Chapter 1131: Debate x Attitude
Translator: EndlessFantasy Translation Editor: EndlessFantasy Translation
Lin Huang admitted his double identities and answered many people's doubts during the live stream with Xu Qingya.
Under normal circumstances, most people would be unwilling to accept that the No. 1 genius who reigned the entire era was an underground organization member since underground organizations always had a negative image to the outside world.
Whenever something bad happened in some footholds, everyone would basically assume that it was done by an underground organization. Moreover, the things that Saint and God Bless had done throughout the years which were exposed were ridiculously evil. Nobody should be blamed for hating them.
However, Lin Huang's honesty in the live stream won the hearts of many.
Firstly, he did not use double identities to hide something for his own gains. Instead, he was forced to do that to avoid being killed by his enemies. Secondly, his proactiveness of setting new regulations to give Dynasty a makeover with a lot of effort since he became the Emperor was worth respecting.
Of course, not everyone bought his reasons.
Some said Lin Huang was begging for sympathy while others insisted he set the new regulations just for show.
It was almost a 50/50 divide among those who supported him and those who did not. A stir was created on the Internet.
Moreover, since the live stream, all the forums and social media sites became battlefields for both parties All sorts of threads were posted to condemn each other, and it became a hot topic. It was even more popular than Lin Huang breaking the Stairway Tree record earlier.
Xu Qingya accepted Lin Huang's invitation to be a guest at Dynasty headquarters after the live stream ended.
Besides quickly snapping photos of the new regulations Lin Huang set, she even took numerous videos of the headquarters as well as interviewing Huang Tianfu and many other members.
After leaving Emperor City, she posted the video on her personal social media account after some editing. She wrote a caption before she posted: "I know that I might be condemned for posting this, but as a news journalist, I must convey what I've heard and felt to all of you objectively. This video wasn't rehearsed. I popped some of the questions without preparing ahead. I randomly picked people to interview, and there was no script to follow. That's all I'm going to say. I won't give any conclusions. You guys watch and judge."
In the video, Xu Qingya interviewed more than ten people randomly. Apart from Huang Tianfu, everyone else was normal members.
Xu Qingya almost asked all of the interviewees this question over and over again, "Why did you join an underground organization such as Dynasty?"
The few answers that were included in the video made many viewers fall into silence.
"I'm a sinner. Where else can I go for apart from an underground organization?"
…
"I killed a nobleman out of impulse and I've got a record with the union organization. If I turn myself in, the clan will kill me. The only thing I can do for the sake of living is to join an underground organization. The Union Government and the Hunter Association can't give me a second chance, but Dynasty can."
…
"I was a member of a union organization before. The department that I was in was responsible for assassinations. I've killed at least a hundred people before joining Dynasty.
"I still clearly remember that the youngest person that I killed was only five. She was a pretty little girl. The reason she was killed was that her father was a spy and he had some evidence that would harm our organization, so the organization ordered us to kill the entire family, sparing nobody's lives.
"Since then, I began questioning myself if what I did was right. I've always thought I did the right thing, that those that I killed deserved it. However, since that case, I began to realize that those that I killed had done nothing wrong at all. The upper echelon gave the order, maybe because he was a political enemy and might have also known some secrets that he shouldn't have.
"I escaped from the organization and joined Dynasty. Since then, I've never been assigned any missions forcing me to kill anyone. Personally, Dynasty is far more righteous than those so-called union organizations."
…
The last image of the video where the new regulations that Lin Huang had set after the interviews ended.
The emotions of many of the viewers were stirred for a long time after watching the video. Many of them knew that the union organizations were not completely righteous and might be filthy inside.
However, none of them were willing to look at the issue directly because if they were to deny the union organizations, it would mean that there were no benevolent organizations in this world.
Many of them fell into silence after watching the video.
A minority of them remained to condemn it, claiming that Xu Qingya accepted Dynasty's bribe to make up the story to clear their name.
However, there were many who supported her, saying that she was brave enough to tell the truth.
There were three categories of people on the Internet in the topic of Lin Huang and Dynasty. The first group of people were supporters. They chose to believe in Lin Huang and they thought he could change Dynasty.
The other group was the judgemental ones. They said Lin Huang and the people from Dynasty were acting and putting up a show to win sympathy, so they were not to be trusted.
The last ones were the silent fence-sitters who chose to stand in the middle and waited for time to tell the victor.
After the interview ended, Lin Huang did not check what was happening on the Internet.
He logged into the Genius Union when it was time he promised to be there.
The first thing he did after logging in was to edit his personal details. He changed his name from Lin Xie to Lin Huang and updated his age to 19.
Apart from that, Lin Huang got the Stairway Tree's system to scan his face again and changed his profile photo to look like himself.
He only got to the 46th checkpoint on the tree after he was done with that.
Considering that many newbies could not get to the 63rd checkpoint, Jian Fei and the rest discussed and eventually decided to set the welcome party at the Heaven Alliance foothold which was on the 46th checkpoint.
The 46th checkpoint was a human foothold, so there were many online members as well.
Many people noticed Lin Huang as soon as he appeared.
Most of the people from the Genius Union had seen his live stream in the morning and recognized him right away. The entire 46th checkpoint became crowded all of a sudden.
Lin Huang ignored the people gawking at him and walked straight to the Heaven Alliance. There were many newbies in the meeting room when he walked in. Everyone was shocked to see him.
Basically, everyone had seen the live stream in the morning. Naturally, they recognized him right away. However, never had they thought that he would log in without disguising himself, even changing his name and profile picture. Clearly, he was completely burying his fake identity as Lin Xie.
A few seconds after Lin Huang walked into the meeting room, the acting chief, Jian Fei, strolled in. He was stunned to see Lin Huang, but he regained his normal expression again immediately. He knew about Lin Xie's real identity much earlier and had seen Lin Huang's face before.
He told Lin Huang to sit down and they began chatting while waiting for the rest to come patiently.
Chapter 1132: He'll Pay to Fix the Door
Translator: EndlessFantasy Translation Editor: EndlessFantasy Translation
It was two in the afternoon when Jian Fei and Lin Huang decided to have the welcome party.
However, all of the seats were not filled. There were only some 60 people in the meeting room that could accommodate 100 people.
Jian Fei, Gu Fei, and the other upper echelons did not look very comfortable.
Lin Huang figured what happened roughly and said to Jian Fei through voice transmission, "How many of them aren't here?"
"Over 30. I've invited 100 people to this meeting." Jian Fei did not hide the truth.
"Let's not wait. Let's start right away," Lin Huang spoke through voice transmission.
Jian Fei nodded and walked to the podium in the middle. He spoke after glancing at the people present, "I'd like to say something that has nothing to do with the welcome party first. I, Jian Fei, the acting chief of the Heaven Alliance, would like to officially announce that the newcomers who didn't make it to the welcome party will have their names removed from the list."
Even Lin Huang was a little surprised when Jian Fei said that. The rest of the upper echelons had disbelief written on their faces.
The 60-odd newcomers below the podium were discussing among themselves.
Jian Fei ignored the buzz down there and proceeded, "Firstly, we've already sent out the notice two days ago that the meeting is at 2 p.m. today. Those who can't make it at the last minute could've informed me, but now that they didn't show up when the welcome party has started or inform me in advance, it shows that they're irresponsible. The Heaven Alliance doesn't welcome people like that.
"Secondly, these people refused to come to the welcome party at the said time. It also shows that they have no sense of belonging to the Heaven Alliance. Since they've no sense of belonging to us, let's send them off happily to other organizations in order for them to find their sense of belonging
"These are the two things that I wanted to say. Next, let's start our welcome party officially!"
Jian Fei began his speech as the acting chief of the Heaven Alliance after he was done talking about removing the members from the list.
The speech included mostly about the history of the Heaven Alliance and some important incidents. He passed the podium to Deputy Chief Gu Fei after he was done with the speech.
Gu Fei's speech was very simple, and she was done within five minutes. She then passed the podium to Lin Huang.
The newcomers started clapping as soon as Lin Huang appeared. They hollered and cheered loudly.
"Hey, everyone. My name is Lin Huang. Perhaps you guys are more familiar with another name of mine, Lin Xie. However, to me, Lin Huang or Lin Xie is just a name. I'm the Deputy Chief of the Heaven Alliance, and I'm also the Emperor of Dynasty. I am me, and I won't change regardless of my title or identity."
The people cheered again after Lin Huang's self-introduction.
"That's all I'm going to say about myself. I'm not the star today. You guys are. As the Heaven Alliance new members, all of you are the hope of the Heaven Alliance's future…"
Lin Huang began his speech after he was done with his self-introduction.
