Chapter 420

Chapter 420: Unveiling

Even Engineer Sun, the do-it-all fixer, was starting to go numb.

He’d been leading a crew to build a road along the Black Forest when Yu Sheng suddenly called and said there was a “small job” out of town—something special, and they needed a hand. Straightforward as always, Engineer Sun didn’t hesitate. He followed Yu Sheng’s instructions, brought people and equipment, stepped through a door that had appeared right beside the Black Forest… and discovered the so-called “small job” was digging a nine-tailed demon fox out of the middle of a mountain of fused crystal.

A nine-tailed demon fox who was stuck in the ground because of an orbital bombardment.

“I’m serious,” Engineer Sun said through his powered-armor speakers, his voice muffled and tinny. “I’ve dug trenches on planets that were about to crack apart, laid roads through warped space tainted by an entity, and hammered out bunkers in the wasteland while the swarms were running wild—but I’ve never seen anything like this.

“Following you really opens my eyes.”

“You’re not the only one. I’m learning plenty too,” Yu Sheng said, laughing as he glanced over at him. “Just tell me if you can do it. If you can’t, I’ll go ask the engineering immortals from Thousand Peak Spirit Mountain to think of something.”

“You’re looking down on me.” Engineer Sun shot him a glare. Construction-worker pride flared, and he accepted without hesitation. “I haven’t done this exact thing, sure, but it’s not hard. Hold the door open. I’ll have the guys go back and grab proper tools—what we brought isn’t the right fit.”

Before long, the worker-masters Engineer Sun had brought swapped into better gear and got to work around Foxy.

Air hammers screamed. Cutters rumbled. Sparks skittered across the ground as crystal dust billowed up in pale clouds.

Yu Sheng stood off to the side with Irene and Luna, watching.

Engineer Sun stayed near him too, still turning his head like a tourist who couldn’t stop staring.

The environment on Garrison-3 wasn’t fit for humans. The radiation was intense, and the air was toxic, so Engineer Sun and his crew all wore heavy off-world engineering powered armor when they arrived. It wasn’t as flashy as Xu Jiali’s suit, but it had the weight and brute strength that only construction machines could carry.

The only thing worth mocking was the fact that Engineer Sun had plastered his armor with messy graffiti. The most eye-catching piece ran across his chest plate in huge letters:

AAA Civil Construction Brother Sun

He was clearly proud of it. Every so often, he’d pop a tiny drone from his forearm, take a selfie against the barren alien landscape, and cycle through poses like he was filming an ad.

After taking photos for a good while, he finally turned back to Yu Sheng. He hesitated, held it in for a few seconds, then blurted, “Seriously. I know you’re special, but I didn’t expect you wouldn’t even need protective gear in a place like this. Doesn’t it feel suffocating?”

Yu Sheng thought about it. “How do I put this… it really stinks here, so I haven’t been breathing for a long time. I adapt pretty well. Breathing is fine. Not breathing is fine too.”

“…I don’t think this is an adaptability issue anymore,” Engineer Sun said, one eye twitching.

But he’d dealt with Yu Sheng plenty of times, and he was a veteran employee of the Special Operations Bureau. He forced himself to file that under minor, unimportant mysteries and moved on.

“Forget that.” He waved a hand. “Let’s talk about this place. What the hell did you people fight? Why was it this big?”

“We still don’t know what it was, but I suspect it’s related to the dark angels,” Yu Sheng said.

Engineer Sun’s face stiffened immediately.

“Don’t panic,” Yu Sheng added quickly, lifting his hand halfway in a calming gesture. “The dark angels’ main body definitely isn’t here. If it were, this wouldn’t have ended so easily.”

Engineer Sun went quiet for a long moment, then forced out a single word. “…Holy crap.”

“We still haven’t figured out what state the enemy is in, so there’ll be more work I’ll need your help with,” Yu Sheng continued. The illusion arts he’d witnessed while forming a connection with the crystal jungle still prickled in the back of his mind. “After you dig Foxy out, I want you to keep going in the area. There should be leftover ‘crystal branch’ structure under these layers. We need samples sent to the Special Operations Bureau. Zheng Zhi already filed a report to the higher-ups—your director will know what to do.”

At the mention of work, Engineer Sun sobered. He nodded once, solemn. “No problem. We’ve done this kind of thing before. But for sample recovery, we’ll need the Bureau’s people. We’re rough-work specialists. Sealing, containment, and transporting high-risk samples—that’s delicate. That’s for the recovery team.”

Yu Sheng had already pulled out his phone. “I know. I’ll message Rapunzel right now.”

A sudden cracking grind of stone and earth cut him off.

Yu Sheng looked up.

