Holy shit, hell was about to break loose!
If one day the ostensibly “peaceful” city of Tacheng were suddenly attacked by the Evil Transmutation Cult, the first words that would pop into everyone's mind would be accompanied by countless exclamation marks, in extra-bold, bright red, and underlined:
*—RUN FOR YOUR LIVES!!*
The haze of the past descended once more, blanketing hearts that were already racked with anxiety.
Never mind the Evil Transmutation Cult—the Federation and the Empire were far more vicious, violent, and ruthless than the Cult could ever be!
Ji Jue had barely set things in motion, yet it had already stirred up waves far beyond expectation. This move played perfectly upon the Mid-Continentals' natural lack of trust in order and their deeply ingrained vigilance.
Overnight, the atmosphere completely transformed. Beneath every smiling face, bodies grew tense against an encroaching threat.
Bracing for the violent storm that could break at any moment!
This was instinct.
If trust had never existed in the first place, suspicion was merely common sense.
In a godforsaken place like the Mid-Continent, in a man-eating quagmire like Tacheng, anyone lacking vigilance had rotted away in a ditch long ago.
Even if it meant jumping at shadows. Even if every bush and tree looked like an enemy soldier.
Better to be a living clown than a dead idiot.
An hour after the attack, Ji Jue was sitting in an interrogation room at the police station. By the second hour following the explosion of his office, all of Tacheng was silently reaching a boiling point.
At five in the morning, every police station across downtown Tacheng entered a state of emergency. Commissioners sat on pins and needles, wiping away sweat as they answered calls with obsequious smiles, bowing and scraping in their offices. The moment they hung up, their curses echoed through headquarters, blistering the ears of everyone within earshot.
Even those corrupt cops who usually swaggered around throwing their weight about were now on high alert. Even if they had no idea what was actually going on, they were forced to be on guard as if facing a mortal enemy just to save their own skins.
Forced back to their posts before dawn by mandatory orders, they yawned and groaned in misery. Everyone kept telling one another to stay sharp, yet none of them knew what they were supposed to be watching out for.
Soon enough, however, they realized… they didn't need to be careful at all.
Just as dawn was breaking, familiar sirens wailed across all of Tacheng.
Armored vehicles poured out in long columns from the Federation and Imperial garrison bases. Immediately afterward, rows of barricades and checkpoints materialized at key transit arteries and city gates.
Expressionless soldiers, armed to the teeth, guarded the checkpoints and meticulously scrutinized everyone's documents.
"Holy sh—"
A police officer yawning in his squad car froze. Looking up, he saw a gargantuan airship gliding slowly across the sky… like a dark cloud of iron, casting a menacing shadow over Tacheng once more.
Crimson warning lights flashed aboard the airship, and on its suspended display screens, orders and announcements from both high commands were broadcast:
*—[CITYWIDE MARTIAL LAW]!*
The moment they sensed the ripples spreading, the Federation and Imperial garrisons did not hesitate to show an iron fist, deterring anyone hoping to loot the burning house or fan the flames.
At the same time, it made their stance clear.
After all, failing to suppress bandits was merely a question of competence, but refusing to suppress them was a question of loyalty!
Incompetence only cost a man his post, but an improper attitude got people killed!
Now that the Federation and the Empire had staked out their position, it was everyone else's turn to declare where they stood: *Do you support wiping out the Evil Transmutation Cult?*
Instantly, countless hands shot into the air and faces welled with tears as people scrambled to proclaim their loyalty.
Simultaneously, the moment their heads dropped and their backs turned, they set about ruthless measures to mend their roofs before the rain fell!
Months after the last surge, the Wasteland Market once again celebrated an explosion of orders!
In a single night, from the instant those four words—*Evil Transmutation Cult*—left Ji Jue's mouth, the Wasteland Market's business grew at an eye-popping speed!
Shaban was so busy he was nearly foaming at the mouth.
Business—far too much business!
They had accepted over eighty silencing contracts alone, and more than two hundred new getaway contracts poured in overnight. They were on the verge of running out of men.
Corpses plunged into the sewers one after another, splashing down like dumplings into boiling broth!
There was no helping it; no one's hands were truly clean.
In a place like the Mid-Continent, the bigger a person was, the harder their tracks were to cover.
Everyone was accustomed to living by the gun, leaving life and death to fate, living haphazardly and dying grotesquely. Over time, nobody could say for sure what kind of backgrounds their own subordinates actually had!
Trusted middle-tier personnel were manageable, but who could run background checks on the low-level thugs at the bottom? The guy himself didn't even know where his father was—how were you supposed to vouch for him?
Besides, there were simply too many members of the Evil Transmutation Cult!
So many that even after purge upon purge, they could never be stamped out completely!
Among the Four Divisions and Six Sects carrying the legacy of the Great Sins in the mortal world, the Evil Transmutation Cult had the most members by far!
They turned away nobody.
Their ritual—worshiping the Great Sin to delay corruption, which in truth bound the worshiper even deeper—was absurdly effective for recruitment!
What was more, once someone learned it, they could strike out on their own. Work for three months and become your own boss, spreading endlessly through generations. Over time, the offshoots grew so numerous that even the Evil Transmutation Cult itself couldn't keep track of them all.
