Why fight them head-on?
Why play their game on the board and by the rules they picked?
Since they were as good as dead anyway, why not get a little more radical, drag a few more bastards down with them, and see if they could carve out a path to survive?
If you weren't sure who was friend or foe, lock onto your enemy first.
If there was no road, go demand one from the Evil Transmutation Cult.
Everyone was so used to being regular army, so used to life-and-death standoffs, that when the tables turned and they traded places with their old adversaries, it didn't even cross their minds to use the very tactics that had put them through hell so many times before. Nor could they fathom just how wild a habitual Embers offender like Ji Jue could be.
Put that way, wasn't it high time the Evil Transmutation Cult got a taste of the pain the Security Bureau had suffered?
Endless moles to whack, endless bounties to chase, endless scum to eradicate...
"Is it doable, Brother Shan?" Ji Jue looked up and asked.
Tong Shan pondered for a moment, then gave a solemn nod. "It is."
"With such a massive operation, the Evil Transmutation Cult might even have a Celestial-Human presiding over it," Xu Guan threw cold water on the idea. "If things go south, we'll just be delivering ourselves on a silver platter."
"With an operation that big, just how many places can one Celestial-Human watch?" Ji Jue smiled. "Even with Lord Tao's Heavenly Eye hanging high in the sky, looking down on the entire realm, isn't there still ground he can't cover?"
Otherwise, how could the mole have smuggled intel out right from under Lord Tao's nose?
"With such a massive setup and so many people, even if the Evil Transmutation Cult and the Dragon Sacrifice Society were thick as thieves and joined at the hip, they couldn't just bunch up in one place and leave everything else unattended, right?" Ji Jue looked toward Tong Shan.
To this, Tong Shan nodded emphatically.
This wasn't speculation or guesswork; it was a simple matter of management. Spreading out such a large operation inevitably meant dispersing personnel across every corner of Quancheng.
Whether to facilitate deployments, avoid friction, or keep a few private thoughts and secrets to themselves, the Dragon Sacrifice Society wasn't going to set up camp right under the cult's nose. Splitting their forces was the simplest solution.
Even the Security Bureau, representing Tianyuan, was divided into the First, Second, and Third Departments in Yacheng, partitioned into all those jurisdictions. If everyone could just crowd together, see each other every day, spend morning to night in each other's pockets, and cultivate tacit understanding and camaraderie, wouldn't that be wonderful? Was it because they didn't want to?
If you wanted subordinates to show initiative, you couldn't expect them to be puppets who asked for instructions on every single matter, holding meetings every day to discuss and obey orders.
Reading the room, getting things done, shouldering responsibility, and stirring up trouble—these four circles overlapped almost completely.
Having an asset like Tong Shan—low-maintenance, rock-steady, and capable of balancing the Security Bureau with the local powers of Yacheng—was a blessing you had to burn incense for. Far more common were the ones like Yu Hanguang who loved skimming profits, Lu Shenzhou who loved slacking off, Zhao Chengping who craved power, and even... Wen Wen, who loved rolling up her sleeves and flipping tables.
Reality wasn't a mobile game. Shoving a heap of R, N, and SSR cards into the same barracks would have their brains beaten out within three days, with Wen Wen earning an MVP screen for friendly fire.
And that was Tianyuan!
The most order-oriented, unified, and rule-bound of all Sovereign Virtues!
Could lowlife flies crawling out of the gutter like the Evil Transmutation Cult possibly be united in purpose and share the same hatred? What a pipe dream. Just seeing how decisively Yan Chong had sold out his teammate showed what a pathetic joke they were on an ordinary day.
It was easy to imagine that internal power struggles and cutthroat feuds were completely routine. Even if the Dragon Sacrifice Society and the Evil Transmutation Cult were cooperating deeply, the two sides would probably have to throw down first just to fight over who got the final say. Situations where powerhouses like Yan Chong hoarded troops and acted with self-importance certainly wouldn't be rare either.
If we're both sending cannon fodder to the front line, why does my group have to send one more kid than theirs? For the exact same supplies, why does the bastard next door get one more crate than me?
Thinking about it like that, Ji Jue almost felt bad for their leadership.
To hold such a ragtag bunch of clowns together, their leaders must be chugging stomach meds and blood-pressure pills like candy.
"After taking a hit once, the Evil Transmutation Cult will have learned its lesson. This time, they'll only deploy more men, not fewer—especially since they have to monitor every single route," Ji Jue said. "If we seize the chance while their other sectors are hollowed out, we might well capture a mid-to-high-level officer and follow the cult's own routes to get out."
