Forge a path to success.

Chapter 341 Starry Chessboard, Dark Serpent Staff Rises (2)

In a secret room somewhere in the city-state of Thorn Robe.

Dozens of screens were stacked in a small space, each displaying a battle taking place somewhere in the Third Pulse. Six of the screens were playing a slow-motion replay of footage from a few seconds earlier, showing a flash of purple lightning obliterating someone in the center of the screen.

Guo Yutu typed on the virtual keyboard using his mental power, while the soldier beside him fed him a sip of cola. Xueyan's laughter echoed in the communication channel: "A total of 6 duds. Your signal is malfunctioning."

"Thanks for reminding me. I noticed it two minutes ago. Maintain the current distance and don't engage in a full-scale battle to wear him down."

Too many appetizers can make lunch boring.

“I’m telling you this one last time, there’s a chance that Jastry could forcibly teleport you to Starhold Mansa if he goes all out,” Guo Yutu said. “Personally, I’d love for you to be standing in front of the Commander-in-Chief the next moment, sentenced to a slow slicing and chopped into mincemeat, but this is a Blood Alliance mission, and I’m the Commander-in-Chief, so listen to me!”

"I suggest you hurry, Commander-in-Chief, before I can't resist going on stage."

Guo Yutu switched directly to another communication channel, and an image of a black-haired, blindfolded woman running appeared on the screen wall, with an indescribable, terrifying beast chasing behind her.

"Lelna Barry, stop dawdling, I have a new task for you."

"No, I've been bitten! That damn seal is still chasing me!!!" Lylena screamed in response.

Guo Yutu sighed deeply: "Little girl, I'll give you two choices. Either you go down now and switch to 'real fighting', or I'll send Chu Hengkong the B-movie you starred in, 'Blood Alliance Killers vs. Fat Animals,' tomorrow."

You can't!!

"If you don't want to embarrass yourself, then you'd better take this seriously." Guo Yutu covered his face. "Oh my god, I can't bear to watch anymore. I have to report to Wang Quan."

On the screen, Lylena dodged the giant claw's blow in a sorry state; her blood-stained longsword was swallowed whole by the beast the moment it was unleashed. The woman screamed as she scrambled to her feet, "I'll deal with that thing! Give me three more minutes! Please!"

"OK, three minutes left."

Guo Yutu cut off the communication, tossed the female assassin's image to the far corner of the screen wall, and casually marked a 180-second countdown on her retina. He was practically transported back to the night of the siege of Velus; that familiar sense of collapse returned once more. In this kind of mission, he would rather have three obedient Element 4s than these two idiots.

Fortunately, he still has many point masses 4 under his control.

Guo Yutu switched to the public channel: "Notify all antennas to switch to contingency plan 3. Hide among the nearest crowd, the more the better. Attention assassins ranked 200 and above, an emergency mission is now being issued to you..."

A photo and detailed information about the blonde girl flashed on the screen wall, including her background, common methods, and inferences about her strength.

Target: Ji Huaisu of Huilong City.

Requirement: Regardless of whether they are dead or alive.

Guo Yutu pressed the Enter key: "Start now."

·
"The 8th one!"

Ji Huaisu cleaved an athlete in two with her boundless sword, the latter being instantly disintegrated into microscopic particles by the high-frequency vibrations. She grabbed her jersey and leaped into the sky, leaving behind a chorus of screams from those who didn't know what was going on.

"I beg you to tone it down! You're practically a serial killer now! You wouldn't even have a chance to deny being sentenced to life imprisonment by Banningtik!" Vande screamed.

"The umbrella of poetry and literature is about to explode, and you're still worrying about these things? Go talk law with a bomb." Ji Huaisu pulled out the antenna. "VV, how about it?"

"Reverse engineering complete, one bomb has been defused. More than 10 more samples are expected to be needed to pinpoint the main antenna."

VV marked the next point, which was almost half the length of the poem's canopy away from their current location. Ji Huaisu questioned, "There's no reason for that!"

Based on the frequency distribution of thousands of explosions, the distance between the next target point and the other antennas is already far beyond the average estimate. VV explained, "The enemy has taken measures; the surrounding signals have been forcibly silenced, only the detonation signals from further away have been preserved. I can perform high-precision scanning, but..."

