Leaving aside Ji Xiao and Ji Yale's battle of wits with Ma Linan, one side attempting a feigned surrender while the other was willing to bet the lives of their trusted aides to send these two hot potatoes back to the D5 Comprehensive War Zone.
Let's turn our attention to Wang Daochang.
Mudan successfully retrieved the small drone released earlier.
This was a fist-sized spider-shaped robot with exceptional endurance and terrain traversal capabilities, successfully collecting traces of Dragonfly Aunt's blood.
Some techniques, though their names may sound sinister, actually possess little inherent evil.
Other techniques and magical treasures, though their names may sound righteous, like the Human Emperor Banner or the Azure Sky Formation, are actually heretical arts that refine the souls of ten thousand living beings.
The nature of a technique depends entirely on where it is used and the purpose behind it.
Holding the small test tube, his sword fingers gently swaying, Daochang recited in his heart:
'Where blood fiends dwell, may the soul find its place, across the Three Realms and Six Paths, seek and trace.'
A wisp of bloody aura circled the tip of Wang Jixuan's fingers, then dissipated into nothingness with the wind.
Vaguely, in a fleeting moment.
The following scene appeared in Wang Jixuan's mind:
[Inside a cave filled with faint white light, the cave walls are incredibly smooth, as if they have been meticulously polished countless times to achieve a mirror-like effect. A wall made of stone slabs is affixed to the cave wall, emitting a faint white glow. Dragonfly Aunt, covered in blood, lies in a pool of water in front of the stone wall, with visible colorful spiritual energy swirling around her. In the distance, several men and women can be seen, either sitting or standing, chatting idly.]
This scene quickly dissipated.
Wang Jixuan secretly thought to himself, 'Not bad.'
He not only found Dragonfly Aunt's location but also confirmed the area where Spiritualist Number Five's wall was located, saving a lot of effort later on.
Wang Jixuan switched to using a spiritual sense secret technique to probe, and after a moment, beckoned Mudan and Black Clam to move forward.
He didn't yet know how to draw a holographic map, so he casually grabbed a tree branch, swept away the fallen leaves on the ground to find moist soil, and drew a simple map.
"This is the location of Xingdian and Spiritualist Number Five."
"Dragonfly Aunt has also been found, right in front of Spiritualist Number Five's stone slab."
"This battle will be tough. Inside Xingdian's secret base, there are three S-class spiritual energy users besides Xingdian himself. One of them is an awakened spiritual energy user, slightly weaker than Huo Rong. He should be the captain of the three Spirit Management Council Judgment Squads."
"A total of four S-classes?"
Black Clam's eyes lit up:
"Can we drop a nuke on the secret base? Just blow them to hell! It won't affect the civilians in the snow mountain base above!"
"We could, but Xingdian is very cunning. He divided the secret base into four areas, each separated by thick layers of rock, and using a one-way channel connection method. We can only detonate one area, and the channels will collapse."
Wang Jixuan drew a tic-tac-toe grid on the map, writing one, two, three, and four on top.
"Xingdian's promotion ritual is in area three."
"His current state should be somewhat precarious. He has a lot of spiritual energy in his body, but he can't get the spiritual energy to fuse with his own."
"His promotion ritual was constructed by the Six Elders. The S-class material next to him hasn't been used yet. I also took a look at that material—the brain has been damaged, making him equivalent to a vegetable."
"They will soon try again. I will cause some chaos for them later to prevent Xingdian from getting lucky and actually passing this life-or-death threshold."
Mudan asked, "Can we interfere with his ritual remotely?"
"We should be able to, but we need to get closer," Wang Jixuan didn't give a definitive answer. "Anyway, if things don't look right, we'll just retreat."
He texted the two of them, asking a few questions, and quickly received definite answers.
They had three reinforcements.
The first reinforcement, Wu Man and the others, would arrive in this area in two hours and thirty-six minutes.
The second reinforcement, the D5 Comprehensive War Zone, could deploy a large number of mechanical bodies and more than twelve semi-human mechs to land in this D2 War Zone territory within forty-eight minutes. Currently, the attitude of the D2 Comprehensive War Zone's high command is very ambiguous. They could try to win them over.
The third reinforcement came from the space fortress.
If the situation deteriorated to the most critical state, and D2 and D5 were about to go to war, the space fortress would directly intervene, acting as an intermediary to mediate and send their special operations team into this area.
Obviously, the symbolic significance of the third reinforcement was greater.
"Then let's tentatively set the action to begin in three hours."
Wang Jixuan suddenly sighed.
"What's wrong?" Black Clam asked softly.
Wang Jixuan clicked his tongue, "It's nothing, just some感慨 (gan kai) ... These people are truly unscrupulous."
"Spiritual energy users?"
"Mm."
