You're the Challenger

At the harbor exit.

Yun Meng looked at Tiandao and Caroline, who had finally arrived after making her wait several minutes, and could not help asking, "Little Tiandao, Caroline, why are you so late?"

Tiandao shamelessly argued, "Sister Yun, it was all because Caroline hadn't seen much of the world and insisted on dragging me to get a good look at the giant jellyfish in the distance. Otherwise, I would've come out ages ago."

"Oh? Really?"

Yun Meng looked at Tiandao with a half-smile, clearly not buying his nonsense.

After all, from what she knew of Tiandao, it would already be impressive if even one out of ten things he said was reliable.

As for Caroline, she could not even be bothered to say anything. She simply rolled her eyes at Tiandao.

She did not want to argue too much with an immature brat. It was beneath her!

At the same time, seeing Tiandao open his eyes and spout lies the moment he came out—

The premium members on Station 13, who were watching this episode through Advance Playback, mercilessly exposed Tiandao's clumsy lie.

'Oh-ho, just making it up as he goes? Hax Tian, you really are a bad guy.'

'Tiandao Siming, a man who is nearly perfect aside from his personality and his mouth.'

'A man's mouth is a lying ghost.'

Faced with the nearly one-sided condemnation on the Dimensional Screen, Tiandao indifferently adjusted his sunglasses.

What a joke. A well-intentioned lie did not count as a lie at all.

By the same logic, fabricated facts could naturally still be facts!

Tiandao had not made this stuff up himself. He had learned it from the "Brahmin Mahayana Winning Studies" of an ancient Eastern civilization from his previous life.

The core principle was simple: as long as I stubbornly refuse to admit it, then what I say is the truth. Victory!

It was fortunate that the comments did not know what Tiandao was thinking.

Otherwise, they would definitely have spammed the four words "shameless beyond belief" across the entire screen.

"Alright, now that everyone's here, follow me. Don't keep them waiting too long."

Without dwelling on such an insignificant matter, Yun Meng immediately announced their next destination.

Upon hearing this, Tiandao and the others dragged their suitcases after her toward the open-air parking lot outside.

Because of Advance Playback, the viewers currently watching this episode had already seen the previous one ahead of time.

In the previous episode, Doctor had explained in detail the contents of Tiandao and the others' mission, as well as exactly what they needed to accomplish during it.

Simply put, Tiandao and the others' mission this time was to protect a wealthy young lady named Isabelle for one month.

And while Tiandao and the others appeared to be Isabelle's main protectors on the surface—

In reality, they were more like early-warning devices.

Because the people truly responsible for protecting Isabelle were, first, Yun Meng, and second, Isabelle's father's personal bodyguard.

The Coral Knight, who possessed the strength of a Rank 2 Star Envoy.

For Yun Meng and the Coral Knight, two Rank 2 Star Envoys, along with several Rank 1 Star Envoys like Tiandao and the others, to protect her for an entire month—

Isabelle's identity was naturally anything but ordinary.

Her father was Dorian, the current richest man in Deep Blue Metropolis.

The reason Dorian was willing to pay such a tremendous price to hire the Ember Organization to protect his daughter Isabelle for a time—

Was because the Skysea Group under his control was currently facing an "internal revolt" capable of overturning his position.

A group of insatiably greedy people had naively believed the words of certain individuals with ulterior motives.

They had secretly joined forces in the shadows, intending to strike at a critical moment and completely reduce him, the president of the Skysea Group, to a figurehead.

Yet Dorian had controlled the enormous Skysea Group for so many years, so he was naturally no mediocre man.

After discovering their movements, not only did he refrain from immediately launching a counterattack—

He instead went along with the scheme, intending to use the opportunity to purge them all and seize complete control of the entire Skysea Group.

But that also meant he had to guard against these people taking desperate measures when driven into a corner.

For example, kidnapping his only daughter, Isabelle, and forcing him to hand over his shares.

Tiandao and the others had appeared precisely to prevent such a situation from happening.

However, although the story began with Dorian, the richest man in Deep Blue Metropolis—

The true eye of the storm for the entire plot was his daughter, Isabelle.

And Tiandao, who had read the original work in advance, knew this very well.

No matter how dangerous or perilous the situations that arose during this mission might seem—

They were all merely staged appearances.