"I welcome all of you here to be one of the Heaven Alliance members officially today. All Heaven Alliance members will forever be the Heaven Alliance partners no matter whether it is now or when you have left the Genius Union in the future…"
His speech was not very long either. He only took seven to eight minutes including the self-introduction at the beginning.
Just when Lin Huang was going to pass the podium to the acting chief of the Heaven Alliance, Jian Fei, after he was done with his speech, the meeting room door was kicked open all of a sudden.
A bunch of young men rushed in. Lin Huang glanced to see that there were over 20 of them.
The leader was a young man with long, dark-red hair who stared at Lin Huang ferociously.
"Lin Xie, I had always admired you. I even treated you as my role model. You've disappointed me. You fell so hard and become one of the underground organization members. I can't believe I've always treated you as my idol this past year. I must be blind now that I thought about it. I would've really be deceived and joined the Heaven Alliance if I didn't see the live stream this morning."
"Who is that?" Lin Huang asked Jian Fei through voice transmission, feeling ridiculous.
"He's the general of the Union Government's Immortals, Li Hongfei," Jian Fei replied through voice transmission in a disdainful tone.
"I thought people from the Union Government are prohibited from joining the Genius Union." Lin Huang was surprised to hear that.
"They prohibited that in the past, but they've abolished that rule after the New Year this year. Those who pass the assessment can join as they wish. Throughout the half-year, up to a hundred people joined the Genius Union successfully from all the military groups and the Agency EA from the Union Government."
After hearing Jian Fei's explanation, Lin Huang roughly figured that the Union Government must have taken the abyss disaster that would happen in the near future into consideration for them to be abolishing the rule.
"The people behind him are basically from the Union Government's Three Elite Troops," Jian Fei added.
"Li Hongfei, am I right?" Lin Huang glanced through the 23 intruders and had his eyes on Li Hongfei who eventually emerged as leader. "It's great that you guys aren't joining the Heaven Alliance. Your names have been removed."
Although Jian Fei had announced removing those who were absent from the list in the meeting earlier, he had yet to do that since the welcome party was still going on. Naturally, Li Hongfei and the rest had yet to receive the notice that they were removed.
The 23 of them were clearly stunned to hear what Lin Huang said.
"What makes you think that you can remove our names?! You're just a Deputy Chief. Only the real chief or the acting chief has the right to remove our names."
"Li Hongfei, it was I who removed your names, not Deputy Chief Lin." Jian Fei stood up at that second and told them the reason for removing their names again. "I've stated the reason that I did that to the 67 new members earlier. You lack of responsibility and have no sense of belonging to the Heaven Alliance. We don't need people like that."
"I get it now. So, the Heaven Alliance is on the same line with Dynasty now." Li Hongfei scoffed after hearing that. The remaining 22 of them glared at Jian Fei and the rest as if they were their enemies now.
"The Union Government's Three Elite Troops have such low recruitment standards. Are they now recruiting people who can't understand basic logic?" Gu Fei could not take it and finally spat out.
"Woman, stop your slandering nonsense." Li Hongfei and the rest of the people from the Three Elite Troops glared at Gu Fei.
"Did I get it wrong? According to your logic, we're being bribed by Dynasty just because we trust Lin Huang. There are up to 100 million people on the Heart Network who support Lin Huang. Are you saying that all of them were bribed by Dynasty?! You don't even have basic logic. How dare you say that I slandered you with your filthy mouth?!"
"You…" Li Hongfei was speechless at the moment.
"Li Hongfei, I've told you guys the reason your names are removed loudly and clearly. Moreover, we know Lin Huang better than you guys rather than from just rumors. He has joined the Heaven Alliance for almost a year and a half now. We've been watching everything he's done, the hardships he's experienced and the doubts that he went through throughout his journey. This is the reason why the Heaven Alliance is still standing by him because we know he's worthy of our trust," Jian Fei said.
"Only people who don't understand underground organizations would say sh*t like trusting Lin Huang. Do you guys know what kind of position the Emperor of Dynasty is?! He is one of the biggest underground organization leaders. He's almost equivalent to our Union Government chief! Do you guys believe that a person who has such an identity is a good person?! I think you guys should really feed your brains to Swine Beasts! It's just an act no matter how friendly and how trustworthy he is! You guys are being deceived!"
"Li Hongfei, let me ask you two questions," Lin Huang finally spoke again.
"There are at least millions of people in the Union Government in all the 12 safety zones including the staff. Can you say you're 100% sure that there's nobody who deserves to die at all? Can you say that none of them are corrupted, have taken bribes, abused their power, used people for their personal gains?! Do you dare to say that?!"
"I…" Li Hongfei was speechless at the moment. He knew very well that such a thing was being practiced by many.
"Let me ask you again. There are at least tens of millions of underground organization members in the 12 safety zones. Can you say you're 100% sure that there's none of them who don't deserve to die?"
Li Hongfei fell into silence again.
After a moment of silence, Li Hongfei lifted his head again and looked at Lin Huang defiantly. "I won't argue with you about silly things like that. I challenge you. Do you dare to accept it without summoning your monsters?!"
"Li Hongfei, it's not fair for you to challenge him like this. He's an Imperial Censor and you're skilled in close-range battle. Wouldn't you be tying his hands to challenge him if you challenged him to not use his summoning beasts?" Gu Fei could not resist mocking.
However, Lin Huang smiled when he heard that. "Why wouldn't I dare to accept that? All 23 of you can come at me at the same time."
"You can't summon your monsters!" Li Hongfei emphasized again.
"I don't have to," Lin Huang responded while smiling.
The newcomers discussed among themselves upon seeing that.
"This guy has such thick skin!"
"23 versus 1, and he asked Lin Huang not to summon his monsters? This guy is too much."
"But it's not a challenge if Deputy Chief Lin really summon his monsters."
Lin Huang shoved both his hands in his pockets and looked at Li Hongfei with a smirk. "Are you guys ready?"
"Go!" Li Hongfei shouted. The 23 of them moved almost at the same time.
However, Lin Huang removed his right hand from his pocket almost at the same time. In the next second, 23 silver glows shot out from his sleeve like lightning bolts.
Li Hongfei and the rest did not see the trajectory of the silver glows at all. Their heads exploded instantly and their bodies disintegrated rapidly.
In the next moment, the silver glows retreated back and vanished into Lin Huang's sleeve.
He shoved his right hand into his pocket again as if he had never moved before.
Everyone was stunned to see the 23 silhouettes disappear out of nowhere. Apart from a minority of them who managed to see the sparkling silver glows in the air faintly, most of them could not see anything at all.
After all, Lin Huang's ability was comparable with an imperial-level purple gold-rank's. It was too advanced from their abilities.
Until then, they realized that they had been underestimating Lin Huang. Everyone thought that Lin Huang managed to break through the Stairway Tree because he was an Imperial Censor who had powerful summoning beasts. Now, it seemed like his personal ability was so powerful that it was terrifying.
Many of them knew that half of the 23 people who just had been killed in one strike were on immortal-level rank-9. Li Hongfei did not only have immortal-level rank-9 combat strength, but he was also a supreme genius. His ability would rank top ten even if he were to be compared with the top Genius Union's alliances such as the Heaven Alliance and the Hong Alliance.
However, such a powerhouse was like an ant before Lin Huang as he was killed on the spot. He did not even manage to survive the first round.
Lin Huang could not help but speak upon seeing that the people were still stunned for a long time, "Clean it up. Let's proceed with the welcome party."
Lin Huang turned his head to look at Jian Fei after that. "Chief Jian, send Li Hongfei a message. He'll pay for the points that will be used to fix the meeting room door. Ask him to look for me if he has something to say about that. I welcome him to visit me both online and offline."
Chapter 1133: Alien
Translator: EndlessFantasy Translation Editor: EndlessFantasy Translation
It was already past 8 p.m. when the welcome party ended.
Just when Lin Huang was ready to log out of the Genius Union, he saw a newcomer walking to him before speaking to him through voice transmission, "I'm Peng Qing from EA. 2. The chief wants me to pass you a message during this welcome party."
"Chief? You guys have elected a chief?" Lin Huang was not too sure if he was referring to Guan Zhong or Qian Rui.
"We just did two days ago. It's Master Guan Zhong." Peng Qing nodded and walked to Lin Huang.
"It's inconvenient to speak here. Let's go to the small meeting room," Lin Huang said and left with Peng Qing after bidding goodbye to Jian Fei.
Lin Huang asked after locking the door in the small meeting room, "What message did Guan Zhong ask you to pass?"
"Our tech department has found out who exposed your identity during the live stream this morning and on the forum."
Lin Huang did not ask who the culprit was immediately hearing that. Instead, he fell into silence for a moment before speaking again, "What does Guan Zhong want?"
