Chapter 1044: Chapter 1044

The curly-haired female staff member with a World Tree badge shackled the bodyguard who narrowly escaped death, threw him aside, then raised her head to look at the huge hole that nearly occupied the entire rooftop, and swallowed gently, "Is this the power of the Transcendent?"

"Transcendent? Transcendent powers can’t do this,"

Another worker beside him crouched down, looking at the huge hole in the floor beneath him, "I feel this is no longer something humans can do."

The staff member looked up towards those who were ’fortunately’ surviving in the corners.

These people seemed to be responsible for the rear area and did not participate in the front-line battle, thus, they miraculously survived in that all-destructive brilliance.

At this moment, they were crouching on the ground, trembling, their cheeks filled with terror.

"Could it be that there are really ’Divine Beings’ in this world?"

The curly-haired female staff member swallowed nervously and looked at her colleague.

"Have you never thought about it?"

Her crouched colleague slowly raised his head, looking toward the huge hole above and the vast sky beyond it, "That brilliance, and the brilliance in our memory, they are almost identical, only much smaller and ’softer’."

He lowered his head again, looking towards the hole below, "The hole that runs through the entire building isn’t vertical but inclined, only affecting the top few floors, with no innocent casualties.

"Such immense power, He could easily erase the entire building, but He didn’t."

The curly-haired female staff member also lowered her head, looking towards the hole below.

"Including us, and these foolish people who borrow His name,"

The crouched colleague stood up, clapped his hands, glanced at the controlled bodyguard beside him, "We should all be thankful for His mercy."

The curly-haired female staff member nodded slightly in agreement.

"Excuse me, please let me through."

Just then, a gentle but somewhat awkward Yika language voice came from behind.

Both turned around, a seemingly fragile, gentle-smiling girl from Central Earth stood behind them.

They naturally recognized this girl, who had just been standing next to Ms. Yan Yue.

"The temporary barrier around this hole has not been set up yet,"

The curly-haired female staff member stepped aside, reminding, "Please be careful."

The girl nodded gently, looked up at Yan Yue who was arranging people on the other side, and walked past them.

This massive hole nearly covered half of the floor, at the very edge, only tiny portions of the floor that leaned against the walls remained, the staff could only cautiously stay close to the walls, walking over these exposed rebars and concrete.

Lin Chichi followed these ’dangerous’ paths around the hole, reaching the other side.

However, she did not directly approach Yan Yue, instead her gaze traveled across the crowd, carefully bypassing some intact walls that blocked the view, seemingly looking for something.

But after circling a few times, her gaze only met World Tree staff and some support personnel from the Central Earth’s Research Institute.

After a brief hesitation, she slowly took out her phone and opened the messaging app.

"Are you looking for something?"

A gentle voice came from behind.

The girl was slightly startled, her eyes widened, then she turned around quickly.

When that familiar face and unscathed body appeared before her, her eyes naturally curved into crescents, "Brother Hao Yi."

"Were you worried I was accidentally hurt by ’K’?"

He Ao smiled at the slightly nervous young girl.

"No, I was just wandering around."

Lin Chichi smiled, glanced around, shook her head, then returned her gaze to He Ao, "But seeing Brother Hao Yi makes me really happy."

He Ao looked at the young girl, laughed helplessly, then softly said, "I’ve already sent the data obtained here to the Research Institute."

"Are those people really ’K’s people?"

Lin Chichi paused briefly, looking at the people who had already been apprehended.

He Ao shook his head, "They just acted in the name of ’K’."

"But I feel they are not so simple."

Hearing they were not ’K’s people, Lin Chichi breathed a sigh of relief, then slowly began to speak about the ’dangerous aura’ she felt when she was downstairs.

"Indeed, they are not simple,"

He Ao nodded slightly.

Lin Chichi herself had a high intuition, and after coming into contact with ’Grace’ and ’Higher Beings,’ it became even higher, so it was normal for her to sense high-level auras that ordinary people could not.

At the same time, He Ao looked at Lin Chichi and said softly, "So if you meet anyone claiming to be related to ’K’, or a ’K’ Believer, you must report to me immediately."

Lin Chichi stood up straight and saluted in a proper manner, "I guarantee to complete the mission!"

Seeing her motion, He Ao smiled and nodded, "Be safe."

Lin Chichi nodded firmly.

A roaring train whistle sounded through the void, followed by the illusion of an old-fashioned train, and the space in front of the girl returned to emptiness.

Holding her phone, Lin Chichi walked past a half-collapsed wall with her hands behind her back, heading towards Yan Yue.

"What’s up, any happy news? Singing while walking?"

Yan Yue looked up and saw Lin Chichi approaching briskly.

Lin Chichi shook her head, looking at Yan Yue, "Did you receive all those documents?"

Yan Yue was briefly stunned, then realized what Lin Chichi was talking about and smiled, "Received them, Mr. Hao Yi forwarded them from Minister He, and then Minister He sent them to me,"

She then looked up at the large hole in the ceiling, "These guys are really crazy, daring to cause trouble in the name of Divine Beings."

