Chapter 301

Chapter 301: This Thing Can Run, Too?

Yu Sheng had thought it through. He wasn’t some kind of “professional.”

Sure, if you wanted to get picky about licenses, he was a certified Spirit Realm Detective. Among ordinary people, that counted as someone who dealt with supernatural trouble for a living. But in a situation this specialized, he had enough self-awareness to know his limits.

If he stumbled into a weird otherworld and had to rely on fearless stupidity to “walk the map,” fine. If he ran into an unfamiliar entity and wandered over to test the waters, fine. If some dark angels he couldn’t beat turned him into paste, that was also fine.

But this tower? This tower reeked of a high-level cult stronghold packed with secrets. A clueless hotheaded rookie barging in to “investigate” would be nothing but a nuisance. Whether he found anything was questionable. Getting killed on the spot, though, was almost guaranteed.

He wasn’t afraid of dying. He just didn’t like dying in a way that accomplished nothing—no assist, no progress, just blood smeared on the floor. Worse, if he rushed in and fed them an easy kill, he might create a mess for the real investigators later.

So, after reporting to the Special Operations Bureau and making it clear he would keep watch from a safe distance, Yu Sheng led Foxy and the others back to the edge of the polluted land. They hid among thick crystal clusters and watched the tower from cover, waiting for the Bureau’s team to arrive.

Nothing moved.

The tower stood silent at the center of that dark scar of terrain, wrong and mismatched against the city around it. No one—nothing you could call a person—came out.

The two Irenes lay on Yu Sheng’s shoulders like mismatched epaulets, peering over the crystal growths while murmuring back and forth.

“No movement at all.”

“Do you think there’s anyone inside? Do they know we found them?”

“There’s definitely someone,” Yu Sheng said, voice low and sure. “That’s a huge facility. And I can already feel the artificial saintess hiding inside. Wouldn’t there be a whole maintenance crew around her? They definitely know they’re exposed. I wasn’t exactly subtle.”

“Then why isn’t there any reaction?” Foxy whispered, crouched beside him.

“No idea.” Yu Sheng kept his eyes on the tower. “Maybe they’re setting an ambush. Waiting for us to march in like idiots, and then five hundred axemen jump out from both sides of the door…”

“I’ve covered the area with my divine sense,” Xuan Che said from nearby. “If anyone leaves the tower, they won’t escape my notice.”

“Good.” Yu Sheng nodded, then let his gaze drift to Xuan Che. He stared a moment too long.

Xuan Che shifted under it, faintly uncomfortable. “You… Is something wrong with this junior?”

He’d gone polite and stiff again.

“No.” Yu Sheng shook his head. “I just remembered what you did earlier. That punch. The whole routine—popping pills, burning talismans, stacking blessings. Honestly, it doesn’t match my mental image of a cultivator.”

Xuan Che looked embarrassed. “I’ve made you laugh, junior… I’m not very skilled at fighting. Just a few clumsy moves, crude and shallow.”

“Really?” Yu Sheng glanced at the sword still hovering behind him. “You drew a sword, but you never used it.”

Xuan Che’s expression turned even more awkward. “Well… I actually can’t use a sword.”

This time even Irene jolted upright. “Then why did you immediately pull out a sword and float it behind you?”

“This sword was a gift from an elder of the Divine Armaments Peak,” Xuan Che hurried to explain. “It stabilizes my realm, improves my cultivation, and strengthens my vitality and spiritual power. Even if I can’t wield it, having it out helps.”

Yu Sheng stared, mouth slightly open.

Irene’s eyes lit with recognition. “So it’s just high-stat gear. You equip it for the bonus, except your sword skill is zero and you put all your points into fists.”

Xuan Che considered it, then answered honestly, “…That’s a fair way to put it.”

He noticed the faintly stunned looks from Yu Sheng, Irene, and even Foxy, and seemed to panic about how ridiculous he sounded. He quickly added, “I trained under my master. My main studies are pill refining, talismans, and medicine. Strictly speaking, I’m a doctor. So being poor at combat is only natural.”

He hesitated, then continued, “These few… unknown fist techniques. My master forced me to practice them during daily training. He said a healer travels the world to aid others and often faces life-and-death danger. Trouble is unavoidable. You must learn some martial skills to protect yourself, so you can endure.”