"This isn't a business, but a collaboration. We don't need you to do anything. All we're hoping is that the Union Government and Dynasty can develop harmoniously in the future without treating each other like enemies." Peng Qing passed Guan Zhong's message.
"I've been saying that Dynasty will be a neutral organization from now on. Tell Guan Zhong that he doesn't have to worry about that." Lin Huang did not plan to overthrow the Union Government. Even if Dynasty became much more powerful than the Union Government one day, he never thought of replacing them before.
He walked out of a grade-D foothold in Division 7, so he was thoroughly familiar with the Union Government's management system throughout his journey here. Although the Union Government was imperfect, it was doing pretty well overall. Lin Huang did not think that Dynasty could do better. Furthermore, he had no interest of becoming the chief of the Union Government.
"The people who posted the comments and thread on the forum are from the same group of people. Am I right?" Lin Huang asked.
"Yes, they're from the Divine Alliance," Peng Qing finally revealed the answer.
"The Divine Alliance? The Divine Alliance of the Genius Union?!" Lin Huang was surprised. "Do you have solid evidence?"
"Our tech department got the positioning of the thread senders' addresses and found the monitor bird and the Surveillance Mosquito around during the time the thread was posted. We eventually found two suspects. Both of them are Divine Alliance members."
"How do people from the Divine Alliance know about my identity?" Lin Huang mumbled softly while frowning a little.
"A few days ago, we just found out that the Divine Alliance has a rather big issue," stated Peng Qing, ignoring Lin Huang.
"What issue?" Lin Huang asked immediately.
"We got a portion of memory out of the brain of the Master God clone of God Bless, and there's something about the Divine Alliance in it." Peng Qing paused before continuing "Looking at that part of memory, there's an alien species behind the Divine Alliance. Moreover, the Master God clone came to some agreement with them, whereby they have a certain level of collaboration."
"According to the Master God clone's memory, God Bless would capture supreme geniuses occasionally throughout the hundreds of years to provide the existence behind the Divine Alliance. This included Chan Dou's being captured earlier which was for this purpose as well."
Lin Huang fell into deep thought as he listened to this point. He used the bruised corpse to read the four God's Messengers' minds. However, the Master God's clone was killed by Wu Mo and he died before they could read his memory. In the four God's Messengers' memories, indeed there was something about capturing Chan Dou and himself. Furthermore, according to the God Messengers' memories, they were capturing supreme geniuses for some sort of sacrifice. He had not thought much about it at that time as he thought it was to sacrifice to the Master God himself. However, now that he thought about it carefully, indeed, it was never clear who they were sacrificing in the God's Messengers' memories. If it were meant to be sacrificed to the Master God, the memory should have included that clearly.
To make sure that he did not remember it wrongly, Lin Huang sifted through the memories in his head again. He realized that that specific part of memory was really blurry, proving that even the four God's Messengers had no idea who Chan Dou and the rest were being sacrificed to.
"So, have you guys found out who exactly is behind the Divine Alliance?" Lin Huang asked Peng Qing immediately after realizing that this part of the information in his head was missing.
"No. The Chief said that the Master God clone's combat strength was too high, so it's very difficult to read his memory. At this point, we've only managed to retrieve a small part with everything we can. This portion of memory happens to be related to the Divine Alliance, so Master Chief asked me to inform you about it."
"Ask your chief if he needs me to help to retrieve the memory. If he does, I'll take the time to drop by the Union Government these two days." Lin Huang said that because the Undead Styx had elevated to Virtual God rank-7 now and had sufficient ability to capture the Master God clone's soul remnant to read his memory.
Unlike before, he could only use the bruise corpse's clone to hypnotize a person to retrieve one's memory. Moreover, the person had to be alive.
Peng Qing was stunned to hear that but he reacted quickly. "I'll check with the Chief when I log out later."
"Sure, is there anything else?" Lin Huang asked again.
"The Chief asked you not to alert the Divine Alliance just yet. We'll discuss what to do after we managed to retrieve more information. We're still not sure how many people in the Divine Alliance are involved or how powerful the person behind the Divine Alliance is and where he's hiding. If we don't execute a clean-cut first attack, it'll be very difficult for us to tackle them later on," Peng Qing shared Guan Zhong's message again.
"So, don't you guys plan to give me the two people's coordinates?" Lin Huang raised a brow.
"I'm sorry. We can't give it to you," Peng Qing replied, "In reality, the Chief didn't give it to me as well."
"I understand." Lin Huang nodded. "Is there anything else?"
Peng Qing thought about it and shook his head. "I've told you everything that the Chief wanted me to tell you."
"Sure, thanks for doing that." Lin Huang patted Peng Qing's shoulder.
Seeing that Peng Qing had logged out, Lin Huang looked at the Genius Union's organization leaderboard and clicked on the Divine Alliance page. He took screenshots of the Divine Alliance chief, deputy chief, and more than ten core members' personal details before logging out.
As soon as he logged out of the Stairway Tree, Lin Huang opened his communication page and sent the screenshots over with a message included. 'The screenshots are of the Genius Union's Divine Alliance chief, deputy chief, and other core members' personal details. Check their current locations for me.'
Huang Tianfu replied within three seconds, 'Got it!'
He peeped at Huang Tianfu's reply and turned the communication page off. His eyes traveled over the 16 screenshots he projected before him again.
"I won't show mercy since they are aliens!"
Chapter 1134: The Bug Tribe Invasion that Man Has Yet Discover
Translator: EndlessFantasy Translation Editor: EndlessFantasy Translation
On the next day, Lin Huang received the coordinates Huang Tianfu sent in the afternoon. All 16 Divine Alliance members' coordinates were marked clearly.
Lin Huang looked at the first screenshot while smirking slightly. It was a tall, big hunk with muscles bulging all over. He had rather tanned skin while his face was crude and fierce. He had a buzzcut that made him look like a prisoner. His hair was so short that one could see his shiny scalp.
He wore a black shirt in the picture. If he wore a thick gold necklace on his neck and a gold watch on his wrist, he would totally look like an underground boss.
"Zhongli Yan," Lin Huang called out softly.
In reality, Lin Huang was familiar with the man's face and name.
Almost everyone in the Genius Union knew the chief of the Divine Alliance, Zhongli Yan. Moreover, this guy always ranked highly in the annual leaderboard. He was almost always in the top five, sometimes even ranking top three.
If the Divine Alliance had secrets, as the chief, Zhongli Yan would definitely know about it.
That was the reason why Lin Huang targeted him first.
Zhongli Yan was currently at No. 1A21 foothold, the Golden Light City in Division 1.
Lin Huang walked out of the Golden Light City dimensional portal around 1 p.m. and headed northwest.
The dimensional portal in the foothold was situated in the south of the Golden Light City while the Zhongli Clan was located on the northwestern side from the city center.
Lin Huang only spent some ten minutes to get to where the Zhongli Clan was.
He summoned the Nightmare Tapir when he arrived at the door. Then, he walked into the house with it.
Everyone including the security guard at the entrance, the gardener who was trimming the plants in the courtyard, and the cleaning lady who was cleaning the house seemed not to notice Lin Huang and the Nightmare Tapir at all.
Lin Huang walked past them one after another just like that. None of them lifted their heads to look where he was.
Using the Nightmare Tapir's detection, Lin Huang soon found Zhongli Yan's current location. He was working on something in the study room on the second floor of the loft.
Lin Huang passed through the courtyard directly and entered the loft. He ignored the two family members on the first floor of the loft and headed straight to the second floor.
The two people on the first floor did not seem to realize Lin Huang and the Nightmare Tapir's existence at all.
Lin Huang pushed the study room door open when he got to the second floor.
Zhongli Yan, who was sitting at the desk, glanced at the door, feeling strange. However, he was looking at the door behind Lin Huang. His vision penetrated Lin Huang's body directly to his surprise. Just when he was going to get up to close the door, Lin Huang closed the door casually.
Zhongli Yan was shocked to see the door closing by itself.
At that very moment, Lin Huang showed himself slowly.
"Hi, Chief Zhongli."
Lin Huang's sudden appearance shocked him. However, he soon calmed down. "Lin Huang! I think it's inappropriate for you to invade a private property!"
"You wouldn't dare to see me if I didn't trespass, right?" Lin Huang walked to Zhongli Yan with a grin. He sat on the desk and looked at Zhongli Yan in a condescending way.
"I'm very busy. I've no time to deal with your nonsense. Say what you want directly, but please leave after you're done and I'll pretend this never happened." Zhongli Yan still attempted to take control of the situation.