The construction crew around Foxy were scrambling backward. Someone retreated while yelling, “We cracked it open! We cracked it open!

“Watch her claws! Back up—back up!”

Once they’d all withdrawn to a safe distance, Foxy shook herself in place, set all four legs, braced, and yanked her head out of the ground.

The nine-tailed silver fox—caked in dirt—sat there in a daze with her front paws braced on the ground. A ring of stone still hung around her neck, not fully broken. Her eyes looked unfocused.

After a long moment, she shook her head, snapped the remaining stone free, and sent sand and gravel spraying.

Yu Sheng dodged a falling chunk of rock and looked up at her. “Foxy! How do you feel?”

“My head’s buzzing,” Foxy said honestly. Her gaze was still a little unfixed, but she lowered her head and nudged Yu Sheng with her nose. “It’s rumbling in my ears. Rumbling, rumbling.”

Yu Sheng couldn’t help laughing. Of course it was buzzing. A crew in powered armor had been drilling around her skull for half an hour. Anyone would be dazed.

“Can’t be helped. Digging you out was a pain,” he said. “The rocks and crystals around your head fused into one solid block.”

Foxy shook again, flicking off debris. Her expression brightened as she finally seemed to come fully back to herself. She stuck out her tongue and gave Yu Sheng a lick that nearly sent him flying.

A moment later, thunder rumbled from her belly.

“Benefactor… hungry. Food.”

Yu Sheng’s head rang from the lick, and cold sweat broke out at the words. He recovered fast, though, and opened a door wide enough for Foxy’s demon-fox form to walk through.

“Food, food. I already contacted the Special Operations Bureau,” he said. “Their cafeteria has everything ready for you.”

Foxy looked through the doorway. On the other side was the Bureau cafeteria—and familiar, friendly serving masters.

Her eyes lit up.

Yu Sheng saw only a flash of white. By the time he blinked, Foxy had already vanished into the cafeteria.

Irene lay on Yu Sheng’s shoulder, craned her head through the door, and sighed. “What a brutal battle…”

“It’s fine,” Yu Sheng said. “The people at the Special Operations Bureau are battle-tested. They’ve seen it all—”

Engineer Sun stood nearby, sweating in his armor. He looked through the door at the whirlwind of eating already beginning, shook his head, and silently pitied his coworkers.

Then he focused back on the job.

“So… we start digging?”

“Start,” Yu Sheng said, nodding. He raised a hand and pointed at the pit Foxy had made with her head, using the blood-built link to sense the faint residual reactions deep underground. “Right there. I’ll guide you on the rough structure beneath.”

—

Shu Ji, Ink City.

The rain still hadn’t stopped.

Xuan Che returned to the City Lord’s residence again—this time at the invitation of City Lord Mo Ran.

At Xuan Che’s request as an Immortal Envoy, Mo Ran had contacted Shu Ji’s Star-Guardian Elder yesterday. Today, she’d invited him into the city. By the time you did the math, he should be arriving any moment now.

Xuan Che waited in the receiving room. While he waited, he read the messages Yu Sheng had sent about what happened far away on Garrison-3.

The eerie crystal jungle. The “Yun Qing Zi” that appeared within the clusters. The strange signal from deep underground. The kind of echo that seemed to stretch across the stars between Garrison-3 and Shu Ji…

Xuan Che stood by the window, frowning as he stared at the curtain of rain.

His divine sense spread outward, little by little, covering the entire City Lord’s residence before reaching farther, probing the border city hidden under the downpour.

Everything looked normal. People moved along the roads. The central district still bustled. Even if the old mining backbone had declined, Ink City was still the largest city on this planet—prosperous by any reasonable standard.

And yet, something felt wrong.

A chill. A strange, soaked-through wrongness, like the endless rain outside had seeped into everything and draped itself over the world. It made his mind restless.

After receiving the message from Garrison-3, that unease only sharpened.

A presence approached.

Xuan Che reined in his focus at once, smoothed his expression, and turned toward the receiving room door.

The door opened. City Lord Mo Ran appeared in the doorway.

Poised and steady, she offered Xuan Che a formal salute. “Immortal Envoy, sorry to keep you waiting. Elder Dao Heng has arrived.”

She stepped half a pace aside, as if to let someone enter, and lifted her hand in introduction. “This is Shu Ji’s Star Warden, Elder Dao Heng.”

Then she gestured toward Xuan Che. “Elder Dao Heng, this is the Immortal Envoy from the Grand Void Spiritual Axis, Immortal Elder Xuan Che, here on behalf of Thousand Peak Spirit Mountain.”

The room went silent.

Xuan Che stood by the window, calm as still water, looking at Mo Ran… and the space beside her.

There were only two people in the room.

At the doorway—there was no one else.