The transit routes inside Quancheng were classified to begin with; they couldn't possibly be distributed to everyone.
The labyrinthine city had sheltered the Evil Transmutation Cult, but it also hemmed them in. Shoddily organized as they were, low-ranking lackeys probably only knew one or two internal routes to prevent someone from acting stupid and accidentally blowing their cover or leaking information.
To truly find a way out of Quancheng, catching small fry was useless. It had to be someone who actually managed things, someone with a voice in decision-making meetings.
The key to this whole plan was the window of opportunity.
Raid their branch before the Evil Transmutation Cult realized what was happening, and then leave Quancheng before the alarm could spread.
Among the retreat options Ji Jue could think of, this was the most actionable one right now.
If this didn't work, their only choice was to pull back into their shell and wait for rescue, which was essentially a slow death. Or they could try their luck searching for an incubating Chrono Ruin, just like the Evil Transmutation Cult had done in the past, hiding inside it and drifting beyond the boundaries of Quancheng.
But that plan was far too impractical, and the odds of success were far too low.
It was practically a fool's dream.
Yet even if they chose to raid the Evil Transmutation Cult, a crucial question lay before everyone.
Quancheng was so huge—where the hell was the Evil Transmutation Cult?
"Brother Shan, do you have any leads?" Ji Jue looked toward Tong Shan, who was deep in thought.
Tong the Plant merely smiled.
A tacit understanding passed between them.
"I knew it..." Ji Jue let out a breath of relief.
Half the battle was already won.
After slaying Ling Zhi and repelling Yan Chong, Tong Shan hadn't just been posturing while suspended high in the sky.
Even with internal and external troubles leaving him in the worst shape of his life, he still had enough in him to snap the necks of a few unlucky bastards on the way. The only reason he hadn't stopped those surviving lackeys from fleeing...
You were chumming the water, weren't you?!
No, you bastard, you probably planned this right from the start, didn't you?!
"Are you really Tianyuan?" Ji Jue asked suspiciously.
"The genuine article," Tong Shan replied. "It's precisely because I'm Tianyuan that I know how to tell the difference between on-duty, off-duty, and working overtime." He offered a meaningful smile. "When I'm not playing Tong the Plant, I know how to be flexible."
Tianyuan was the unification of order, not the unification of idiots. There was no contradiction between a civil servant following the rules and a civil servant who loved working loopholes; his ideas just weren't quite as wild as Ji Jue's, that was all...
You always had to prepare for both contingencies. You didn't strive for the best, but you made sure to avoid the worst.
Originally, when he thought the squad had lost its retreat, he had instinctively left several marks on the fleeing cultists, seeking nothing more than to follow the trail and see if there was an opportunity to lie low in Quancheng and find traces of Commander Lou.
He had to admit that Ji Jue's plan involved a gamble.
Even so, he truly liked it from the bottom of his heart.
"Interested in joining the Security Bureau?" he offered once more. "Even part-time is fine. The Third Department's annual budget is so huge they can never spend it all, and the Federation foots the bill for every expense. I really think highly of you."
"Do you hate the Director of the Third Department that much?" Ji Jue shot back.
Tong Shan choked on a cough, then burst out laughing.
And so, the plan was set.
***
Three hours later, at the edge of Quancheng.
Amidst the swirling white fog, a dilapidated house suspended between illusion and reality hid silently in the gloom.
In the dead silence, faint rustling sounds echoed from cracks, rooftops, sewer pipes, and obscure corners along the street.
Unremarkable black specks resembling tiny bugs crept stealthily through the corners, spreading out until they blanketed the entire street and the surrounding area.
Spying on everything.
Every now and then, bugs crawled into the doorframe, vanishing into that overly noisy "darkness" inside.
Under flickering lights, scattered playing cards lay uncollected on a table, and empty beer bottles were strewn everywhere.
Cigarette butts piled high in ashtrays, disposable paper cups, and discarded meal containers, mingling with leftover food to emit a pungent stench. Mixed with the smell of sweat, grease, and foot odor, it drifted like the unmistakable "fragrance" of an unsupervised college dormitory.
"Fuck Yan Chong's fucking mother, fuck Ling Zhi's fucking mother, fuck Xu Ling's fucking mother, fuck the fucking Tianxin Society..."
Slumped in a chair, a fat man puffed on a cigarette, swearing in a nonstop torrent. "These pieces of shit slap their foreheads—'Oh, I've got an idea'—and go stir up a colossal mess. Making a mess is one thing, but they ended up almost all dead and let the Security Bureau people get away! Can you believe that? Two against one and they couldn't even win. What an embarrassment!
