, with a flick of her whip, she scooped up one of the ‘sacrifices’ closest to her onto the carriage.
Making a guess about the causes and effects is actually quite easy; the hard part is verifying that guess and turning it into tangible gains.
After He Ao speculated on the Church of Chaos’s general plan last night, he found Wu Lan and shared his conjecture with her.
But initially, he didn’t have the idea of using Wu Lan as bait.
His original suggestion was to have Wu Lan leave directly and then stir up trouble to see if there was a chance to capture the church leader and rescue the people.
The benefit of this was obvious: Wu Lan wouldn’t be in any danger.
The drawback was equally clear: Wu Lan’s departure might alarm the church and prompt them to forcibly start the ritual or execute the hostages.
Though He Ao guessed that the Church of Chaos might be related to Moonlight, Wester had hidden it well, so He Ao couldn’t be sure of the real ritual location.
If he lost control of the situation and couldn’t find the ritual site, things could take a worse turn.
The idea of being bait was actually Wu Lan’s own suggestion.
The benefits were clear: they could find the site of the ritual, identify who the church leader was, and, once the ritual started, the enemy wouldn’t dare to just use a spatial prop to escape, not wanting to hurt their sacrifices.
The drawback was also obvious: if He Ao arrived too late, or if the enemy changed their plans last minute, or if He Ao’s guess was wrong, Wu Lan would lose her life.
And the probability of that wasn’t small, because the ti was tight, and many of He Ao’s conjectures were supported by evidence.
By doing this, Wu Lan was essentially putting her life in He Ao’s hands, betting that his hunches were not wrong and that he would definitely co.
When He Ao asked Wu Lan why she chose this path, her answer was simple, “I want to bring them ho.”
This was the thod most likely to rescue everyone.
Of course, the final plan was confird by He Ao.
“If you’re unwilling to tell, then forget it, but how exactly did you find this place?”
Wester looked at He Ao with a hoarse voice, “Is it because of that woman?
Did you install a tracking device on her?
You let her get caught by on purpose, then used the tracking device to find this place?
But I had her searched, and she had nothing on her.
Where did you hide the tracking device?”
“It seems you’re not willing to believe that your planning isn’t bad, it’s just that you happened to et ,”
He Ao looked at him and flicked his sword blade, “As for how I located her, that’s indeed a secret.”
He hadn’t prepared any tracking device at all but had placed a mark on Wu Lan, and then by sensing her surface thoughts, he deduced her location.
By this ti, Wu Lan had already whipped away several more ‘sacrifices’ behind him.
Wester kept his gaze on He Ao’s calm eyes.
Just like He Ao had said, he was unwilling to believe that the sacrifice he had painstakingly planned for so long could be so easily seen through.
An outsider had found the place in just one day, which made all his intelligence and sches seem utterly simple and laughable.
And yet He Ao actually thought that Wester’s planning was pretty good.
If he didn’t have so accumulation of knowledge in the mystic arts, an understanding of divine beings, and just happened to have the Cloak of Replacent, a prop allowing him to gather information with two different identities.
Moreover, he had the Velora, a space-moving prop capable of tily support, making it possible for his teammates to act as bait, and exploit the extrely short ti difference at the start of the sacrifice to launch a surprise attack.
Missing any one of these conditions, he likely couldn’t have achieved this extent.
And the most difficult part of Wester’s layout was that he moved quickly, leaving very little ti for soone to disrupt his plans.
If any B-level from the main world were to take his place, unless they used a prophecy class prop, they would likely have no chance of breaking this situation within a day.
Thus, He Ao actually quite understood Wester’s incredulous thoughts, if he were Wester, he would be puzzled as well.
However, what slightly surprised him was that after listening to his words, Wester fell silent for a mont and then sighed softly,
“I originally thought my plan was flawless, that no matter which B-level ca, they could only be led by the nose by .
I did not expect that today I would witness the breadth of this world.”
Hearing these words, He Ao’s own expression beca sowhat strange.
If the scope is limited to the main world, strictly speaking, there’s nothing wrong with Wester’s belief.
Because He Ao is not B-level.
At least not now.
“Alright, Mr.
Hao Yi,”
Wester held his rapier, “I respect your intelligence, but in this world, intelligence does not determine everything,”
A furious aura leaked from his body as he glanced behind He Ao.
The guards who were in charge of watching over the ‘sacrifices’ were mostly knocked down by the Velora, even the skinny left preacher was knocked into the wall.
The ‘sacrifices’ were already being rescued partially by Wu Lan and the sowhat recovered Xia Ye, and placed inside the Velora.
The ritual lines on the ground were still shining brightly, and the fire on the wood, devoid of any heat, was still burning fiercely.
The ritual was stuck at a critical step.
He knew very well that without dealing with the man in front of him, the other party would not let him complete the ritual.
He curled his lips up into a grimace,
“Let’s witness the power of chaos,”
Giant veins pulsed, outlining a fla pattern encased within a circle on his back.
He lifted the hand that wasn’t holding a sword and leapt forward suddenly, smashing his fist towards He Ao.
Boom—
He Ao’s body was embedded into a huge pillar, the Shadowless Sword held in front of him, blocking the enormous fist.
He Ao looked at him with a hint of surprise.
This guy, his burst of strength far exceeded that of an ordinary B-level.
“Oh,”
Wester bent over to look at He Ao, his lips parting to reveal his fierce teeth, “Mr.
Hao Yi, you’re a bit stronger than I thought, but only a bit,”
He raised his rapier high, “If you can’t dodge this move, you’ll die.”
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