The Federal Parliament's Smiling Faces

The night was as dark as ink, and a cold moon hung high in the sky shrouded in radioactive dust. Moonlight pierced through the thin layer of dust and shone on the scorched earth, giving it an eerie grayish-white hue.

Xie Xie stood at the edge of the ruins, raised his arms above his head, and stretched hard, his spine cracking all over, as if he was squeezing out all the pent-up energy from the shelter he had been holding in for days.

"Mmm! Ah! It's so much more comfortable outside!"

He looked up at the moon. Although the moonlight was murky and there was a burnt smell in the air, compared to the mixed smell of disinfectant and blood in the shelter, the air here could be described as "fresh".

"Yes, yes!" Tang Wulin chimed in, bending down to pick up a fragment of stone that had been heated to a glassy state from the ground. He examined it closely, seemingly studying its material.

He was wearing a protective suit specially made by Yun Jingheng. The silver-gray fabric gleamed faintly with a metallic sheen under the moonlight, making him look like a walking iron pillar.

"Jing Heng's skill in making Soul Tool is truly amazing!"

Xie Xie patted his protective suit and tapped the small radiation alarm hanging at his waist. "It's so thin, yet it can withstand this level of radiation. When did he learn to make something like this?"

"Yeah yeah!"

"... Could you change your line?"

Xie Xie finally couldn't hold back any longer. He turned around and looked at Tang Wulin, his expression indescribable. "When I praise our brother, all you can say is 'Yeah, yeah'? Can't you have some other reaction? Like praising him with me, or telling me when he secretly learned how to make protective suits?"

Tang Wulin threw away the glass fossil in his hand, dusted off his hands, thought seriously for a moment, and then looked at Xie Xie very honestly. "I don't know. He never lets anyone see him when he's making things."

Xie Xie a deep breath, preparing to launch into a long speech, when Tang Wulin suddenly reached out and pressed down on his shoulder. The pressure wasn't heavy, but it was very sudden.

Xie Xie by his pressing down, and the words he was about to say came to an abrupt halt.

"There is light." Tang Wulin's voice was extremely low, almost a whisper.

His eyes were slightly narrowed beneath the transparent mask, and a flash of purple light flickered deep within his pupils.

Xie Xie reacted even faster.

His mouth was still open, but no sound came out.

The two didn't need to exchange glances; their years of combat experience allowed their bodies to react before their brains could. They crouched down, held their breath, and squatted against the edge of the half-collapsed wall, completely hiding themselves in the shadows.

In the distance, on the horizon at the edge of the ruins, a string of lights is slowly moving.

The light spots are arranged neatly, in groups of three with uniform spacing, which is the standard headlight array of Federation military guided vehicle.

As the deep roar of the engine grew closer, the outlines of the light spots gradually became clear.

Three six-wheeled armored vehicles, painted in the Federation Army's standard dark gray camouflage, with small Soul Guidance Cannon mounted on their roofs, the muzzles of the cannons swaying slightly with the speed of the vehicles.

The car windows were tinted, but from the side, you could vaguely see several people in military uniforms sitting inside.

The three vehicles stopped about a hundred meters away from where the two men were hiding. The engines were still running and the headlights were on, illuminating the ruins within a hundred-meter radius.

Xie Xie and Tang Wulin exchanged a glance.

This single glance contains a wealth of information.

Federation Army?

What are they doing here? Search and rescue?

No, what search and rescue convoy would carry a turret?

Patrol? Would a patrol convoy dare to park its vehicles next to ruins at a time like this?

After they locked eyes, they almost simultaneously held their breath.

The hydraulic struts on the car door emitted a piercing exhaust sound; someone had gotten out.

Both men were wearing standard Federation military combat uniforms, their rank insignia gleaming under the car headlights.

A slender man held a cigarette between his fingers, the red glow of the cigarette tip flickering in the night.

The other was burly, with a standard-issue soul-guided pistol hanging from his waist. The holster was undone, clearly indicating he was ready to draw his weapon at any moment.

"This wretched place isn't even home to a bug."

The thin officer took a drag of his cigarette, exhaled a smoke ring, and said with obvious annoyance, "I don't know what the higher-ups were thinking, sending us to patrol places like this. The radioactive dust is so thick; if we stay here too long, we'll have to undergo full-body decontamination when we get back. It's a real hassle."

"There's nothing we can do; this is Shrek."

The burly officer's voice was deep and rough, like two pieces of sand rubbing against each other. "The higher-ups said they want to see the person alive or dead. Even if all that's left is a handful of ashes, they have to sift through it to confirm."

Tang Wulin calmly activated the communicator on his wristband and began recording.

"Confirm my ass."

The officer smoking chuckled and flicked his cigarette ash. "Those two God-Slaying Level bombs collided, and there was another God-Slaying Level that landed next to Chuan Ling. The explosive yield of those three bombs—you saw the battle report, didn't you?"

