Chapter 97: Pulled Up by the Roots

Chapter 97: Chapter 97: Pulled Up by the Roots

The sky was already dimly lit with the first light of dawn.

The night was nearly over.

Xiang Yi walked out of a building, clapping his hands lightly to dust them off.

There were no bloodstains on him, but the heavy stench of blood clung to him.

And in a room in the building behind him lay the last person he had killed that night.

The deputy director of the Information and Communications Bureau, Zhang Xiangwen.

In the end, Tao Huo had chosen to accept Xiang Yi’s terms.

He had traded all the information he had on everyone in the Iron Shell Company’s infiltration network for a promise that Xiang Yi wouldn’t target his family.

Of course, it was also possible he just didn’t want to be lonely on his way to the afterlife.

In the end, Xiang Yi had granted him a dignified death.

The information from Tao Huo could be cross-referenced with the intel from Guo Hu.

Ultimately, Xiang Yi had selected a few suitable targets.

In truth, he hadn’t actually killed that many people—only three in total, including Tao Huo.

The main reason was that travel had taken up a significant amount of time.

News of Tao Huo’s kidnapping from the street in the middle of the night had spread quickly, filling the entire Southeast City District with police sirens and forcing him to find ways to avoid them.

But the results were pretty good.

A police chief, a deputy director of the Information and Communications Bureau, and a minister of transportation.

All of them were important figures with considerable authority within the local government, and all were key nodes in the Company’s infiltration network.

Besides, Xiang Yi didn’t just kill them after he found them.

He interrogated every single one, investigating each of them.

The extreme pain caused by Blood Crystal assimilation made interrogation incredibly easy.

Through their answers, he could continuously fill the gaps in his knowledge.

The network that the Prison had infiltrated into the government system was gradually being uncovered and eradicated by Xiang Yi.

It could be said that in just one night, Xiang Yi had torn out the Prison’s infiltration network in the Southeast City District by its roots.

’I never imagined I could wield such power by taking the initiative.’

"Oh, right. I almost forgot something."

Last night, not only had he taken care of three important figures, but he had also wiped out the entire leadership of Guo Long’s gang.

Guo Long was now a general without an army; his gang was bound to descend into chaos for some time.

The only thing was, other gangs wouldn’t find out so quickly, so they might not be able to take advantage of this window to tear a piece of flesh from Guo Long’s turf.

So, Xiang Yi decided to help them spread the word.

He casually opened the Dark Zone website the robot had given him on his terminal.

He then casually posted a thread in the forum’s discussion section.

The content was something along the lines of a power outage at a certain hotel, followed by the mysterious deaths of important members of Guo Long’s gang.

There weren’t many threads for idle chatter on the forum, so his post would be seen by a lot of people.

Not everyone had to believe it.

All it would take was one person with nothing better to do to go and verify the news themselves, and the intel would spread like wildfire.

And then... Guo Long could just wait for what was coming.

By now, the sky was about to brighten completely.

The city districts weren’t as convenient for Xiang Yi to move around in during the day as they were at night, especially after he’d killed the police chief.

However, before returning to the sewers, Xiang Yi planned to make a trip to the Southwest City District.

Conveniently, the residence of the deputy director of the Communications Bureau was very close to the southwest.

He could go pick up the batch of machine gun bullets he had ordered from the robot.

「At the same time.」

「The Prison.」

He Dong slowly pushed the warden’s office door open a crack and peered inside.

The office was a complete mess. Nearly all the furniture, once neatly arranged, had been overturned.

A glass was suddenly hurled against the wall by the door, shattering on impact.

The warden’s voice, a mixture of rage and breakdown, rang out. "Why!"

"Why is he alive? How could he possibly be alive!"

"How!"

The sound of a bookcase toppling over came from within the room, but it did little to vent the warden’s suppressed emotions.

"Fuck!"

A broken roar of fury, followed by the sound of the glass on the coffee table being smashed.

The office fell temporarily silent.

He Dong pushed the office door wide open, only to see the warden’s hands covered in blood from the shards of the broken coffee table.

But as if he couldn’t feel the pain, he kept slamming his fist down on the table, again and again.

"And what the hell is with the military? Don’t they fucking care that people died?!"

"Playing dead... they can play dead until their fucking next life!"

The warden slammed his fist hatefully on the table again.

He was furious, but he wasn’t a fool.

Of course he knew why the military wasn’t making a move.

They were waiting for the conflict between the Company and the government to be completely over before deciding which side to take, to become the blade in the victor’s hand.

The military didn’t even react when he’d arranged for someone to hack into the military’s orbital defense satellites; they just tightened security on all their military equipment.

He Dong knocked on the already open office door and asked, "What happened?"

He had just heard that there seemed to be more trouble on Anka Star, but he didn’t know the specifics.

But judging from the warden’s cursing...

’Xiang Yi isn’t dead? How is that possible?’

The warden, gritting his teeth, began to pull the glass shards from his hand one by one, slamming each piece viciously onto the floor as if it were his mortal enemy.

He said to He Dong, "Overnight, the entire leadership of Guo Long’s gang died. Only Guo Long himself is still alive."

"It’s just one gang..."

"There’s more!" the warden interrupted He Dong, suddenly erupting in fury. "All the key figures in the Anka Government that the Company worked so hard to cultivate were wiped out in a single night."

"The police chief, the information director, the minister of transportation—it took so much effort to buy each one of them, and now they’re all dead! Only a few small fries are left!"

"Of all of Anka Star, our infiltration was deepest in the Southeast City District, and now it’s over. There’s nothing left."

The warden suddenly frowned, clutching his heart.

He felt a sharp, twisting pain in his chest.

He Dong put down the terminal he’d just used to contact a doctor in the prison and said, "Could it have been that junkyard owner? He’s a retired soldier; he has the ability."

"Besides, do you really think Xiang Yi could survive the concentrated fire of three orbital satellite laser beams? He only awakened his Spiritual Energy a little over a week ago."

"Haaa..."

After his outburst, the warden gradually calmed down.

"I know it was probably the retired soldier, but I just have this feeling that Xiang Yi is still alive."

"No. Regardless of whether Xiang Yi is dead or not, I have to proceed as if he’s still alive. All the preparations we made before can still be used."

A bitter, unconcealable smile appeared on his face. "And it’s a good thing I drank too much yesterday and didn’t have them stop the work that same day."

"Tell Guo Long to gather what men he can, find a way to reorganize, and do whatever it takes to stay alive. Then have him figure out who was behind what happened last night."

"Also, we’ve already located those people from the scavenger team. Have Guo Long arrange for his men to make contact, especially the woman who was in close contact with Xiang Yi."

"I don’t care what methods you use. I need to find out if there’s any connection between them and Xiang Yi."

"As long as there’s a connection, it’ll be easy. Start with the people he knew, the people around him, and go after them one by one."

"If we’re short on manpower, we can pull people from the neighboring district. The personnel the Company has bought off across the entire colony are for times like this."

"Speaking of the Company..." He Dong suddenly interjected. "With so many people dead, how are you going to explain this to them?"

"I don’t know."

"I just know that things are spiraling further and further out of my control."

"No... From the day Xiang Yi broke out of prison, I haven’t been able to control anything at all."