Translator: Atlas Studios Editor: Atlas Studios
Clank!
With a set of effortless punches and less than two minutes, the Amphiptere mechanical suit controlled by Phillip defeated those stone warriors. The rocks lay down on the ground and whined weakly.
They were just Grade C, so the mechanical suit enhanced by Han Xiao easily crushed them.
“No! My smooth skin!” The head of the stone warriors looked at his cracked body and wailed. In terms of stone man aesthetics, the quality of the stone on their body’s surface was the same as their attractiveness. The most beautiful ones were, of course, diamonds, crystals, and minerals of the same sort. Even if it was normal stone, if it was as smooth as a mirror, they would be considered handsome.
Even if they could digest stones to heal their wounds, it would take a very long for them to recover.
This enormous sized guy’s moaning made Han Xiao feel like beating him up again.
“You’re not even stronger than us, yet you want to teach us a lesson? Where did you find the courage‽” The oldest Volga looked at them disdainfully.
Han Xiao was a little surprised by how weak those stone warriors were. It was impossible for their employer not to know how strong Han Xiao and the others were. What impact would it make for him to send these weaklings? Was it just a warning or welcome gift? Could he have guessed incorrectly and the stone warriors’ employer was not their target?
Matters involving Oracles were always a headache. Han Xiao did not want to dwell on it; he grabbed the stone warrior and questioned him directly. “Who is your employer?”
Accordingly, mercenaries would not sell the identity of their employer. Han Xiao was already prepared to interrogate then, but to his surprise, these stone warriors gave him an expected reply.
“The employer wanted us to come here today to deal with the person that pressed the doorbell of that villa and said that our lives wouldn’t be in danger. If we got defeated, we should tell you a location to find a person there, and there will be someone there that knows his whereabouts,” the stone warrior said nervously. “He also said that you will forcefully ask for the employer’s identity and told me to relay his exact words. ‘You guessed right—it is me indeed. Don’t think I don’t know you used my name fraudulently. Play a game with me if you want to find me’.”
Everyone’s expression changed slightly.
“Damn Oracle!” Han Xiao clenched his teeth.
Herlous slapped Han Xiao’s back heavily and laughed loudly. “Hahahaha, you met a colleague!”
“Colleagues hate each other.” Han Xiao snorted and asked for the location. The stone warrior said the next location while shivering—north of City 8. They had to cross the entire city to go there.
Han Xiao stood up and pondered. The intention of the Oracle to hire these stone warriors was actually to leave some clues and lead them to the next location.
The target had intentionally left traces sixteen days ago then used his foresight ability to peek into their whereabouts, knowing that they would be arriving at this place today. Hence, he hired these stone warriors. The ability to foresee was not omnipotent or omniscient; it could not be used randomly and needed some attached strings, which was why the target deliberately left clues for the intel organizations.
He could certainly break the prophecy and kill these stone warriors. The problem was whether that would be in the Oracle’s calculations, telling the stone warriors there would be no danger to provoke Han Xiao’s rebellious thought, while his true intention was to make Han Xiao kill these stone warriors, which would attract the security forces. Would there even be a possibility that the counter thoughts that Han Xiao was currently having had been seen through by the Oracle? Could he have used Han Xiao’s personality as the foundation for telling these stone men that they were definitely safe‽
“This is exactly why I hate Oracles.” Han Xiao felt a headache.
Despite knowing the powers of the Dragon Emperor’s teacher, this feeling of restraint and following the opponent’s plan unwillingly made Han Xiao very irritated.
Oracles were good at using their powers to plot. To Oracles who were strong enough, intelligence had no meaning. When someone dealing with an Oracle thought that they were being smart, what they did not know was that the Oracle had used their ‘smartness’ from the start. One never knew what the Oracle really wanted one to do.
Luckily, Han Xiao had his advantage. He knew the target’s powers and ability very clearly, so he could judge his mindset from an Oracle’s perspective. It would not guarantee that he would escape the target’s calculations, but it would at least ensure he would not get tricked unknowingly. Furthermore, from what he knew about the target, although the target had a bad character, he rarely meant harm.
This was a good piece of news. After all, although Oracles were not physically powerful, being their enemy would be something very, very, very troublesome!
“What’s next? Should we go where he said?” Herlous asked.
“Let’s see what game he is playing.”
Han Xiao snapped his fingers, creating a Mechanical Force spark. Amphiptere quickly turned into a compressed orb and attached itself to his necklace.
At the same time, Mechanical Forces spread out like electric currents, connecting the broken robot parts with each other. Suddenly, these parts levitated and gathered, then quickly assembled. Some distorted parts recovered to their original shape under the Mechanical Force. In the blink of an eye, the pile of waste parts turned back into the round robot body.
Basic Machinery Construction and Waste Modification!
The tiny round robot started moving again. Phillip waved its mechanical arms, slid beside Han Xiao’s feet, and reported, “Self-checking, hum… performance decreased by twenty-five percent, hum… storage data backed up, hum…”
Sylvia’s eyes were sparkling so brightly that stars almost jumped out. “Teacher, I want to learn this!”
“You want to run before you learned to walk?” Han Xiao glanced at her. He retrieved the mechanical flying bugs that he had discreetly sent out earlier to detect the inside of the villa, confirmed there was no one inside, and turned away. “There are no more clues here, let’s go.”