"Since you say that, I'll ask you directly then." Lin Huang smiled and subsequently asked, "You were the one who got someone to expose my identity on the Internet. Am I right?"
"That's right. That was my doing" Zhongli Yan admitted right away, "I exposed the truth and didn't spread any rumors, so what's wrong with that? I think the people who you've deceived have the right to know about you hiding your identity."
"Are you a reporter? I can't believe we're even talking about this." Lin Huang chuckled when he heard his demand. "Since we're on the topic of people having the right to know the truth, let's have a chat. I believe everyone should be surprised that the so-called the chief of the Divine Alliance isn't human at all."
Lin Huang stared at Zhongli Yan while grinning.
Clearly, Zhongli Yan did not expect his identity to be exposed. He only managed to calm down after a shift in expression. He denied stiffly, "That's such a cheap and low rumor."
"Is it?" Lin Huang asked while smiling.
"Everybody knows that only human beings can log into the Genius Union," Zhongli Yan argued, providing reasoning.
"Not exactly. There may be some aliens that can break through the Stairway Tree system," Lin Huang said while smiling, "But don't you worry, I've my way to determine whether you're a human or alien."
The Nightmare Tapir revealed itself slowly as soon as Lin Huang was done speaking.
"This pet of mine has hypnotization abilities. I'll be able to tell if you're a human or an alien as soon as you agree to be hypnotized by him."
"Lin Huang, this isn't the Heaven Alliance or Dynasty. I won't show mercy if you go on with your nonsense. Perhaps I'm no match for you, but the Zhongli Clan has two demigods!" Zhongli Yan knew very well that he might not be in the same league as Lin Huang, so he used the two old demigods in his family to threaten him.
"Seems like you're not going to conform." Lin Huang raised his brow. "Fortunately, I knew this would happen. Ah well, you'll have to conform today whether you want it or not."
The Nightmare Tapir's eyes turned pitch-black as soon as Lin Huang was done speaking.
Zhongli Yan's eyes became lost in the hypnotization too.
Lin Huang began the interrogation after hearing the Nightmare Tapir's voice transmission that the hypnotization was a success.
"What kind of species are you exactly?"
"Bug Tribe. I'm a Demonic Magic Bug." Zhongli Yan's voice became strange when he answered that question. It sounded like the buzzing when insects flapped their wings as though his voice was overlapping.
The Bug Tribe?!
Never had Lin Huang thought that Zhongli Yan was from the Bug Tribe. The various bug monsters in the gravel world were just distant relatives of the Bug Tribe branches. Although he had fought many types of Bug Tribes on the Stairway Tree, he had never seen a real one before.
He had always thought that this gravel world was not invaded by the Bug Tribe. However, it seemed like the Bug Tribe might have penetrated the world completely.
"How many members are there in this gravel world?" Lin Huang asked again.
"Not many. There are currently only 31 that survived."
Lin Huang was slightly relieved to hear that answer.
"How long have you guys invaded this gravel world?"
"It's been 763 years."
"So, only 31 survived throughout the over 700 years? Why is that?" Lin Huang was rather puzzled.
"The Queen Mother is severely injured, so we can only carry out the Ultimate Elite Breeding Program."
"The Ultimate Elite Breeding Program?!"
"We only pick other supreme genius species as breeding material and boost the quality to the max during each breeding season."
Lin Huang finally understood why these people took Chan Dou away. They wanted to use Chan Dou as breeding material and use his genes as the template to breed Bug Tribe's descendants.
"How come you guys can log into the Genius Union?" Lin Huang raised another doubt of his.
"All Ultimate Elites have two forms. One is the form as breeding material, another is the Bug Tribe form. All of our breeding materials are human supreme geniuses. They have almost the exact same genes as humans when they turned into human forms. They can cheat the Stairway Tree system like a piece of cake."
"Alright then." Lin Huang asked a few more questions subsequently and ended it after the Nightmare Tapir was done reading Zhongli Yan's mind.
Chapter 1135: A Woman's Instinct
Translator: EndlessFantasy Translation Editor: EndlessFantasy Translation
The Nightmare Tapir retrieved tons of useful information from Zhongli Yan's mind.
The Zhongli Clan had no relation to the Bug Tribe at all. In reality, the real Zhongli Yan was dead. He was just the Bug Tribe's Ultimate Elite that the Queen Mother made out of Zhongli Yan as breeding material.
The benefit of using a supreme genius as breeding material was that these Bug Tribe's Ultimate Elites could mirror the original supreme genius's genes completely and carry on one's memory and inheritance perfectly to blend into the human foothold seamlessly. Moreover, these Ultimate Elites were born pseudo-quadruple mutated. Some of them were even born mythical-level quadruple mutated directly from breeding materials that were powerful when they were alive.
Throughout more than 700 years, although the Queen Mother only gave birth to 31 Bug Tribe descendants, two of them were mythical-level while the remaining 29 of them were pseudo-mythical-level. One could say that they were of the best quality.
Among them, the one that had the highest combat strength was virtual god-level while the lowest was immortal-level rank-9.
In the entire Divine Alliance, only Zhongli Yan and the other three deputy chiefs were Bug Tribe members while the rest were human.
The main responsibility of the four of them was to search for information in the Genius Union to find suitable target materials for the Queen Mother.
The information in Zhongli Yan's memory eliminated Lin Huang's initial 16 targets to only four now.
Since the Queen Mother would sense if Zhongli Yan was killed, Lin Huang did not destroy him to avoid alerting the enemy. Instead, he got the Nightmare Tapir to perform long-term hypnotization on him.
After leaving the Zhongli Clan, Lin Huang spent almost the entire afternoon traveling to three footholds consecutively to hypnotize and read all three of the deputy chiefs' minds.
Among the three deputy chiefs' memories, the information he got was basically the same as the information in Zhongli Yan's memory, which again proved the credibility of that information.
However, what rendered Lin Huang speechless was Zhongli Yan and the other three's cluelessness about where the Bug Tribe Queen Mother was currently hiding. Apart from the four of them, it had been close to a hundred years since they came in contact with other Bug Tribe comrades. All they knew was that the Queen Mother had two guards on virtual god-level, but they had no idea what their exact combat strength was.
Lin Huang did not even know how his identity ended up exposed. According to Zhongli Yan and the rest's memories, they had retrieved the information from a stranger's message despite not having any idea who the sender was exactly. They only knew that the person who had exposed that was their Bug Tribe comrade because the Emperor's Heart Ring's code through which the message was sent was only known to Bug Tribe comrades.
It was past 6 p.m. when Lin Huang returned to Emperor City. He looked for Bloody in the Emperor Palace.
Bloody had already completed the analysis and modification of the bug formations. It created over 1,000 sets of bug formations with battle formations as the foundation.
After sharing the bug formations with Lin Huang, Lin Huang transferred everything to the galactic hive which then conveyed the information into all the Bug Tribe members' heads.
When he was done with everything, Lin Huang began discussing the matter with Bloody. "At the moment, Zhongli Yan and the other four have no idea where the other 27 bugs' coordinates are at all, let alone the Queen Mother. Sadly, the investigation on my side has come to a dead end."
Bloody fell into a moment of silence and only spoke after digesting what Lin Huang had just told it, "Since we can't find them, why can't we just get them to come to you on their own?"
"Their collaboration with God Bless is over now, so they'll have to do it themselves if they encounter suitable breeding materials. Meanwhile, you're definitely the sort of breeding material that they want most eagerly."
"Do you mean that I should use myself as bait and lure them out?" Lin Huang understood what Bloody meant.
"You're in a safe zone because nobody is willing to invade Emperor City when there are two Virtual Gods guarding it. However, if you step out of the safe zone of Emperor City, you should be desired by many. After all, your combat strength is only immortal-level rank-9 on the surface while your ability is limited no matter how powerful you are. All you need to do is to use Zhongli Yan and the rest to spread the news of you being outside Emperor City. Hmm, according to my calculations, there'll be a 120% chance that the Bug Tribe will attack then!"
"Looking at the information Zhongli Yan and the rest have provided, they definitely won't let go of any chances to capture you as soon as the opportunity arises."
Lin Huang thought about it carefully after hearing what Bloody said. "Why not I pretend to hunt for imperial-level Life Base monsters at the Abyss Brink? Many people know that I'm going to break through imperial-level now, so I can use this reason to set things up."
"I think that's doable," Bloody agreed.
The duo soon confirmed all the details after some in-depth discussion.
The next morning, Lin Huang left Emperor City alone publicly after breakfast. He then walked around the black market at the foothold near the entrance of the Abyss Brink. He only left after buying some unnecessary toys and made sure that people saw him.
He even got Bloody to release Leech Pods and only told the Ninetails Lynx to send him in after seeing a large tour of a hundred people entering the Abyss Brink. He entered before the tour group did.
