Chapter 1069: Chapter 1069

Rong Guang Society Gathering Point

A somber figure followed a moonlit path, step by step towards a large iron gate that appeared faintly reddish in the distance.

The flames that once consumed everything now had only left a few dark red sparks, but the surging heatwave was still echoing under this narrow night sky.

A slight breeze in this enclosed city wall turned into a scorching wind brushing over the figure’s cheeks.

Originally, this ’small city’ stood with one closed tall building after another; now, only continuous ruins remained, with broken brick walls piled up into small mounds resembling graves.

Dim, speckled sparks and flames not yet fully burned flickered in the crevices of these ruins, swaying under the bright moon.

The figure stepped on a piece of broken brick, glanced down at the charred corpse on the ground, and then stepped over the body, walking deeper into the mounds of ruins.

A dull voice emitted from the mobile phone the figure carried.

"The entire gathering point is completely dismantled, only ashes remain,"

The figure glanced at the surrounding ’burial mounds’, "From the looks of the scene, it seems there was an unusually fierce battle involving thermal weapons. The weapon depot of the gathering point also exploded."

"Did the attackers bring an army?"

The voice on the phone asked slowly.

"It doesn’t seem like an army,"

The figure slightly shook their head, looked down at two corpses that had thrust knife blades into each other’s bodies.

The once shiny blades were now blackened by the flame’s smoke but one could vaguely see that both knives were of the same standard issue, with metal swords of the same uniform scattered around the two corpses.

The figure withdrew their gaze, continuing, "I feel it’s more like the people at the gathering point had an ’internal conflict’."

"Members of the Rong Guang Society at the gathering point had internal strife? Leading to the entire gathering point’s destruction?"

The voice on the phone paused for a moment, "Theoretically, even if it was internal strife, there shouldn’t be no survivors, and they should have had time to send us a message."

"But I received only one message, which was ’attacked’,"

The figure continued speaking while moving forward, "So I think it might be some kind of extraordinary ability that affected a vast majority of people in a very short time, causing them to kill each other."

"There are countless strange abilities in the Transcendent world,"

The voice on the phone was somewhat hoarse, "But to cause such a widespread effect, the opponent might be a B-level, or to some extent able to display a strength close to B-level."

Then the voice paused for a moment, continuing to ask, "Did you find the Second Vice President? The last message he sent me was about heading to the gathering point."

Hearing the voice on the phone, the figure lifted their head, looking towards the collapsed metal High Tower nearby, "I found wreckage of a crashed helicopter."

Following that, accompanied by hurried footsteps, the figure walked beside the helicopter wreckage, looking at the large hole that went through it, "It looks as if some large stone or an object about the size of a person struck through this helicopter, causing it to crash into the fire. Judging by the model, this helicopter should be the one belonging to the Second Vice President; I just saw it a few hours ago."

The figure’s gaze swept across the surroundings, "But I didn’t see an object nearby of similar size that could have penetrated this helicopter, strange."

"It might be some kind of weapon,"

The voice on the phone hoarsely said, "Can you find the Second Vice President in the vicinity?"

"Haven’t seen him so far."

The figure shook their head.

"Keep looking, see if there are any traces he left behind,"

The voice on the phone hoarse and lingering, "The Second Vice President has the blessing of the City of Rong Guang, an ordinary B-level, no matter how strange their power, shouldn’t be able to counter him, he might have pursued the attacker."

The silhouette nodded gently and swiftly crossed the hillocks.

Its gaze quickly swept over the ruins.

Soon, the figure crossed the entire ’small town’ and reached the other side of the town, then stopped, its gaze fixed straight ahead.

The voice on the phone, sensing something was amiss, asked in a low tone.

"There is still a fire here that hasn’t been extinguished."

The figure looked ahead and slowly said.

In front of the last pile of collapsed buildings, there was still a fire with a diameter of several meters fiercely burning.

The figure raised its hand and threw a small blue geometric sphere from the palm, then immediately, the geometric sphere unfolded, transforming into a semi-transparent barrier connected by nodes like a spider web.

Then, the flexible barrier suddenly pressed down, cutting off the fire’s contact with the outside world. The flame, deprived of oxygen, quickly extinguished, revealing the scene within the flames.

Gazing at the scene before him, the figure raised its hand and the geometric sphere bounced back into his hand.