Before Lu Changsheng, their organization had been nothing more than loose sand, growing wild everywhere. And after Lu Changsheng's bizarre brush with death and subsequent return, they had scattered even further.
Donning new guises and hiding under fake identities everywhere, a person could change names ten times a day. If you walked a few paces through the slums, you might run into several people who had once collected free handouts from the Cult!
As a result… virtually everyone had some connection to the Evil Transmutation Cult, more or less! There were even plenty who had cooperated with high-ranking Cult officials in the past!
No one was clean, and no one could withstand a thorough investigation. How could they not be terrified?
Panic seized everyone.
Ji Jue, on the other hand, sat in the police station's break room, drinking free coffee cup after cup and enjoying the show.
As it turned out, the moment the goal of a game was no longer about winning, it became vastly more entertaining…
He was an outsider with no stake in Tacheng's future. If things went to hell, he could just pack his bags and leave. He didn't even mind heading straight for the Red Nation.
At worst, he would lose a bit of face.
As if he cared about losing face!
He could walk away from the market, walk away from the money, and forgo every ounce of profit.
Yet he could make everyone else eat shit!
And do so with effortless ease.
A storm was brewing, and at the eye of the impending tempest, Ji Jue leisurely scrolled through his social feed, even snapping a cheerful selfie.
With an arm slung around the dazed rookie officer, he flashed a thumbs-up, smiling brightly at the camera with the Tacheng Police Department badge in the background.
*[It is merely a little wind and frost]*
Screenshots of that post immediately made their way onto countless screens. Spectators saw black before their eyes, nearly fainting with fury, stamping their feet and cursing up a storm.
Yet blind rage was useless, and cursing solved nothing.
As things stood, the matter could be blown up into a catastrophe or handled quietly—and Ji Jue held the scales firmly in his grasp!
That bastard's finger was already pressed against the big red 'weigh-in' button, rubbing it back and forth as if dancing to some demonic beat.
Did Ji Jue have the clout to bring this matter to the scale?
He did, brother, he absolutely did…
Setting aside his role as the representative of Haichao Armaments—which nobody cared about anyway—Ji Jue was a recipient of the Church of Chongguang's Medal of Sublime Virtue, arguably the number one recognized do-gooder in all of Tacheng, a sworn mortal enemy of the Evil Transmutation Cult, a Golden Ribbon Craftsman of the Ring of Taiyi, a Celestial Craftsman, a stalwart pillar of the Federation, and so on and so forth!
He held so many titles they could barely fit in the break room.
Not a single one of those identities belonged to a nobody who could be squashed at will.
At the same time, any single one of those titles carried enough weight to stir up an uproar and drag this matter entirely into the open!
Once things escalated, another grand purge would sweep through Tacheng. Amidst the tempest, everyone's instinct would be to drag others down with them, devolving into an uncontrollable free-for-all, instantly turning the hard-won stability into a quagmire.
*If I don't want to make money, nobody makes money.*
Playing with lit candles on a powder keg was precisely this.
The “fine blade” that Shaban had praised and everyone had held high hopes for was now smeared with filth and swinging wildly, triggering everyone's post-traumatic stress all over again.
There was simply no counter to his ability to pull catastrophe out of thin air.
Nobody could gauge how deep the waters behind this ran. Had it really been a coincidence, or was Ji Jue turning their own scheme against them, staging the entire spectacle himself?
Even Mudahka was beginning to doubt whether there really were Evil Transmutation Cultists under his own command!
At this critical juncture, looking at his allies, his backers, and his own henchmen, everyone seemed like they were out to ruin him!
Otherwise, why would they have pushed him forward to butt heads with Ji Jue, turning him into the fuse of a bomb…
Under the temporary crackdown of iron-fisted rule, the brewing waves seemed to be suppressed, but as panic spread and intensified, who knew when the explosion would come?
Just like the order and peace demanded by the Federation and the Empire, no amount of glossy veneer could mask the stench of the Mid-Continent's mire, nor its countless conflicts and hatreds.
And among the swords hanging over their heads, the sudden addition of the Evil Transmutation Cult had pushed everyone right to their breaking point.
Investigate? Could they even investigate?
Absolutely not!
There could be no chaos, no searches, and no investigations. What if they actually found something? What if it was real?!
Everyone knew the Mid-Continent was a powder keg, and everyone knew dark undercurrents surged within Tacheng. But who could shoulder the blame for igniting the fuse at this moment?
As for the truth… did the truth matter?
It didn't matter at all.
What mattered was that no one could start a war—at least, not right now!
Therefore, what mattered even more was settling Ji Jue…
Thus, the pressure shifted squarely onto Dugu Ming.
In the span of a single night, countless phone calls flooded his line. Some were smooth and placating, others furious and barking; some probed around the edges, while others cursed him until he was covered in spit.
*Look at the brilliant mess your Huanyu Heavy Industries made!*
*Back then, your abacus clicked so smoothly as you pushed Ji Jue out as the expendable pawn, yet not even a night has passed and the backlash has hit you full force… Want to keep playing?*
*You blew it, you idiot!*
The final straw that broke the camel's back was a message relayed by General Fan Yun's secretary. It was brief and to the point—just a casual remark the general had dropped after finishing his meal:
*"Stop this nonsense."*
And so, having endured until now, Dugu Ming broke into a cold sweat!
Chapter 573