"This is bad…"
On the second floor of the police station, Zhang Jie peered through the narrow gap of the window.
He watched as the members of the North Polar Team left one after another, then slumped heavily onto a bench.
A three-team battle — Zhang Jie had never even heard of such a thing before.
Now, with the entire squad stunned — except for Chu Xuan and Yujin — no one knew what to say.
"No wonder the difficulty of this horror movie, and the gap between the two teams, didn't feel that high," Zheng Zha muttered under his breath, clenching his fists.
"So this is what they were waiting for, huh?"
The others thought much the same.
Rustle, rustle.
The sound of writing drew Zheng Zha's attention.
He looked up and saw Chu Xuan rapidly scribbling something in his notebook.
The formulas covering the page were complex and incomprehensible.
Zheng Zha frowned and asked, "What are you calculating?"
"The gap," Chu Xuan replied, not even lifting his head as his pen moved swiftly across the page.
A moment later, he stopped writing, his expression calm — as if he had already reached a conclusion.
At the same time, in the basement of a bank not far from the police station, all members of the North Polar Team were gathered around the Snow Wolf Druid sage, Dick Brooks.
He, too, had come to a conclusion.
"There's a seventeen-hour gap," he said slowly.
"Taking a second-stage gene lock and a B-rank Ice-Ice Fruit user Captain as reference…"
Dick Brooks' eyes darkened with worry.
"If the strongest member of the East Sea Team is that far ahead, then their gene lock must have reached at least the third stage of enhancement."
"In other words, they completely outclass our captain — at least at A-rank level — to create a seventeen-hour arrival difference."
"We're doomed…"
Eric, the rebellious one with the ice spear, fell backward in despair.
The last time they encountered a third-stage gene lock powerhouse, their entire team had been crushed and scattered.
And now… it was happening again.
Without their old captain's protection, their chances of survival were slim.
Eric scrambled toward Gonniel, clutching his arm tightly.
"C-Captain, what do we do?! Captain, say something!"
"Quiet!"
Gonniel barked the order, his face tense.
He had only recently taken command of the North Polar Team — and even he didn't know how to handle a situation like this.
"Maybe…"
Dick Brooks let out a low growl.
"…we should join forces with the Central Continent team!"
"C-Can we even do that? Will they team up with us?" muttered Albert Allen, the frail-looking high schooler.
"If they're weaker than the East Sea Team," Dick Brooks reasoned, licking his paw, "then the captain of the Farming Team will be too busy dealing with them to care for his own members."
"Besides…"
"The Farming Team usually turns their members into human pigs. They can't move freely. Which means their captain will be treated like a dog on a leash by the East Sea Team."
Even if the captain of the Farming Team had plenty of reward points and side missions, there was no way he could bear the consequence of his entire team being wiped out with only him remaining.
Everyone nodded in confusion but still found themselves convinced by Dick Brooks' reasoning.
"So, I think… he'll probably…"
Before the man could finish, the long-haired girl—mental power user Bev Field—suddenly lifted her head.
"He's coming!"
Outside the window, Yujin's figure appeared in midair.
He had one foot pressed against the glass wall of the bank building.
With a sharp kick, he shattered the window and leaned his head inside.
"Hey! North Polar Team! Someone sensible, come out and talk!"
A moment later, a white youth with a rebellious look—Eric, holding an ice spear—was pushed out unwillingly.
"You… what do you want?"
Eric's voice trembled.
He was just a weak fighter with a C-rank weapon and a first-stage gene lock.
He didn't even dare look Yujin in the eye.
Someone who could crush the Devil Team that easily… Just thinking about it was terrifying.
"What do I want?" Yujin crossed his arms.
"There are still more than two hundred minutes before the East Sea Team arrives. Do you guys actually think you can take them on?"
Eric opened his mouth, but before he could speak, a tall figure stepped forward—Dick Brooks.
"Allow me to introduce myself," Dick Brooks said, lifting his head. "Dick Brooks, strategist of the North Polar Team."
Seeing that he was actually talking to a wolf, Yujin couldn't help but laugh.
"Your captain an idiot or something? Sending a beast to talk for him? Even if he only knows his own dialect, the Lord God would automatically translate it into something I can understand, you know!"
Dick Brooks' eyes flickered coldly. His body slowly shifted, turning back into human form.
"Forgive us," he said evenly. "Our main force cannot meet you in person. And I advise you—if you're thinking of attacking us, then before you manage to kill us, our captain will already reach your team."
"With a big enemy on the horizon, you still wanna play sneaky games?" Yujin muttered, clearly losing patience.
He tossed a notebook forward.
Eric flinched, stepping back in panic.
But Dick Brooks calmly caught it.
He opened to the first page— and saw it filled, line after line, with dense writing.
The document contained detailed information about the Central Continent team's combat strength, along with several tactical plans.
Seeing this, Dick Brooks looked a little embarrassed. He gave Yujin a guilty smile.
"Mr. Yujin, give me a moment. I'll write down our team's situation right away."
About seven or eight minutes later, Brooks placed the notebook on the bank counter, set down a communicator beside it, and slowly backed toward the vault's gate.
He glanced at Yujin.
"Then... our cooperation begins!"
"Mm."
Yujin tore off the page containing Central Continent team's intelligence report and picked up the notebook filled with North Polar Team's data.
Without wasting time, he quickly flew back to the police station.
Chu Xuan accepted the notebook, flipped through it casually, and gave a cold snort.
"The information they gave us... should also be fake."
"Fake? Fake?" Zhang Jie leaned closer, frowning at the scrawled English notes on the page.
"H-how do you know it's fake? And wait—why did you say also?"
Chu Xuan glanced briefly at Yujin.
"In a three-way standoff," he asked calmly, "between Wei, Shu, and Wu... which two nations do you think held the deepest grudge?"
Zhang Jie had read Romance of the Three Kingdoms before. He answered immediately.
"It should be Shu and Wu. Even though they formed an alliance against Cao Cao, Second Brother died because of Eastern Wu. And though Zhang Fei wasn't killed by them directly, it happened while they were at war with Wu... so you could say it was indirectly caused by Eastern Wu."
As Zhang Jie spoke, he suddenly realized something.
"Oh! I get it now!"
Chu Xuan smiled faintly. Even though he didn't feel emotions like an ordinary person, he mimicked a smile for the others' sake.
"This team battle's most confusing element," he said, "is the point system."
"When people hear it's a three-way battle, the first instinct is simple—two weaker teams join forces to take down the strongest."
"But that's not the only strategy. You could also ally with the strongest and eliminate the weakest one first."
A sharp glint flashed in Chu Xuan's eyes.
"Even if the intel they gave us is fake, I can still extract seventy to eighty percent of the truth from it. This kind of detailed power chart isn't something you can fabricate easily—it must be based on real data."
He adjusted his glasses slightly.
"The intelligence of ordinary humans... truly fascinating."
Yujin frowned, cutting in.
"Stop overthinking it. No matter what, we have to fight the East Sea team!"
Chu Xuan looked puzzled for a moment, his mind running through possibilities before landing on an answer that made him both amused and helpless.
Even with a mind equalling supercomputer, he couldn't escape it.
It was something engraved deep into the bones of every child of China.
The instinct to— Resist Japan!
****
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