“There’s not enough time, is there?” Vande’s eyes stung. “This is obviously a trap. Their main fighting force must be rushing over there to surround us.”

Ji Huaisu calmed down instead: "But the signal is real. They can't possibly give up restraining Lao Cui for my sake; that would be putting the cart before the horse. Is it possible that they will restart the signal in the current area after I leave?"

“It’s possible, so I added a virus to the scanning band. If they reactivate it, it will cause multiple antennas to be infected at the same time, directly exposing the location of the main antenna,” VV said. “Right now, the enemy is busy reprogramming the psycho-signals, and their technicians are no pushovers.”

"It's reassuring to see you guys still fighting like gods in the virtual world!"

Ji Huaisu leaped into the air, rushing towards her destination thousands of kilometers away at top speed. At this moment, she really wanted to complain about the date of the Jinghua Festival. If it had been a few days later, she could at least have ridden a half-finished mount, which would have made her much faster.

VV's electronic voice rang out at the opportune moment: "By the way, next time please don't withhold information from me. You are actually mass point 3."

"Huh? Why are you suddenly bringing this up? Do you have any evidence?" Ji Huaisu shouted.

“Oh, you’re really something. Where do you get the confidence to outsmart this guy?” Van der said.

"Your direct combat power far exceeds that of a regular Free Wind, but your speed and destructive power are not commensurate. I can only assume that you are a special particle 3 with outstanding strengths in a certain aspect, otherwise you would have already reached this point."

"Okay, you're right. I'm not a free spirit yet, is there a problem?"

"Yes, the first wave of enemy pursuers has caught up with you. Watch your rear and try to use only one method at a time."

Ji Huaisu simply created a large block of ice as a rearview mirror. Three black iron-cast soldiers were soaring towards them, flying with retro wooden wings and wearing bronze eagle masks on their faces. If Li Ke were here, she would recognize these soldiers as identical to the messenger, except that they no longer had that grotesque bloody hole on their faces.

"Target detected. Initiate cluster strike." The eagle-faced soldier draws his bow.

Ji Huaisu unleashed a bolt of purple lightning, charring the bow and the soldier to pieces. The two soldiers then flew to the left and right to dodge, only to be struck down by lightning arrows.

“Easy peasy.” Ji Huaisu didn’t even turn her head the whole time. She gradually lowered her altitude and saw a dense crowd on the ground. The music was so loud that it seemed to reach the sky. There were people everywhere, even on the rooftops. Citizens sang and danced to the music, and giant floats filled the main road.

Van der was dumbfounded: "Where is the target?"

The previously infallible method of finding people failed. This time, the virtual map only zoomed in on a corner of the parade, narrowing down the area to at least a hundred people, and the blurry circle of light kept moving with the movement of the crowd.

VV explained, "The antenna is hidden in the crowd; the algorithm can't accurately identify too many targets. Stay close to it until I finish updating—"

"Are you sure you're in that circle?" Ji Huaisu drew his burning greatsword.

"determine."

"Mark the next point." She slashed down with her sword, "Purifying Soul Divine Fire!"

The sword light surged high, transforming into a pillar of fire that reached the heavens and the earth. The flames fell from above onto the crowd, like shooting stars heralding destruction falling from the sky. Before anyone could even cry out, the procession of over a thousand people was engulfed in flames!
“What have you done?” VV said.

Ignoring everything else, Ji Huaisu rushed straight towards the burning area. The flames died down with her arrival, revealing... a completely transformed group of people. The dancers and musicians in the group stared at themselves in astonishment, finding their skin smooth, their muscles strong, and even their spirits more than doubled. This unexpected stroke of good fortune made them overlook the fact that a few unlucky members of the group had been vaporized.

As Ji Huaisu picked up her fallen clothes, someone pointed at her and exclaimed in surprise, "That young lady did it!"

"Greetings from the Divine Guard! Happy Holidays!"

She leaped into the air, clutching the half-burnt antenna: "My pure fire punishes evil and promotes good, killing only demons and heretics without harming ordinary people."

“But I saw more than one person evaporate,” Vande said. “You killed the one who was lying in ambush with your sword.”

"Isn't this bad?"

