"Your current strength cannot defeat them."
Tigerflame said it plainly.
Even among the First Sequence there were gaps. The talents of Qin Tian, Chen Bing, Firewing, and the others were without question among the absolute top tier of the First Sequence.
Whether the talent Zhao Feng had plundered from that little girl could measure up to the Dragon Emperor or Ice Emperor, Tigerflame didn't know—but it was certainly no match for them.
They had possessed this level of power since the very first spiritual energy tide. Zhao Feng had only reached this point after the second tide.
On time alone, Zhao Feng had no basis to claim he could defeat them.
In truth, even Tigerflame himself—possessing an ability like [Sacred Flame]—was uncertain whether he could stand on equal footing with Qin Tian and the others.
The chance of winning was essentially zero.
Beyond their abilities, Qin Tian and the others also wielded the power created by that person. Combined, those two forces produced something that couldn't be overcome—not by anyone at his level.
Zhao Feng knew this as well, of course.
"So I need you to act."
Tigerflame looked at him calmly and said with flat simplicity:
"Give me a reason."
"No reason needed."
Zhao Feng replied with equal calm.
"You sought me out because you believed I could lead you in building a faction that matches your vision. That means no matter what decision I make, you should support it."
Since Jinhong believed fate was already written, no decision Zhao Feng made could change the future—no matter what.
And in that future, he led Jinhong and the others to build a relationship of peaceful coexistence with humanity.
He didn't personally believe such a future was possible—but it was reason enough to borrow Jinhong's group's strength.
Not that it mattered. He believed in that future all the same.
Once he had plundered enough First Sequence talents and abilities, and made himself the master of this world—whatever kind of world he wished to build would be effortlessly within reach.
Tigerflame said nothing. He simply nodded.
That reason was enough.
---
Not long after, Firewing—far away in Hedong searching for the Clow Cards—received a message from Luo Yang.
"Zhao Feng is still in Hangzhou?"
Firewing frowned. Somewhat surprised, though not particularly shocked.
Zhao Feng's last disappearance had already made her suspicious. She'd assumed some other human traitor had brought him somewhere else—she hadn't expected he was still in Hangzhou.
Or rather, perhaps something had brought him back.
Of course, she couldn't rule out the possibility that he'd simply been living out in Hangzhou's wilderness zones the whole time.
"What a pain."
Firewing shook her head and prepared to contact Zhang Hai. She needed to make a trip back to Hangzhou first.
The fact that Zhao Feng had appeared and then, after running into Luo Yang, chosen not to kill him—but instead let him walk back to the city—made his intentions easy to read. He was drawing attention to himself. He wanted them to come to him.
Unless something very unexpected had happened, some kind of scheme was already in motion.
Given Zhao Feng's ability to plunder powers, the scheme wasn't hard to guess. It was practically obvious.
There was only one thing on her worth taking.
He wouldn't be surrendering, surely.
It seemed Zhao Feng had grown considerably stronger during this time. Otherwise he never would have set his sights on her.
He'd even said something like that to Luo Yang—*"someone at your level is no longer worth plundering."* He wasn't even bothering with Second Sequence fighters anymore.
Either that surge of strength had made him arrogant, or he genuinely had something to back it up.
Given Zhao Feng's character, the former was unlikely. Even if it was—to be safe, she had to treat it as the latter.
But regardless of what he was holding, Firewing wasn't particularly afraid.
Group fights? Her specialty.
One-on-one? Even if she couldn't win, she could shift into elemental form and make her escape without trouble.
She even had the Flame Beast Lion with her.
"Still, just to be safe—better bring Chen Bing along."
Whatever the case, Firewing was going back. Zhao Feng was a source of danger by his very existence. She wasn't the type to wait for disaster to arrive before dealing with it—she moved to eliminate threats the moment she identified them.
Whatever plan Zhao Feng had, whatever trap he'd set—she couldn't afford to ignore his presence.
As for the Clow Cards... Firewing rolled her eyes.
Would someone please explain to her why the Clow Cards kept relocating on their own?
Every time she tracked a card's position using the detection instruments, it had already moved somewhere else.
Was it playing hide-and-seek with her?
Or did it sense she wasn't compatible, and simply refused to let her become its master?
Everyone else's searches had been going smoothly enough. Qin Tian had found the Freeze Card and asked Zhang Hai to bring Chen Bing in to subdue it. Chen Changsheng had found the Wood Card and claimed it without any trouble.
Even Abao—who had only come along to protect Chen Changsheng and Ye Feng—had somehow earned the Battle Card's recognition.
And yet here she was, stuck playing hide-and-seek.
---
**Ordinary Group Leader:** Flying Squirrel, how are the funds holding up? Is there still enough?
Since the red packets had been sent by several members together, Su Yunqing had no clear sense of exactly how much was in the pool.
Based on Flying Squirrel's daily updates, they had already collected four world-tier items. Although the server closure had pushed world-tier item prices far below their former peaks, Flying Squirrel's aggressive bulk-buying over the past few days had made sellers increasingly unwilling to move on price.
Flying Squirrel didn't particularly mind. To him, as long as the world-tier items could be secured, no amount of money was too much to pay—their true worth was nowhere near what was being offered. The same logic applied even more strongly to Tony and the others.
Besides, the scale of these trades might also draw in other sellers who had been sitting on the fence, convincing them to exchange their soon-to-be-worthless in-game items for real-world assets.
A pity, though—even now they still hadn't managed to collect any of the top-twenty world-tier items. The holders were probably still waiting, hoping prices would climb even higher.
**Flying Squirrel:** There's still plenty of funds.
**Flying Squirrel:** Or more precisely—what I've bought so far has only used a tiny fraction of what's in the red packets.
**Flying Squirrel:** If it weren't for a friend of mine having the right connections, I wouldn't have been able to cash them out at all.
**Richest Man:** I did consider giving you an AI, but I'm not certain what level of technology your world has reached. There's a chance you already have equivalents—maybe even more advanced ones.
**Richest Man:** If it got discovered, that would be rather inconvenient.
**Richest Man:** By the way—how did it go with the game company? Did they agree to let you invest?
**Flying Squirrel:** No.
**Flying Squirrel:** That part has me confused, honestly. The reason they're closing Yggdrasil doesn't seem to be a lack of funding. They've shifted focus to some new venture.
**Flying Squirrel:** I don't have the specifics—they weren't willing to disclose anything further.
**Flying Squirrel:** Both my investment offer and my request to commission a dual-class item were declined.
**Flying Squirrel:** I'd been worried that my large-scale buying might revive interest in the game and delay the server closure.
**Flying Squirrel:** Looks like I was overthinking it.
*(End of Chapter)*