They left this rural street, leaving a group of wailing stone men behind.
…
At the same time, in a secret location in Noriosse City 4, many DarkStar members were gathered in a dark room. They often liked to host secret operations in dark places like that.
“According to our intel, the traitor appeared simultaneously at the center of City 7, northeast of City 6, and City 4’s train station. His ability is to have five doppelgangers. One of them is in our hands, the whereabouts of the other three have been exposed, and the last one has yet to be found. That should be his original body that he hid. His doppelgangers can’t be too far away from his original body, or they would vanish. The exact distance is unknown, but it won’t be further than a planet. Hence, he’s still on Noriosse,” a DarkStar warrior said.
In the corner of the room, a Godoran was tied tightly to a chair. This Godoran was covered in blood, and it was unknown how much suffering he had gone through. He looked exactly like Alvin, and he was sneering.
“What are you laughing at?” a DarkStar soldier yelled.
“Hehehe, you will never catch my real body.”
Alvin was indeed the traitor that DarkStar was tracking down. His Esper ability was creating doppelgangers, and the one that had been caught by DarkStar was one of the doppelgangers.
If Han Xiao was there, he would most likely be reminded of Black Spider, who was imprisoned in Bell of Death Island on Planet Aquamarine. Both of them had doppelganger-type Esper abilities, but the specific effects were different. Black Spider’s doppelgangers were puppets—he could only manipulate them to carry out simple tasks, and his consciousness could only exist in one puppet at a time but could be transferred. As long as one doppelganger lived, he would not die. He was very difficult to kill.
Alvin was different. Up to five doppelgangers could exist at one time, and every one of them could fight on their own. His consciousness was divided into five—these doppelgangers were all him, and one of them was his real body. As they shared senses, if the doppelganger was injured or died, the pain would be fed back to the consciousness in his real body, and his mind would be damaged. Furthermore, the doppelgangers would shatter if they were too far away from the real body, which was the same as dying and would also deal a certain amount of damage to the real body’s consciousness.
So as long as they had control of one doppelganger, they would be able to determine the approximate area that the real body was in—Alvin was still hidden on Noriosse.
“Captain Forsyth,” a soldier suddenly said, “the latest intel shows that the doppelganger in City 4 is taking the train to City 8. Lieutenant Sherman did not follow the plan and attack…”
“Okay,” Forsyth replied indifferently. He was a hybrid Godoran, a Grade B Super of DarkStar. He was also the captain of this team… on the outside.
Forsyth looked at the intel for a while more then walked out of the room. Outside was a long corridor. He turned two corners, walked into an empty room, and pressed a disguised button on the wall. The wall silently slid open, and behind the door was a secret room.
He went inside, and there were only two people there, Anur and Ember.
To pursue this traitor, not only did DarkStar dispatch a large number of elite soldiers consisting of seven Grade B Supers, they even dispatched Anur and Ember who were two Calamity Grades. This was a huge operation!
DarkStar abhorred this traitor. Alvin had leaked part of DarkStar’s information to Godora, leading to one Grade A member, Vivira, falling into a trap during mission, getting captured by Godora, and being imprisoned in Rainbow Prison. Moreover, Alvin had more information on his hands. If it was revealed, Godora would come to know even more about them. This was a huge hidden danger.
DarkStar would not allow traitors to live. Now that the team had trapped Alvin on Noriosse, it was a game of cat and mouse. Sooner or later, they would find him. Therefore, the information would not be leaked for the time being. If Alvin wanted to live, he could only rely on the rescue, and if he gave out all that he knew to Godora, he would have no value to Godora anymore. Hence, he could not say anything until Godora sent someone to save him.
DarkStar was also very clear on this point. Because of Noriosse’s specialness, neither DarkStar nor Godora would not dispatched battleships to surround the planet. This consortium had a very deeply rooted network and complex connections with several Star Cluster level Civilizations. If they wanted Alvin, they could only send their Super warriors to act on the planet.
“Your Excellencies.” Forsyth bowed respectfully and said, “We have new information. A doppelganger of the traitor took the train toward City 8. Sherman did not follow the plan of attack.”
“Why?” Anur asked with a deep voice.
“He accidentally met the Black Star mercenary group on the train!” Forsyth said. “Alvin sat down with them, and Sherman didn’t have the confidence to attack.”
“Black Star?” Anur frowned and looked at Ember on the side. He still remembered how obsessed Ember had been with Black Star. Anur said with a deep voice, “The task is more important. We’re hidden in the dark, so there’s no need to provoke him.”
When Ember heard this name, his face did not change at all. To him, this name seemed to have become meaningless. His emotions did not fluctuate at all, and his tone remained indifferent.
“Rest assured, he’s nothing to me now. The traitor is our goal; as long as the Black Star does not interfere with our affairs, he can live.”
“That’s right.” A sense of satisfaction flashed within Anur’s eyes and disappeared in a split second.
“Sherman’s decision is very correct,” Anur said. “Behind the Black star is the Dragon Emperor, so there’s no need to cause more problems. Alvin was lucky to have accidentally met this gang of mercenaries, but his luck will not keep going. Have Sherman continue to track him…
“Looking at the time, Godora’s reinforcements should be arriving very soon. Alvin’s doppelgangers share their senses, so all his doppelgangers know that you’re tracking him. Tell those acting outside to be cautious, don’t fall into his trap.”