"And then, they actually have the nerve to come to your daddy and say: 'You guys, go guard this spot, don't let a single fly out...' Go fuck yourself! The boys and I were doing just fine in Huangzhou, but we got dragged out to this godforsaken place, waiting dry every day like we're doing hard time. Lu Changsheng has been Sacrificial Master for so long his brain's gone rotten. Who knows what the hell he's thinking every day!"
"Hey, boss, times are different now," a subordinate beside him tried to soothe him. "We're all doing work for the Cult."
"Work? Work my fucking ass!"
The fat man opened his mouth and swallowed a bug crawling across his hand, chewing and tasting it with a crunch as he read the pheromones, cursing all the while. "As far as I can tell, the Evil Transmutation Cult is done for under him! Letting the Dragon Sacrifice Society walk all over us, bringing in a bunch of Nether lunatics, and now sticking his neck out against the Security Bureau for some grand move? As far as I can tell, he just thinks we're not dying fast enough! And what's-his-face... Jian... Jian-something? That old bastard Jianyuan!
"Just talking about him pisses me off—"
Mid-tirade, his movements ground to a halt, freezing him in place.
He grabbed another handful of bugs and threw them into his mouth, juices squirting.
In utter disbelief, he looked toward the door. "They're actually heading this way?"
"For real?" The subordinates looked startled and suspicious. Those lying down or lounging sat up straight, exchanging glances.
"Signal the ones in the back! Quick!"
The bug-eating fat man grinned. Between the folds of his blubber, compound eyes opened across his face one after another. "This time we struck gold! Everyone, get ready right now..."
Under the pursuit and surveillance of countless flying insects, a beat-up car covered in weld scars and patches rolled silently into the perimeter, cautious and completely quiet.
It was clearly just a short stretch of road, yet it twisted and turned, ensuring there were no pursuers behind it.
Just as it was about to enter the ambush circle, it seemed to sense something. Without warning, it slammed on the brakes, shifted into reverse, and tore away in a mad sprint.
"Block it! Block it for me!"
Sprawled across the rooftop, the fat man widened every eye on his body. Innumerable dragonfly-like wings instantly sprouted from his back as he took to the air in hot pursuit!
Like a beast driven to the end of its rope under the relentless interception and pursuit of numerous cultists, the cornered vehicle was bombarded by attacks until it was forced into a dead end, leaving no way out.
Its heavy armor was scarred with gouges, and thick smoke billowed outward.
A single headlight tore free from a severed cable, crashing to the ground and flickering dimly.
Then, all movement ceased.
"What the hell is this?"
The fat man stood warily in the distance, raising a hand to signal his subordinates to stay on guard.
Then he looked at the man in front and jerked his chin.
The dazed subordinate stiffened. Under the fat man's urging glare, he swallowed hard, stowed his weapon, and crept forward. Gathering his courage, he hurled filthy curses under his breath and finally yanked the car door open.
Yet the door seemed to have given up long ago; with a single tug, it clattered to the ground. Then, the corpses inside slowly tumbled out, accompanied by the thick, pungent stench of blood.
"Corpses?" The scout poked his head in, bewildered. Inside the cabin, among messy, piled-up crates, was a heap of mangled body parts.
A foul stench washed over him.
"It's all corpses!"
The fat man frowned, shoved the useless underling aside, and strode forward. He reached out and ripped off the vehicle's outer panel, exposing the remains—some severed, some whole. Yet when he reached out to hoist one up, he felt no weight at all.
His face grew darker by the second. Suddenly, he tore away the "corpse's" outer skin, only to pull off a thin sheet of white paper with two words written on it:
[Corpse]!
The instant the Aether disguise was shattered, the thick reek of blood transformed into a suffocating, eye-stinging stench of chemicals.
"Fuck your—" The fat man's expression changed violently. Without a second thought, he dropped the dead weight, spun around, and ran for his life.
Too late.
In that final flicker of the headlight, the engine let out one last satisfied, exhausted sigh.
To be able to make one last run like this...
It said, [That was fucking awesome!]
—BOOM!
A chaotic storm of fire erupted. Thick smoke surged, and flames leapt toward the sky, casting a searing red glow across the heavy clouds above.
The tremendous blast was carried into the distance by the gale, merging continuously with scattered explosions rumbling from other sectors of Quancheng, rolling on without end, rising from every direction.
"Whew~"
Ji Jue whistled, watching the flare of the fireworks. "Quite a show, isn't it?"
Consider it an early New Year's greeting.
He wondered if their good friends in the Evil Transmutation Cult liked their special delivery.
Chapter 204