Lin Chichi lightly nodded, then she seemed to suddenly remember something, glanced at the broken window nearby, "What about those people outside the building lying on the ground ’repenting’?"

"They had already been induced in the meeting to recall memories related to ’K’, led by these guys to become some kind of ’Believers’, and then witnessed the scene of their ’Preacher’ being ’Divinely Punished’."

Yan Yue rubbed her temples, "Probably quite shocked, I saw a few of them, all afraid that ’K’ would vent their anger on them, reciting repentance so fast I could hardly understand.

"There’s not much we can do, only follow the procedure to take them back first, and then see if we can stabilize their emotions with the help of Extraordinary psychologists, and they also know a lot about these ’Preachers’."

She swept her gaze over the ’bodyguards’ similarly prostrating themselves on the ground, "But with this incident, the subsequent interrogation work will likely be much simpler, as they confess to ’K’, they always have to say something."

"What about the Traitor?"

By then, Lin Chichi had already walked up to Yan Yue and asked in a low voice.

Previously, she and ’Hao Yi’ were at a gathering, and before the apprehension team arrived, the white-robed man had abruptly ended the meeting.

Clearly, there was a Traitor tipping them off.

"The range has been narrowed down,"

Yan Yue withdrew her gaze, lowering her voice,

"It’s likely the person in charge of several districts in Mote City, remnants of the Sett forces previously controlling Yika Republic, after the blood sun incident Minister He only restructured the higher-ups here, and some small fish hid themselves.

"Although we don’t have definitive evidence yet, someone will confess eventually."

"Do you plan to take this opportunity to sift through and purge all the lower-level Extraordinaries?"

Lin Chichi faintly sensed the deeper implication in Yan Yue’s words.

"If they are clean, naturally they have nothing to fear,"

Yan Yue shook her head slightly, then she pointed above, "This is Minister He’s intention."

"Minister He is truly formidable,"

"Minister He is also doing this for the sake of maintaining order and stability. This time it was okay, and no big problems were encountered. If these people really stabbed us in the back at a critical moment, the situation would not have been resolved as easily as this time,"

Yan Yue gently shook her head, then she seemed to think of something, looking at Lin Chichi, "By the way, do you have plans tonight? Do you need to write a report or something?"

Lin Chichi was slightly startled, then quickly picked up her phone and checked the time, "Oh no, I’m going to miss my train."

Then she hurriedly turned around, running towards the nearby staircase while waving at Yan Yue, "Just send me the materials, Yan Yue sister, I’ll read them on the way."

Watching the girl dash away in a hurry, Yan Yue shook her head and laughed softly.

She looked up, observing the stars overhead veiled by the city’s pervasive lights.

The terrifying vortex had already dissipated, but the invisible pressure lingering under the starry sky seemed to still exist.

Antarctica·Pole Scientific Research Station

Brilliant stars enveloped the boundless snowfield, and the man playing board games with his colleagues by the window picked up the coffee next to him and looked outside.

Then his gaze slightly paused.

His colleague looked up at him.

The man’s gaze moved towards the horizon of the snowy plain under the night sky, "Isn’t that a train?"

"Where is there a train?"

The colleague looked out the window and then refocused on the man,

"Have you not been resting well recently? Or are you missing home? It is polar night now; and we are near the pole, outside it’s minus fifty or sixty degrees Celsius, and besides us, there’s no living thing nearby, even the nearest penguin has to run a few hundred kilometers to be seen."

"Why don’t you go back when the summer supply plane arrives?"

Another colleague suggested.

"It might be my eyes playing tricks on me."

The man glanced once more at the deep and dim snowfield, withdrew his gaze, took a sip of coffee, and looked down at the board game on the table, "Let’s continue."

The lights of the research station penetrated the tightly shut windows, shining together with the starlight that filled the firmament on the silent snowfield.

The cold wind carrying slight rolling ice crystals swept across the snowy land.

And in the depths of this wind and ice, the old-fashioned train blew its whistle, speeding across the vast expanse of snow and ice.

Leaning against the train window, He Ao looked through the documents on his hand and on the computer next to him.

These were documents he obtained from the safe.

The electronic part was sent directly to Yan Yue, and the paper part also had been quickly scanned and sent.

Most of these documents involved money transactions and some exchanges with the Transcendent members of the World Tree.

Of course, a very small part of it mentioned the so-called ’Rong Guang Society’.

Based on the memories He Ao obtained from the White Robe Man.

This ’Rong Guang Society’ has been around even longer than he had anticipated.

In the memories of the White Robe Man, at least thirteen or fourteen years ago, this ’Rong Guang Society’ already showed signs of activity.

And at that time, there were not many Transcendents in the entire world.

This organization obviously could not have been nominally under the believers of ’K’ from the beginning.

After all, ’K’ had only appeared in the Main World for a few days at most.

And the original ’purpose’ of the ’Rong Guang Society’, which also attracted the White Robe Man to join, was something called ’City of Rong Guang’.

This is not some kind of Prop or Extraordinary Item, but a Transcendent city that seemed to have been ’built’ by the Rong Guang Society itself.

