Chapter 884: Chapter 884

Yika Republic Capital · Mote City

Blood-red sunlight sprinkled over the silent city.

Once bustling and prosperous, now only lonely buildings remained.

An elderly man clad in a long robe lifted his head, glanced at the blood sun hanging in the sky, and let out a long sigh.

The satellite phone’s ringtone slowly sounded. The elderly man took out his phone, saw the name ’Liu Zhengyun’ marked on the call, extended his hand, and answered,

"Rodan, did Rodan send over the data? Has the population disappearance begun spreading?"

A steady middle-aged male voice came from the phone.

Rodan watched the blood sun overhead, his voice hoarse,

"Now several of Yika Republic’s neighboring countries, including Rodan, have started to experience disappearances, just as ’Hao Yi’ predicted. Even though people in the ’penumbra’ region of the blood sun’s glow can’t see the blood sun, they are still within the range of its influence."

With that said, Rodan paused, then asked, "Have you found Hao Yi and Li Cheng’s whereabouts?"

Liu Zhengyun also sighed slowly,

"Their lander exploded while landing on the Transparent Planet. We launched several probes to get close, but they couldn’t capture clear photos, only fragments of the lander. We haven’t found any traces of them.

"If the lander really did explode and they were exposed to space, I fear the worst."

"Perhaps they successfully landed?"

Rodan spoke slowly, his gaze lifting as if caught in some memory, "Hao Yi is always capable of doing things beyond our understanding. His knowledge of mysticism far exceeds ours; maybe he used some mystical method to bring people with him."

Liu Zhengyun sighed slightly and then continued, "By the way, have your people seen He Ao? After he sent that message to the space agency, we haven’t been able to contact him."

"I don’t know, that kid is too capable, and now everyone here listens to him, not to me,"

Rodan glanced at the deserted streets around him, "Honestly, I find it hard to imagine that chaotic, undisciplined Yika branch being whipped into shape by him, those fools who only care about their own interests managing to carry out such a large evacuation in such a short time. Maybe Goya and I really were too kind,"

He paused his tone momentarily and asked softly, "Didn’t he tell you where he was going before he disappeared?"

"He just messaged that he found something and was going to have a look. Then there was no more news."

Liu Zhengyun responded slowly.

"From what I’ve seen, everything on the Yika and Rodan side is functioning smoothly,"

Rodan shook his head, "This suggests he had arranged everything before he left; the things he was going to do must have been well-prepared. The kid is capable, perhaps he truly could change the whole situation?"

Liu Zhengyun sighed gently, "We have a lot of faith in his abilities, it’s just that here, especially the field service department, we worry about his safety. That kid sometimes doesn’t consider his own safety, and now he’s miles away and only C-level; there’s a lot we can’t look after."

"I knew you were being roundabout with your concerns, old man,"

Rodan said with a chuckle, "If he turns up in the Western Lands and needs my help, I’ll do everything I can to assist him. After all, that’s a matter for my Western Lands. If he comes over to help the World Tree, it’s my duty to protect him. Do I look like a petty villain who would repay kindness with ingratitude?"

Silence lingered for a moment on the other end of the phone, Liu Zhengyun didn’t respond immediately.

This seemed to be an implicit agreement with Rodan’s rhetorical question.

Rodan’s long beard fluttered, "Once this matter is over, I’m definitely coming to Central Earth to have a fierce battle with you."

"If Li Cheng and the others really are in trouble, if things reach an irreversible state,"

At this moment, Liu Zhengyun suddenly said softly, "He Ao and the others are the future."

Rudel gazed at the blood-red sun in the sky and took a deep breath.

If that Angel truly descended, their group of B-levels would definitely be the primary target, with little chance of escape.

Protecting the seeds of the future was the only opportunity to change everything.

His relationship with Liu Zhengyun wasn’t particularly good, but their stances were completely aligned now.

Relic of the Bygone Days · Volcano Park.

As the bus came to a stop at the platform and the doors opened, He Ao and two others quickly disembarked.

At this moment, the sky had darkened, and the stars hung like pearls against the night sky.

Standing at the bus platform, He Ao looked up at the resplendent map of stars overhead.

Seeing this, Goya also lifted her head to gaze at the stars in the sky.

Li Cheng followed suit, raising his eyes to the starry sky.

"This star map seems a bit different,"

He Ao murmured, his eyes fixed on the stars.

"Is this supposed to be a replica of the relic’s star map?"

Li Cheng pondered, looking up at the stars. "Doesn’t it look very similar to the relic’s star map?"

Goya nodded slightly as well.

They had all visited the relics and had seen numerous materials about them, including the star maps of the relic skies.

"It’s not that it’s different,"

He Ao slowly shook his head.

