Chapter 459 - 409: Mysterious Teammate

Chapter 459: Chapter 409: Mysterious Teammate

"I’ve already told you everything I know..."

Lu City’s weak voice made Guan Tong pause his thoughts and look over.

"If possible, I’d like to ask you for one last thing, Mr. Guan..."

Guan Tong asked, "What is it?"

"I want... one last hit of the spores..."

Lu City’s face twitched, his expression pained. He trembled all over; it looked like his spore addiction was kicking in.

His eyes were filled with desperation. "Please, Mr. Guan! Just let me... before I die... I can’t take it anymore..."

"..."

Guan Tong looked at Lu City, whose rationality had been completely overwhelmed by withdrawal, and shook his head slightly.

He controlled the Shadow binding Lu City’s hands, keeping half of it solid while the other half dematerialized and burrowed into Lu City’s body.

"Please! I can’t take—URGH!!!"

Lu City suddenly convulsed. A Shadow Blade erupted from within his chest, right where his heart was.

Guan Tong had manipulated the dematerialized Shadow to solidify inside his body, piercing his heart.

The light faded from Lu City’s eyes. His head lolled to the side as he fell to the ground, his body quickly growing cold.

Guan Tong had kept his promise. Since Lu City had told him everything, he would give him a quick end.

Looking at the young man on the ground, his eyes open in death, Guan Tong felt no pleasure.

What he felt more was sadness and pity.

If not for the rule about the spores, perhaps Lu City would have had a completely different future. Perhaps he really could have been recommended for a job at the Strategy Research Room as an outstanding academy graduate, just as Dean Zhou Qinfeng had said.

But that future began to recede the moment he, on a whim, chose to accept the spores.

Guan Tong used his Shadow to drag Lu City’s body into the depths of the valley. After a moment of deliberation, he contacted Shi Jingyi through the Mind Network.

He told her all the information he had gotten from Lu City, as well as some of his own speculations.

Shi Jingyi was silent for a long time after listening.

"So, we’ve all become targets for the Parasites," Shi Jingyi said.

"That’s right. But I think the Parasites will change their strategy after this failed assassination."

"Oh?"

Guan Tong said, "Even though we’re a bit ahead of the main pack, as time goes on, more and more top Ascenders from every country will break the one-thousand Psychic Power limit. Can the Parasites really kill them all through assassination? If they had that kind of power, they wouldn’t have been pinned down in the remote mountains by the Human Federation’s forces for so long."

Shi Jingyi agreed. "That makes sense."

"That being said, you still need to be extra careful for a while."

"You too." Shi Jingyi’s voice paused, then continued, "As for how Lu City was dealt with..."

"He’s dead. Even if he was a student at the academy, after what he did, I couldn’t let him live."

"I know. It’s just that I should have been the one to do it, not you," Shi Jingyi said.

"...It’s fine. It’s all the same."

After ending the Mind Network communication, Guan Tong already had a plan.

Once this Fire Thief Sect operation was over, his next destination would be the Black Banner Country.

’Spores, Prophets, Parasites... they’ve become a direct threat to my life and the lives of those around me, and they’ve already taken action...’ According to his principles, anyone who met that condition was an enemy he had to eliminate, no matter the cost.

He’d heard that the Human Federation’s coalition forces had previously suppressed the Parasites significantly. The only reason they hadn’t been completely wiped out was because the Parasites had broken into smaller groups and hidden in the remote mountains and forests.

This tactic might be effective against ordinary soldiers, but it was no problem for Guan Tong.

His Shadow was perfectly suited for searching the mountains.

...

Several more days passed in a flash.

Guan Tong didn’t go running around anymore. Until he heard from Zhang Minglu or Li Meng, he shut himself in to cultivate.

Then, on March 13th, Li Meng called and told him to come to the base for the first full team meeting.

Once again, Silver Fox picked him up and took him into the base, after which they went to Li Meng’s office.

When they arrived, Chen Na, Bai Xuewu, and Yang Ran were already there.

Seeing that only Guan Tong and Silver Fox had arrived, Yang Ran scratched his red hair and asked, "Section Chief Li, isn’t the team supposed to have seven people? How come one is still missing?"

Besides Li Meng, it seemed only Silver Fox knew the identity of the missing, mysterious team member.