Naturally, he seemed very cool whereby he walked away right after peeping at the tour group. He leaped into the entrance of the Abyss Brink with his fluttering clothes.
The tour group went nuts when they saw his appearance.
It would be forgivable if it were someone that they did not know. However, it was impossible for them not to know about Lin Huang who had been the No. 1 searched person for the past few days.
"That guy who leaped in… Was he Lin Huang?!"
"It really was him! I thought I made a mistake!"
"He's going into the Abyss Brink. I guess he's going to break through to imperial-level."
…
Lin Huang headed straight to the second layer as soon as he arrived on the first layer of the Abyss Brink. The reason why he chose to enter from the first layer instead of going straight into the second layer was to let more people see him.
He summoned the Nightmare Tapir in an empty corner when he arrived at the third layer after passing through the first and second layer.
"Get Zhongli Yan and the rest to inform the Bug Tribe that I've arrived in the Abyss Brink. Lure everyone to capture me now."
In a tall building in a foothold of Division 3, a man in a white shirt peeped at a message on his Emperor's Heart Ring. He walked to a majestic ceiling-to-floor window after a moment a silence before dialing a number.
"Lin Xie, the Class-S wanted target has left the safe zone. His current coordinates are in the second or the third layer of the Abyss Brink. Arrange two imperial-level powerhouses to get him in the Abyss Brink. It would be best if they're both on imperial-level purple gold-rank. The target should have more than one imperial-level summoning beast."
A deep voice soon came from the other side of the communication device. "Understand. I'll make the arrangements right away!"
A lady's voice came behind the man after he hung up the phone. "You're quick. I've just read about Lin Xie's whereabouts on the Internet."
It was a lady in her early 20s with a lollipop in her mouth. She wore a denim jacket and a t-shirt with beige patterns together with a black leather skirt. Her drawl made her sound lazy.
The man turned around and answered meticulously, "The Divine Alliance sent a notice."
"I think you're underestimating Lin Xie. This kid might be scarier than we imagined. I think the first attempt might be a failure." She removed the lollipop in her mouth and used it to point at herself. "It's a woman's instinct."
"Well, excuse me. Just like me, you were born a male bug guardian. Your breeding material is simply a female human," the man corrected her.
Chapter 1136: Bug Tribe Invasion
Translator: EndlessFantasy Translation Editor: EndlessFantasy Translation
"Congratulations, you've killed the Titan Alligator (demigod-level) and obtained pseudo-mythical-level Titan Alligator Monster Card pieces x2."
Lin Huang turned his head to look at the gigantic monster carcass not far away after peeping at Xiao Hei's notification that popped up.
The Titan Alligator that was up to 10,000 meters long was currently covered in a layer of black goo. A moment later, the goo disappeared from the surface of the carcass like it had penetrated its body entirely. The giant alligator's three pairs of eyes opened all of a sudden while the six pupils turned pitch black.
In the next second, the Titan Alligator's body melted and turned into a black stream of liquid, returning to the Undead Styx's body.
It was the 16th demigod-level monster that Lin Huang had killed. He had killed all the demigod-level monsters on the third layer of the Abyss Brink once again. Since he had the Ninetails Lynx to bring him around, the round of slaughtering only took one morning.
His reward throughout the morning was pretty handsome. Apart from the Undead Styx obtaining 16 demigod-level undead puppets with a Lucky Card and a Double Reward Card, Lin Huang got four complete Monster Cards, two demigod soul crystals, six demigod relics, 32 demigod souls, and 32 broken Godheads.
The four complete Monster Cards were two Soul-assimilating Beasts and two White-haired Swordfiends.
The two Soul-assimilating Beasts were both pseudo-mythical-level evil spirit type of monsters. They were immune to most physical attacks and were experts in spiritual attacks.
On the other hand, the two White-haired Swordfiends were also pseudo-mythical-level evil spirit type of monsters. They had powerful close-range combat ability whereby they were on par with Lancelot who shared the same combat strength. Compared to Lancelot as a whole, the two White-haired Swordfiends had fewer defense techniques. Their skill slots were filled with powerful battle skills although their battle style was limited to attacking with zero defense.
Lin Huang was pretty satisfied with the probability of four complete Cards coming out of the 16 demigod-level monsters.
After killing the 16 demigod-level monsters, Lin Huang was not interested in the remaining imperial-level monsters. He was too lazy to go on, so he stayed where he was, waiting for his attacker to come patiently.
…
When it was close to noon, two imperial-level purple gold-rank powerhouses entered the third layer of the Abyss Brink. One of them was fat while another was skinny.
The fatty had jowls of flab on his greasy face. His tummy was like a ball that measured half a meter in diameter. He was only approximately 1.7 meters tall but weighed at least 300 pounds by the looks of it.
The other skinny guy had a yellowish, skinny face. The cheekbones on both sides of his face were sunken while his arms were so gaunt that there was only skin. They were only the length of a third of the fatty's arms. Although he was around 1.9 meters tall, he looked like he weighed less than 100 pounds.
"Skinny monkey, don't you think that they're overreacting? It's just an immortal-level rank-9. I can't believe they're asking the both of us to catch him. Hmph!" The round fatty harrumphed, underestimating their target.
"Don't be reckless. I heard that the target this time is the No. 1 genius of the era in this world. You definitely can't measure such a guy's ability with his combat strength." The skinny guy, on the other hand, was cautious.
"It's just an incomplete gravel world. So what if he's the No. 1 genius? His ability is definitely nothing compared to our Bug Tribe's monarch-level talents," the fatty scorned, "Even if he's a monarch-level talent, it's impossible for him to fight imperial-level purple gold-ranks with his immortal-level rank-9 combat strength."
"A monarch-level talent is comparable with a Protoss's mythical-level, and it's equivalent to a quadruple mutated monster. A human who has such quality is a top genius in most great worlds. Indeed, it's quite impossible that such a person would exist in a gravel world. However, the target that we're hunting this time is an Imperial Censor. I heard he has imperial-level imperial beasts with him. We'd best be careful," the skinny guy reminded.
"It's even easier since he's an Imperial Censor. Imperial Censors have poor abilities and they depend on their imperial beasts to fight. To handle such a guy, all we need is to capture him before he summons his imperial beasts. With his immortal-level rank-9 combat strength, I'm afraid he can't even capture our movement. If he has already summoned his imperial beasts, either of us would just need to put his imperial beasts under our control. Even if we're only able to control them for a second, it's a piece of cake to capture him. Moreover, he's just on immortal-level rank-9. How is it possible for his imperial beasts to be our match no matter how powerful they are?" Evidently, the fatty was overconfident in himself.
The skinny guy thought about it and agreed that he might be overthinking. "Alright, we're on the third level now. Let's get down to business."
The fatty nodded and closed his eyes standing where he was. He began performing complicated sigils with both his hands rapidly. Soon, a giant red eyeball which was approximately a meter in diameter appeared above his head slowly.
The eyeball looked half-real, half-fake as though it was a 3D projection. However, it was clearly not a human eye. It was more like a fly's compound eye. There were dense, mini eyes all over it. If someone who had trypophobia were to see it, the person would definitely have goosebumps immediately.
Circles of red light spread like ripples on the water around the gigantic eyeball.
The fatty opened his eyes all of a sudden approximately five to six minutes later. He spun his head to look in his two o'clock.
"I found him!"
In the next second, the eyeball on his head disintegrated rapidly. Meanwhile, he leaped and flew toward the direction he pinpointed.
The skinny guy went after him and followed him closely.
The duo flew 5,000 to 6,000 kilometers with the fatty leading ahead. After a while, the fatty said to the skinny guy through a voice transmission, "He's just over there before us!"
His heavy body descended quickly as soon as he said that. The skinny guy followed him and entered the valley close behind him.
The contrasting silhouettes flew at a low altitude with one in front and one behind. Soon, they arrived deep in the valley.
The duo saw a young man sat with his legs crossed in a lush, green field. Meanwhile, there was a monster that resembled a tiger with sharp fangs lying next to him. The odd thing was that the monster had a trunk that looked like an elephant's.
Meanwhile, the young man lifted his head to look at them at that second. He had a smile on his face as if he already knew that they would come to kill him. The duo faintly sensed that this young human was strangely looking at them. His gaze did not seem like it contained the anxiety and insecurity one would feel when he was getting killed. Instead, it looked a little like… disdain?
"Is this guy Lin Huang?" questioned the skinny guy as he frowned, feeling unsure.
"It's him!" The fatty nodded in determination.
"It seems like he knew we'd come!"
