Book 4, Chapter 63: Political Situation

Once they walked into the light, the group could finally be seen clearly. They were all giants wearing thick, gray bioarmor that covered their heads, torso, and limbs, which made them look really thick and sturdy.

Despite that, they weren’t clumsy. Instead, they moved with surprising agility. At that moment, though, they had intentionally slowed down.

These were military-grade external augmentation devices. Most of them were outside the body, but a part of them was connected to a person’s organs and nervous system. Because of this, the people with these augmentation devices could be separated from them whenever they wanted and connected right after putting them on.

This was a popular augmentation technology in the Linacrox Union. The Great Shun Republic was also researching it, but they were behind in this regard, and apparently, the disparity was caused by the Linacrox Union finding an artifact.

The Linacrox Union had an army formed entirely of soldiers with external augmentation devices, who were known as the Eternal Heroes. To the laymen, though, the soldiers of the Eternal Heroes were known as Giant Warriors.

Once the Giant Warriors came out, they walked to stand between the rolled out carpet and the Mega Creatures armored cars. They were holding melee weapons and firearms fitting for people of their size. Based on the protruding parts on their backs, Chen Chuan could tell that they also had other bioweapons.

The screen went a little fuzzy then and prevented him from seeing clearly anymore. The Linacrox Union had to have performed some sort of domain interference.

“Safe Shield, please give me a list of the Linacrox Union’s diplomatic delegation,” Chen Chuan ordered.

“Understood. Since it’s confidential information, it will be deleted ten minutes later.”

A moment later, Chen Chuan received a document. Since it was an official visit, the Linacrox Union had provided a list of their visitors to the Great Shun Republic ahead of time.

As a lead investigator, Chen Chuan could take a look at the list.

The Linacrox Union’s diplomatic delegation was made of quite a number of important people. It was led by a state councillor and his right-hand man, a military advisor. They were joined by several company representatives.

Among them was Divine Botanics, which had worked together with Jibei Road’s Central City before. They were the ones who had brought Sun Vines into the lower city district, but due to some undisclosed reason, the company was chased out later and never set up a branch company or base in Jibei Road again.

After looking through the list of administrators and company representatives, Chen Chuan put all his attention on the accompanying combatants, or rather, the martial artists.

There were fifteen Third Limit martial artists, and most of them were soldiers.

Three stood out. All of them were thin and lanky and had gray-white bandages covering their whole bodies so only their eyes could be seen.

The three were from the bone shaman faction. It originated from an isthmus connecting the continents to the east and west, and it was a famous martial arts faction that taught a unique fist technique.

During the old era, it had more than ten branches, along with a large number of powerful martial artists. One of them was sent to the Linacrox Union during the Great Migration Era. They settled down there and spread their teachings. Multiple worldwide famous martial artists had come out of there.

Since the martial artists from this faction were built tough, they could go toe-to-toe with body hardening specialists, even though the faction didn’t focus on body hardening. Also, even if they lost some limbs, they could continue fighting. Since the faction preached the virtues of loyalty to its members, they were usually hired as security guards.

After reading through everything, Chen Chuan came to the conclusion that it was impossible for the Linacrox Union to not be thinking about grabbing the artifact for their own. It was unlikely when they chose Jibei Road to be their first stop.

The three should only be part of the group on the screen. There should be more combatants, and they should have already entered Central City.

Ten minutes later, the list was deleted from his Realm Pass.

Just when he wanted to check other information, someone contacted him. “Lead Investigator Chen, it’s me, Wu Quan. If you have a minute, please drop by my office.”

“I’m free. I’ll come over right now,” Chen Chuan responded.

He walked out and went straight to Wu Quan’s office. The logistician in front of it saluted him before opening the door for him.

Wu Quan was already waiting for him inside. He asked the logistician to serve them tea before asking Chen Chuan to take a seat. “I saw you getting a list of the Linacrox Union’s diplomatic delegation just now. That’s good. We need to pay attention to them at all times and take the initiative to understand them, but what you saw was just the tip of the iceberg.”

He grabbed a report next to him and slid it over. “This is more detailed. Take a look.”

Chen Chuan grabbed it. This list contained much more information compared to the one he got, especially about the combatants. There was practically more than four times the information, and most of the people were still in the battleships.

The diplomatic delegation even had a martial arts master.

This person wasn’t among the battleships and had yet to step foot in Central City. He was in an airship that was parked in an island nation.

“I read through the report of the people you arrested. It should have been the Union’s doing, since all of the arrested people were mercenaries hired through an agent company. Nothing will be directly linked back to the Union, so they’re not going to give up.

