Chapter 347 - 19: Cleaning Up

Chapter 347: Chapter 19: Cleaning Up

After receiving a message from their scout at the GS8-F4 intersection, the Eye of the Celestial God convoy immediately came to a stop. They then forwarded the message to Kong Yixiu.

In an underground chamber somewhere, Kong Yixiu took the message he received and rushed to find Marcus to report.

"Young Master, a message came from the Eye of the Celestial God. The Extraordinary Squad sent to the GS8-F4 intersection has been completely wiped out."

"What? Impossible! An Extraordinary Squad made up entirely of Rank-Two members was wiped out that easily?" Marcus was startled by the news.

"Young Master, the message says that man, Li Hua, is incredibly powerful. During the battle, there was apparently an explosion comparable to a thermobaric bomb, and a small mushroom cloud even appeared on site. The result was that the entire Extraordinary Squad was severely injured, while the Swordsman, Li Hua, was completely unscathed."

"Aha! No wonder Opal Hass was so intent on capturing Li Hua before. He really does have more than one Cultivation Manual."

Marcus tossed the jade slip for the Star Technique in his hand. "There’s no way he could achieve the combat power he’s shown with just this manual. What a shame!"

Marcus regretted his decision to give up on capturing Li Hua. To reach Rank-Two so soon after becoming an Extraordinary Being, and to be able to single-handedly defeat five experts of the same rank... he only knew of a few prodigies in the Cosmos who were capable of such a feat.

"Abort the breakout through the GS8-F4 intersection!"

"Which other intersections have weaker defenses?"

"No more screw-ups. I have no use for people who keep making mistakes."

Marcus’s words were cold. Everything had been going so smoothly, but suddenly, it all went wrong. This came as a huge blow to him, shattering his once-solid confidence.

"This time, there will be absolutely no problems. The GS16-F223 intersection is the most weakly defended one right now."

"Although the intersection is crowded, with over 50 guards, they are all reservists transferred from the emergency response department. Most of them have only just become Extraordinary. One-on-one, even a few strong, well-trained ordinary people could beat them."

"What’s more, we have our own people among the guards at that intersection. We can coordinate an attack from both inside and out."

"Good. Tell the members of the Eye of the Celestial God to head for the GS16-F223 intersection immediately. They are to leave Black Salt City as quickly as possible, then go undercover and act according to the situation."

"Understood."

After receiving Marcus’s command, the Eye of the Celestial God convoy used engineering vehicles to break through the highway median. They built a temporary turnaround, then turned back toward the city and headed for the GS16-F223 intersection, leaving behind nothing but a damaged highway and a few engineering vehicles.

At the GS8-F4 intersection, the Eye of the Celestial God’s scout also made an excuse and drove off toward Black Salt City. Since the breakout was no longer planned for this location, there was no reason to remain.

...

「Cuiwei Corps, Experiment Center 3, Laboratory 5」

A burst of cheers erupted from within the lab.

Liu Peng followed the sound of cheering and walked into the laboratory. "Trenton, is the experiment finished?"

"Yeah, it’s finally over."

For the past few days, no one in the lab had slept. They had been running high-intensity experiments around the clock, and even as Extraordinary Beings, they were starting to feel the strain.

Now that the experiments were complete and all the conclusions had been drawn, they could finally relax.

"The report is almost done. Once we hand that in, we’ll be finished."

"So what are the results?" Liu Peng asked curiously.

"Not great. We tried every method we could think of, but there’s no way to suppress the Eye Demons’ ability to control their hosts."

"Much of the time, they pretend to be harmless, but they always end up revealing their ability to control the host."

"Our instruments have monitored them after they latch onto a host. Even when they appear docile on the surface, they are secretly assimilating the host’s neural pathways. They then use these assimilated nerves to send strange signals to the host’s brain, influencing their thoughts."

"In short, they are an extremely dangerous parasitic organism."

"And we—or at least, our technology here on Cuiwei Star—can’t control them."

After hearing what Trenton Towns said, Liu Peng sighed. "What a shame!"

Trenton Towns sighed as well. "Yeah, it’s a real shame. Their ability to enhance a host’s physical attributes post-infestation is just so incredible and rare. But it’s a treasure we can only look at, not use!"

"By the way, is the genetic scan identification tag for the Eye Demons ready yet?"

"Here. We just finished it. These genetic scan tags are slow to create to begin with. After an Eye Demon parasitizes a host, its own genes alter slightly to match. It took us a great deal of effort to isolate an unchanging genetic marker from all the resulting variations."

Liu Peng took the identification tag, which resembled a USB drive. All the necessary data was stored on it. Once uploaded to the hazardous creature database, the genetic scanners deployed everywhere would be able to automatically detect any Eye Demons parasitizing living organisms.

"Good. With this genetic scan identification tag, we won’t have to worry about Eye Demons running rampant on Cuiwei Star. The Empire will be prepared if it ever encounters these things in the future, too."

"I’m going to upload the tag now."

...

「In an Interstellar Fortress in orbit around Cuiwei Star.」

The Governor of Cuiwei Star, the Cuiwei Corps Commander, the Prime Minister, the heads of Cuiwei’s various research centers, the captains of Cuiwei’s top Extraordinary squads... all the top brass of Cuiwei Star sat in a conference room, each engrossed in the experimental report projected before their eyes.

The report was exhaustive, detailing the procedures and conclusions from every phase of the experiment, capped with a final summary. Everyone read it with intense focus, not missing a single detail.