Return

"Father!?"

Ina hadn't expected Jie La Er to suddenly appear here. This was the headquarters of the Skeleton Corps, and those two Skeleton Knight had just tried to get information about Jie La Er from her. And then Jie La Er just showed up like that.

But Jie La Er's words, "The New God intends to descend ahead of schedule," immediately silenced Ina's question, which was almost on the tip of her tongue, and turned her into even greater astonishment.

What does this mean?

Jie La Er glanced behind Ina to make sure no one was watching, then lowered his hat brim slightly and said in a low voice, "It means exactly what it says. Come with me. This isn't a good place to talk."

Then Jie La Er turned and left, and Ina took a deep breath and quickly followed.

"Bishop Ao Li Wei has suddenly returned," Ina asked. "Is what you just said related to him?"

"Of course," Jie La Er said. "Otherwise, I wouldn't have come all the way here to find you."

"You knew I was here?"

"I can always guess the general idea." Jie La Er turned to look at Ina, but after thinking for a moment, he decided not to say that "actually, my eyesight can see quite far." "After all, I used to work here, so I'm quite familiar with the procedures."

... Are you quite familiar with the procedures here?

Ina couldn't help but think of what the two skeleton Knight had said to her earlier.

"Last night, he was just using you as bait."

This made her feel a little dazed, and she almost bumped into Jie La Er's back.

"You seem a little distracted, Ina," Jie La Er's voice rang out again.

"I'm sorry... Father." Ina realized she couldn't afford to be confused at this moment, so she immediately cleared her mind and perked up. "But what you said before was quite surprising. Have you obtained any new information?"

Ina had expected Jie La Er to produce solid evidence or possess some new intelligence, but to Ina surprise, she saw a flicker of hesitation on Jie La Er's face after asking the question.

"There's no intelligence," Jie La Er shook his head and said. "If I had to say, it's just a gut feeling."

Ina was somewhat surprised. "Intuition?"

In her memory, her father rarely acted on intuition, because in Land of Corruption, vague intuition could kill people.

Jie La Er suddenly stopped, grabbed Ina's hand, and pressed his body against the wall.

At first, Ina didn't know what he was going to do, but soon she saw a skeleton Knight hurrying past them. From his perspective, he didn't see Jie La Er and Ina.

Ina was surprised by this level of insight.

Is this how Jie La Er got to where he is today?

No wonder no one noticed him.

But how exactly did he do it?

Ina felt that there were more and more things about Jie La Er that she couldn't understand.

"I don't know how to explain this to you," Jie La Er said, looking into Ina's eyes. "But I just have this feeling that the New God can't hold back any longer. When I came here, I saw Ao Li Wei giving a speech at the Tower of Babel. He said that the future would arrive in two days."

"Do you really believe that the future that will unfold in two days is...?"

"The New God," Jie La Er said softly, "Is the future in the eyes of the New Pursuit Society."

Ina's pupils narrowed slightly.

Two days later... New God will descend?

This is just... too fast.

As for Ina, she only learned about the existence of the New God and Lyra's current crisis from Jie La Er yesterday, and today she was told that the New God would descend in two days?!

She wasn't prepared at all; she didn't even know what she should do or what preparations she could make.

A whole host of questions flooded her mind, but Ina told herself not to rush and to tackle them one by one.

"Why two days later?" Ina asked. "Is this some kind of crucial day? According to you, the New God should arrive in half a month. Why is it so much earlier?"

"That's the crux of the matter, Ina," Jie La Er said in a deep voice. "He said heroes bring new hope. Who do you think he's talking about?"

Ina instinctively wanted to say "Night Star".

After all, it was almost ingrained in her bones, but she realized something was wrong as soon as she got the words out. The last member of Xiaoxing was already in front of her.

"Could it be... us?"

When Ina said "we," she was naturally referring to the Devil Squad.

"Yes," Jie La Er said. "The Devil Squad has definitely found something in the Contaminated Land and is bringing it back, and the time they will likely be..."

"Two days later." Ina suddenly understood. She murmured, "That New God wants to use what the Devil Squad brought back—that piece of corpse—to arrive ahead of schedule?!"

Jie La Er nodded.

Ina's expression immediately turned ugly.

After all, she is now a member of the Devil Squad, and her sense of belonging to the Devil Squad is not much different from Jie La Er's sense of belonging to Night Star back then.

So when she learned that her troops were bringing back something capable of destroying Lyra, becoming accomplices in Lyra destruction, she found it hard to accept.

"How could this be...?" Ina murmured. "So what we've been searching for all along was... to destroy Lyra? Could it be that the one controlling and leading the demons isn't the Lyra God, but... that New God?"

"This is not the time to think about such things, Ina," Jie La Er interrupted his daughter's musings. "We have more important things to do."

Ina looked up at Jie La Er.

"We cannot let that body part fall into the hands of the New God," Jie La Er said, emphasizing each word. "We must stop him."

"Stop him?" Ina asked. "You mean, intercept that body part beforehand?"

"It's not just that body part," Jie La Er said, "It's also the Purification Source Crystal."

"Purification Source Crystal?!" Ina was even more surprised. "You mean, the Devil Squad has found Purification Source Crystal?!"

That's what Ina has always wanted to find.

"Yes, Ina," Jie La Er said. "Retrieving the body parts alone won't do. We also need to Purification Source Crystal. Someone told me that Ao Li Wei was also corrupted by the New God. As the Bishop of Tower of Babel, Ao Li Wei has so much to do. We must use the Purification Source Crystal to cleanse the corruption from his mind."

... So you mean you have to cut off the body parts and the Purification Source Crystal at the same time?