Wang Jixuan looked towards the secret base of the snow mountain, helplessly saying:
"Originally, I always thought that the lower city of Fortress 76 was already degenerate enough. I didn't expect that there was no bottom line to human nature."
"After these spiritual energy users mastered power, I can't say that they are all demons, but most people have twisted psyches due to the pain of the infusion ritual."
"Guess what they suddenly need a large number of young boys and girls for?"
"Evil sacrifices?"
"There are two S-class spiritual energy users from a spiritual energy capital who like teenage bodies. Xingdian's subordinates are trying to please them, selecting seventy or eighty teenagers from various fortresses in the D2 Comprehensive War Zone."
"Crap," Black Clam cursed, "These are perverted bastards! They should all be blown up!"
Mudan asked somewhat incomprehensibly, "Why do humans always try to hunt for the bizarre?"
Black Clam sighed, "Because of the pleasure threshold. As desires are indulged, the pleasure threshold becomes higher and higher. When ordinary happiness can't satisfy them, and they have power and privilege, then it inevitably leads to further depravity."
Wang Jixuan then said, "It's because these people lack goodness and lack awe."
"Awe?"
"They don't have awe for their own power."
Wang Jixuan shrugged:
"I'm not a philosopher, I'm just a cultivator, so I can only understand this through feeling."
"Let's let these two biological brains rest for a bit. Mudan, keep an eye on the surroundings, as well as Ji Yale and Ji Xiao's side. I'll focus on Xingdian."
Mudan softly said, "Okay."
Wang Jixuan stretched lazily, putting the X Armor into a state of readiness, loosening the armor restraints in various places, leaving a few millimeters of gap.
He sat down cross-legged, activating the Spirit Release Array module embedded inside the armor, and began to continuously replenish his mana.
By the way, he carefully sensed the spiritual energy fluctuations at Xingdian's location with a wisp of spiritual sense.
As long as the spiritual energy fluctuations were slightly larger, he would immediately take action.
From this moment on;
The snow mountain was stirring, and the thunder was about to roar.
Half an hour later.
Mudan proactively reported that the D5 Comprehensive War Zone mobile unit had landed at the border airport. The D2 Comprehensive War Zone had withdrawn some air defense equipment and announced an indefinite regional disaster drill.
An hour later.
Good news came from Ji Yale and Ji Xiao's side.
They had successfully surrendered to the semi-human mech force commanded by Ma Linan and had 'completely' arrived on the surface, waiting for a transport plane to land.
According to the images intercepted by Mudan, they had not suffered abuse, beatings, or other prisoner-of-war treatment. The semi-human mechs of the D2 Comprehensive War Zone were amiable, offering cigarettes, tea, and chatting.
Ji Xiao had already planned to write a work about human relationships, "My Years in D2."
Mudan said, "After they get on the transport plane, they should arrive here in about fifty minutes. If the transport plane has better performance, they will be sent over in half an hour."
Wang Jixuan nodded, not having too many thoughts about it.
However, fifteen minutes later, Mudan urgently woke up Wang Jixuan, who was meditating.
"Commander! There's a problem!"
"Speak."
"Ji Xiao and Ji Yale's side..."
Mudan couldn't explain it clearly for a moment, so she simply called up the camera device in the transport plane escorting Ji Xiao and Ji Yale and played the scene inside the cabin.
Wang Jixuan and Black Clam curiously gathered around.
This was the scene from two minutes ago...
In the cabin, Ji Yale and Ji Xiao, with self-destruct shackles on their hands, were smiling, smoking, drinking, and chatting.
The two semi-human mech officers in front of them were familiar with Ji Xiao. At this moment, their faces were slightly red, obviously having drunk a lot of wine.
Mech Combat Base asked, "Xiao-ge, what exactly happened to you? Is this classified? If it's classified, I won't ask."
"Hey, what's classified!"
Ji Xiao waved his hand, his face flushed, hiccuped, and his speech was a bit slurred.
Tell a joke: Semi-human mechs with blood testing systems can get drunk after drinking two bottles of beer with two A+ level spiritual energy users.
Obviously, both sides were acting, and their acting skills were excellent.
Ji Xiao sighed:
"Before, that old thief Xingdian sent us to find trouble with the D5 War Zone, and then the two of us were captured one after the other."
"Then, a master enlightened us."
"Really, brother, I dare not say anything else, this master is a real master. He is humble, humorous, has endless power, has a unique and profound understanding of spiritual energy, a big cut above that old thief Xingdian!"
"We had already surrendered to D5 a long time ago."
"This time, Xingdian wanted to risk rushing SS, and the two of us were sent over to investigate the situation. I didn't expect that we would be discovered as soon as we got close to this side. How were we exposed?"
"Alas, we have already bragged about it here. Before we came, we guaranteed to D5 that we would definitely achieve results, wash ourselves clean, start anew, be good people, and make some preparations."
