108: Chapter 108 A Mysterious Man Appears Again in the Middle of the Road!

Chen Chen maintained the suppression of the gravity field, raising his blade with his right hand as he poured Mental Power into the void-rending ship-slaying blade.

Purple patterns spread from the hilt to the tip, and the entire blade hummed with vibration.

He took a step forward, aiming the blade's edge at the gap in the centipede's neck that had been pried open by the Gauss rounds—

And slashed down.

With the gravity pulse combined with the full output of his 117 points of constitution, the blade sliced in along the weakness mark.

Fatal Lock · Weak Point Break triggered.

Ignoring defense, one hundred percent True Damage.

The void-rending ship-slaying blade pierced through the centipede's neck, and purple energy arcs exploded from both sides of the cut.

The centipede's head and torso were separated.

The head hit the ground and bounced twice, its mandibles still mechanically opening and closing as corrosive fluid sprayed from the stump.

The system notification rang out in his mind.

[Killed Pseudo-Tier 3 Aberrant Centipede King! Gained a massive amount of experience!]

[Abyssal Plunderer activated, loot drops +3!]

[Dropped Items: Tier 2 Enhanced Carapace ×4, High-purity Aberration Core ×1, Purple Material · Centipede King Crystalline Plate ×1...]

Chen Chen retracted his blade and flicked off the white bodily fluids from the blade's surface.

He turned to look at Su Xiaoqi's side—

Of the six Tier 2 centipedes, five had already fallen.

Su Xiaoqi was currently riding on the back of the last one, her hands grabbing its two antennae and pulling them backward.

The centipede shrieked as it spun in place, its legs kicking wildly.

Su Xiaoqi gave the antennae a twist, and with a crisp crack from the centipede's skull, the entire insect went limp.

She jumped down from its back, clapped her hands, and turned to flash Chen Chen a smile, her face splattered with the green blood of the insect.

"Brother! All done!"

Over the communicator, Qin Hongye's voice was full of admiration:

"All cleared. No remaining heat sources on the outskirts of the East District."

Shen Wanbing confirmed: "Radar is clean."

Chen Chen pressed his communicator.

"Jiang Yanxue, come back and collect the corpses. Shen Wanxing, get ready to start work."

Fifteen minutes later.

All the drops from the aberrations were piled on the floor of the Ghost Fortress's carriage like a small mountain.

Shen Wanxing crouched before the pile of resources and rolled up her sleeves.

"Here." Chen Chen handed her the Centipede King's high-purity core.

The moment Shen Wanxing's fingers touched the surface of the core—

Golden light exploded.

Tenfold Critical Hit.

One core became ten.

The entire carriage was illuminated by pillars of golden light.

Su Xiaoqi's twin tails puffed up into two balls: "So many, so many!"

Shen Wanxing was startled by her own Luck, her pale amber pupils widening.

"Ten... ten times? Is my Luck really this good today?"

Chen Chen glanced at his attribute panel.

Luck: 14.

It had increased by 4 points from the previous 10.

Although the increase wasn't huge, judging by Shen Wanxing's critical hit frequency today, those few points of Luck fed back by Forbidden Domain Dual Cultivation were creating a chemical reaction.

Or rather—Shen Wanxing's God-tier talent was resonating with his Luck value.

He didn't say it out loud, tucking the suspicion away in his mind.

"Don't just stand there, go through all of them."

Shen Wanxing obediently began touching the remaining drops.

Aberrant Carapace—Threefold Critical Hit, the quantity tripled.

Centipede King Crystalline Plate—Fivefold Critical Hit, one plate became five.

Chen Chen picked up those five purple crystalline plates and examined them.

Shen Wanbing leaned over and took a glance: "The energy patterns on this thing are a high match for the base materials of A-grade armor. It's for making defensive gear."

"Keep them."

A large portion of the silver-grade storage ring was filled up.

Chen Chen stood up and patted the dust off his knees.

"Let's go. To the Council Building to get the transit pass."

The Ghost Fortress restarted, crushing its way through the gap in the city wall and driving back into the interior of the ruined city.

Central Plaza.

Chen Chen pushed open the iron doors of the Council Building; the half-closed wooden door at the end of the hallway was open.

Yi Chang was coiled behind the office desk, her snake tail circling the iron chair twice.

Her vertical pupils met Chen Chen's gaze and paused for a second.

"You're back."

"Seventeen of them, all cleared. Including that pseudo-tier 3 you didn't mention."

The tip of Yi Chang's snake tail tapped on the desk.

"You killed the pseudo-tier 3 as well?"

"Split it in two."

Yi Chang was silent for three seconds.

She took out a metal token and a hand-drawn map from a drawer, placing them on the desk and pushing them forward.

Chen Chen reached out to take them.

Yi Chang's finger pressed down on the edge of the token.

Her vertical pupils looked up, and a layer of something Chen Chen hadn't seen before appeared in her ice-blue irises.

"The sealed warehouse on the bottom floor of the Underground Factory—"

Her voice was hushed, "If you open it, there is something inside that belongs to me."

"What is it?"

"A Heritage Pebble of the Snake-Scale Race, stripped from the corpse of one of my kin by the military and sealed away."

Her sharp fingernail scratched a white mark onto the token.

"Bring it to me. As a reward—"

Yi Chang's upper body leaned forward, the collar of her white shirt pulling into a curve, and silver-grey scales extended from her collarbone all the way to the edge hidden by the shirt.

"I can tell you something about the next map. It's more valuable than any information you could buy from any channel."

In the communicator, Shen Wanbing's voice rang softly against his eardrum: "Take it."

Chen Chen pulled the token out from under Yi Chang's finger.

"Fine."

He turned and walked out.

As he reached the door, Yi Chang's voice chased after him.

"What's your name?"

"Ghost."

"...I'm asking for your real name."

Chen Chen didn't look back.

The door closed.

Yi Chang's snake tail slapped the floor rapidly several times as she stared at the closed wooden door, unmoving for a long while.

Inside the carriage.

Chen Chen handed the token and the map to Shen Wanbing.

Shen Wanbing spread the hand-drawn map on the command console, overlaying it with the 3D model she had scanned earlier.

"Three safe routes, two resource-dense areas. The markings on this map are more detailed than my Radar scans—her people have indeed gone deep underground."

"What about that sealed warehouse?"

"It's on the bottom floor, about six hundred meters deep from the entrance, and you'll have to pass through at least two layers of aberration activity zones."

Shen Wanbing looked up.

"The Heritage Pebble she wants, do you plan to give it to her?"

"Depends on if it's worth it."

"If what she said about 'information on the next map' is true—"

Shen Wanbing's finger tapped the panel twice, "Combined with the information on the War Zone Merger revealed by Park Jae-hyun, our intelligence advantage for the second map will far exceed everyone else's."

Chen Chen leaned back into the passenger seat.

"Let's get in first."

He turned to look out the window.

On the streets of the ruined city, several cloaked figures of foreign races were watching the Ghost Fortress from a distance.

The communicator suddenly rang.

Qin Hongye shouted down from the second-floor firing position—

"One hundred and twenty meters directly in front of the vehicle. Someone's there."

"How many?"

"One standing in the middle of the road. Unarmed."

Chen Chen rolled down the window and squinted.

In the middle of the gloomy street, a tall, thin figure wearing a white lab coat stood there.

His face was unclear.

But he was holding a sign.

On the sign, a line of words was written crookedly in black paint—

"Mr. Chen Chen, I'm waiting for you underground."

The carriage fell silent for three seconds.

The blue light on Shen Wanbing's necklace flashed rapidly.

"How does he know your name?"