Ina didn't notice Jie La Er's momentary slip of the tongue; she was more concerned with how to snatch those two items from the Devil Squad.

But before that...

How did Jie La Er know that the Devil Squad had already found the body parts and the Purification Source Crystal?

Even she, as the vice-captain, hadn't received the news yet.

Could this also be part of the extraordinary intuition that Jie La Er just displayed?

Jie La Er naturally noticed Ina's confusion, but he had no way of telling Ina the truth.

After all, Bai Wei told him all of this.

Before leaving, Jie La Er asked Bai Wei how he knew the Devil Squad had found his body parts and were on their way back.

Bai Wei's answer was simple, "Nonsense, your body is moving closer to you, can't you feel it?"

This answer was as self-evident as "Of course you eat with your mouth," leaving Jie La Er without a reason to refute it.

As for Bai Wei, the sudden action of that New God also surprised him.

He actually chose to bring forward the time of His descent again, which is much earlier than the timeline in the game.

Was it because they were forced into a corner, or did they have other plans?

Bai Wei couldn't be certain now, because there were too many variables, and it was no longer possible to fit the game's plot and timeline into it. That's why he decided to let Jie La Er act ahead of time, at least to prevent that New God from getting his tongue so easily.

However, for Ina, who was not very familiar with all of this, it was a little difficult to accept all the information at once.

Jie La Er also realized this and was thinking about how to explain it to Ina, but Ina spoke up at this moment.

"Father, after everything is over, will you tell me the whole truth?" she said softly.

Jie La Er turned his head and looked at Ina's face.

In that instant, the scene from last night resurfaced in Jie La Er's mind.

Tell her everything.

This is also what Ian wanted Jie La Er to do.

After a brief silence, Jie La Er replied softly, "Of course, I will tell you everything when the time comes."

Upon hearing this, Ina's previously uneasy mood immediately calmed down, as if she had been waiting for this promise.

"Yes, Father." Ina nodded slightly. "Then let's take back Lyra's future now."

You Li took a deep breath, and the heavy mask made a muffled "whoosh" sound.

"You seem a little uneasy, Lord You Li." A slightly shrill voice sounded behind You Li. You Li turned around and looked at the person behind him wearing the same mask as him. "You have completed your mission. As long as you deliver these things back safely, you will be a hero of Lyra."

"Is that so?" You Li said calmly. "Mr. Huo Ge Ni, are you referring to heroes like the former Night Star?"

"Heh, you're joking again, You Li," Huo Ge Ni said. "Why do you compare yourself to that infamous traitor? You are a true hero."

"If you hadn't brought so many people with you, I might have believed what you said."

"This is not a lack of trust in you, it's just the most basic security guarantee," Huo Ge Ni replied. "You haven't been to the city for a long time, so you probably don't know how chaotic it is. That Knight of the Evening Star is still causing us trouble, he's practically a terrorist."

You Li didn't speak; he simply shifted his gaze back to his team.

This is a large team of hundreds of people.

Just like primitive people, they used their manpower to pull carts loaded with piles of pollutant debris, like small mountains.

Because Gear Train cannot lay tracks to Contaminated Land, and animals cannot enter, the only way to transport people in Contaminated Land is through the simplest and most straightforward method: human labor.

Although Lyra possesses the most advanced technology in the world on the surface, here, they are no different from primitive people.

The reason they were transporting these massive amounts of pollutant debris was, of course, because of Huo Ge Ni.

Upon learning that the Devil Squad had found the Purification Source Crystal and the body parts, Huo Ge Ni rushed over immediately, bringing with him a large force that had been transferred from somewhere, requesting to cooperate with the Devil Squad.

In Lyra, no one has ever been able to coordinate with the Devil Squad.

You Li naturally wanted to refuse, but the problem was that the other party had brought Ao Li Wei's warrant.

Bishop Ao Li Wei of the Tower of Babel — You Li had almost forgotten this name. Ten years had passed, and this Bishop, who nominally held the greatest power in Lyra, had finally shown himself. This made You Li feel somewhat dazed, and he subconsciously thought that the warrant was forged.

However, it is true.

Bishop Ao Li Wei ordered the Devil Squad to work together with the troops brought by Huo Ge Ni, and in addition to Purification Source Crystal and body parts, they also had to haul away so many truckloads of huge pollutant wreckage.

This has never happened before.

They usually extract the pollutants into raw oil and then transport it back. This is the first time they've transported raw materials like this.

Because pollutants don't die until they are completely converted into source oil. Just like now, those remains are still constantly reviving and growing new bodies.

Therefore, the Devil Knight had to cut off the newly grown parts every once in a while to keep them under control.

The reason for doing this was simply to hide the body parts and the Purification Source Crystal.

Yes, nominally, these large pieces of debris were better raw materials, but in reality, Huo Ge Ni used them to hide the body parts and the Purification Source Crystal.

He stuffed those two things into the debris of the contaminated materials.

"The bodies of contaminants are strong enough to block all means of detection," Huo Ge Ni told You Li. "Even the best dogs can't find them by their noses."

You Li, naturally, didn't understand. He said calmly, "Do you think Xiaoxing could steal the item with so many guards around?"

"Hehe, Captain You Li, if you knew what Xiaoxing has been doing in the city lately, you would know that our caution towards him is justified," Huo Ge Ni said with a smile. "He's too much trouble, and these two things are too important. We really can't feel at ease without doing this. As it is now, only you and I know exactly where those two things are. This is the safest way."

You Li ignored Huo Ge Ni.

He just felt uneasy.

This sense of unease reached its peak the following evening.

Because they had finally returned to Lyra.

When they set foot on the land of Lyra, You Li suddenly had a very strange feeling.

It was as if... the city's breathing had suddenly become heavier.