Chapter 332

Chapter 332: Connecting the Clues

The questioning continued, and as the minutes passed, more and more unsettling truths surfaced.

A timeline slowly took shape in front of Yu Sheng and Bai Li Qing.

The belief that “the world is beyond saving” had been at the core of the Hermitage Order from the very beginning. Their research into dark angels and the so-called angel catalyst had started seventeen years ago, at the mysterious Adar Crater and the remains at its bottom—Shadowless Remains. They believed dark angel fragments—angel catalyst—could be used to “heal” the world. But the catalyst in the Adar Crater had lost too much activity, so they turned their attention to Anka Aila.

And that had been ten years ago. To get Anka Aila’s angel catalyst, they’d hidden in the Borderland for a full decade.

“Where did you learn that Anka Aila existed?” the interrogator asked.

“The intel came from the angel cultists,” the cultist said, head drooping. “From an exchange a long time ago.”

“You reached a partnership with the angel cult?” The interrogator leaned forward slightly. “You wanted the remains of dark angels. To the angel cult, that is blasphemy. Why would they tell you their lord’s secret?”

“We had disagreements, but that doesn’t mean we couldn’t use each other,” the cultist said slowly. “Besides, they didn’t know the truth about the angel catalyst. We explained it as some kind of gift left behind by dark angels, and the Hermitage Order hoped to receive that gift. Other than that, we revealed no details. They mistook it as a sign we also intended to convert, and they happily cooperated.”

“So you deceived your ‘partner’?” the interrogator said.

To Yu Sheng’s surprise, the cultist actually smiled. He shook his head, his tone full of contempt.

“Deceived? The voices of angels burned away their sanity long ago,” he said. “They were mortals full of flaws to begin with, and now even their souls have grown festering sores. Our ‘deception’ was salvation. Yes. That wasn’t deception. It was dragging them back from the wrong path.”

His smile widened, sharp and ugly. “And did we really deceive them? Why can’t the remains left after dark angels die count as Their gift?”

He exhaled, like savoring the thought. “In the end… it was a gift. Only the giver wasn’t willing.”

“Fine. We won’t discuss that,” the interrogator said, clearly uninterested in judging the scams between cult groups. “Next question. At the time, Anka Aila was still alive—only sealed. How were you so sure you could obtain Its angel catalyst?”

His voice sharpened again. “You should know that before this incident, no one could have imagined an angel fall.”

This time, the cultist went silent.

Two seconds passed. Three.

Finally, he spoke in a strange, careful tone. “We didn’t expect an angel fall to happen.”

“Hm?”

“We targeted Anka Aila because It might be the weakest known dark angel,” the cultist said slowly, “and the only one that was sealed and unable to move. It could serve as a research subject—even though, for a long time, we didn’t even know where exactly It was sealed.”

He swallowed. “In our best-case expectation, Anka Aila would be released by those angel cultists, and the Borderland would fight to the death. With the Borderland’s strength, even if you couldn’t defeat Anka Aila, you should at least be able to injure It—like the campaign back then when Alglade tried to kill the Beauty God in the border region. In that process, perhaps some angel catalyst would be produced…”

Behind the observation window, Bai Li Qing pressed the button. “So from the start, you were waiting to fish in muddy waters—planning to collect a few fragments that fell off when the Borderland and Anka Aila both got hurt?”

Irene, who’d been quiet for a while, muttered, “From fishing in muddy waters to… fishing in muddy Yu. Let them fish blind.”

Yu Sheng flicked a finger against the little doll’s head. “So every bit of your brainpower goes into puns, huh?”

In the interrogation chamber, the cultist didn’t hear them. He only gave a complicated, bitter smile and nodded. “Yes. That was our original plan. So when an angel fall suddenly happened, many plans were thrown into chaos, and that indirectly led to… our exposure.”

“Indirectly led to your exposure?” the interrogator repeated.