Hearing the figure’s voice, the voice on the phone seemed to sense something and asked a little more quickly, "What’s inside the fire?"

"Flesh remains and..."

The figure walked through the charred, almost completely gone flesh remains, and stopped at what was originally the center of the flame—a nearly obliterated human-shaped charred mass, "A body."

"What’s on the forehead?"

The voice on the phone dipped slightly, hoarsely asking.

"The forehead is hollow,"

The figure slowly replied, "It seems something has been gouged out."

"Can you confirm the identity of the deceased?"

The voice on the phone asked in a low voice.

"Can’t confirm, it’s almost completely burned,"

The figure gently shook its head, then paused, hoarsely saying, "But, I can feel the undissipated aura of ’Rong Guang’ on him, very strong."

Hearing the figure’s words, there was a rare moment of silence on the phone.

The warm wind blew across the stars under the bright moon, rekindling the silent flames around, causing them to flicker weakly.

Soon, a hoarse voice came from the phone, "Now the entire outer organization of Rong Guang is under your charge, tell outsiders that the Second Vice-President has returned to the City of Rong Guang due to matters. I will report this to the President, requesting your formal appointment as the Third Vice-President.

"The enemy’s strength has exceeded our estimates, all previous plans are now void. I require you to gather Human Sacrifices at all costs, and send them to the City of Rong Guang as soon as possible."

The figure immediately responded.

"Also, investigate who attacked here,"

The voice on the phone rapidly said, "No one can defy the radiance of Rong Guang, we must retrieve the Second Vice-President’s Rong Guang insignia."

The figure responded again, then his tone slowed slightly, with a hint of confusion he asked, "Vice-President, the Rong Guang insignia can open the gates to the City of Rong Guang, could it possibly..."

The figure’s words were not yet finished when they were interrupted by the voice on the phone, "Only those who are under the ’Destroyer K’s’ scrutiny, bearing Rong Guang, can use the Rong Guang insignia. Do you think the City of Rong Guang is a public square where you can come and go as you please?"

A moment later, the voice slowly lowered its tone,

"Work hard, you are the best. Once you complete the mission, and we have completely confirmed the whereabouts of the second vice president, that position will also be yours. In a world full of brilliance, you will become one of the greatest rulers!"

"Yes, Vice President!"

The figure immediately responded loudly, "I will sacrifice my life for the City of Rong Guang, for the Destroyer K!"

While speaking, the figure glanced down at the corpse on the ground and turned to leave the area.

"Very well, I’m going to contact the President now, remember, as soon as possible."

The ongoing communication was hung up.

The night breeze swept through the crevices, once again feeding oxygen to the flickering flames, causing the vigorous fire to blaze up again.

With the roaring fire behind him, the figure put away his phone and walked deeper into the night.

Twisting, writhing flesh spread across much of the street, slowly moving forward.

The pale streetlight shone on the shape of the creeping figure on the road.

Its lower half had completely transformed into snail-like, writhing flesh, while the upper half still maintained a distorted human form, except in addition to its original arms, a pair of claws like twisted bones had grown out from its armpits.

Its head still barely retained a human shape, but the eyes were just dark voids, and its mouth was open, making ’eh-eh’ sounds.

The remaining writhing flesh carried its body at a speed no less than a human’s run.

Accompanied by a scream, ahead of the monster, a young blonde girl in a gray-brown top hastily tripped and fell forward onto the ground.

The twisted monster emitted a sharp scream and instantly sped up.

While the blonde girl on the ground now struggled to turn around, propped herself up with her hands, and kept moving backward; she raised her head and looked at the monster’s still vaguely beautiful cheeks and cried out in loss of voice, "Galin, don’t... don’t..."

However, the monster seemed no longer to understand her cries, it slowly approached and the head tilted back revealing a blood-red eye that almost filled the entire neck.

That eye gazed at the blonde girl on the ground, then below it, where the collarbone would be, slowly a curved split opened revealing sharp teeth within.

With this ’mouth-opening’ movement, the ’head’ at the top of the monster started to shake.

As if the neck-eye and collarbone-mouth were the monster’s real ’head,’ while the head above the neck was just an ’ornament.’

The blonde girl watched this scene, opened her mouth, and in that instant lost her voice.

