"Major The Qing is back."
Even though Han Qingyu had stated with his own mouth that he would not return to Azure, people still said it anyway.
Because at least for this world still temporarily hidden behind the scenes, that once-dazzling name had returned.
Returning alongside him were his companions—Shen Yixiu and He Tangtang. Rumor had it that Lieutenant Wu Xu had reached super, and Second Lieutenant Wen Jifei carried a gun of endless bullets...
And then there were ten thousand outlaws from the City of Iniquity, among them at least one super and six top-tiers.
This was a force that absolutely could not be underestimated.
It was also the single biggest piece of news in the entire hidden world of source energy in early 1994.
Everyone was watching for where that fleet would go.
Yet it had vanished.
After setting sail, it simply disappeared into the boundless ocean.
After the initial groups that attempted to shadow or spy on it were struck and driven away, the world completely lost track of the fleet.
Two months...
It did not appear in the waters southeast of Asia as people had speculated, nor did it draw near its homeland of Huaxia. It appeared nowhere.
Two months passed.
The people of the City of Iniquity had calmed from the emotional stir of historic change and gradually grew accustomed to the city after the departure of Major Qing and those ten thousand souls.
During this period, the City of Iniquity was peaceful. The major factions lived in harmony, Boss Dao remained mysterious, daily life carried on as usual, noodle shops and grocery stores opened as always, and the Great Spike airships that were meant to be contested were still contested.
It was just that Lynne no longer went to bars, no longer indulging in carefree revelry.
She and Jenna now trained every day with a squad from the Azure Dragon Gang, going on missions and cutting down Great Spikes. Their skin had tanned quite a bit, and their combat strength had grown somewhat stronger.
Yet every morning, they made a point of passing by the bulletin board outside the Hall of Definitive Kills.
This board not only posted challenge notices, but was also the news center of the entire city.
Sometimes, Lynne and Jenna would run into the landlady of the Third District grocery store in front of the board. Sometimes they would see Ao Yong and Qian Daofeng, who were also training and fighting alongside a squad.
And almost every day, they would encounter people from Minh Nguyet's faction—those two confidantes at Nguyen Thi Minh Nguyet's side.
"Hey, why is it so lively today?" Early that morning, before they even reached the bulletin board, Jenna grabbed Lynne's arm upon seeing the dense crowd of heads.
"I don't know..." Lynne replied, then gave it some thought. "Oh, right—it's the day the rankings come out."
The intelligence and evaluation agencies of the City of Iniquity had always maintained two leaderboards: the Dome Leaderboard and the Cloud Piercer Leaderboard. Today happened to be the release date of the new seasonal rankings.
Fierce discussions reached their ears from before the bulletin board. Jenna and Lynne picked up their pace into an anxious trot.
"What's happening? What is it? What's everyone so excited about?!"
Jenna was simply built that way, shouting out before she even arrived.
Naturally, because she was a pretty girl, someone was always willing to answer.
"Major Qing made it onto the Dome Leaderboard," a passerby said, jogging over.
Lynne's steps came to an abrupt halt. She turned the words over in her mind... *Bastard, saying it with zero excitement! If you don't know how to build suspense, keep your mouth shut! It would've been so much better if I discovered it myself!*
"Ah, then what rank is he?!" Jenna asked excitedly from the side.
"Tenth," the passerby answered.
"At the very bottom of the board?! Then who did he bump off?"
"That General Jiang from Huaxia—the one who went missing."
"Oh."
Having heard the news, Jenna paid no further attention to the passerby. She turned back, staring intently at Lynne. "Why do I feel like I'm not even surprised, Lynne? That's the Dome Leaderboard! I'm supposed to be stunned, totally thrilled!"
"Yeah, I feel the same way. Maybe because he's The King?" Lynne pondered for a moment. "It's mainly because for a while, we were standing too close to him."
"He ought to have distance. That way, we'd suddenly hear that The King is still alive and has advanced to super, and we'd weep with excitement. Then we'd suddenly hear that he fought Shu You, and suddenly discover that he appeared on the Dome Leaderboard... We'd go to the bars to celebrate just like before, swooning over his photos."
Lynne continued.
