Chapter 147 - 144: An Unequal Dialogue
The sky darkened once again.
Qin Xiaoxia had somewhat underestimated the efficiency of the national Special Security Team. He had originally thought it would take at least a few days for Mumu’s severed body part to reach Shen City, but to his surprise, it had arrived outside the city under the cover of night the very next day.
No matter how reluctant the researchers at the institute were to part with it, they couldn’t afford to break their promise in this first effective contact with a mysterious force. Aside from keeping 5% of the tissue for research, the rest was immediately flown to Shen City on a private plane.
Although they kept calling it the "Thorn remains," Mumu, as a Tree Shepherd, had been quite large in its complete form.
The continuous Thorns on that remnant filled half a shipping container and were kept in cold storage.
In a massive area in the distant suburbs of Shen City, cordoned off by temporary walls, the lights blazed brightly. The sounds of machinery and excavators made it seem like a new construction site.
Members of the Special Security Team sat in a row inside a specialized command vehicle in a corner of the site, all holding boxed dinners as they stared at the surveillance monitors.
The screens covered virtually every corner of the "construction site."
CRUNCH, CRUNCH~
Huang Jiutian bit the chicken leg from his boxed dinner in half, chewing and swallowing it without even spitting out the bones.
Recently, Jiutian had been showing signs of true evolution. The most noticeable changes were a massively increased appetite and much stronger teeth.
Everyone was used to it by now. The research institute’s experts concluded that the Special Security Team’s "Huang Radar" might be starting to enter the next stage of his evolution.
Tao Xingzhi finished his own chicken leg in a few bites, took a sip of cooling herbal tea, and pointed his chopsticks at the three excavators in the field.
"That’s deep enough. Have them stop. We don’t need to bury the Thorns too deep; at least a little bit should be exposed on the surface."
The original plan was a depth of five meters, but he had just decided on the spot to dig only three meters.
"Yes, sir!"
A sharp young man beside him put down his dinner box, picked up the vehicle’s communicator, and relayed the orders to the excavation site.
On-site, an Officer in military uniform with the insignia of a Lieutenant heard the command in his earpiece and immediately ordered the combat engineers operating the excavators to halt.
"Clear the area! Container, prepare to ’unload’!"
"Clear the area! Clear the area!"
"All non-essential personnel, fall back!"
The shouts and whistles of the engineering corps rang out in a way that seemed chaotic but was actually perfectly orderly.
In front of the monitor, Tao Xingzhi watched the smooth progress, swallowed his last mouthful of rice, and drained his drink.
Looking around, he saw that basically everyone had finished eating. They had long since trained themselves to eat at incredible speeds.
After tossing their dinner boxes into the trash, the group exited the command vehicle and dispersed to their positions.
"Back it up, back it up... good, good, stop!"
A truck reversed and stopped in front of the pit. A few Soldiers opened the rear doors, revealing rows of white boxes inside.
Mumu’s husk was, of course, no longer in one piece. It had been cut into many sections long ago, with only two retaining larger branches. This was done for ease of transport and research.
The "unloading" proceeded in an orderly fashion. It mostly consisted of carrying the boxes over, opening them, and dumping the contents into the pit. A crane was used to lift the larger branches.
In less than ten minutes, all the Thorn remains had been placed in the pit.
It filled the large pit to about ninety percent capacity.
"Fill it in!"
Orders were given in quick succession, the work continuing without a pause. Once the container truck and crane moved aside, dump trucks began backfilling the earth.
When you looked at the details of the entire burial operation, building the outer perimeter walls had actually taken more time.
Now, at the location of the backfilled pit, there was only a patch of soil that was slightly different in color from the surroundings and had no weeds.
One by one, devices for detecting subterranean vibrations were driven into the ground over a large area around the site.
Huang Jiutian glanced at his watch. It was 9:00 PM.
"Tao, are we sure we don’t need more manpower? The 2nd Armored Division has been on standby for a full day."
Jiutian’s suggestion was merely a token one.
"We’re not here to fight a war. But I need you to focus your Perception on the situation underground. I suspect you won’t be getting much rest for a while."
"Got it. I’ll sleep with one eye open."
Huang Jiutian joked, seeming completely relaxed. Then, a funny thought suddenly occurred to him.
"Uh, Tao, one more thing. What if that Thorn plant is stubborn and thinks we prepared fake Golden Fertilizer?"
Jiutian pointed to the half-truckload of "designated fertilizer" in the distance.
A few of the surrounding Special Security Team members and Tao Xingzhi all cracked a smile.
But upon further thought, Tao Xingzhi’s smile vanished. ’Damn, that would actually be a problem!’
...
Qin Xiaoxia couldn’t just go over immediately because the Special Security Team had Mumu’s "big gift package" ready. That would be too abrupt and make it seem like he’d been lying in wait. Besides, he had just returned to Qingzhen and hadn’t even had a chance to warm his seat yet. He decided to rest for a bit first.
By the time Mumu sent a message with the last of its old-school phone’s battery to say "Rodent extermination complete," two days had already passed.
As for its severed husk, although the Magic Power had long since dissipated, it could still clearly sense it.
To put it bluntly, the main reason Mumu was so eager to get its husk back wasn’t to regenerate a lost limb, but because having it would mean it would have to "bleed" a lot less.
...
Jiutian was, after all, still fundamentally a normal person. Qin Xiaoxia’s Magic Power was a burden on him, and even with his evolutionary trend, nearly three days with little rest had left him with dark circles under his eyes.