Irene blinked as she translated his earnest explanation into her own language, then slapped her palm. “Oh! I get it. Medical Brawl Exploding Fist.”

Yu Sheng nearly choked. “What the hell is Medical Brawl Exploding Fist?”

Then he remembered Xuan Che’s punch turning hundreds of meters of road into dust, and the words he wanted to say died in his throat. Unfortunately, she wasn’t wrong. It really was explosive.

Xuan Che blanked for a heartbeat—then brightened as if he’d been gifted enlightenment. He clapped once, delighted. “Irene speaks brilliantly! A good name, a good name. When I return, I’ll tell master his self-created fist path finally has a name!”

Irene waved frantically. “When you go back, don’t say I came up with it. Just say you thought of it yourself.”

Xuan Che looked offended on principle. “How could I? Stealing credit violates the path of cultivation. This name was bestowed by the young lady. I must explain it clearly to master.”

Irene groaned under her breath. “Why did I have to run into such a blockhead…”

Yu Sheng just watched the exchange, amused despite himself.

Then a low hum cut through the bickering.

It came from the tower.

Everyone behind the crystals went still, eyes snapping to the towering silhouette. And then they saw it.

The entire tower was flickering.

Like a trembling mirage, the dark mass of it shimmered in place. Each flicker brought a deep, unbearable hum, as if space itself were shuddering. The layered, unreal distortion that had once clung to only the upper half began spreading down, fast. Multiple images overlapped until the whole tower looked like a stacked afterimage, dizzying to stare at.

Irene’s voice shot up again. “What the heck? What is it doing? Is it transforming for takeoff or something?”

Yu Sheng opened his mouth—then a roar from high overhead cut him off.

They looked up in shock and saw two strange aircraft punch through the fog, long narrow triangles wrapped in semi-transparent energy shields. They arrived in an instant. Without hesitation, they locked onto the flickering tower and fired a barrage of blazing, white-hot spheres.

At the same time, more than a hundred figures in heavy powered armor appeared beneath the aircraft as if dropped from another dimension. Jetpacks flared as they adjusted midair. Before they even hit the ground, they poured down a storm of fire.

Missiles, high-energy beams, constraint particle clusters—firepower Yu Sheng recognized and firepower he didn’t—hammered the tower from every angle.

Yu Sheng froze for a heartbeat, then it hit him.

The Special Operations Bureau’s investigators had arrived.

One message had brought a deep-diving unit—the kind that showed up with Hunter Owl bombers and enough firepower to erase a neighborhood.

Military-grade bombardment smothered the tower almost instantly. Explosions and shrieking energy attacks threw shockwaves that ripped fog away in sheets. Yu Sheng stood there, dumbfounded. He’d expected a cautious approach, a slow investigation.

Instead, they started carpet bombing the moment they arrived.

Then he understood why.

After the first wave shredded the tower’s energy shield and blew apart parts of the floating auxiliary structures, he realized most of the follow-up attacks were passing straight through the tower’s flickering body. Like the tower wasn’t fully there anymore.

Irene’s voice came out half scream, half disbelief. “Holy crap… that thing can run?”

The tower was phasing into some kind of teleportation.

The Bureau forces were trying to destroy the entire facility before it escaped, but they clearly couldn’t make it in time. The Hunter Owls and the deep-diving unit kept pounding it, yet more and more attacks slipped through the unreal layer as the seconds passed. The hum of the tower rose into a piercing scream, cutting through gunfire and carrying across the whole Mistbound City.

Yu Sheng couldn’t sit still anymore.

He couldn’t let it run.

The artificial saintess. Mistbound City. The bronze knights in the fog. Holy Revere Hermitage. There were too many secrets buried in that tower. He’d finally torn it out into the open—and he was still counting on it to solve the funding problem for half the Valley’s infrastructure. How could he let it get away?

And something with vibes like this? If it escaped, it would come back to bite them later.

Yu Sheng clenched his teeth. An idea sparked, half-formed and reckless, and he turned to Foxy.

“Give me a tail.”

Foxy blinked. “Huh?”

“Plan B,” Yu Sheng said. “Launch me over there.”