Just when the skinny guy said that through voice transmission, Lin Huang who was beneath them spoke, "You guys sure are slow. I've been waiting for you for the entire morning. So, is it just the two of you?" Lin Huang corrected himself all of a sudden just when he was done speaking, "Sorry, I made a mistake. I should've asked, is it just you two bugs?"
The duo had a dramatic change of expression when they heard his haughty response. Never had they thought that their identity would be exposed by Lin Huang.
They looked into each other's eyes and saw the terror reflected. However, they attacked Lin Huang at the same time without hesitation in the next second after locking eyes for a moment.
Chapter 1137: Doing It Himself
Translator: EndlessFantasy Translation Editor: EndlessFantasy Translation
The skinny and the fat men had a completely different attack model.
The skinny guy pounced like a leopard, arriving before Lin Huang in a flash with his ten fingers turning into metal claws.
Meanwhile, the fatty's eyes turned blood red and he shot up to 1,000 telekinetic flying daggers from his sleeve. He was shooting them at Lin Huang like a storm.
One was responsible for close-range combat while the other was responsible for long-distance combat.
Such collaboration remedied both of their weaknesses to its peak.
However, the tiger monster with sharp teeth and a long trunk next to Lin Huang lifted its head slightly and glared at the duo. Both of them paused all of a sudden. They seemed to be locked by space whereby they froze, losing their ability to move.
The telekinetic flying daggers that shot out from the fatty's sleeve seemed to have lost their power and clattered onto the ground one after another.
A moment later, the duo fell and they lost their vitality.
Lin Huang waited for Bloody to sort out the memories after the Nightmare Tapir shared the information it had retrieved with Bloody.
A while later, Bloody nodded at Lin Huang after it was done sorting the memories out.
"They got an order from a bug guardian to capture you. There's no more useful information apart from that. They've no idea where the Queen Mother and the bug guardian are hiding."
"So, where would they have brought me if they managed to capture me?" Lin Huang asked immediately.
"If they managed to do that, they would've contacted the bug guardian to confirm the location to pass you over," Bloody explained, "Unfortunately, the bug guardian seems to have figured that they might've failed their mission and even took the possibility of having their minds read into consideration. He didn't reveal more information."
"The Queen Mother should be able to sense their death, shouldn't she? What will the Bug Tribe do next after this mission has failed?" Lin Huang asked again.
"Looking at their memory, capturing you is a top priority. You're practically their No. 1 target in this gravel world. If I'm not mistaken, they'll send more powerful bug monsters for a second capture within 24 hours. We can't rule out the possibility that they might even send bug guardians."
"Let's wait patiently then." Lin Huang raised his brow. "I hope that they send bug guardians so that we don't have to wait for the third round."
…
In a tall building in a foothold of Division 3, a man in a white shirt frowned all of a sudden. A lady in a denim jacket appeared in the room almost at the same time.
"I guess you sensed it too, hmm?" The lady pulled the lollipop out of her mouth with a loud pop.
"That two useless dumba*ses!" the man in a white shirt could not help but yell furiously, "They couldn't even capture an immortal-level!"
"I've already reminded you that Lin Xie isn't as simple as you thought." The lady shoved the lollipop into her mouth again while crossing her arms before her chest before speaking again, "Based on the time they departed, they should've arrived at the third layer of the Abyss Brink at least half an hour ago. In other words, their time of death is right after they arrived at the third layer. I'm guessing they might've been killed by Lin Xie in one blow not long after finding him."
"Do you mean he's even more powerful than our Bug Tribe's monarch-level talents?!" It was clearly a rhetorical question. He did not believe that Lin Huang's ability surpassed a Bug Tribe's monarch-level's talents. "You must understand that this is just a gravel world."
"So, is it that impossible for a ridiculous genius to surpass our tribe's monarch-level talent in a gravel world?" the lady asked him back while smiling.
The lady spoke again upon seeing the man keeping silent, "Moreover, this is a human world. The tools that are available surpass most species. In this gravel world, items such as a God Crasher can easily help an immortal-level to kill imperial-levels."
The man in the white shirt was slightly relieved to hear that. If Lin Huang really used tools such as a God Crasher, it was indeed possible to kill imperial-level purple gold-rank powerhouses in one hit.
"So, what do you plan to do next? Give up? Or are you sending demigods over?" With a grin, the lady stared at the man in the white shirt scarily.
"It's rare for him to have finally left Emperor City. If we give up now, I've no idea when we'll have the chance again. I'll do it myself this time since I don't trust anyone else with this," said the man in the white shirt and he took a jacket out from his storage space. He put it on and summoned a dimensional portal right away.
"Lin Xie has just been attacked for the first time. He'll definitely have his guard up now, it would be more difficult to capture him. Moreover, since he was attacked earlier, he'll most likely return to Emperor City after breaking through to imperial-level. He might even be on his way back to Emperor City now. I must seize every second. I've no time to let other people get to him."
He opened the door and stepped into the dimensional portal right after he was done speaking.
"What an impatient man…" The lady smiled lightly. As the dimensional portal disappeared, her body began to fade away and she vanished.
A couple of minutes later, a man in a dark blue suit appeared at the entrance of the third layer of the Abyss Brink.
The man closed his eyes lightly and opened them again a moment later. His gaze was locked in a particular direction.
He then disappeared from where he was in the next second.
Meanwhile, Lin Huang, who was thousands of kilometers away, sensed the person's existence immediately by scanning the area with his Divine Telekinesis. However, he did not panic at all. Instead, he smirked lightly.
Soon, a dark blue silhouette entered deep into the valley.
The dark blue silhouette stopped and hovered less than 20 meters above Lin Huang. He looked at Lin Huang in a condescending way.
The man in the dark blue suit demanded despite knowing the truth, "Are you, Lin Xie?"
"You're so quick to come." Lin Huang did not respond to the silly question the man asked. Instead, he took his time observing the man.
The man in the dark blue suit looked pretty handsome. He had the type of skin that most young girls would envy. However, Lin Huang knew very well that the real creature under the smooth skin was just a bug from another world.
"You knew I was coming?!" The man in the suit was taken aback.
"Of course. The senior comes after the junior has lost. Isn't that the common plot we see in novels?" Lin Huang teased.
The man in the suit was relieved to hear that.
Just when he thought Lin Huang had not seen through his real identity, Lin Huang spoke all of a sudden, "You must be one the Queen Mother's two bug guardians, am I right? Now, it seems like I can finally find out exactly where the Queen Mother is hiding."
The man's expression turned grim after merely a moment of shock. He knew what happened roughly. "You read their minds…"
"You're much smarter than I imagined." Lin Huang gave him a thumbs-up while grinning.
The man did not bother carrying on with his nonsense after knowing that his identity was exposed. He sped tens of meters ahead and arrived directly before Lin Huang. Then, he charged his claws at Lin Huang's neck…
Chapter 1138: Your Attack is Very Disappointing
Translator: EndlessFantasy Translation Editor: EndlessFantasy Translation
Busby's goal was not to kill Lin Huang but to catch him alive.
As the Queen Mother's Bug Servant, he knew very well that to breed Ultimate Elites, the material had to be a living person.
Although the Queen Mother could breed Bug Tribe descendants through all kinds of dead bodies, compared to breeding with a living person, the memory and inheritance left behind would be limited. It was also quite impossible to breed Ultimate Elites via that method.
To Busby, Lin Huang was undoubtedly the best breeding material in the entire gravel world.
Although he was enraged that his identity had been exposed, he had never thought of killing Lin Huang. Since all he needed to do was to capture him alive and bring him to the Queen Mother for breeding, the secret would naturally die with him.
His attack seemed quick and ruthless, but it was meticulous. It was done just to capture Lin Huang.
The claws were coming at Lin Huang. From a couple of meters away, they locked onto him. He could not move at all as if the entire space was frozen solid.
One must know that although Lin Huang's current combat strength was only on immortal-level rank-10, his ability was comparable to an imperial-level purple gold-rank powerhouse. Even though that was the case, he had no ability to fight back at all.
The distance between an imperial-level and a virtual god-level was like a massive moat that one could not simply cross.
After locking Lin Huang with his five fingers spread wide, Busby stretched his huge hand out and headed towards Lin Huang.
At that very moment, a yellow glow charged in the air and collided into Busby's huge hand.
The gigantic hand exploded from the one blow alone.
Busby's pupils shrunk as he recalled himself and retreated a few kilometers away. He looked at the monster close to Lin Huang with fear in his eyes.
The monster that looked like a tiger and had a trunk that looked like an elephant's was a species that he had never seen before.
What shocked Busby even more was that the monster's combat strength was the same as his, which was Virtual God rank-8.