"The entire surface of Shrek City was burned to glass, and nothing grows within a 700-kilometer radius. Anyone who could survive in this situation must either have burrowed thousands of meters underground before the explosion, or they must be a god. Does this ruin look like a place where gods live?"

"Doesn't look like it."

The burly officer answered crisply, "But an order is an order. Besides, don't you think the parliament doesn't really care whether there are any survivors?"

Upon hearing this, the smoking officer paused for a moment, then let out a very soft laugh through his nose.

The laughter was so short that Xie Xie almost thought it was his imagination, but Tang Wulin clearly heard it too, his back tensing up almost imperceptibly.

He heard every single word the two officers uttered while holding his breath.

Then he heard a word—parliament.

"Too."

The smoking officer took another drag of his cigarette, this time exhaling an even larger smoke ring. His tone became more casual, as if he were discussing something trivial that didn't concern him. "Shrek Academy has suppressed all other forces for tens of thousands of years, and no one dared to utter a sound. Now look what's happened; once the God-Slaying Level drops down, they're all gone."

"You didn't see the expressions on the faces of those old guys in parliament when they heard the news—they made a solemn declaration of 'deepest condolences,' but the moment the meeting room door closed, their eyes practically disappeared from their grin."

"The dark green college flag can finally become a thing of the past."

"Those old guys in Parliament were overjoyed. Didn't you hear? The night the news was confirmed, several offices in Parliament and the military were brightly lit all night long—not just working overtime."

"That's a celebration."

The smoking officer muttered a reply, his tone carrying a complex meaning—not entirely contempt, nor entirely agreement, but more like indifference.

He paused, bent down, and stubbed out his cigarette on the rubble at his feet. "Shrek is blocking too many people's way. The military wants their Soul Tool Technology, the council wants their territory, and the Spirit Pagoda wants their Soul Spirit resources."

"They were too powerful before, and no one dared to touch them. Now that they're gone, do you think no one will take advantage of their misfortune?"

The burly officer didn't speak, but only gave a cold laugh.

The laughter was short, as short as the smoking officer's earlier laugh, but the meaning it contained was completely different.

"Shrek is really amazing. They managed to secretly develop a level 12 Fixed Soul Guidance Cannonball without any data. If they had the data, they might even be able to develop a level 13 one."

"This is probably fate. The era of Shrek Academy is over. The future of the continent will belong to the Spirit Pagoda and the military."

The smoking officer sighed, then turned and walked towards the armored vehicle. "Let's go. There's nothing to see in this godforsaken place. Go back and write the report—'No signs of life found in the patrol area,' that's exactly what the higher-ups want."

"What about the underground shelters?"

The burly officer's voice came from the direction of the ruins, tinged with undisguised Greed, "The battle report says that some of the trainees may have retreated into the underground fortifications."

"The entrance to the underground fortifications was sealed off by tens of meters of radioactive lava."

The smoking officer waved his hand without turning his head, "With current technology, it would take at least three months to dig it open. Even if someone is hiding inside, they'll have suffocated from lack of food and water by then."

"What's the rush? Once they're completely rotten, everything inside will be ours: Shrek's Soul Tool repository, inherited cultivation techniques, research materials, and all those treasures that have been hidden in the Sea God Pavilion for ten thousand years. Do you think the Council's plans are any less sophisticated than ours?"

The two men got back into the vehicle, the armored vehicle's engine roared to life, and the three vehicles slowly turned around. The headlights swept a huge fan-shaped band of light across the ruins before gradually disappearing into the distance. The red lights at the rear of the vehicles grew smaller and smaller in the night, eventually vanishing below the horizon at the edge of the ruins.

A deathly silence once again enveloped this scorched earth.

The moonlight remained hazy, and the wind was still silent, with only the occasional faint crackling sound of brittle rocks splitting open in the distance as they expanded and contracted with heat.

Xie Xie and Tang Wulin straightened up from behind the broken wall.

Both of them simultaneously placed their right hands on their left shoulders.

A very thin silver-blue light shone from the edge of the button, spreading outwards along the shoulder seams of the protective suit in all directions, covering the entire protective suit inch by inch with the button as the center.

Where the light rays passed, the silver-gray fabric began to glow slightly.

Each nanofiber, guided by the light filament, is freed from its protective form that clings tightly to the body, slowly relaxing, contracting, and reorganizing.

The two carefully put away the badges attached to their left shoulders and stared at the direction the car had gone for a long time.

"They want to kill us..."

"They are too Greed."

"Has the video been released? What's the current situation?"

"It's already been sent. Let's wait for Yuan En and the other two. Xing Lan is going to act with Jing Heng. Jing Heng and I will discuss the time and find an opportunity to insert the USB drive."

"Hopefully they won't regret their decision."

"Hmph! It's no use regretting it now."