Because all of it was the result of Dorian, the richest man, deliberately arranging things in order to eliminate the traitors within his group.

So from the very beginning, Tiandao had not taken this "bodyguard mission" to heart. He had simply treated it as an all-expenses-paid trip.

But if he remembered correctly, once they reached the parking lot, they should encounter the first "crisis" of the Deep Blue Metropolis Arc.

At that thought, a sharp glint flashed through Tiandao's eyes behind his sunglasses.

After resting for so long, it was finally time for him to add some scenes again.

Before long, his Popularity Points, which had been stagnant for some time, would surely surge once more!

The open-air parking lot outside the harbor.

The moment Caroline and the others stepped into the open-air parking lot, a strange, dense fog instantly appeared.

Not only had the fog come out of nowhere, but it spread at an astonishing speed.

In the blink of an eye, visibility had dropped to less than three meters.

"Tiandao?"

Caroline stared at the open-air parking lot, now suddenly shrouded in white fog, instinctively sensing that something was off.

She had specifically checked the weather outside when disembarking. It should have been a clear, sunny day, with no possibility of fog.

Yet such a heavy fog had risen here.

If Caroline still could not realize there was a problem at this point—

Then the title of Mechanical type would have been wasted on her.

But what surprised Caroline was that she had clearly called out, yet Tiandao beside her did not respond for a long time.

She abruptly turned her head and discovered that, aside from herself, the parking lot was completely empty.

Tiandao, who had been beside her all along, along with everyone else, had mysteriously vanished!

At the same time, the same thing happened to the siblings Chen Xing and Chen Kong.

Seeing the Protagonist Group forcibly split apart—

The viewers in the comments immediately understood that something had gone wrong.

'A crisis right after leaving the harbor? Does the production team have to be this deliberate?!'

'To summon such heavy fog in an instant, and even keep Rank 2 Star Envoy Yun Meng from noticing anything—the other side is no pushover!'

'Strange. Why did the production team only show Chen Kong, Chen Xing, and Caroline? Where's Tiandao?'

Amid the flood of confused comments, Tiandao's voice suddenly emerged from deep within the fog on-screen.

"Sister Yun, starting off this big right away—aren't you afraid you'll get Chen Kong and the others killed playing around like this?"

As the camera drew closer, the viewers quickly saw Tiandao walking out of the fog.

Tiandao wore sunglasses, both hands tucked into his pockets, with an incredibly relaxed expression, as though he had merely come here on vacation. This formed a stark contrast with the tense, enemy-facing expressions of Chen Kong and the others within the fog.

"Ms. Yun, this child must be the Starborn you always talk about and praise without end—Tiandao Siming, correct?"

Yun Meng nodded, then looked proudly at Tiandao as he emerged from the fog and said with a smile, "Well? I told you this test you insisted on arranging was completely unnecessary."

"Of the thirty-six children in our Star Project, any one of them would be a monster if placed outside, let alone Tiandao, a monster among monsters."

"So in my eyes, this so-called test is completely meaningless, because it simply cannot stump them."

"Oh, is that so?"

The Coral Knight turned to look at Tiandao in the distance, curiosity filling the gaze beneath the helmet.

"Ms. Yun, would you mind if I tested him personally? Do not misunderstand. I merely wish to see whether he truly is as you say—whether he alone can ensure the young lady's safety at the academy."

Yun Meng extended a hand, entirely unconcerned. "Be my guest."

"Then please forgive my offense."

Hearing their conversation, Tiandao slowly removed the sunglasses from his face, then swept all the loose hair from his forehead back with one hand.

In an instant, he gave himself a neat, refreshing slicked-back hairstyle.

Then he looked toward the Coral Knight walking toward him and smiled.

"Ah, it seems I've been underestimated. But—"

In an instant, Tiandao's originally carefree, lazy air vanished.

In its place was a terrifying, oppressive aura so intense it seemed almost tangible.

At the same time, the image in the anime instantly turned black and white, with Tiandao alone retaining his vivid colors.

As though, at this very moment, he was the ruler of heaven and earth.

"Don't talk about testing me, because... you're the challenger."

Upon hearing Tiandao's domineering declaration—

The comments on the Dimensional Screen instantly erupted!

PS: Pang Hu had found the perfect balance between the watch-along and the main story, and had successfully installed it.

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