Within the Long Nation, in the Central Capital, deep inside the Subterranean Special Grade Command Center.
"Report! Number One Pillar Fengqi has suddenly materialized in the center of the Long Nation! Position locked at the highest classified control level of the Central Mansion!"
The premium monitor technician sitting before the control terminal executed commands across the virtual panels so quickly his hands blurred into a succession of residual shadows. He bellowed over his shoulder without even turning his head. Cold sweat drenched his forehead; the relative density analyzer tracking regional constants before his eyes had just blown three internal transistors due to a massive, explosive surge of energy fluctuations the exact fraction of a second Fengqi touched down.
"Assault Detachments One and Two, immediately move up to secure the perimeter! Dean Hao Xue of the Academy of Sciences has already departed—"
Yet, someone was faster than them.
The tall man leading the response skipped any redundant courtesies. He slammed his knee onto the cold reinforced concrete deck, his knuckles striking the specialized steel plating with a dense, muffled metallic boom.
"Lady Fengqi, the Hive sub-network grid alignment was fully processed within a microsecond." The man raised his head. His cold, hardened beast-like pupils twitched violently at the corner of his eye the precise microsecond they registered the pure gold cross-shaped divine rune flashing intermittently deep within Fengqi's right eye, radiating its sharp, blinding dead-light.
The absolute, supreme enforcement pressure of the array—woven directly from the source code of the primordial deity—pressed down so heavily that the dark gold skeletal lines structuralized inside his body emitted a strained, grinding creak as they fought to bear the load.
Fengqi's long hair whipped erratically within the freezing draft rushing through the ventilation shafts. Across her expressionless, porcelain-doll countenance, her brows were knitted into a tight, rigid furrow.
Her right hand maintained an unyielding grip around that fragment of the Nightmare Beast's horn, which was releasing a faint, bitter scent. Within her left eye, the fractured gold divine light of the ancient loong vertical pupil contracted aggressively; with every single flicker of the pure gold cross-shaped rune inside her right eye, her brainstem felt as if it were being violently pierced through by a white-hot steel rod.
The relative mass of the Array-Breaking Pupils was far too heavy. Within the physical frame of this sixteen-year-old mortal girl, every single cellular component was currently screaming under a catastrophic, high-density overload.
"Why are you here?" Fengqi's voice was raspy, carrying an absolute chill entirely stripped of living human emotion.
"To deliver the calculated results of the first wave of clearing operations to you, My Lady."
The tall man stood up and turned around, gesturing for his subordinates to fall in line with Fengqi's steps. Moving with heavy, measured strides, he depressed the elevator button leading into the core hub of the mansion.
As they walked swiftly away from the teleportation deck, they initiated a direct report through the air, their tones dead flat and entirely devoid of emotional fluctuation.
"During these past four hours when we lost your precise tracking signal on the Hive network, every Guardian across the nation—and even along the deep border zones across the ocean—executed full-spectrum combat maneuvers."
The man's tactical boots struck the marble flooring with a highly disciplined thud, thud. His plain, unembellished terms contained not a single unnecessary modifier: "Leveraging the anti-personnel armor-breaking parameters granted to us by The Great One for our 'non-human core forms,' we systematically eradicated nearly 66 subterranean strongholds belonging to the 'Flesh Immortal' cult in the shadows. We neutralized 7,421 enemy personnel and captured over 1,200 outer-circle financial backers and cult priests. Currently, all of them have had their four limbs broken and have been cast directly into the temporary detention sequence of the Category C live stream."
66 cult strongholds.
Hearing this specific figure, Fengqi's steps paused slightly. Within a span of merely a few hours, this group of Guardians had completely dug out more than half of the foundational roots of this ancient cult across the Blue Planet, ripping it out bone and marrow.
"Inside those 66 strongholds..."
Fengqi turned her head. The pure gold cross-shaped divine rune flickering deep within her right eye suddenly flared with a sharp brilliance, staring directly into the eyes of the lead Guardian: "...did you uncover any mystical arrays? Specifically, a grand array composed of ten giant crystal pillars driven like spikes deep into the earth-pulses, melting the spiritual destiny of the myriad spirits?"
Hearing Fengqi's question.
Across the countenances of the six Guardians—who usually appeared stone-cold and operated with the calculated rationality of absolute slaughter machines—a rare, synchronized trace of deep confusion flickered simultaneously.
The man leading the squad shook his head, answering with absolute directness: "No, My Lady. Inside those 66 strongholds, there were only surgical cutting tables used by humans to perform live vivisections, cold storage rooms, and server farms utilized to distribute and monetize torture videos on the dark web. Aside from layers of dried blood scale and shattered bone shards covering the floor, the space three hundred meters beneath the earth consisted entirely of solid, dormant bedrock. There was absolutely no vibration or signature indicating the flow of a mystical array."
Nothing.
Fengqi retracted her gaze, pulling the high collar of her oversized black trench coat tighter as she buried her pale face back into the shadows of the fabric.