The monster rotated its eyeball, raised the four ’claws’ on both sides like a spider grabbing an entangled bug, and reached for the blonde girl, preparing to ’consume’ the prey before it.

That shaking head continued to emit sharp screams.

The pale gas streetlights flickered, casting an eerie silence amidst the screams.

A slow pace of footsteps came from the depths of darkness.

Hearing this sound, the monster paused for a moment, slowly lifting its ’eyes’ towards the dark depths.

A young man wearing glasses slowly emerged from the darkness, walking under the pale streetlights, his pace slow, step by step forward, yet seemingly very fast, appearing in no time not far behind the girl.

At this moment, the girl also realized someone was coming, she turned her head to look behind, saw the approaching young man, and shouted loudly, "Run fast, it’s a Variant! If you don’t run, you’ll be eaten too!"

But against her shouting, the monster behind her lifted its eyes to glance at the young man who appeared ahead, without hesitation, retracted its claws, and turned to run.

At this moment, the blonde girl realized that she seemed not to be dead. She touched her head with her hand; her neck wasn’t broken, her body was also fine.

She turned around somewhat confusedly, looking at the monster that was running away at a much faster speed than when it was chasing her, feeling a bit bewildered.

"Variant, what is it?"

At this time, a slightly gentle voice sounded in the girl’s ear.

The girl raised her head and looked to her side, where the figure that had been some distance from her had somehow appeared right beside her.

She rubbed her eyes, wondering if she had seen wrong just now, then staggered to her feet and looked at the young man beside her, saying helplessly, "A Variant is a Variant. Don’t you know it’s very dangerous to rush over like that? If it hadn’t run away just now, you would have been eaten."

"So, you call this kind of monster a ’Variant’?"

He Ao turned his head and looked at her, calmly asking, "’Variant’? It wasn’t originally?"

Hearing this question, the blonde girl was slightly taken aback.

It was at this moment, a harsh horn sound came from the end of the road ahead, followed by an old convertible car that drove out from the darkness and blocked the path of the monster.

"Ordinance Department eradicates Variants, bystanders step back!"

Accompanied by a rough shout, four people jumped out of the car and rushed towards the monster in the street.

The monster paused for a moment when it saw several people charging at it, hesitated slightly, but eventually, it didn’t retreat and instead went straight towards the people from the car.

He Ao watched the encounter between the humans and the monster in the dark.

The people who had come down from the car all seemed like ordinary people, but they each had their roles.

The first to shout was a big man in iron armor, holding a massive shield as high as a person, withstanding the monster’s attack head-on.

Behind him, a somewhat thinner male was holding what seemed to be an Extraordinary Item, a musket, firing from the back. The musket’s power was great; it blew a large hole in the monster’s chest with a single shot, but it took a long time to reload.

Besides these two, there was a woman in a gray jacket wielding a bronze dagger, shuttling beside the monster continuously delivering sneak attacks, leaving many wounds on the beast’s body.

Lastly, there was one more attacking from the side of the monster, continuously throwing some kind of small balls, which joined into a network, hindering the monster’s movements.

The four of them seemed to be experienced in such operations, coordinating very well. In a short period of time, they had slain the monster.

The one who delivered the fatal blow was the woman with the dagger; she decapitated the monster with a single strike.

As the monster died, its body quickly shriveled.

He Ao looked up at the sky; the remains of this monster were being consumed by this ’city,’ like Sacrifices being swallowed.

He raised his gaze; an orange-gray radiance flashed across his eyes.

Under the influence of the Eye of Truth, even the clone could barely capture the extraordinary rhythm in the air.

Soon, he detected the invisible connections spreading in the air.

He reached out and grabbed the yellow crystal in his pocket.

He attempted to activate the power of the yellow crystal, to touch the invisible connections.

With a gentle fluctuation, the connections that originally led to this city were redirected to the yellow crystal.

The power of the Sacrifice also surged into the yellow crystal in his hand.

Some kind of invisible fluctuation spread within the city, seemingly detecting an issue, yet at the same time seemingly finding no issue, it quickly dissipated.

At this time, as the remains of the monster disappeared, the female warrior holding the bronze sword also noticed the two people standing here.

She handed the bronze sword to her teammate and quickly walked towards the two.

The blonde girl watched the female warrior approaching, her gaze slightly tense.