"It's rare to hear an immortal-level Imperial Censor controlling a virtual god-level imperial monster and this brat is controlling a Virtual God rank-8 monster!" Busby studied Lin Huang. Clearly, he did not recognize the Nightmare Tapir as a God's Figurine's Combat Soul. He thought it was Lin Huang's summoning beast.
However, he finally understood why the two imperial-level purple gold-rank underlings that he had sent earlier were killed by Lin Huang in one blow after seeing the Nightmare Tapir. Having a Virtual God rank-8 summoning beast like that, imperial-level purple gold-ranks aside, even a Virtual God that was slightly weaker would be killed in one hit too.
After the first attack failed, Busby did not attack the second time right away. Instead, he began observing his opponent carefully.
"Looking at his size and physical structure, he should be great in close-range combat. Judging by his body, he should be fast in close-range combat as well as having explosive charging speed."
One must say that a person's first impression was usually very subjective and was not necessarily accurate. The Nightmare Tapir's size, including its slim body and sharp claws, clearly caused Busby to make a silly assumption.
Naturally, he was not the first person who made such a mistake.
It was normal for people to make that mistake, judging from the Nightmare Tapir's appearance that made it seem like it was born lousy in close-range combat.
Soon, Busby changed his battle plan after some analysis. "I won't have the upper hand if I fight such a quick close-range combat monster face-on. Even if I might win, I might be beaten and drained. My target is Lin Xie. It's unnecessary for me to kill that summoning beast."
A new set of battle strategy soon came out in his head as he thought about this point.
As soon as the new battle strategy was formed, Busby carried it out without hesitation at all.
He stretched both arms out at Lin Huang and the Nightmare Tapir from far away. In the next second, his two arms turned into inky black liquid. The liquid looked sticky like goo but had a faint, metallic glow. It was rumbling and boiling intensely.
Lin Huang and the Nightmare Tapir watched the strange phenomenon happening from far away. They saw the black liquid consolidating into two mini cannons before Busby at a speed that could be seen by the naked eye.
The two cannons were approximately two meters high like two mini towers. They pointed at Lin Huang and the Nightmare Tapir with thousands of barrels of all sizes stretching out. The only similarity the thousands of barrels had was their color; they were all black.
The Nightmare Tapir did not do anything to interrupt the process while Lin Huang was watching the transformation with great interest.
"This should be the Bug Tribe's ability. It's pretty interesting. I wonder how's the power like." Golden sparks lit from the two cannons as soon as Lin Huang was done mumbling.
Countless dazzling sparks lit up the entire sky all of a sudden.
Dense, black bullets of various sizes came raining down like a storm, coming for Lin Huang and the Nightmare Tapir.
The thousands of barrels in all sizes had different speeds and trajectories when they were shot out. They even had different levels of power too.
Each bullet came with different attributes. Some were so fast that it would reach a person within a breath. Some were helix-shaped with great penetrative ability. Some were as thin as a needle that could be hard to capture with the eyes while some exploded like a bomb with nuclear power.
Soon, Lin Huang and the Nightmare Tapir were drowned in the endless fire.
Busby remained shooting calmly. He was not worried that Lin Huang would die because although this round of attack was dense, it did not have powerful intensity. As long as the Nightmare Tapir gave Lin Huang Divine Power defense, they could block the attack easily. However, such a shield would be draining for the Nightmare Tapir.
Draining the Life Power from the Nightmare Tapir's body was the main goal of Busby's attack. Apart from that, he attacked to force the Nightmare Tapir to use other techniques than close-range combat techniques.
The firing went on for some ten minutes. The Nightmare Tapir and Lin Huang were covered in the smoke from the shots since the beginning.
Although Busby could not see what was exactly happening in the smoke, he sensed with his Territory skill that the Nightmare Tapir and Lin Huang had not moved from where they were.
Busby frowned slightly. He could not really understand exactly what was happening. He clearly sensed that his attack did not miss its aim from the sound of the bullet collision.
However, the Nightmare Tapir did nothing else apart from being in defense mode while standing where it was. That puzzled Busby.
"Why isn't this guy attacking me to interrupt my attack? It's protecting himself and Lin Xie at the same time. The draining of its Divine Power should be at least twice or more than mine. Although it will drain its Divine Power even more for a short period of time if it attacks, the draining is definitely less in the long run. Or maybe he's doing this on purpose so that I'd give up attacking. Then, he'll attack me with a deadly charge the second I give up."
All sorts of thoughts flashed past in Busby's head but he could not figure what the Nightmare Tapir was plotting against him.
However, a young voice chirped out of the smoke under the dense firing, "Your name is Busby, am I right? I was anticipating what you'd do next, but your attack model remains the same after ten minutes have passed. It's very disappointing…"
Chapter 1139: The Battle in A Dreamland
Translator: EndlessFantasy Translation Editor: EndlessFantasy Translation
Lin Huang challenged Busby fearlessly because everything was happening in the Nightmare Tapir's dreamland. He was not there at all in reality and had only inserted a sliver of his consciousness to watch the battle.
Busby was enraged to hear the challenge. Never had he thought that an insignificant immortal-level person would ever dare to tease him like that.
"Lin Xie, I don't want to kill you, but please don't test my limit. You're not the only one on our wanted list, so killing our targets is pretty common."
"I didn't mean to challenge you. I was just telling you how I really feel," Lin Huang spoke up, "Also, if that's all your ability is about, you can get your partner to collect your body soon. Please tell them to come quick, because you'll die here in less than five minutes."
"Lin Xie, you're looking for death!" Busby was completely furious.
"I advise you to give your best if you're trying to kill me. I'm not joking." Lin Huang walked out of the smoke slowly while the Nightmare Tapir appeared on his left subsequently.
Busby saw the gravity on Lin Huang's face crystal clear as if he was telling the truth.
However, Lin Huang's words calmed him down. He could feel that Lin Huang was serious.
Without the smoke, he also saw the layer of transparent membrane covering Lin Huang's body which blocked all of the bullets that he fired. None of them got to him. Meanwhile, all the bullets that were aimed at the Nightmare Tapir hit it. However, it suffered no injuries at all.
Busby stopped his attack without hesitation upon seeing that mind-blowing scenario. The two mini cannons before him turned into black, metallic liquid again and soon disintegrated. Then, a giant cannon formed at a speed that could be seen with the naked eye.
The giant cannon was over 30 meters long. It was completely black and the diameter of the mouth was almost a meter wide.
As usual, the Nightmare Tapir did not interfere with the transformation.
Lin Huang and the Nightmare Tapir watched Busby making the giant cannon from far away.
As soon as the giant cannon was formed, a white glow which was the size of the tip of a needle lit up at the mouth of the cannon. It was growing steadily.
At first, it was so minuscule that it could hardly be seen like the tip of a needle. Then, it expanded to the size of a rice grain. It proceeded to grow to the size of a green bean, the tip of a finger, an apple, a football…
In less than a second, the tiny white glow grew to a giant sphere over a meter in diameter.
From a distance, Lin Huang sensed the great energy that the sphere contained. He was not surprised. Instead, he was excited.
"This is finally getting interesting…"
The white spherical glow seemed to explode before the mouth of the cannon all of a sudden. A white glow that looked like a waterfall shot out at a speed close to lightning and was targeted at the Nightmare Tapir.
It reminded Lin Huang of the kamehameha energy attack in an animation that he had seen back when he was on Earth.
The Nightmare Tapir vanished from where he was in a flash after realizing that the attack was aiming for him.
In the dreamland, he could use any skills that he had seen before. He was clearly using the Ninetails Lynx's teleportation skill at the moment.
Almost immediately after the Nightmare Tapir disappeared, it appeared hundreds of meters away again in the next second.
However, the white waterfall-like glow deviated and swept towards the Nightmare Tapir.
"It's futile to run. The white glow will follow you wherever you go until it hits you. Of course, you can hide and wait for it to fade in an alternative dimension, but that would take up to three to five days."
Busby charged forward as soon as he was done saying that. This time, he aimed for Lin Huang.
It only took him a second to arrive before him.
Just when he was going to catch him with his hand, the silhouette of a golden whip came in the air and smashed hard against Busby's chest.
Naturally, it was the Nightmare Tapir that attacked. Its trunk turned into a whip and lashed out at Busby who did not even see it coming.
Busby's body shot out like a cannonball, flying out of the cannon from the attack. However, to Lin Huang's shock, his body began to disintegrate and fade in the middle of the sky.
At the same time, a shadow was forming before Lin Huang at an alarming speed. It was Busby. The one that was shot out was not himself, but a substitute.
Before his body consolidated completely, Busby stretched his arm out and attempted to grab Lin Huang again.
