Chapter 203.2: Predicament Part 2

Earlier, everything had seemed full of life and hope. In just a few hours, the once promising situation had deteriorated beyond recognition. No one had anything to say because a suffocating weight had settled over everyone’s hearts.

Ji Jue coughed, breaking the silence. “The situation might not be as we think.”

“Is there still a chance for things to turn around?” Jiang Xuan asked, shocked and suspicious.

“No. I mean, it might be even worse.”

After thinking it over for a long while, Ji Jue reached into his pocket and took out the trophy he had looted from the ruins. It was a palm-sized piece of skin he had peeled off the guy who had pretended to be dead and launched a sneak attack.

The pitch-black tattoo branded across it made everyone stare at it in silence. It was an ominous-looking one-eyed emblem, flanked on both sides by scaled wings markings. It was the symbol of the Dragonrite Society!

“Look on the bright side,” Ji Jue said. “Unless the Heretic Cult’s HR went insane trying to hit their performance targets and started poaching people from the Dragonrite Society, there’s a very good chance he’s here just to make some extra money.”

They were all ugly, unlikable villains, after all. It was only natural for ugly scum to find other ugly scum, team up, and plot something big together, right?

If that was the case, it would explain the Dragonrite Society’s abnormal activities in the Haizhou region recently. It wasn’t just Lawrence, whom Mrs. Wen had ground to dust and scattered to the winds. Recently, even the Shepherd Formless had shown up. In the hospital inside the Time Ruin, Ji Jue had also seen the Vortex Cultivation Method that Lawrence had favored all his life.

The man had been a full-fledged Shepherd, and he had been hiding in Haizhou for many years. There was no way he had only been working on a dragon blood project. For all Ji Jue knew, that dead bastard could have been happily providing technical support to the Heretic Cult before he turned to ash.

But if even the Dragonrite Society was here, what about the others? The Heretic Cult was no longer keeping everything to itself. Did that mean it would drag in a few more groups as backup or as scapegoats? What exactly were they trying to do?

Limited by his own ability and perspective, Ji Jue couldn’t think of any goal other than blowing up Spring City to bits and spreading contamination across all of Haizhou. But what would that achieve? Wouldn’t that only make them die faster?

The Federation was still the Federation. No matter how bureaucratic and corrupt it had become, it was still one of the world’s two great powers. And that wasn’t even counting its many Celestial Beings. As far as everyone knew, even surviving sages and dragons could still be hidden away somewhere in the Federation.

The Heretic Cult followed aberrants, not death itself. The Dragonrite Society believed in the apocalypse and dragonization, but not because they wanted to hurry up and die either.

So, what was their purpose?

More importantly, what the hell did any of this have to do with Ji Jue? The matter had already surpassed his capabilities. Forget him; even if the old ancestor of the Tong family showed up, they wouldn’t be able to hold the line.

The moment Ji Liu understood what this meant, he started sweating. “No. We have to report this immediately.”

Aside from him, no one spoke. Ji Jue and Tong Shan looked at each other in silence. In the end, they only sighed. This was the truly tricky part.

“What’s wrong?” Ji Liu asked, confused.

Ji Jue didn’t reply.

Tong Shan grimaced. Softly, he said, “No need to worry. I personally chose everyone in this team. There’s no chance anyone here is colluding with the Heretic Cult. Otherwise, I would already be dead. Does this count as a blessing in disguise?”

But what about people outside the team? As an externally hired craftsman, Ji Jue had to be the one to say the unpleasant part first. “The Security Bureau can no longer be trusted.”

The permanent investigation team’s base was a large place, with many, many members, and yet it had somehow been completely wiped out without warning. Lou Yanyue, who had been in command, was missing. Aside from the spirit matter fragments at the scene, which could still be used to determine whether she was alive or dead, they knew nothing about her whereabouts. Something this serious had happened, but no one outside seemed to know a thing.

Tong Shan’s support team had already been targeted on the way here. Aberrants and Ferocity-Class spirits had been lured over in advance to lie in wait. The Heretic Cult knew their route inside and out. This was no ordinary level of absurdity. It was incredibly fucking absurd! There had to be a mole among them, otherwise how could they explain this?

And this was no ordinary mole either. At the very least, they had to be someone in middle management. They could even be among the decision-makers! But who was it? Was it Lü Yingyue? Was it Zhou Fang from the Tide City Security Bureau? Yu Zhengze from Ship City? Li Wan’an from River City?

Or was it Mr. Tao, who was drooling as he ate thin porridge?

For low-level pawns like them, one wrong step could very well mean vanishing from the face of the earth.

“The Director is trustworthy,” Tong Shan said. “That’s for certain.”

He was part of the Heaven’s Ear Tong family, after all. The old fossils at home rarely showed themselves, but that didn’t mean they were blind or deaf. Tong Shan was the head of the First Operations Division, so there was no need to explain how closely the Tong family worked with the Cliff City Security Bureau.

With the Tong family’s guarantee, there was no need to worry about that. At the very least, they didn’t have to fear going to Mrs. Lü and telling her, “This is bad, there’s a mole in the Heretic Cult case,” only for Mrs. Lü to smile faintly, remove her mask, and ask, “A mole like this?”

For a moment, everyone breathed a sigh of relief. There was a possibility they could escape this predicament with their lives, it seemed.

Ji Jue sighed before glancing meaningfully at Tong Shan, who had revealed only half the story and left the other half unsaid. There was nothing more he could say. Tong Shan was an Origin-type, after all. He had truly mastered the art of making promises and handing out sweet reassurance. With just a few words, he had boosted everyone’s morale.

Yes, Mrs. Lü was probably trustworthy, but that was assuming they could actually meet her in the first place! Come on, they were still inside Spring City! How were they supposed to get out? Through the fixed route? After the Heretic Cult’s failed ambush, in order to keep the news from leaking, they had probably already placed a Rebirth expert every few kilometers along that road, waiting in ambush.

Xu Guan raised his hand. “There are two backup routes...”

Tong Shan shook his head decisively. “The backup routes can’t be guaranteed to be safe either. All records are collected and routed through the outpost’s management. Aside from highly sensitive secrets, the routes my uncle comes up with are made in four copies. The Tong family keeps one, one is sent to the Cliff City Security Bureau, one is sent to the outpost’s archives room, and one is given to the members carrying out the operation.”

When cooperating with the Security Bureau, rules mattered above all else, because rules were what they needed most. Leaving a paper trail was basic procedure. That way, when something went wrong at a critical moment, responsibility could be shifted elsewhere.

But now, one of those four points had been compromised. The blame could still be shifted, sure, but Tong Shan had been dragged into the mess along with it.

In the silence that descended once more, Ji Jue fiddled with the tools in his hands. After pondering for a moment, he asked, “If the Heretic Cult discovers they failed, they’ll definitely start looking for us, and they won’t give us a chance to get out and report this, right?”

“Right,” Tong Shan said with a firm nod.

“And they’ll definitely send a lot of experts after us, right?”

“Correct.” Tong Shan smiled bitterly. “Don’t worry. I still need a few hours to recover. When the time comes, we’ll find a chance to fight our way out.”

“Why fight them head-on?” Ji Jue’s question made Tong Shan pause. “The Heretic Cult has been in Spring City for so long, and they’ve made such a huge operation out of this. They should know the local routes even better than the Security Bureau, right?”

He took a deep breath. “After sending out that many people, wouldn’t their defenses be at their weakest?”

For a moment, nobody moved. They couldn’t help but stare wide-eyed.

Holy shit, wait a second.