During the previous Newland City-State incident, he was in the ’Underground Palace’, also known as the extinguished sun’s outer space sky of the true relic, and had seen the real relic star map from space.

The real relic seemed to be located in a void of dark space where brightly shining stars were few, and overall, the stars appeared sparse with most of them dim.

But the star map He Ao saw now was brilliant, and the positions of the stars also differed from those seen in space.

It was impossible for the starlight to have grown stronger after passing through the atmosphere, let alone for the positions to have shifted.

Moreover, this replica was supposed to represent the relic planet from an era before the demise of the relic civilization, at least a few hundred years removed from the present, and should reflect the relic planet’s star map from those centuries.

Yet, over these centuries, the relic planet seemed to have been consistently moving closer to the real world.

If the location of the relic planet was constantly changing, then why was there no change in its star map after hundreds of years?

Gathering his thoughts, He Ao looked to the two beside him and gently shook his head, "Right now, I can’t confirm if my thoughts are correct. Let’s explore this Volcano Park first."

Li Cheng nodded lightly, then raised his head to look forward.

At the end of their field of view, illuminated by a faint glow, the grand silhouette of a volcano emerged under the stars.

Goya looked up at ’Hao Yi’.

"We’ve been to the volcano’s summit before; there should be a tour vehicle nearby."

He Ao glanced around and quickly locked on to a floating bus in front of them, plastered with posters of the Volcano Park, lined up for passengers.

With their first experience in mind, the three of them didn’t hesitate and swiftly boarded the tour vehicle.

This time the vehicle was full, so He Ao and the others simply stood by the door, holding onto the hanging straps.

The vehicle took off quickly, soaring into the darkness.

He Ao looked at the elaborate posters plastered inside the sightseeing vehicle.

During the day, this vehicle seemed to pass by many attractions, but at night, there was basically nothing to see, so it turned into a vehicle returning between the top of the volcano and the park station.

Apart from the stars above, there seemed to be nothing else to see in the darkness.

At this time, Li Cheng seemed to remember something, raised his head to look at the stars outside the window, and asked softly, "Are these stars the same as the ones you saw in the Bubble Space in Jie An?"

He Ao glanced at the starry sky and responded quickly, "They’re pretty much the same."

The surrounding scenery flashed by rapidly, as the sightseeing vehicle was very fast, and they were already approaching the viewing platform at the top of the volcano in the midst of their conversation.

A huge, crimson ’Light Lake’ enveloped in wisps of smoke appeared before everyone.

Misty smoke also appeared around the sightseeing vehicle.

The vehicle’s broadcast began to prompt tourists to take protective measures, and the ’tourists’ seated inside had already slowly put on some kind of silver metal toxic gas masks.

The sightseeing vehicle didn’t stop directly at the viewing platform but at a horizontal area that seemed to be a ’station’ below the platform.

The doors opened, dense smoke poured into the vehicle, and He Ao touched his nose.

This degree of ’toxicity’ had a trivial effect on the three Transcendents.

The trio blended into the crowd and got off the vehicle, with Li Cheng lifting his head to look at the stairs prepared above.

Some tourists had already started to climb up the stairs, seeming to suggest that visitors had to walk the remaining path to the viewing platform themselves.

Turning his head back, he looked at ’Hao Yi’, "Shall we go up together?"

Goya also shifted her gaze over.

Invisibly, He Ao had gradually become the ’team leader’ of this small squad.

He Ao shook his head, turned to look toward the dense jungle in the depths of the night curtain ahead, "We’ll go straight over there, around to the back of the volcano."

The entire volcano peak was very large, and He Ao had roughly scanned it from the sky earlier, including the parking platform and the viewing platform above, there was very little developed on the entire volcano peak, with most of it being dense forest.

The three quickly walked to the edge of the parking platform, where there was a railing and beside it stood a sign reading ’Mountain woods hazard’, with a surveillance camera next to it.

He Ao looked at the sign and flipped over it.

Li Cheng and Goya followed suit.

The trio landed in the forest, their feet soon touching solid ground.

The forest floor near the parking platform was clean, likely often tidied by maintenance staff, and the lights from the platform could reach this area.

Faint red lights flickered through the trees, revealing many hidden night-vision cameras nearby.

"What’s our next move?"

Li Cheng lowered his head, spoke in a hushed voice, and asked slowly.

He Ao thought for a moment, then used the Shadowless Sword to roughly outline a bird’s-eye view of the area near the volcano peak on the ground, before drawing a route,

"This is the volcano peak, this is the route we came up on. From the sightseeing vehicle, the field of view roughly covers one-fifth of the southern area of the volcano peak,

"And here," he continued to sketch out a few winding routes on the ground, "are the marked daytime routes the sightseeing vehicle might take."