On the third day, after dinner, the drowsiness he felt was instantly shattered the moment the Magic Power flared up.
"We’ve got a situation! It’s here!"
Tao Xingzhi and a few others who had also been dozing off were instantly wide awake.
"Is it going for the branches?"
"Yeah, it’s right underneath us!"
The people in the vehicle glanced at the instruments detecting ground vibrations. The data fluctuations were as slight as a mole digging underground.
Underground, Mumu cautiously approached its own husk. There weren’t many of those human auras around, and the scent of its master’s Magic Power on Huang Jiutian was particularly distinct.
’I don’t know where Master is. I’d better just grab my body first...’
The Thorns underground quickly grabbed most of the smaller, fragmented branches and began to drag them downward.
One meter, two meters... Mumu hadn’t been pulling for long when it suddenly felt a powerful tugging force preventing it from dragging away the thickest Thorn branches.
’What’s going on?’
Inside the command vehicle, they could see the patch of soil vibrating on the monitor. Then, at a certain moment, the alloy steel chains anchoring several of the Thorns were pulled taut.
The heavy truck connected to the alloy chains shuddered slightly.
’It’s a trap, just as I thought!’
Mumu released the branches and was about to flee, but Jiutian, who had been watching for any movement, was already at the loudspeaker microphone.
"Mr. Thorn! I’m the one who spoke with you last time, do you remember..."
The loudspeaker’s echo spread out in all directions, aimed primarily at the ground.
CLICK, CLICK, CLICK, CLICK...
The surrounding searchlights and high-intensity floodlights also switched on one after another.
But before Jiutian could even finish his first sentence, he trailed off.
"Holy shit, Tao, it already ran away..."
As if to confirm his words, the steel cables on the monitor slackened slightly.
Jiutian looked like he wanted to cry but had no tears left. Mumu had clearly paid him no mind at all and had fled in an instant.
"This Thorn creature is way too timid... I hadn’t even finished my first sentence before I Sensed it drilling deep underground..."
The atmosphere in the command vehicle, which had just started to heat up, instantly cooled down. Tao Xingzhi was also stunned.
’What are we supposed to do now? It can’t end in failure just like this, can it?!’
Before that thought could even fade, a calm voice, carrying a vibration that resonated in their ears, sounded beside them.
"Once, we believed that no matter how many years passed, the face of those in power would never change."
It was impossible to discern a gender or an age from the voice. It was calm and ancient, yet filled with a profound strength.
The source of the voice seemed to be right next to them, yet also impossibly far away.
"However, I must admit that today, you have made me see you in a new light."
Someone finally spotted the source of the voice. Beside the pile of Golden Fertilizer, a phantasmal Shadow had appeared at some unknown point.
It was clad in a black robe, its face indistinct. The wind seemed to make the Shadow sway and tremble as it blew past.
But this entity, which one might mistake for a projection from some device, had actually, truly picked up a bag of "Golden Fertilizer."
Was this a physical entity? Or an illusion? Was it alive? Or was it a Ghost Soul?
"My apologies. The matter with the Golden Fertilizer was just a junior of mine playing a prank on the Thorn Child."
His tone held a clear hint of amusement, showing he was not without a sense of humor.
These words snapped the Special Security Team members back to their senses. Tao Xingzhi snatched the microphone directly from Huang Jiutian.
"Who are you? Who are *you people*? What do you know about those foreign objects?"
The dark Shadow didn’t speak. Instead, it squatted down and pressed a hand to the ground.
The soil parted on its own, heaving as it brought the three Thorn branches Mumu hadn’t managed to take to the surface.
He reached out and tapped them, and the chains fell away with a clang.
"Well then, I shall take my leave!"
The wind around them gradually picked up. Dust began to swirl within the site, forcing many of the Soldiers outside to either take cover in their vehicles or drop to the ground.
"Wait! Please don’t go! Wait! Who are you? What is it you people want?"
Tao Xingzhi’s voice from the loudspeaker grew noticeably frantic. The other party seemed to have no intention of holding a conversation, simply speaking its piece from beginning to end.
He jumped directly out of the command vehicle. Startled, Jiutian and the others failed to stop him and hurriedly followed.
Outside, it felt as though sand and stones were flying through the air, making it difficult to even stand steady.
BANG! BANG! BANG!
He fired his pistol three times into the air.
"Answer me!!"
Vaguely, a feeling somewhere between intuition and his Visual Sense allowed Tao Xingzhi to think he saw, within the swirling vortex of sand, a pair of bright eyes with purple flames dancing inside them.
"If I told you, would you even believe me?"
After a brief silence, the voice spoke again.
"The weakening of the Power of the World is both a crisis and an opportunity. On the eve of the Dark Tide, no one can say what is right or wrong!"
Tao Xingzhi seized the opportunity and continued to shout at the top of his lungs.
"What is the Dark Tide? What is the Power of the World? I hope you can lower your guard and with us..."
He was cut off by that omnipresent voice before he could finish.
"A thousand years of waiting have led to this battle. The blood that flows through history has not yet dried, and trust is not born from nothing."
As the last echo still resonated, the gale vanished as if it were an illusion. The sand and dirt that had been swept into the sky trickled down, proving to everyone that what had just happened was real.
"The branches and the Golden Fertilizer are gone..."
Jiutian reminded the dejected Tao Xingzhi in a low voice.