“And now, the Linacrox Union is about to join this mess.”

He pointed at the document in Chen Chuan’s hands. “The people on the list and the combatants from the Union are all potential enemies. All of them might go to the merged space after some time.”

“Can the diplomatic delegation enter the merged space?” Chen Chuan asked.

“It’s not just politicians who came here this time. There are also security guards from several companies. On the surface, these combatants can’t do anything aside from ensuring their company representatives’ safety, but they can abuse certain laws and send their security guards to local companies. Then, they can be sent to the merged space to ‘provide reinforcements.’ That way, they can indirectly achieve their goal of going there.”

Chen Chuan wanted to ask how this obviously flawed law was still allowed to exist, but the moment he remembered the municipal government’s existence, he got his answer.

“It seems like you’ve figured it out,” Wu Quan said. “We’re trying to abolish this law, but we’re facing a lot of obstacles. External enemies do not bother us, but enemies within are something to be feared. We’re working really hard, but there are always people who want to crush our efforts.

“Right now, we can’t do anything bold and decisive. We can only shave off the municipal government and our enemies’ flesh bit by bit. While we do get some success every now and then, it’s hard for us to keep it. The moment we let our guard down, they ruin our hard work.”

Chen Chuan could understand him. The government’s efforts to destroy Ferris Wheel was a good example of that. They chased away an existence from the other world and increased as well as strengthened their prestige in that operation, but this led to major backlash from the municipal government.

They kept pulling dirty tricks, too. The Union or the Linacrox Union’s arrival could even be considered a continuation of their counterattack.

“Even if just for all that we’ve done before, we need to win this battle. The artifact in the merged space is going to play a crucial role, so we need to find it. We can’t let the municipal government, the Union, or the Linacrox Union get it.

“The World Ring Defense System has decided to send Lao Xu and his team over. They can stabilize the situation at the merged space.”

The fact that the World Ring Defense System was deploying someone at Xu Chan’s level meant that the higher-ups were placing immense value on this matter.

“But we have too little manpower,” Wu Quan said gravely. “We’ve sent a batch of our officers to provide reinforcements to the merged space, and many of the strong martial artists we have left have to protect important officials or are in charge of important districts. Because of this, we can no longer attend to every single detail.

“We can only provide you with minimal support over this period of time, but I still have to ask you to put in more effort into the mission assigned to you. I can provide you with some financial support and increase your team size to achieve that. If you find yourself needing such help, just submit an application to me.”

Chen Chuan nodded. He could understand that. This matter could be said to be another crucial moment for the city after the Fu-Mu Entity’s propagation, and its intensity was even greater.

After all, their enemies last time were simply your run-of-the-mill mercenaries and mercenary groups, domestic and foreign alike. But based on what he saw yesterday, some famous international mercenary groups had decided to join in the fun this time.

To make matters worse, the government departments had lost quite a lot of manpower during the Fu-Mu Entity’s propagation.

While it was easy for them to fill in the holes left behind by regular officers, it was different for elite officers. Only three months had passed since the Fu-Mu Entity’s propagation, so many of the spots were still empty, but they were already thrust into another difficult situation. Things were indeed tough.

“You don’t have to worry about the mission you gave me. I’ll handle it properly,” he said seriously.

Wu Quan watched him for a while before nodding. “Let’s end our conversation here, then.”

He stood up and extended a hand. “The situation is difficult for us all right now. I hope that we can work together to weather this storm, Lead Investigator Chen.”

Chen Chuan stood up and shook his hand. “I hope so too.”

After the conversation, he walked out of the Resolution Department and took his limousine back to Martial Valor University.

After meditating in the university for an entire night, Chen Chuan brought Dawncall to the harbor the next morning and took his airship out into the sea to continue with his daily mental training.

Worried that he would end up missing any important messages, he brought a telegraph clerk from the Resolution Department. If some emergency came up, he could rush back right away.

After stopping at a random spot above the ocean, he grabbed the Frost King Saber, took his duffle bag, and entered the cabin to take out the spine-like bone.

Last time, he had succeeded in killing the existence in the bone with great difficulty, and if he went inside again, it was going to be even harder.

But so far, he had never overlapped with his second self. Instead, he just relied on his own strength to win. This way, when he improved, his second self also got stronger.

Since he was nearing the limit of what he could do on his own, he decided to overlap with his second self to face even stronger existences.

He took out the Frost King Saber and overlapped with his second self. Then, he brought the spine-like bone before him.

As their minds connected once again, he appeared on the monster’s wrinkly body.

The moment he showed up, a gigantic shadow encased him.

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