“Excellent, you’re the most ideal counter-terrorism elite I’ve ever seen.” VV suddenly sent a massive amount of character information. “Next target, proceed along the route I’ve outlined. Pursuers are on their way, please avoid combat…”

This time, VV abandoned the side quests and marked a winding, maze-like route. Ji Huaisu saw several menacing-looking figures running towards her from the shortest direction and decided to heed his advice. She followed the navigation for three seconds when three more eagle-masked soldiers attacked, and she instinctively threw her thunder spear.

"I'll repeat myself, please avoid battle!" VV emphasized again.

"You've mistaken it for something else. This is the same thing as before..." Ji Huaisu gasped, "What the hell?"

The lightning spear struck the soldier head-on, but made no difference. The lightning seemed to be swallowed up and disappeared beneath the black iron uniform, with two points of cold light emanating from behind the eagle mask. Ji Huaisu suddenly felt an excruciating pain in her head, and the movements of her ghostly body instantly froze, to the point that she herself involuntarily stopped.

She pressed her temples hard, forcing herself to swing her flaming sword. The eagle-masked soldier drew his ancient Tang sword, severing her flames with a single blow. The mental anguish intensified as the assassins closed in on her back. Ji Huaisu caught a glimpse of a dark mass of movement out of the corner of her eye. More soldiers were approaching at that moment—not just three or five, but a hundred in number!
More than a hundred eagle-faced soldiers are closing in on her!

·
In the secluded room, Guo Yutu happily took a sip of cola.

"Intelligence analysis complete, emotional mapping analysis finished, all units equipped with anti-element armor, implanted with mental infection virus..."

He typed the "bombing order".

"Begin the encirclement and suppression."

·
"Please evacuate immediately." "I'm doing it!!" Ji Huaisu clutched his throbbing head. "What the hell is this?!"

VV transmitted a large amount of text description: "The Black Death Army is an army of automated puppets specifically enhanced and modified to target particular enemies. The enemy has already intercepted your intelligence through your previous mechs, and now all members of this army are assassins specifically targeting you." She also said in voice, "Protect your ghost body while you retreat, otherwise you will be contaminated by mental energy."

Ji Huaisu gritted her teeth and switched to her defensive Azure Armor. The ice armor's protection improved her condition somewhat, but at the same time, the pursuers behind her had arrived, and the leader, dressed as a mage, threw a fireball.

With lightning speed, she unleashed the Holy Trinity Array, instantly extinguishing the mage's fireball. Before he could even curse, a blow knocked out half his teeth. Ji Huaisu conjured an ice pop, shoving away the second assassin wielding a dagger, then grabbed the mage's head and slammed him down like a club, sending the third flying.

Ji Huaisu felt a piercing pain in her back; the Black Death Army's feather missiles had struck her, and blood seeped from beneath her ice armor. She ignited her purifying fire for emergency treatment, then turned to see the eagle-faced soldiers had already flown out of the array's range. They were too agile, and their controllers were extremely cautious—not at all like that madman who randomly threw bombs.

She shouted in her mind, "You've fought this thing before, haven't you? How did you take them down before?"

“The longer you fight the Black Death Army, the stronger they become. The only way to win is to take down their main body before they completely control you,” VV said. “Last time, I parachuted in my most trusted assassin and killed their commander.”

Ji Huaisu kicked a soldier away: "Great plan! Where's the commander? I'm going to kill him!"

"Finding the main antenna will lead to the commander."

Ji Huaisu almost choked with anger: "How am I supposed to find the main antenna when I'm surrounded by the Black Death Army!"

"Friends, just between you two, the main force is coming, we really have to run!" Van der screamed.

"Wide-area psychic attack," VV suggested as an emergency strategy. "Your companion has powerful psychic abilities; use them!"

With her final strike, Ji Huaisu knocked the wings off the third soldier, then looked up at the dark mass of troops in the sky. She pulled out her Vande and held it above her head: "Vande, hypnosis!!"

"Stop!!!" Vande screamed desperately.

A flash of twilight light streaked across the sky, and the Black Death Army, which was swooping down in mid-air, suddenly froze. Ji Huaisu was overjoyed: "It's done!"

Inside the secret room, Guo Yutu exclaimed in surprise, "Oh!"

Switch to manual mode.

The hawk-faced soldiers simultaneously drew their longbows to their fullest extent, their eyes flashing red. Vandal screamed, "Run!!!"

(End of this chapter)