The God Territory, Blood Sickle Shelter, Death Sickle’s headquarters.
In the conference room, the expressions of Buried Heaven and the several Blood Sickle members were not very pleasant.
Sitting across from Buried Heaven at the conference table was a red-haired man with a red beard.
He rested both his legs on the table, his upper body practically slouched on the chair. He had a cigarette in his mouth and was blowing a cloud of smoke; his tone of voice sounded rather indifferent.
“I’ll give all of you a bit more time to think over whether or not you want to ask Lin Huang to show himself. However, I suggest that you make up your minds soon, as my partners aren’t going to ask so nicely.”
“Seniors, Lin Huang hasn’t made an appearance since he entered a secret Heavenly God territory as Xiu Mu over two years ago. If not for your mentioning him, we’d have thought all along that he had already died,” one of the Blood Sickle members said, looking helpless.
The red-haired man blew out a puff of smoke and fixed his gaze on Buried Heaven. “Mr. Buried Heaven, I’ve heard that personally, you got on fairly well with Lin Huang, and you took good care of him in the past. Hasn’t he contacted you since then?”
“No,” Buried Heaven responded expressionlessly, “I took good care of him in the past because he had extraordinary talent and incredible potential. I felt he was a worthy young successor and decided to train him up. After he went missing, I tried contacting him, but to no avail, so I just left it at that.
“Anyway, I’ve been busy with pre-unification preparation work for the past two years. I certainly haven’t had time to spare any thoughts for a person who’s most probably dead.”
Buried Heaven’s reply was fully convincing, but the other party clearly did not believe him.
The red-haired man flicked away his cigarette ash and glanced at Buried Heaven. His tone remained casual.
“To be honest, I’m a lazy individual. Whenever I encounter an issue, I always hope to be able to resolve it in the easiest manner. Distinguishing whether a person is lying or not isn’t my strong suit. However, some of my partners specialize in this. I hope that what all of you say remains consistent when they show up. Otherwise, the consequences might be extremely serious.
“Alright. I’ll end my questions here.” The red-haired man glanced at his cigarette, which was already down to its end, and stubbed it into the ashtray. He then lit another cigarette and said rather indistinctly to Buried Heaven and the rest, “You won’t mind if we borrow your conference room for a moment, will you?”
“Not at all. Please go ahead, seniors,” one of the Blood Sickle members returned immediately.
Just as Buried Heaven and the rest were getting up to leave, they heard the red-haired man’s voice again suddenly.
“Oh yes, later on, when our partners arrive, you can just bring them up here straight away, and that will do.”
After Buried Heaven and the others departed, the only ones left in the meeting room were the red-haired man and two other men seated on his left and right, who had not said much the entire time.
The man on the left was extremely cadaverous, practically skin and bones like a mummy. “The one called Buried Heaven was clearly lying. Why didn’t you detain him directly and force him to contact Lin Huang?”
“If we directly read his memories, perhaps we might find something useful.” The one on the right—a tall, lean individual over three meters tall—nodded as well in agreement.
“Do the two of you really think we can do as we please in the great world just because we’ve applied to Royal for an investigation permit?” The red-haired man glanced casually at the two people on either side of him. “This is Royal’s affiliate territory. Everything we do is constantly under Royal’s surveillance.
“Furthermore, the top organizations of the universe’s affiliated territories are usually under the protection of the organizations in the universe. Judging by how the organizations in this great world are graded, Death Sickle belongs in the top category—they’re a grade-7 organization under Royal’s protection.
“If we want to move against Death Sickle, we must have a solid reason. Otherwise, Royal will very likely intervene.”
The red-haired man took a deep drag of his cigarette, blowing the smoke out after he had finished speaking. “It’s not worth coming into conflict with Royal over something so insignificant.”
“Then what do we do now?” The cadaverous man asked again.
“We wait,” the red-haired man responded simply.
…
Buried Heaven and the rest looked grim as they walked out of the meeting room.
Although this time only three individuals from the universe had come to call, all three were Lords.
Buried Heaven was unable to discern the red-haired leader’s combat strength at all. However, he could clearly sense that the two who hardly spoke were middle-rank Lords.
He was vaguely conscious of the deadly threat emanating from these two myrmidons.
As for the red-haired man, Buried Heaven could only hazard a guess that he was an upper-rank Lord.
The crux of the matter was that more than three of them had arrived in the great world.
Given that the veteran grade-7 organizations like the Combat God Temple and God Capital had posted the orders for Lin Huang’s capture under coercion from the red-haired man’s partners, Death Sickle had no choice but to post the mission regarding Lin Huang as well.
The red-haired man had made it very clear. If they did not cut ties with Lin Huang now, he could regard Death Sickle as accessories in the death of his Raider partners.
If they could not find Lin Huang, they would have no choice but to take revenge by killing all of his Death Sickle teammates.
No matter how close Buried Heaven was to Lin Huang, he could not sacrifice all of Death Sickle’s members just to protect him.
Besides, it was merely posting a manhunt mission. They were not being asked to move against Lin Huang.
It was an expedient compromise.
Buried Heaven believed that Lin Huang would understand their situation if he saw the mission that they had posted.
“What do we do now?” Blood Sickle Gao Ming asked Buried Heaven via voice transmission, his brow furrowed tightly.
Buried Heaven fell silent upon hearing the question.
He did not know what he could do at the moment either. Right now, the only thing he could do was to try his best to keep Lin Huang’s hiding place a secret.
He had no idea that Lin Huang’s previous hiding place—the Devil Hunter Star Zone—had already been reduced to ruins.
“I think that red-haired fellow isn’t lying. His partners are likely to be even more dangerous. As soon as they show up at our headquarters, we might run into even bigger problems,” Boundless Blood voiced his concerns from where he was standing when he saw Buried Heaven remaining silent.
“So what you’re saying is that we should betray Lin Huang for Death Sickle’s sake?” Buried Heaven shot a dismissive glance at Boundless Blood.
All along, he had harbored a deep respect for this senior who had participated in the founding of Death Sickle. However, right now, Buried Heaven felt that Boundless Blood was being selfish.
“Buried Heaven, Senior Boundless Blood definitely doesn’t mean that.” Beside them, the Nine-tailed Fox Hu Xian’er hurriedly smoothed things over. “I think we should at least discuss a plan on how to respond.”
“It doesn’t matter what we plan; once we make our move, our odds of winning are zero.” Buried Heaven shook his head helplessly.
As a Lord, he was the most capable of intuitively sensing the gap in abilities between himself and the three Raiders.
“What if we collaborate with the Combat God Temple and the other organizations? Wouldn’t that work?” Hu Xian’er followed up with another question.
“Why do you think the Combat God Temple and God Capital made an exception and posted a reward for capturing Lin Huang? Why do you suppose they made the mission public as well? They haven’t made their missions public for a few eras now,” Buried Heaven asked in return.
“Because… they’ve been threatened by these outsiders from the universe?” Hu Xian’er answered rather uncertainly.
“Let me put it this way. That red-haired fellow in the meeting room could easily destroy all the grade-7 organizations in the entire God Territory on his own.” What Buried Heaven said stunned the several Blood Sickle members. For a while, they had no idea what to say.
Right as the atmosphere turned chilly, almost to freezing point, Buried Heaven’s communication ring suddenly began vibrating…