Seeing that Busby was getting ahold of Lin Huang, the Nightmare Tapir showed itself again.
It mauled its sharp claws in the air, creating a couple of black crescent air slices. They shot through the sky and went after Busby.
Busby's body would have been sliced into a few pieces if he did not manage to dodge the attack.
However, a gleam of determination flashed through Busby's eyes. He ignored the Nightmare Tapir's attack without dodging at all. His five fingers that were going after Lin Huang deviated and he closed his claws to form a palm, aiming for the Nightmare Tapir.
He held almost nothing back in this attack whereby he charged with all of his Divine Power. The blow landed on the Nightmare Tapir's chest. Although the Nightmare Tapir had a powerful body so the attack did not harm it at all. Instead, the impact shot him thousands of meters away.
Just when Busby's palm landed on the Nightmare Tapir's body, the air slices that came from the Nightmare Tapir's sharp claws penetrated his body.
Busby's body disintegrated directly after the attack just like what happened with the substitute he used earlier.
Just when the substitute disintegrated, a silhouette appeared behind Lin Huang. It was Busby himself.
"I made it!" Busby stretched his hand out at Lin Huang in excitement.
At the moment, the Nightmare Tapir was a few kilometers away while he was being chased after by the white glow. He could not come rescue Lin Huang at all.
Busby spread his five fingers wide and pressed them behind Lin Huang's head. However, he had a dramatic change of expression on his face at that very moment when his hand penetrated Lin Huang's head directly.
"It's just an illusion!" Busby spun his head to look around after seeing that Lin Huang's body was fading away before him. Eventually, he set his eyes on the Nightmare Tapir a few kilometers away.
A young human man was standing over there.
"That brat!" Busby glared viciously at the Nightmare Tapir. He knew it was definitely not Lin Huang's technique. Otherwise, he would definitely have seen through it. Therefore, it was definitely the Nightmare Tapir's doing.
He had no idea that everything he was seeing at was just an illusion.
Lin Huang, who was outside of the dreamland, observed Busby who was hovering midair motionlessly. He said to the Nightmare Tapir while grinning, "This guy doesn't seem to have realized that he's not in the real world even until now."
Chapter 1140: Moulted Busby
Translator: EndlessFantasy Translation Editor: EndlessFantasy Translation
In the Nightmare Tapir's dreamland, Busby carried out the strategy that he planned one after another. However, he failed to capture Lin Huang eventually.
He knew it was the Nightmare Tapir who prohibited him from doing that the moment he failed. Nonetheless, he had yet to realize that he was not in reality at the moment.
"He should be able to do it again and again since he managed to take Lin Xie away by using teleportation." Busby did not attack right away. Instead, he began thinking about his next strategy.
"In other words, I'll have to find ways to break that technique to be able to capture Lin Xie. I should either test him again and figure out exactly what kind of technique is he using, then find the solution to break it, or fight him head-on to kill that bastard that's interfering with me."
Busby frowned even deeper as he came up with that conclusion. He seemed to finally make up his mind a moment later.
He glared at the Nightmare Tapir was from a distance. His body that was hovering midair became distorted strangely.
The distortion went against the human body's musculoskeletal structure. Even Lin Huang thought it was extremely strange while watching on from far away. Busby looked like a zombie that was moving in all sorts of unusual manners with his last ounce of will, whereby his joints and body were extremely warped just like what TV shows depicted.
Soon, his body began to transform even more. Most of the bones in his body seemed to have softened while the skin on his flesh lost the support from his skeletal structure. He looked like an inflatable doll that was half-deflated.
Not long later, many odd, deformed bones grew beneath the skin. The bones supported the body and constructed a strange form that did not look like a human at all.
As Lin Huang was watching on in astonishment, a sharp bulge appeared on Busby's chest. In the next second, a bloody wound ripped open on his chest. Half a bug's leg that looked like a dark gray sword penetrated out of his chest.
In the next moment, the bug's leg tore Busby's entire chest and abdomen open like a paper cutter. A dark-gray bug beast finally crawled out of his body that was ripped open.
As the bug beast came out, Busby's original human body turned into a pile of mush and fell onto the ground.
"So, he's molting…" Although Lin Huang knew Busby's species had two forms, it was his first time seeing a Bug Tribe monster transforming from human to bug form. However, he could not help but wonder how a Bug Tribe monster would look like transforming into a human.
The changing Busby was covered in a layer of dark gray insect shell. He was approximately three meters long and had four strong and explosive rear legs supporting his entire body.
There were two pairs of semi-transparent wings on his back that seemed as thin as cicada's wings. They were sprouting from the second pair of front legs.
Among the three pairs of front legs, the lowest pair was made of swords, which was the one that he used to tear his body open. The middle pair was made of sharp spears that looked like canine teeth. They were so sharp that nobody dared to doubt their penetrative ability. The pair in front extended from his shoulders. They were two bio-guns with muzzles that were approximately a meter wide.
His head perched above his six front legs.
It was covered in a layer of dark blue shell and was sharp like a triangle. There was a huge mouth at the lowest part of his head which was filled with sharp teeth that looked like stainless steel needles. The apex of the triangle was a compound eye that was made of countless little eyes. It stretched to the left and right.
Apart from his compound eye and huge mouth, no other organ could be seen on his entire head.
If one were to judge him by human standards, one must say that this was tens of thousands of times uglier than his human form.
Having turned back to his original form, Busby seemed to have experienced a boost in his aura.
He looked at Lin Huang and the Nightmare Tapir that from far away. The two pairs of wings on his back were flapping intensely, emitting an ear-piercing buzz. At the same time, his four rear legs loaded with energy and faded while his body turned into a shadow.
Busby appeared before the Nightmare Tapir almost in the next second. He aimed his four front sword legs at it like a storm.
Busby began fighting the Nightmare Tapir before Lin Huang managed to catch his movement.
He went for the most direct plan in the end, which was to kill the Nightmare Tapir!
The reason he came up with this decision was that the attacks earlier had drained close to a third of the Divine Power in his body. He was not sure if the remaining Divine Power he had allowed him to figure out the Nightmare Tapir's secret of taking Lin Huang away. Although he was unwilling to fight the Nightmare Tapir who was obviously great at close-range combat, he bit the bullet anyway.
In reality, Busby's close-range combat ability was not weak. One could even say he was very strong at that.
He chose not to fight close range because he assumed that the Nightmare Tapir was an expert in that in the beginning, so he had no confidence to fight it head-on. Even if he could win, he was afraid he might have to pay a hefty price.
Meanwhile, his objective was just to capture Lin Huang in the beginning. It was unnecessary for him to fight the Nightmare Tapir head-on.
However, he would not be able to capture Lin Huang if he did not kill the Nightmare Tapir first, so he had no other choice.
In reality, the Nightmare Tapir was lousy in close-range combat.
However, the Nightmare Tapir could do anything in dreamland. He could copy all the skills that it had seen before.
Besides the skills of Lin Huang's remaining nine God Figurine's Combat Souls, it could copy 100% of the skills that all of Lin Huang's summoning beasts had as long as it had seen them before. It could even copy skills that it had picked up from other monsters that were unrelated to Lin Huang.
One could say that the Nightmare Tapir was invincible in the dreamland.
The bug and monster collided in the air again and again.
Busby's close-range combat ability was compelling indeed. His sword and spear skills had almost reached the peak of level-6. He was one step away from comprehending the True Meaning.
Each time his sword legs and spear legs attacked, they would be close to the peak performance of sword and spear skills. It was so perfect that there was nothing to pick on. The two gun legs on his shoulder were extremely agile and performed expert-level gunfighting technique from some odd angles occasionally, so nobody saw it coming.
Even though that was the case, the Nightmare Tapir was toying with Busby. It was using the close-range combat abilities it had copied from other monsters all the way.
The battle was intense although the Nightmare Tapir was just fooling around.
One could imagine the impact that was caused by the close-range combat of two Virtual God rank-8 powerhouses.
Not only did the ground and mountains collapse, but the oceans rumbled and even the sky was trembling from the impact of the collisions.
Lin Huang could not capture their movements at all. All he could see were the sparks that were flickering in the air as a result of the explosions that came from the Divine Power collisions from the duo.
Lin Huang asked the Nightmare Tapir outside the dreamland, "Roughly how long more do you need to retrieve his memory completely?"
"I need around another half an hour."
"Record this battle and share it with me later. I'll watch it in slo-mo, so I should be able to learn some great stuff!" Lin Huang smirked at the Nightmare Tapir mischievously.
Every time he saw a powerhouse using a sword, he could not help but study the person's swordsmanship. Even though the person who was using a sword was a Bug Tribe monster this time, he was very interested in the sword skill and Sword Dao.