Chapter 857: Chapter 857

Yika Republic·Mote City

In the spacious and luxurious office adorned with various statues, He Ao stood under the bright lights, looking up through the wide floor-to-ceiling windows at the obscured sun. Streaks of scattered red light spilled from the edges of the sun as he slowly began,

"Are all the division heads here?"

The crowd crammed in the office fell somewhat silent upon hearing this question.

They glanced at one another, some shuffle emerging among them as if hesitating on how to answer He Ao’s question, fearful that a careless word might provoke He Ao and turn them into one of the corpses lying below.

"The division heads near Mote City have all been summoned here by Sett,"

a slightly emaciated young man at the back of the crowd spoke with a trembling voice. Hearing his voice, the crowd naturally parted, opening a path to He Ao.

The young man hesitated for a moment but still stepped onto the path, walking past the myriad of eyes watching him with contempt, mockery, and pity, to stand behind He Ao and continued,

"Additionally, about thirty percent of the heads from farther distances have yet to arrive."

He Ao turned and looked at the young man behind him. The latter appeared to be in his late twenties, thin, with somewhat disheveled brown hair. He asked, "What is your name?"

Under He Ao’s gaze, the young man lowered his head with a tremble and replied softly, "Yika Republic’s Division Liaison Office Director, Komo."

"Division Liaison Officer?"

He Ao scanned Komo’s body with his Divine Sense and saw that in terms of Extraordinary Power, he seemed to be D-Rank.

"It means he is responsible for communication between Mote City headquarters and the various divisions, sending and receiving various materials, and archiving them."

Komo explained quietly.

He Ao looked at the young man before him, "you are quite familiar with the entire Yika Republic’s Extraordinary archives?"

"I’ve always been working on these within the scope of my duties."

He Ao patted his shoulder and walked forward, "lead me to the archives."

Komo’s body hesitated, showing a hint of disappointment.

The majority of those watching him slightly lowered their gazes with a touch of mockery in their eyes.

Whereas some regret flickered in the eyes of a few young and middle-aged individuals at the back of the crowd, whose attire was noticeably less ’refined’.

He Ao took all this in.

At this moment, the young man named Komo still quickly adjusted himself, looked at He Ao, and nodded, "Please follow me."

He Ao nodded back and together they walked through the path just opened by the crowd, heading toward the office door.

The surrounding space was eerily quiet, except for Jemis standing relaxed in his original spot, watching everyone in the office.

as they were about to reach the door, He Ao looked up at Komo and casually asked, "Are you from a Consortium family of the Yika Republic?"

Komo was startled, not sure why He Ao was asking this. He carefully answered, "No, both my parents are just ordinary citizens of Mote City. My father works in a power plant, and my mother is a domestic cleaner. Our family has been ordinary for generations."

If he had not accidentally absorbed the Heavenly Qi from an artifact, he would likely still be working in a factory now.

"The World Tree— are there many like you over there?"

He Ao continued to ask.

"I have many colleagues, all ."

Komo swept his gaze subconsciously over some of the people standing on the periphery.

He Ao patted his shoulder, "from now on, you are the person in charge of Mote City."

Komo was first stunned, then ecstasy flashed in his eyes. Immediately, he began to speak with a stuttering, incredulous tone, "I... You..."

Those who had originally stood at the back of the crowd also slightly lifted their gaze, looking towards Komo and He Ao, with a mysterious look flashing in their eyes.

However, He Ao seemed to not notice the office’s change and raised his hand to stop the flustered Komo. He then glanced back at Jemis and the others,

"Jemis, these people are yours now. Within two hours, I need all the intelligence related to the Transcendent disappearance cases from the past six months from every division, as well as evacuation plans for each city."

Having said that, he walked out of the office door with Komo.

"Gentlemen, did you all hear that?"

Jemis clasped his hands together, standing in front of everyone, watching them, "I think you all have a lot of thoughts now, but the Blood Sun hasn’t left us any time to discuss these thoughts."

He pulled out a list from his chest, a personnel list previously called up by He Ao from the World Tree database. Bright light fell on his face, and the black sun, casting little red glows and hidden behind him, hung high,

"Now, to facilitate the execution of Minister He’s orders, we’ll start by forming groups. When I read your name, you are the group leader. David..."

A middle-aged man emerged from deep within the crowd.

As each name was called, the heads of the various office divisions gradually realized that most who were stepping forward were ’fringe figures’—previously marginalized, underutilized from edge areas or departments.

They were the ones who had stood at the very end of the crowd, hidden by the shadows of people; their family backgrounds were often poor, and they were not favored by Sett, with their parents and family members still in the Blood Day Area.

And now, they stood right in the center of the spotlight.

At this moment, everyone understood, the young ’Mister He Ao’ wasn’t just asking questions but also using them to distinguish the ’groups’ within their ranks.

To separate those who were worth courting and those who could not be entrusted with responsibilities.

The quiet power shift had taken place within moments; a new authority structure that could temporarily serve Mister He Ao had been built swiftly.

After reading the names, Jemis watched the ’group leaders’ standing in front of him.

These people, whose relatives were within the range of the Blood Sun, unlike Sett’s trusted aides whose relatives and property had been helicoptered out of the Blood Day Area, shared common interests with He Ao and most people overshadowed by the Blood Sun.

While they executed He Ao’s orders and resolved the Blood Sun crisis under his arrangements, they were also protecting the lives of their family members and their own properties.

Jemis was very clear that the current arrangement had actually taken shape when ’Minister He’ had gotten the data from the Yika Republic via the World Tree database.

But the intelligence of the World Tree was really as messy as dog shit, unable to even distinguish its internal factions—otherwise ’Minister He’ would not have spent this time trying to tentatively probe the internal groups.