As for Bai Xuewu, who had been selected for the Official Team not long after the rules appeared, she didn’t know who the person was either.

Li Meng smiled. "Heh, don’t be impatient. I brought you all here today for a full team introduction. Come with me, I’ll take you to meet the last member."

Li Meng led them out of his office and to an elevator.

Along the way, he brought up a case he had been in charge of investigating over the past few days.

"You all know about the case where Crimson Fear was spread through a video game, right?"

Hearing Li Meng mention it, Yang Ran immediately said, "I know, I know! It sounds like a lot of people died or were injured, it was really serious!"

"Correct. I’m in charge of investigating this case, and I’ve already identified the mastermind. You can try to guess who it is."

Among the group, Bai Xuewu chewed her gum, seemingly uninterested. Chen Na thought hard but didn’t seem to have any ideas.

A smile played on Silver Fox’s lips, as if he already knew the situation but wasn’t saying. Yang Ran made a bold guess: "Was it the Fire Thief Sect? Those guys attacked the Soloma arena, and now they’re carrying out a second terrorist attack!"

Li Meng shook his head and looked at Guan Tong. "What do you think?"

"I don’t know," Guan Tong answered honestly. He truly didn’t know who was behind it and had no basis for speculation.

"Section Chief Li, stop keeping them in suspense. Just tell them," Silver Fox said.

"Alright. The investigation revealed that this case is related to the Parasites."

"The Parasites!" Yang Ran exclaimed. "Those simple-minded things actually know how to hack video game software?"

Li Meng frowned at his words. "Yang Ran, who told you the Parasites are simple-minded? Don’t look down on them just because most are converted from ordinary people. Some of the intelligent minds among the Parasites are in no way inferior to top human scholars. In fact, with the spore-assisted mutation, their brains can be developed even further."

Yang Ran’s expression turned awkward after the reprimand. He gave a forced laugh and said no more.

Li Meng continued, "A master hacker breached the game’s distribution platform and remotely implanted the code after its release. Their technique was so advanced that the development team didn’t notice it in time. We later traced the IP and found the address was within the Black Banner Country, so it was undoubtedly the work of a Parasite."

Chen Na asked curiously, "Mr. Li, there’s something I don’t understand."

"What is it?"

"Isn’t the Parasites’ goal to convert humans? Isn’t their slogan ’Everything for the sake of proliferation’... But spreading Crimson Fear just kills humans, which goes against their objective, doesn’t it?"

Li Meng looked at Chen Na with an appreciative gaze and nodded. "Na, you’re very smart. That is indeed a contradiction. In the past, the Parasites wouldn’t kill humans they captured. Instead, they would imprison them and use brainwashing, forced spore inhalation, and other methods to convert them... But perhaps the coalition forces have inflicted too many casualties on them, and now they’ve begun killing humans in kind out of retaliation."

Guan Tong’s heart stirred at these words.

’This Crimson Fear incident coincides exactly with the Prophet Sect sending Lu City to ambush and assassinate Shi Jingyi.’

’Perhaps more than killing humans with Crimson Fear, what they really wanted was to kill Shi Jingyi.’

’Because to the Parasites, the threat level of a human who can identify them must be far greater than that of any other human.’

’And judging by the result, their objective was effective—aside from the people directly involved, no one knew about the assassination attempt on Shi Jingyi.’

’If the assassination had succeeded and Shi Jingyi had actually died, then everyone from the academy to the officials would have been completely baffled, with no idea what happened or who the killer was.’

"So, if the Parasites have changed their minds and are no longer pursuing the conversion of more humans, but rather the killing of more humans, then we must intensify our efforts to exterminate them."

As Li Meng spoke, the elevator reached the designated floor.

"We’re here."

He led the group to the room at the very end of the hall. Guan Tong glanced up at the nameplate on the door, which bore two words: Yi Pavilion.

Li Meng raised his hand and knocked lightly. A gentle voice came from inside: "Please come in."

The moment they entered the room, they were all astonished.

The vast room was empty except for a wooden Go table in the center, upon which black and white stones were neatly arranged.

Before the table, a girl in a simple black cloth shirt with hair like a waterfall sat in a wheelchair. She was turning her head to look at them, their reflections captured perfectly in her ethereal pupils.

"She is your final teammate," Li Meng introduced. "The world Go champion, our North Star’s national player, Wenren Yizhi."