Translator: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio
If Taira no Masakado said that he would give Gao Peng a satisfactory answer, he would definitely give him one. Taira no Masakado took out his phone to call off security, allowing Gao Peng and his followers to be on his accepted visitor list. He then ordered his men to escort Gao Peng to a huge manor on the eastern side of the city.
It was rare to find such a huge manor here in the Nishikyou. Taira no Masakado allowed Gao Peng to stay here as his guest for two days. He would let him know as soon as he found anything useful. And so, Gao Peng stayed in Nishikyou for two days.
Few people lived nearby. Seeing how green the streets were, Gao Peng figured that this must have been where most of the rich people lived. As if in response to a notice, those living near Gao Peng’s place had temporarily moved out of the neighborhood.
…
Taira no Masakado entered the offices of a special department situated in the northern outskirts of Nishikyou, his face solemn. He’d had to go through a gauntlet of ocular, facial, and sound recognition systems in order to reach the deepest part of the premises.
“I just want to know who the hell went and tried to kill Huaxia’s Gao Peng? We’re in the midst of a resurgence right now. Which b*stard dared to disrupt during our most critical hour?! Find out who these people on the disc are!” He then violently threw the disc onto a table.
Crack! The disc broke. Taira no Masakado stared at it in disbelief.
The department’s chief warily looked at him, unsure of what to say. The deputy chief hurried over to pick up a still intact chip from the fragments of the disc. “Sir, we can still use this.”
Taira no Masakado’s face relaxed somewhat. He then let out a disgruntled hmph.
“Sir, a Spatial Rift was discovered on Shikoku island. The Cherry Sky God Tree was killed by unknown entities who appeared from the rift,” announced a voice from the speaker.
“The Cherry Sky God Tree is dead?” Taira no Masakado was stunned. He hadn’t seen that coming. He had sensed a tremor coming from afar not too much earlier. He had thought that it was just the Cherry Sky God Tree acting up again.
It was common knowledge that the Cherry Sky God Tree reigned over all the trees on Shikoku island. They had even established contact with the Cherry Sky God Tree. Even though they sometimes didn’t see things eye to eye, its power was beyond question.
Saying that nothing in the Nihon region could rival the Cherry Sky God Tree’s power might have been a stretch. However, it was true that no one there could kill it easily; it was an incredibly massive tree.
“Display all our drone and satellite feeds,” ordered Taira no Masakado, frowning.
Both feeds were displayed across the monitor bank. A ruined mountain range and vicious cracks spreading out across the earth could be seen on the screens. The trees were ground to dust. Chaos reigned over the area.
A temple on top of a mountain lay demolished. Gray-robed monks knelt before what was left of their temples, knocking their heads against the ground as they prayed until blood stained the temple’s stone steps red.
In the temple’s courtyard, everything lay broken, from the trees to the stone tiles on the ground. In the middle of the courtyard stood a red-robed monk, his arms stretched out as if trying to hug the sky. His eyes were staring up emptily at the heavens. There was no joy or anger on his face.
A spike could be seen protruding from his chest. It was as if he was simply propped up against the tip of a spear. Blood was slowly trickling down the spear.
However, what rendered everyone in the room speechless was the sight of a huge tree behind the temple, cracked open in the middle as if a heavy weapon had split it in two. The edges around the tree’s rupture were smooth and clean. Its branches drooped over the mountain like a pink waterfall.
The Cherry Sky God Tree was dead.
The room had fallen silent. The Cherry Sky God Tree had always maintained contact with them. They had even been able to establish an equal relationship with it. To them, the Cherry Sky God Tree was their backup should things ever go south.
At the base of the Cherry Sky God Tree, a group of people had set up camp. Not too far from them was a Spatial Rift that had an outer rim that was glowing with golden light.
Four familiars stood near the Spatial Rift: a brown-skinned, 20-foot-tall cyclops with a huge axe on its back, what appeared to be a golden ball of fur, a six-tusked white elephant whose tusks gradually shifted from white to golden with a neck that was surrounded by a golden halo of light, and finally, a black statue. The statue’s eyes were sharp like a blade. Electricity flared out from them, causing a nearby drone in the air to explode. Even though the drone was destroyed, it was still able to capture what was going on over there.
Taira no Masakado barked, “Enlarge the feed.”
The image was enlarged as ordered, revealing three men and one woman. One of them had their back to the camera, while two of them were standing sideways to it. One of them, however, was directly facing the camera. From the enlarged image, Taira no Masakado noticed that the latter had vaguely Asian features and faint green hair.
The other three, too, were sporting the same green hair.
“Cross-reference the man’s face with our database. See if you can find out anything about him.”
The man’s face was checked against the universal facial database in their system. Ten minutes later, the words ‘no match found’ were displayed on the screens. They then ran a shoulder width comparison in the system. After a couple of hits, they pared down the results by running another facial comparison. This, again, returned nothing.
There were only three possibilities. The first possibility was that these people had entered the region illegally. The second was that these people had gone through some form of bodily reconfiguration. The third and final possibility was… these people were not of this world.
The third possibility seemed more likely, at least to Taira no Masakado. The Spatial Rift near them was enough to convince him that they were not of this world.
“Contact Gao Peng. We’ll have to meet whatever demands he has for us as best we can. Right now, the only person capable of stopping these people is him,” said Taira no Masakado solemnly. These intruders definitely hadn’t come in peace, or they wouldn’t have killed the Cherry Sky God Tree in the first place.
Upon receiving the news, Gao Peng didn’t show any sign of panic. He had, in fact, been bracing himself for this for quite some time now.
After his meeting with Bei Qing Yan in the North Pole, he had been made aware of the existence of an ancient tribe, a golden era of trainers and familiars that had existed in ancient times. However, for some reason, the entire tribe had simply up and left the face of the planet.
This was what he had heard from Bei Qing Yan. Once the planet became more conducive for habitation, the people of this lost tribe would reportedly return to take back their rightful place.
However, as the current rulers of the planet, the people of this time wouldn’t easily give up their place on the planet. The path to peaceful coexistence for both sides would certainly be a bumpy one.
If both sides were equal in terms of power, such an issue could be resolved peacefully. After all, there were still a number of undiscovered regions in the post-Cataclysm world where these otherworldly visitors could be relocated.
However, if a huge gap in power between both sides existed… The atrocities that followed Europe’s discovery of the American and African continents could very well happen the next day to the current occupants of this world.
Gao Peng had already prepared himself for this. He just hadn’t expected that this day would come so quickly.
This was Gao Peng’s second encounter with these primitive human beings, and he wanted to test just how strong they were. If possible, he also wanted to capture one or two of them alive.
“I want to see Taira no Masakado,” said Gao Peng.
As soon as he stood facing Taira no Masakado, Gao Peng said bluntly, “I have two requests. Should you accept them, I will help you out. Should you not, I’ll walk out of this place immediately.”
“Speak,” said Taira no Masakado, nodding. He wasn’t in any position to refuse.
“First, I won’t be going out there myself to meet these people. I’ll be interacting with them via real-time broadcast. Second, if the enemy is too strong for me to handle, I’m leaving the Nihon region.”
