Chapter 501 - The Lone Chess Player
Chapter 501: The Lone Chess Player
Man-eating Shark Zhou Chong and the other veteran hunters took a lot of gene medicine in their daily lives, so they knew a little about drug creation processes.
With Meng Chao’s reminder, they immediately noticed that the situation did not seem to make sense.
Even though the robbers had stolen quite a lot of cultivation resources, there were a lot of them, the quality varied, and their types varied as well. They had to be carefully analyzed before they could be used in an industrialized pharmaceutical production line.
Even if the enemy did not need to care about the side effects and complications from the Deification Capsules and did not need to get rid of too many impurities, the idea of creating one hundred thousand Deification Capsules in twenty-four hours was still ridiculous.
At first, through the biochemical rats’ cameras, they only saw a corner of the container used to create the drugs. They thought that the container was huge, so the enemy might have a few floors worth of containers, each of which had more than then of them, and multiple places to create the drug.
Later, everyone’s attention was caught by the one hundred thousand green Deification Capsules taken by Bloody Slaughter Gao Yang and the other criminals. In their haste to catch them, the hunters did not have time to think.
It was only when they entered the Deification Capsule pharmacy that they realized that it was far smaller than what they expected. They could not stop their hearts from starting to beat faster.
“The mastermind knows very clearly that they can cause trouble and catch us off guard with the robbers they had tempted long ago.” Meng Chao continued analyzing at his fastest speed. “But be it the secret police, the abnormal beast research department, or the superhumans affiliated to the mega corporations, they won’t just watch their precious cultivation resources being sent into the lair and slowly turned into terrifying super gene medicine.
“With the mastermind’s intelligence and cunning, it wouldn’t be difficult for them to guess that we will definitely charge into the lair at first notice.
“No matter how carefully they hide the pharmacy, it’d be impossible for them to escape our surveillance, so they won’t have the time to use the cultivation resources they snatched to create the Deification Capsules that will throw Dragon City into further chaos.
“So, they could use our habitual thinking patterns and blind spots to carefully create a fake pharmacy and use Big Brother Knife, the residue of the Deification Capsules in the sewers, infamous lost people like Bloody Slaughter Gao Yang, and more than one hundred thousand fake Deification Capsules to lure us here.
“Next, if my guess is correct, they will use the simplest, crudest, but most destructive method to instantly release all the spirit energy contained in the stolen cultivation resources!”
That would be the super large crystal bomb Meng Chao had mentioned.
All the veteran hunters and the superhumans affiliated to the clubs in the lair could already see a terrifying scene in their heads.
The Other World was an unstable world, and crystals were one of the most unstable materials in the Other World.
They contained a huge amount of spirit energy and were natural bombs that were really fragile and violent. The slightest bump could cause them to release an unstoppable force.
Besides, if all the crystals and cultivation resources stolen from hundreds of robberies were gathered together and intentionally detonated…
Man-eating Shark Zhou Chong’s face turned stark pale.
He thought about this and did not ignore Meng Chao’s warning because of his age. Instead, he accepted his warning and immediately made his decision. “All hands, immediately retreat from the building. Hurry!”
Most veteran hunters had connected to the communication channel and heard Meng Chao’s analysis.
They immediately shot outside the building.
Some of them thought that running through the winding corridors was too slow, so they circulated spirit energy and charged through the walls like human-shaped trains.
But some of the armed forces affiliated to the clubs had just entered the building through the balconies. They had not connected to the neural tactical data link shared by the Heaven Realm superhumans and did not receive orders from their higher ups in time.
Quite a number of people found square metal cases in crucial areas supporting the building.
The gang members thought that they were stuffed with Deification Capsules or the stolen cultivation resources.
They opened the metal cases and found that while the cases did contain cultivation resources, crystals, monsters’ crystalized neurospheres, and all sorts of crystalized things, they were bound and connected by a metal wire.
The crystals and crystalized neurospheres released enchanting light, as if they were breathing. It was like they possessed an evil life force.
“This is…”
One of the armed members curiously looked into the depths of the crystal cluster where he saw a flickering light.
In 0.1 seconds, that light got ten thousand times brighter.
From an insignificant spark, it turned into an incredibly dazzling flame.
The flame then turned into something that seemed like a beast straight from hell, and it engulfed him and his ignorant comrades.
Boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom!
Deafening explosions that sounded like they could destroy the world came simultaneously from the highest part of the building to the shelter around eight levels underground.
Then, crystals weighing tons and the spiritualized materials containing rampaging energy from superbeasts turned into a destructive flood that engulfed the entire building.
Meng Chao had not finished speaking, but was already running so fast that he looked like he had wind under his feet.
Unfortunately, he was on the first floor, so he was very close to the main explosion site, which was deliberately set by the enemy as such.
The enemy was clearly an explosion expert and had carefully surveyed the area before placing the bombs in the building. He had set up a circle of detonations around the building.
When Meng Chao rushed out of the building, he faced a firewall and a wave of air that came at him like an avalanche.
