Chen Chuan emerged from the martial arts arena. Declining Rossard's offer of a ride, he contacted the delegation's dedicated vehicle to return to their station.
After returning, he first met with Delegation Leader Xie to brief him on the situation, while simultaneously transmitting a telegram to the First Delegation detailing the full sequence of events during his trip.
In it, he placed special emphasis on Crossal coming to confront him at the end.
He was not about to indulge the man, directly requesting that the First Delegation lodge a formal protest with the Federation Government.
Leader Xie agreed entirely. Instead of reflecting on how such chaos had erupted in the first place, the Federation had the gall to question and target the very person who had come to help at their own request? The Federation had to be made to provide a clear explanation and accounting for this matter.
After finishing his conversation with Leader Xie, Chen Chuan went to check in with the members of his own squad for a while before returning to his quarters.
Once inside, he set up a simple isolation ritual, drew the Xuejun Saber, and quieted his mind to sense it.
The blade seemed to have absorbed something beneficial earlier; it had now sunken entirely into a near-dormant state.
Ever since he had upgraded the mutated tissue within the saber, low-tier nourishment could no longer induce such a state. This indicated that whatever it had absorbed was not only beneficial to the Xuejun Saber, but likely an immense tonic.
The gains from this battle were truly substantial. Even if he could not perceive it yet, he knew his second self would surely see significant growth. Furthermore, fighting against two entities at the Mystic Profundity View level had given him deeper insights and a better understanding of the realm above.
This would be of immense help to his future cultivation. Besides, he could now inspect what that message the Wanderer transmitted to him actually was.
Sheathing the saber, he focused his mind and reached out to touch the wisp of information sent by the entity. The instant contact was made, light seemed to flash around him, and a magnificent, bizarre scene abruptly unfolded within his mental realm.
He seemed to stand amidst a vast, boundless starry sky. Above, colossal beings whose full forms were impossible to discern clung to almost the entire river of stars. Their bodies pressed tightly against one another, as though even this vast expanse of space was not enough to hold them, forcing them to squeeze together—and at this moment, every single one of them was looking down at him.
The gazes these things cast upon him were somewhat vacant. Yet if he took the initiative to look back, he could sense a profound, bone-chilling cold that made both body and soul tremble.
Chen Chuan looked up at the sky. Compared to these colossal entities, he was like a minuscule speck of dust. Standing beneath them, he could truly feel that overwhelmingly immense power—a disparity so incomparable it was enough to stifle any thought of resistance.
Perhaps someone whose willpower was not firm enough would instantly collapse before such a spectacle, plunging into utter despair.
Yet without the slightest fear, he met the gazes of these beings above. After holding this stare for a brief moment—
All of a sudden, the scenes shattered abruptly. He returned to his room, only to find that the wisp of information the Wanderer had transmitted to him was completely gone.
He tried searching for it again, but found that the message could not be reproduced; it seemed designed to dissipate automatically once viewed.
Was the other party trying to intimidate him with these visions?
He turned the thought over. If that were the sole purpose, it would be reduced to a laughable vent of spite and frustration, completely meaningless. Therefore, there could only be another possibility.
The other side was telling him: *You cannot win. You might as well defect to us sooner rather than later.*
Yet if that was the case, a loophole remained: it had not said how to defect.
He thought further. If he was not mistaken, the essence absorbed by the Xuejun Saber was very likely a kind of seed left behind by the entity. As long as whoever obtained it absorbed it, they might be able to communicate with the other side, or become the next...
Wanderer?
*Wanderer...*
He mulled over the name, lost in thought.
He did not know how the Federation had managed to capture the creature, but the being was thoroughly adept in all manner of fighting techniques and possessed seasoned combat experience against human bodies. It had clearly spent considerable time in this world, and very likely had possessed someone's body for an extended period, granting it a profound understanding of their world.
Furthermore, its recruitment routine was so practiced that this might not have been its first time doing it.
Thinking deeper, certain high-ranking officials in the Federation might have already defected to that other side. There might even be more than one such entity still active in the vicinity. The fact that it was imprisoned here rather than destroyed might even be because certain people wanted to leave an escape route for themselves.
What made it more intriguing was that the place where this thing had been held was the Blockade Hall, and Ryan had just mentioned the Ascending Staircase. Could there be some connection between them?
Even if there were, he would not be surprised. In the Federation's West Coast territory, anything bizarre or unimaginable was possible.
However, that was the path of some people, not his.
He stood up and walked toward the training room. Even if he hadn't joined the Purist Faction, he would never walk that path. Besides, if those visions were real, who was to say he might not reach such heights himself one day?
***
Meanwhile, on the other side, after a flurry of effort, Vea State Center City finally managed to lock the escaped prisoners back into the Blockade Hall.