Pointing to the areas from these routes leading up to the volcano peak, he said, "They probably cover these areas,"

He drew a large semicircle over the entire top of the volcano, "Accounting for about four-fifths of the entire volcano peak."

At this point, Li Cheng seemed to have a realization, "So, you’re saying there’s one-fifth of the volcano peak that tourists absolutely can’t see?

He held his already rolled-up map like a stick, pointing to the rear area of the volcano peak outlined on the ground, "If there are secret research facilities related to the volcano, might their main body or entrance be located in this area?"

He Ao nodded lightly.

Having identified the target, the three exchanged glances and swiftly sprang into action.

The further they moved from the man-made infrastructure, the fainter the surrounding light became, until only the starlight illuminated their path, and the ground beneath their feet grew unusually "fluffy," covered with stacks of decaying leaves.

Clearly, they had entered a no-man’s land.

But with the constant volcano top as a marker, the trio was unlikely to get lost. They quickly made their way around the side of the volcano top, arriving at a ’region’ behind the peak where they would absolutely not be seen, one fifth of the way behind.

Li Cheng glanced at He Ao, about to ask what their next step in exploration should be, when he saw He Ao lift his head and look towards the true north.

At this moment, under the influence of the Eye of Truth, He Ao saw the surrounding darkness filled with all sorts of twisted lines.

Among these lines, the way some twisted at a position to the true north, was slightly different from the others.

These subtle anomalies were almost indiscernible to He Ao from a slightly farther distance at first glance.

He Ao stared at those subtly twisted lines, then stepped forward and walked directly towards that direction.

Li Cheng and Goya immediately followed suit.

After a few minutes of swiftly weaving through the forest, they came to a halt near the peak of the mountain.

He Ao stopped in front of a huge rock that seemed no different from the surrounding rocks. He swept his gaze around, his sword tip lightly flicking out a hidden camera from a stone beside the rock.

This confirmed they were indeed in the right place, and it was a man-made facility.

Then he turned his gaze back and watched the faintly twisted lines among the crevices of the stone before him, and quietly warned, "Be careful."

As his companions readied themselves, he lifted the Shadowless Sword in his hand and brought it down in a sweeping cut.

The solid rock was effortlessly split in two, falling to the sides with a heavy, muffled sound.

As it did, a deep corridor full of lights appeared in their field of view.

Seeing the dark depths of the passage that seemed to lead deep underground, Li Cheng genuinely expressed his admiration.

The speculation that Volcano Park might hide a research facility was his own, but in truth he wasn’t all that sure there would definitely be one here.

If it were up to him, he would probably have spent many days just to find a tiny trace of this research facility.

But ’Hao Yi’ was able to find this extremely well-hidden research facility through these scant clues, and very quickly at that, with almost no missteps in the entire process.

With ’Hao Yi’ beside them, what was originally a foggy map filled with puzzles became as clear as if they were using a cheat that revealed the full map, with every detail in sharp relief.

Goya, clutching her magic wand, stood to the right of ’Hao Yi,’ rapidly nodding in agreement as if pecking like a hen.

"Analyzing these isn’t actually too difficult."

He Ao sheathed the Shadowless Sword and gently shook his head.

Goya’s head, which had been nodding like a pecking hen, whirled around to look at ’Hao Yi,’ blinking in astonishment.

These... aren’t difficult?

She reached up to press down her white hair that had stood up from the swift movement of her head.

However, He Ao didn’t pay too much attention to Goya’s action. He gripped the hilt of the Shadowless Sword, his eyes fixed on the deep corridor in front of him.

The reason he could quickly identify the potential location of the research facility was due to the ’hint’ from the middle-aged man flipping through the travel guide.

The man deliberately lingered on the volcano top section of the guide for a long time and then left a ’bookmark’ that hinted at issues with the undeveloped parts of the park.

This was akin to telling He Ao that something was amiss in the undeveloped part of the volcano top.

All that was left was some simple reasoning to determine where near the volcano top was most suitable to ’hide a research facility.’

Luckily, he had a bit of knowledge of the Central Earth script and noticed the sightseeing route on the bus, and also happened to have some mental modeling ability, allowing him to roughly extrapolate the perspective of the sightseeing route and eventually pinpoint the area where the research facility was located.

Ultimately, it was with the aid of the Eye of Truth’s power that he could quickly locate the position of the research facility.

However, the fact that this research facility had ’different’ lines from its surroundings suggested that the ’things’ inside were probably not weak either.

And He Ao couldn’t shake the feeling that something in his heart felt slightly off.

With a soft reminder, he led the way into the corridor.