The impact wave was like a huge hammer that blew him back into the building.
He had once experienced a destructive flood under Raging Waves, and now, he experienced it again. It felt as if the impact wave wanted to tear apart and destroy all his cells before squashing them together all so that it could tear them again, then squash them together again, and repeat the process a billion of times.
Meng Chao activated his vitality magnetic field and circulated his spirit energy so that it reached his skin. His goal was to create a sturdy spirit energy armor.
But the spirit energy armor of a four-star superhuman was as brittle as a butterfly’s wings in the face of a storm from the charge of a super crystal bomb whose force was so great it had to be measured in tons.
Meng Chao’s spirit energy armor was soon ripped to shreds and turned into moaning spirit flames.
He was swept up by huge flames, darkness, and pain.
He felt as if it was not just the building collapsing, but heaven and earth fusing together over him. They sealed him completely within them.
During the crucial moment, he only had time to stir up a final bit of spirit energy to protect his brain and heart.
In the end, like a lone boat floating in a tumultuous sea… No, like someone trapped in a coffin in the sea, he gritted his teeth and listened to the collapse outside while he sank into an unfathomable darkness.
He did not know how much time passed, but the dust finally settled.
Pain flared in his body, and it was like a fishing net covered in hooks had wrapped itself around him and dug into his skin. It dragged him out of the abyss.
His body was covered in injuries, but he regained his sense of pain and heat, and he felt really weak.
However, his soul was like a spinning top. It spun madly in his skull and trembled for a total of half a minute before it finally returned to his brain.
Blood surged into his mouth from his throat. He held it inside.
The faint heat allowed Meng Chao to know that he was not dead yet.
Shattered reinforced concrete was around and above him.
He was stuck between some broken walls in a very awkward posture.
Just then, during the explosion, the shelters underground were also destroyed, so he should have sunk underground.
His body was stuck under a few ten thousand tons worth of ruins.
The situation was absolutely disastrous.
Meng Chao swallowed his blood and grinned in the dark. It was a really tragic expression.
‘The Nine Great Supernatural Entities are seriously each stronger than the last. Vortex considered every single detail of its plan, including human worries, their states of mind, and Dragon City’s internal conflicts.
‘As the saying goes, when you attack an enemy, you attack the places they want to protect. Even if I managed to predict its scheme, it was useless, because Dragon City would not dare to take the risk and bet that there weren’t more than one hundred thousand Deification Capsules!
‘But Vortex didn’t manage to fully succeed, either.
‘I remember that before the explosion, Man-eating Shark Zhou Chong and the others had already retreated to the edge of the building.
‘They were a few floors above me. Some of them were even more than ten floors above me. The spirit energy wave they have to endure was definitely weaker. With the thickness of Heaven Realm superhumans’ spirit energy armor and the strength of their physical bodies, they wouldn’t have been injured heavily, let alone died.
‘More importantly, I’m still alive!
‘As long as I’m alive, the apocalypse has not arrived, or at least, it’s not the apocalypse that I’m worried about.
‘Vortex, our fight has just begun. You’ve already played your trump card, so it’s my turn now, right?’
Kindling shone at the bottom of Meng Chao’s field of vision.
[Increased progress for the Mystery of the Supernatural Entities by 3%. Current progress: 51%]
[Congratulations, Fire Relayer, you are about to figure out the truth of the mystery behind the supernatural entities. Increased contribution points by 2,400.]
Two rows of small, golden words appeared one after another.
‘I knew it, the Deification Capsules and this stupid explosion are related to a Supernatural Entity.
‘Even though I’ve been blasted underground because of a super crystal bomb, I’ve come closer to the truth.’
Meng Chao blinked and tried to connect to the neural tactical data link.
But no matter how much he focused, all he saw was a mix of blood and darkness. He could not see a single bit of light.
All he heard was rustling, as if there were insects eating his eardrums. The ears itched and hurt, but he could not hear Man-eating Shark Zhou Chong or any of the other hunters’ voices.
By the looks of it, when the super crystal bomb exploded, the powerful spirit energy interference completely destroyed the neural sensory chip attached behind his ears.
Of course, if Meng Chao were Vortex, he would definitely secretly set up a lot of spirit energy magnetic field interference equipment within the lair so that he could block off the hunting squad’s ability to communicate with the outside world. He would even block the entire lair’s ability to communicate with the outside world if he could.
The spirit energy magnetic fields in the Other World were incredibly complicated. It made it so that setting up signal interferences was one hundred times easier than setting up anti-interference measures.
Even if the weather was good and everything was normal, the wireless network would still hitch and the lag and interference might be pretty bad.
Besides, right then, Dragon City was engaged in a major battle that would last for days at the borders of Dragon City. The powerful humans and powerful monsters were activating their spirit energy magnetic fields at a frenzied pace, which created powerful sources of interference. It was not impossible for them to even tear the spirit energy magnetic field above the city into shreds.
‘Looks like I can only rely on myself,’ Meng Chao thought quietly in the darkness, just like a lone hunter or chess player.