“To put it simply,” the cultist said, voice thin, “the impact of the angel fall on the space structure itself, plus our insufficient understanding of the angel catalyst, plus mistakes in contact and containment procedures… a series of reasons caused the catalyst’s power to overflow during one experiment. It briefly pierced space, and that’s how you discovered the existence of the deep boundary city—what you call Mistbound City.”

Yu Sheng and Bai Li Qing traded a look without thinking.

Yu Sheng immediately recalled how that foggy otherworld had appeared so suddenly—no warning, but before its entrance opened, there had been frequent, short tremors around the point. It didn’t look like normal otherworld behavior at all. It looked like artificial interference.

And it had happened not long after the angel fall.

“So that’s what it was,” Yu Sheng murmured.

Those tremors probably hadn’t been attempts to open otherworld. They’d been desperate, clumsy attempts to seal it after an experimental failure. They’d underestimated the catalyst’s “piercing” power. After hundreds of leaks and fumbling patches, Mistbound City still opened—and dragged someone inside.

That unlucky big nephew really did deserve credit for it.

He felt a brief flash of sympathy for Zheng Zhi, but his attention snapped back to the loudspeaker.

“About Mistbound City,” the interrogator asked, “or as you call it, the deep boundary city—what do you know? How was this otherworld formed?”

“I… I’m not sure,” the cultist said quickly, trying to sound convincing. “Really. I only followed orders and boarded the Pillar of Order, but that place already existed before we arrived. Maybe only the sages, or someone higher, knows what that otherworld is.”

He swallowed. “I only know it’s extremely large—so large it even seems as big as the Borderland. In the boundless fog, there is another entire Borderland under the Borderland in the real world…”

Behind the observation window, everyone stared at each other.

“Damn,” Irene muttered, scratching her cheek. “So it really is that absurd? It’s not even just Boundary City anymore. There’s even an ‘outside’ area?”

“The Borderland just got even more blessed,” Yu Sheng said, glancing at Bai Li Qing and spreading his hands. “So you were the ‘second floor’ all along?”

Bai Li Qing didn’t answer. Her expression darkened slightly, like clear skies turning cloudy.

A secret sitting right under the Special Operations Bureau’s nose—something even Borderland people themselves didn’t know—had been spoken aloud by a Hermitage Order cultist. Even Bai Li Qing, normally cold and detached, looked genuinely displeased.

Yu Sheng took one look at “Bai Li Cloudy” and wisely decided to stop joking.

After a couple of seconds, she steadied herself. Her expression returned to neutral, and she pressed the button again.

“So back then, you used Mistbound City—that hidden channel beneath the real world—to steal the angel catalyst right under our recovery team’s noses?”

She was referring to the Anka Aila crystal that had mysteriously disappeared in the outer suburbs after the angel fall.

But the cultist shook his head.

“Strictly speaking, we didn’t ‘steal’ it,” he said slowly. “It fell in on its own. That crystal smashed straight through the barrier between the real world and the deep boundary city, briefly forming a breach point. I told you—the angel catalyst has an extremely powerful piercing trait. Even without deliberate activation, it can still release that power by chance.”

He let out a breath. “At the time, we didn’t plan to take any action at all. The angel fall disrupted every plan, and the Special Operations Bureau reacted faster than we expected. The chaos we predicted never happened. All eyes were fixed on the angel fall, and the wilderness outside boundary city was full of your outposts and monitoring points. We had no chance to recover the angel catalyst that fell outside… but no one expected a crystal would drop straight into the fog.”

“And then you picked it up?” Bai Li Qing said into the mic.

Then she turned and gave Yu Sheng a rather strange look.

Yu Sheng knew exactly what she was thinking. Back then, he’d once said it wasn’t like no one ever walked by, saw something shiny in a roadside pit, and casually pocketed it.

What could he say? He scratched his head, awkward. “Still not quite what I meant. That crystal was huge. They probably couldn’t stuff it in a pocket.”

Bai Li Qing didn’t respond.