Her heart sank into the absolute depths of her chest.
Since even the Auspicious Sentinel, who could shatter entire blood pools, and Maomao, who possessed the vision to see through the Myriad Realms, had failed to uncover any traces of that furnace, these Guardians—who possessed nothing but the primal origin of native Blue Planet beasts—were naturally even less equipped to see through the sky-shrouding restrictions left behind by that other primordial deity.
Once I have seen my mother and grandmother... I will need to find the time to personally visit every single one of those 66 cleared strongholds.
Fengqi spoke to herself calmly in her mind.
She finally and completely understood why the Beast God The Great One had driven this Eye of Truth-Piercing into her right eye moments ago. It was solely to grant her eyes capable of recognizing the foundational runes left behind by that other primordial deity. Beneath the remaining 65 strongholds, there were bound to be 65 identical ancient geocentric locks pinned ruthlessly into the earth!
With a sharp ding, the elevator ground to a halt on the thirty-third floor.
The air here was noticeably drier than on the penthouse level. Over a hundred ordinary mortals, dressed in black Zhongshan suits with dark gold loong-shaped insignias pinned to their chests, stood guard along both sides of the corridor, their expressions wound as tight as piano wire.
Fengqi stepped out of the elevator. She didn't spare a glance at the cutting-edge electromagnetic rifles held by these mortals. The migraine in her head throbbed in sharp, agonizing pulses, and right now, she only wanted to track the only coordinate in her bloodline that held any relative warmth—the intensive care unit down the left side of the corridor. Only the heat of the Sovereign Soul-Blood Covenant could incinerate the filthy human memory trash belonging to Sato inside her brainstem in a single second.
However, before she could take more than two steps, three leading receptionists of the Long Nation high command marched forward with stone-cold faces, their leather shoes clicking sharply against the floor as they met her head-on from the corner ahead. They wore no hazmat suits, their Zhongshan suits were ironed flat without a single wrinkle, and each held a titanium-alloy folder stamped with the central red-headed classified seal.
"Pillar Fengqi, please halt your steps. Receptionists from the Central Mansion General Office, acting under orders from the Supreme Command, are here awaiting your arrival."
The receptionist leading the group took a step forward. His frame was somewhat lean, yet his eyes, tracking Fengqi's asymmetrical gold-and-green double pupils, held none of the fear displayed by ordinary mortals. Instead, they carried the absolute calm and directness characteristic of the top-tier operatives of a sovereign state apparatus. He extended his right hand, pointing toward the classified Conference Room 1 across the hall, which was forged entirely from anti-gravity alloy.
"The Chief and the military high command require immediate clarification regarding the true motivation behind the Guardians' simultaneous clearing of 66 black-market strongholds across the nation and along sixteen external borders just moments ago. We need to understand the exact purpose of this 'non-human core form' grand purge, which completely bypasses our nation's secular laws."
The receptionist's tone left absolutely no room for negotiation, his plain words striking the air with rigid weight.
In the logic of the Long Nation high command, even though Fengqi was a First-Grade Pillar of the State and the nation had issued a life-and-death mandate for a saturated counter-strike to shield her, it did not mean the state would permit an uncontrolled "army of gods" to recklessly execute people and tear down installations across its sovereign territory. If even the highest echelons of the state were left entirely in the dark, then this so-called bounding of national destiny would decline into a complete joke.
Fengqi halted her steps.
Her right eye, newly marked by the dark green cross-shaped divine rune, slowly rose to stare directly at this mortal receptionist who possessed no cultivation realm and couldn't even deflect a single wind blade. Under her absolute gaze, the atmospheric pressure inside the corridor began to collapse inward in an instant, causing a dozen stark white fluorescent tubes overhead to emit a strained screech, screech as they fractured under a localized physical overload.
The six Guardians standing behind her took a synchronized step forward, the dark gold skeletal lines inside their frames tightening over a massive area. Within their dead, animalistic pupils, a suffocating wave of murderous intent was on the absolute verge of overflowing.
Command them to stand down.
Fengqi issued the order to the Hive network within her thoughts.
She glanced at the tightly sealed door of the intensive care unit down the left side of the corridor, located less than fifty meters away from her position, feeling Sato's dissection memories clawing frantically within her mind as they tried to seize control.
Within the darkness, the young girl let out a long, intensely exhausted sigh.
"I will go with you."
She did not push that door open. Faced with the grand layout of an apocalypse that threatened to smash the entire planet to splinters like a brittle biscuit in the New Era, she could not leave the Blue Planet's sole ally stranded outside the door just to appease her personal migraine.
For a Scavenger to execute her clearing mandates, she required the rigid physical armor of this state shield to quiet the chaotic noise of the secular world.
Turning her frame around, the hem of her oversized trench coat swept through the air as she stepped over the fragments of shattered glass, marching straight through the entrance of Classified Conference Room 1.