Meanwhile, on the Star City side, He Jin and Luo Siying had returned and honestly reported the group's attitude to Jiang Yue.
Jiang Yue wasn't surprised in the least. Those guys were putting on airs and pretending to be aloof, all just to throw them off.
If the other side had been willing to get close to the Star City team, Jiang Yue would have found it surprising. Keeping them at arm's length was the smartest choice they could make.
By keeping their distance and doing their own thing, they could ensure there was no risk of their secret—pledging themselves to the Bizarre Tree—being exposed.
"Captain Jiang, there are only thirty or forty of them, yet they've asked to take charge of four gates. We can't agree to that. I don't think those guys actually plan to deal with the formations' remnants at each gate. They're making an outrageous demand because they want to preserve as many remnants as possible, probably to prepare for the Underground Race to rise again someday."
That was He Jin's assessment.
Luo Siying agreed. "With so few people, they want to take four gates all at once. On the surface, it looks like they're competing with us for credit, but they must have something else in mind."
Jiang Yue smiled. "That doesn't matter. The foundations of all eight gates in this defensive formation have been completely destroyed. On top of that, the outer layer of the formation has been almost leveled by the saturation bombardment. Restarting it would be out of the question without a few months and plenty of people."
"So we don't need to worry about the formation for now?"
Jiang Yue nodded with complete confidence. "The so-called cleanup of the formation's remnants is just a pretext I made up to mislead them.