Still, without ’Minister He’s’ brutal, almost bloody display of authority and violence, these people would not have crumbled mentally, so readily displaying their emotions on their faces.

The people standing here did not know that their fate had already been determined a few hours ago—when ’Minister He’ boarded the helicopter.

Jemis rubbed the tip of his nose.

He had almost become an avid fan of the young minister by now.

He took a deep breath, looked at the people around him, and slowly began to speak following the core concepts and speech techniques He Ao had taught him on the plane,

"Everyone, look behind me at the Blood Sun, it’s reviving rapidly. Every minute, every second, people are disappearing in this city, in this country, over this 150,000 square kilometers of land.

"I know you all have many doubts. You wonder whom you are working for. For Minister He? For the World Tree? Or even for that distant Research Institute in Central Earth?

"No! You are working for yourselves! You are working for your own wealth, for the houses and cars you’ve worked so hard to buy, which won’t be reduced to ashes by the Evil God’s Advent!

"It’s also for your wives, your children, your parents, so they won’t suddenly vanish in the middle of those nauseating phone rings!

"Minister He could have ignored you all, but he still came here. You may find him violent, frightening, but he’s probably the only one willing to come here, the only one capable of saving you."

At this point, Jemis, who had added the part about He Ao himself, paused, scanning the expressions of everyone in the office.

Those newly promoted ’team leaders’ seemed visibly stirred by his words.

Even those standing on the periphery, once loyalists of Sett, showed a glimmer of emotion. Even though most of their assets and families had been transferred out, the ground they stood on was still their homeland, the land of their upbringing.

Those most fearful of death had already run.

Jemis brought his gaze back to the crowd and continued,

"Now, gather your spirits. For yourselves, for your homeland, for the world, prepare to do all this,"

He raised his hand and took out a document from his chest, "Let’s start assigning tasks now."

Meanwhile, He Ao, who had entered the archives, was pulling up all the disappearance reports sent to the Mote City headquarters in the past three months with Komo’s assistance.

He still had worries in his heart, worries that drove him to investigate the ’traces’ before the Blood Sun’s Advent as quickly as possible.

The more information he gathered on the ground, the more he would be able to do once he ascended into space, approaching that transparent planet.

In principle, completing the investigation on the ground before launching the space mission would be safest, but it was clear that the ’Blood Sun’ in the sky would not afford them that much time.

Observations from the Research Institute about the red glow in the sky suggested that in at most three days, the Blood Sun would be fully ’revived’.

But that was based on linear thinking, assuming the pace of the Blood Sun’s revival was constant.

In reality, once the Blood Sun realized that the ’revival’ would not truly be interfered with, it would inevitably try to accelerate the revival in its later stages.

The remaining time for the Blood Sun’s revival was likely only one day.

Launching a rocket and reaching the transparent planet would take time. By the time everything was investigated and they went into space, the Blood Sun might have already gathered the ’ritual sacrifices’ it needed and fully descended. By then, it would be too late.

This was also the unanimous opinion after ’Hao Yi’ and other B-levels had discussed it.

Running on dual tracks, though not as safe, was the most efficient and most likely successful method.

Central Earth·Satellite Launch Base

’Hao Yi’ and his three teammates, already dressed in space suits, stood inside the towering giant rocket launch tower, gazing at the massive rocket before them.

"This rocket looks quite big up close."

Jie An remarked as he observed the white rocket before him.

Li Cheng and Goya beside him lightly nodded in agreement.

They were about to enter the rocket.

For them, disassembling this rocket and tower wasn’t challenging, but venturing into the rocket and directly into outer space was still somewhat disquieting.

Even though they were extraordinarily strong, having reached the peak of human physical fitness, effortless in dismantling skyscrapers, they would still die without oxygen in space.

After all, they were still human, albeit extraordinarily powerful humans.

Facing the unknown, facing an environment where a slip could mean death, they felt fear too.

"Is something wrong?"

Li Cheng noticed ’Hao Yi’, who had been silent next to him, and asked.

"I’m wondering if we’ve missed anything."

He Ao tapped the space helmet with his hand, producing a light thud.

Li Cheng was momentarily puzzled.

Goya also bent down slightly, poking her head out.

Among the four, she was the shortest. Dressed in the bulky space suit, any one of the other three could completely block her view with a mere sidestep.

"We might need to bring some items that could be related to the ’ritual’,"

He Ao tapped his head and then suddenly realized something. He turned to look at the staff nearby, "Can we take our mobile phones with us?"

There was a moment of confusion among those around, but the Speech Master supervising the preparations seemed to have heard ’Hao Yi’s’ words in full.

She stretched out her hand and pulled aside a researcher to convey He Ao’s words again.

The researcher first looked bewildered, then approached He Ao and his team to say,

"Your mobile phone models are all different. Electronic products may not withstand extreme temperature changes and radiation. We can seal them for protection, but we can’t guarantee they will function in space.

"Furthermore, adding items will change the weight of the lander, and we will need to recalculate the trajectory and fuel."

"We can remove some of the food. Our need for sustenance is low,"

He Ao promptly asked, "Do you have space-capable phones?"

"There are a few custom phones used by personnel on the space station, but we haven’t adapted them for the lander’s environment,"

The researcher quickly explained, "However, we can protect them, but can’t ensure they will work."

"Please prepare six new phones for placement in the lander, and install our SIM cards into four of them. The other two will be spares."

He Ao swiftly commanded.

"Alright, we need to rearrange the supplies and perform safety calculations,"

The researcher nodded, "It might take a little while."

Li Cheng asked, looking at He Ao.

"The phone is the ’medium’ for a ’call’, and the Extraordinary Power of the Blood Sun seems to be related to ’incoming calls’,"

He Ao turned to look at Li Cheng and the others, speaking slowly, "Better safe than sorry."