The two semi-human mechs looked at each other.
"Xiao-ge is really drunk... You be a good person?"
"That is, if you be a good person, then what do we do? Be bad people? Don't joke around, eat some food!"
"No!" Ji Xiao glared. "Why can't I be a good person? I've sworn an oath: I won't self-destruct until I've saved a million people! Once I've saved a million people, I'll self-destruct!"
"Drink up, drink up. Xiao-ge hasn't quite gotten there yet."
"What the hell!" Ji Xiao slammed the table and stood up. "What do you two mean by that?"
"What do we mean? Exactly what it sounds like!"
Combat Base B sneered:
"Ji Xiao, you're a prisoner now. You better figure out your position!
"Don't think that just because the two of us aren't equipped, aren't ready for combat, and the Destruction Cannon isn't charged—it needs at least half a minute to power up—and that we've had some drinks, making us slow and our combat power reduced to that of ordinary people…
"Don't even dream of knocking us out and rushing to the cockpit. The captain in the cockpit might be a sly old fox with no family and a fear of death, but he'd never betray D2 Integrated War Zone to join D5! He has professional ethics!"
Ji Xiao: …
Ji Yale: …
Combat Base A blinked rapidly, cursing fiercely:
"Don't you two think you can escape easily! Our air defense forces aren't just for show! Even if this transport has diplomatic immunity! Even if there's a lot of pressure from above right now, and they don't dare directly attack you, that doesn't mean you can just escape whenever you want, or hijack the plane whenever you want!"
Ji Yale raised a hand to his forehead.
The corners of Ji Xiao's mouth twitched wildly.
The two middle-aged Combat Bases exchanged a look, a hint of anxiety appearing in their eyes.
Combat Base A gritted his teeth, grabbed a beer bottle, smashed it, and pressed it towards Ji Xiao's neck.
Ji Xiao didn't even flinch, his short, stout body 'delicately' collapsing into the seat, still shouting:
"Oh no, I've been defeated… Please, spare me, don't send me to that old thief Xing Dian to claim the credit. The rewards of the psionic system are very generous, but your consciences surely won't allow it…"
Then, with a tilt of his head, he 'passed out' with his mouth open.
Seeing this, Ji Yale raised a hand to his forehead and slowly slumped backward:
"Crap, there's anesthetic in the booze…"
Combat Base B rolled his eyes and angrily rebuked, "Ji Yale, you actually used… mental control… urgh."
After saying that, he slumped backward, even professionally setting his mechanical arm's indicator light to red.
Combat Base A looked left, looked right, almost overwhelmed by black lines.
"You… damn… I'm going to… I crashed."
*Thud thud.*
Combat Base A lowered his head and slumped down, his breathing fast and even.
…
Outside Rainbow Town, in a small grove, Wang Ji Xuan, Black Shell, and Mudan quietly watched this scene.
A crow slowly flew across above their heads.
Mudan adjusted the image delay to zero. The four in the image were still pretending to be unconscious, while the transport's cruising speed had dropped to its lowest.
"Commander," Mudan asked softly, "What do we do?"
"It's good that they're slowing down," Wang Ji Xuan muttered. "Is there any way for us to sneak in? It would be a good plan to escort Ji Xiao and Ji Yale into the secret base."
Black Shell said, "Doesn't the secret base have any ventilation ducts?"
"No, there's only this one passage," Wang Ji Xuan explained. "I've already checked. Xing Dian only designed one door, easy to defend and difficult to attack, also putting himself in a dead end."
Mudan simply said, "Then let Ji Xiao and Ji Yale really hijack the plane. After the hijacking, we'll have more initiative."
Black Shell asked, "Should we try to win over this Ma Linan?"
"That would take too much time," Wang Ji Xuan said. "Xing Dian is in the middle of the ritual. He definitely won't give up easily. There are three S-ranks and twelve A-ranks inside. With our combat power, we can completely suppress them. The difficulty lies in the various traps."
"Commander, leave it to me!"
Mudan volunteered:
"I'll design the infiltration plan and try to get Ji Xiao and Ji Yale over here. We'll escort them in! However, the first batch in can't have too many people."
"Good."
"Huh?"
"It means 'good'," Wang Ji Xuan was about to speak when his ear twitched slightly.
Intense psionic fluctuations appeared at Xing Dian's location.
Sure enough, when he probed earlier, this advancement ritual was almost ready; the last advancement ritual should have occurred at the moment when Auntie noticed the psionic fluctuations.
Wants to advance?
A phantom of a black Flood Dragon appeared on Wang Ji Xuan's shoulder, the Flood Dragon silently roaring towards the secret base.
"We're going to town. It's too far from here."
As soon as Wang Ji Xuan finished speaking, he rushed out, the X-Armor instantly tightening around his entire body, activating holographic camouflage.