Jenna nodded thoughtfully. Realizing Lynne was right, she said with a dejected expression, "Yeah. How annoying!"
In truth, the feeling Lynne described was precisely how people in the outside world were reacting.
"Ah, Major Qing really is alive! And he's reached super?!"
"Ah, he fought Shu You?! Is that Thor You, rank seven on the Dome Leaderboard?! He didn't die? Just surviving that is insane!"
"Ah, he led ten thousand people out of the City of Iniquity?! What, at least three supers and eight top-tiers?!"
"He vanished."
"He made it onto the Dome Leaderboard!"
"What?!"
"The Dome Leaderboard!"
...
That day, before noon had even arrived, the intelligence agencies of all the factions gathered in the City of Iniquity had already spread the new rankings and this shocking news across nearly the entire hidden world of source energy.
No one doubted the fairness or reliability of the leaderboard.
It had existed for several decades, and within the scope of its capabilities, it had always been impartial and credible.
Besides, General Jiang truly was due to come down; he had been missing for over two years already.
As for Major Qing—don't forget that right before leaving the City of Iniquity, he had just fought a battle against Shu You. Because the evaluation agency was based in the City of Iniquity, everyone had every reason to believe that this assessment had come directly from the mouth of Shu You, the seventh rank on the Dome Leaderboard.
Therefore, there was nothing to question.
That name had truly returned. Before his fleet reappeared in the world, he had staged his comeback upon the combat leaderboard.
And this time, it was not the Cloud Piercer Leaderboard.
The former number one on the Cloud Piercer Leaderboard, the God of War of the top-tier era, had officially declared the restoration of the star in the most domineering fashion—blasting straight onto the Dome Leaderboard just one short year after ascending to super.
...
"Hehehehehe... Couldn't find them." With irritated eyes, the old chief of staff sneered as he tossed the intelligence report in front of Chen Buer.
The current situation was that even Azure could not locate that fleet.
"If they can't find them, then they can't. Tenth rank, that's all." Legion Commander Chen stubbornly turned his head away, refusing to look.
The thing was written in English anyway, and he couldn't read it. Knowing the gist of it was enough.
"What? 'That's all'?!" The old chief of staff jumped to his feet, lunging forward to grab his old comrade by the collar. "'That's all'?! Then you produce one for me! Either that, or you go in person and bring him back!"
*Search? Where in the world would I search? The boy didn't leave a single trace. And tenth on the Dome Leaderboard, plus two supers—do you think they're cabbages growing by the roadside?* Chen Buer thought to himself, keeping his mouth firmly shut.
"Give him back! Give him back to me! It was your bright idea, so you go bring him back to me!" Outside, the old chief of staff was a scheming, unflappable mastermind, but right here, he kept grumbling and nagging like an unreasonable old codger.
No one understood better than he, the chief of general staff overseeing the big picture, just how scarce and stretched thin Huaxia's high-end combat power was right now. Therefore, under the current circumstances, naturally no one was more anxious and depressed than him.
"Well, didn't you agree back then too?" Chen Buer weakly defended himself.
"I agreed?! I..." He seemed to recall that he really had agreed back then. Annoyed, the old chief of staff said, "I shouldn't have listened to you. For decades I never listened to you, and the one time I did at last, something like this happened."
"Mm, exactly. So it's still your fault," Chen Buer said.
"...Sigh!" The old chief of staff couldn't be bothered to argue any further. He sighed helplessly and said, "Just you wait and see. The whole world knows Xiongzhanli is about to blow wide open. When things go south, the Alliance will definitely come looking for us again. Who told us to be so close, and to have the invincible man of the world? But our own household is so huge..."
The old man rambled on, venting his stress and frustration.
"Hm? Where did you just say?" Chen Buer suddenly interrupted him.
"Xiongzhanli! The whole world knows they can't hold things down over there. I'm asking you what we're going to do!" The old chief of staff turned around and asked in confusion.
Chen Buer shot to his feet.
"He will go to Xiongzhanli."
"What?" For a moment, the old chief of staff failed to follow.
"Since the whole world knows, and Xiongzhanli is currently unstable, he will go to Xiongzhanli first," Legion Commander Chen said.
Chapter 533