Rong Guang Society claims that the world will ultimately be destroyed, and those who enter the City of Rong Guang will not be affected by the destruction.

Moreover, aside from this, those involved in the construction of the City of Rong Guang, i.e., the ’members’ of the Rong Guang Society, will become the masters of the new world.

They will obtain eternal transcendent power, and their descendants will also inherit transcendent power, continuously passing it down, generation after generation, holding a revered status, becoming superior among humans.

This last point, for the Transcendents of the Main World, is more direct than any apocalyptic prophecy.

According to what He Ao observed in the Copy World, in most cases, transcendence seems not inheritable.

Of course, the Copy World has a complete promotion system; if the parents are powerful enough, they can find ways to procure Secret Medicine and conduct rituals to help their children attain transcendence or, after their death, turn their Talent Sequences into Secret Medicine for their children.

But the Main World lacks these; the initial "Awakening" of a Transcendent in the Main World is random, and without understanding the laws of transcendence, a power that can stably "inherit" and "acquire" transcendence is indeed attractive,

Especially to those who have gained privileges because of their transcendence.

These materials and the memories of the man in white robes make no mention of the development speed of the Rong Guang Society, but it can be expected that the speed is not slow.

He Ao does not know whether the City of Rong Guang is real or not, because up until now, in the man in white robes’ memory, the ’City of Rong Guang’ is still under construction, but it seems it’s about to be completed.

That’s why he is so ’eager’.

Because the ’division’ of this City of Rong Guang by the Rong Guang Society is based on the contributions made during its construction.

Yika Republic is a major country in the Western Lands, previously the man in white robes and Sett collaborated and made considerable ’contributions’, enabling them to occupy a large area within the City of Rong Guang.

But after Sett’s death, the man in white robes suddenly couldn’t contribute materials for building the city anymore.

At the time when the City of Rong Guang is about to be completed, just as the cake is almost ready, he almost lost the ’qualification to share the cake’.

In his memory, other members of the Rong Guang Society seem to want to kick him out, then divide up his ’share’.

Therefore, he had to take risky measures, attempting to contribute as many ’stones and gems’ as before to maintain his status.

And the ’stones and gems’ for building this ’City of Rong Guang’ are straightforward: they are souls and lives.

Moreover, right after the Blood Sun event, the ’Chairman’ of the Rong Guang Society ordered a reorganization of the entire society, designating it as followers of ’Destroyer K’.

For this purpose, they also merged ’Destroyer K’ with their original ’World Apocalypse’ story.

The man in the white robe does not know why the ’Chairman’ suddenly made this decision, but he did not dare to question the Chairman, nor did he mind the original apocalypse story having added a powerful ’Divine Being’.

Besides, he had witnessed the power of this divine being.

Including him, most members of the Rong Guang Society believe that having such a ’backer’ does not put them at a disadvantage.

Moreover, owing to the widespread unclaimed ’K Belief’, many of their actions, under the name of ’Destroyer K’, were facilitated.

And the ’Chairman’ also specially taught them how to awaken ordinary people’s memory about ’K’.

Over time, the ’promotional content’ of the ’City of Rong Guang’ also changed.

The original focus of the City of Rong Guang was on the inheritance of transcendence, but now, in addition to focusing on the awakening and inheritance of transcendence, it added a ’theory of the chosen by God’.

Meaning, the current members of the Rong Guang Society, the builders of the City of Rong Guang, will be the highest ranking people in the ’new world’, the ’masters’.

While all others are their ’slaves’, even other Transcendents are merely higher-status ’slaves’.

The completion of the City of Rong Guang will also signify the destruction of the old world and the ’Advent’ of a ’new world’.

In order to become ’above others’, to share in the benefits in the ’new world’, the man in white robes immediately started to kidnap ’tourists’ from near the Tia Empire under the name of ’K’.

The kidnapped tourists were secretly sent to the eastern border of the Yika Republic, then turned into ’stones and gems’.

Of course, he used to do this often before, only that he would directly grab people on the street with Sett, making them ’disappear on the spot’.

It was much easier and the numbers were significantly greater.

Thus, he harbors deep hatred for He Ao, who changed all of this.

However, he himself does not seem to know where exactly the people sent to the ’border’ eventually went.

His memory holds that these people would enter the ’City of Rong Guang’.

But how they enter, or who took them there, he has no idea.

He even doesn’t remember who told him that doing this could allow people to enter the City of Rong Guang.

In fact, when He Ao was chatting with him, he also indirectly probed for information about the Rong Guang Society.

But the man in the white robes does not have ’specific information’ about the Rong Guang Society in his mind.

It is somewhat surprising to say, but as a member of the organization.

He only knows about the presence of a chairman and vice-chairman, knows about protectors on the same level as him.

But aside from his subordinates, he doesn’t recognize any other members of the Rong Guang Society, nor does he know who the chairman or vice-chairman is, although he often discusses in meetings with other ’protectors’, he can’t remember any protector’s identity or appearance.

And he considers all this, a ’natural assumption’.