Inside the White Rock Long Hall, the administrators were listening to A'lu's report on the damages.
"Preliminary inspection indicates that the blockade ritual suffered thirty-five percent damage, thirty percent of the 'Nightmare Heart' was permanently consumed, and the ritual field has fallen to eighty-three percent of its peak."
The "Nightmare Heart" was a crucial supporting artifact of the ritual, a grade-two relic. One could say it was the core of the entire ritual, but it was also a consumable.
The administrators glanced at the display on the screen. It showed a knuckle-shaped stone pillar, originally pitch-black. Now, however, at least a third of its surface had turned white, fully consistent with A'lu's report.
Fortunately, phenomena like the Three Stars Conjunction occurred only once every three hundred years. And though they weren't sure whether it counted as good news, not a single one of the three primary imprisoned entities remained. Even if a similar circumstance arose again, the ritual would no longer have to bear such a colossal burden.
However, with this failure at the Blockade Hall, a major public relations campaign would surely be needed afterward to do everything possible to erase the negative fallout. Moreover, they had to report the former Emperor's escape.
In fact, with things blowing up to such a scale, they were actually less worried. If the executive government had any sense of responsibility, it would issue a nationwide alert regarding the matter and notify the world's major powers.
Yet they reckoned there was a very high probability the executive government would simply pretend nothing had happened on the surface. The incident was simply too massive in scale, bordering on an international security crisis. Their chief executive would never allow such a scandal to tarnish his term, let alone at this crucial juncture of negotiations with various nations.
Fortunately, judging by his personality, the former Emperor was unlikely to cause trouble everywhere. Furthermore, this was no longer the ancient era; the major nations all possessed higher powers to defend themselves. As long as he stayed under the radar, it would be fine; if he dared show his face, not to mention the state enforcement apparatuses of various nations, the International Investigation Team would immediately fix their eyes on him.
As for the subsequent inquiries and accountability from the executive government, while a group of people would likely have to take the blame, they could easily take up executive posts in major corporations, lie low for a few years, and then get re-elected through the council once the current administration stepped down.
With the Blockade Hall incident settled, the administrators finally had time to review the situation across the different districts.
At present, unrest across the districts had subsided, but this uprising of fighters had dealt considerable damage to Vea State Center City. In particular, at the beginning, during the twenty-minute window when A'lu's conscious entity was overwriting its previous state, there was a total lack of effective armed force to maintain order. Even though the security forces subsequently moved in to suppress the rebellion and eventually quelled it, a sizable number of fighters had still managed to escape.
A small fraction of them had already fled beyond Center City. Instead of running west toward the plains, they plunged directly into the Central Split-Ridge Mountains to the east.
This was quite a clever choice. The mountainous terrain restricted the movement of combat airships, and if the escapees acquired medical supplies and provisions, their travel speed would be remarkably fast.
Other fighters were scattered across various corners of Center City and were currently being hunted down; this group would most likely fail to escape.
The armed forces below sent an inquiry asking whether they should mount a pursuit after the fighters who had fled the city.
The administrators rejected the request. Mobilizing vast armed forces and equipment to hunt down a handful of fighters would be extraordinarily costly, and even if they succeeded, the captures would not offset the expense of the operation. In their eyes, it simply wasn't worth it. And as long as the platform continued operating, fighters from across the globe would steadily pour in to fill the vacancies.
At that very moment, deep within the Central Split-Ridge Mountains, Team Leader Lu had led over a hundred fighters out of Center City and hidden inside the mountains before the combat airships could arrive.
Upon reaching a safe spot, Team Leader Lu told everyone that a little further ahead was a laboratory they had prepared in advance. There, they could temporarily inject suppressant drugs and remove or replace the implants that had initiated necrotic self-destruction after disconnecting from the city's field range.
At this point, someone asked, "What about after that? Where do we go next?"
Team Leader Lu answered promptly, "First, to the East Coast."
"The East Coast?"
Team Leader Lu explained, "The East Coast Faction and the West Coast Faction have long been at odds. Once we're there, major search units from the West Coast won't be able to show up."
"And after that?"
Team Leader Lu said, "After that, I sincerely invite all of you to join us."
Someone asked guardedly, "Join you? So we can fight in an arena again? Or... put us on a battlefield? Throw our lives away for you?"
The surrounding fighters also fixed their eyes on this question.
Team Leader Lu said earnestly, "No, it is not like that." He drew a breath, meeting the eyes of all who had fled alongside him. "Somewhere in the Southern Ying Continent, we have already built a Center City.
"I cannot tell you where it is right now. But we welcome every companion willing to join us. There are no corporations there, no government, and no one will ever enslave you again. From then on, you can live with dignity—living for yourselves!"
Chapter 1160