Emergency Protection Mission

The Pope Palace bedroom.

Crack!

The rosewood armrest shattered with a sharp snap, splinters digging into Bibi Dong's palm. She didn't notice.

She stared fixedly at the words "bathe together" on the Light Screen. This was the third time she'd read them.

Her blood roared, scorching from her neck to the top of her head. Her temples throbbed, as if they were about to burst.

"This damn system, has it gone mad?!"

Before the words had even left her mouth,

a scarlet warning sounded. Like a bucket of ice water poured over her head, it instantly split apart all the shame and fury churning in her mind.

[Emergency Protection Mission: A spy from the Worship Hall is forcing his way into the Library Pavilion, attempting to contact the Lord of Creation. Stop him immediately! Reward: Slight increase in mental strength.]

The expression on Bibi Dong's face turned cold in an instant.

This wasn't the embarrassment and annoyance she'd felt over previous system missions. This was true, bone-deep killing intent.

"The Worship Hall."

She spoke the three words softly.

But the armrest beneath her hand had already crumbled to dust.

Those old fossils had dared to reach into her forbidden grounds?

She didn't put on the Pope's crown. She didn't summon the Eight Spider Lances.

Bibi Dong rose from her throne and became a streak of purple-black light. She smashed straight through the window lattice, leaving a fading shadow in the night wind as she rushed toward the Library Pavilion!

She hadn't even realized that, from beginning to end, she hadn't needed the system to prompt her a second time.

The perimeter blockade around the Library Pavilion.

The morning mist was damp and cold.

A middle-aged man in a gray servant's robe ambled toward the area, carrying a toolbox.

His face was unremarkable, his gait casual. Nothing about him seemed out of place.

The leading Temple Knight drew his sword and held its blade steady, three inches from the man's chest.

"By order of the Pope, this is a level-one forbidden area. Trespassers will be killed! Back away!"

The middle-aged man stopped, not even glancing at the sword.

The corner of his mouth slowly curled up. With a flick of his sleeve, a dark-gold token fell into his palm.

A Six-Winged Angel was engraved on it in lifelike detail.

The Elder Token of the Worship Hall!

The soul pressure emanating from the token spread silently. It wasn't the crushing might of power, but the suffocating weight of authority itself.

The Worship Hall was the true foundation of Spirit Hall, an entity that stood above the Pope.

The hands of several Temple Knights began to tremble around their swords. The leading knight's blade wavered half an inch, but he didn't lower it.

The middle-aged man glanced at him, his tone as casual as if he were making small talk.

"Routine inspection of the damp-proof formation. Move aside."

"Stop!"

Hasty footsteps approached. Angela, dressed in red, rushed to the front and stood before the others, her feet planted firmly on the ground.

"I recognize only the Pope's Decree!" Her voice trembled, but she bit down hard on every word.

The middle-aged man's smile vanished.

He stared at Angela, then shifted his gaze to the wooden door behind her. His eyes turned cold.

"Cardinal, are you sure you want to stop me?"

Soul Power erupted!

A high-ranking Soul King!

The phantom of a pale golden Soul Ring appeared in the depths of his pupils. A terrifying pressure bore down on Angela!

Angela's knees buckled, but she held her ground, veins bulging at her temples.

The knights behind her were jolted back a step, their armor clattering in a chaotic chorus.

The spy raised his foot, about to cross the blockade.

Inside the Library Pavilion.

Su Chen was roused by the fluctuations of Soul Power outside the door.

He remained seated in the bamboo chair and silently activated the Eye of Omniscience.

[Target not bound to a system. Displaying surface-level information only: high-ranking spy from the Worship Hall, with a Qian System custom mark on the back of his neck.]

Su Chen's eyes narrowed slightly.

The Worship Hall had finally lost its patience.

The sixteen peaceful years he'd spent lying low were bound to end the moment Bibi Dong stepped through this door.

His gaze swept past the gray marker representing the spy and landed on another red dot, moving at incredible speed.

Bibi Dong's coordinates were hurtling toward him at a speed that defied the laws of physics.

Su Chen reached out and casually tugged his collar askew.

Then he curled up in the depths of the bamboo chair, hunching his shoulders. His face turned deathly pale, and his breathing grew ragged.

Professional.

A useless invalid, barely recovered from a serious illness, frightened out of his wits by high-level Soul Power. The performance was entirely convincing.

He quietly waited for the show to begin.

The spy's toes were barely half an inch from the blockade.

The sky went dark.

There were no clouds. The light itself had been snuffed out by an overbearing will!

A column of purple-black light plunged straight down from the heavens, striking the paving stones less than a foot in front of the spy.

Boom—!

The ground exploded!

Granite fragments flew in every direction, and the flagstones beyond the blockade were lifted in a row by the blast.

The shock wave surged through the spy's limbs and organs. His high-ranking Soul King's Soul Power defense was as thin as a cicada's wing before this force.

Crack!

The sound of his kneecaps breaking was sharp and grating.

The spy's knees slammed into the ground, and his whole body dropped a full span.

The dark-gold Elder Token flew from his hand and bounced twice across the ground.

He was just about to speak,

when a military boot came down precisely on the token.

Crack!

Bibi Dong's sole ground the Six-Winged Angel's wings beneath it, crushing the dark-gold token that represented supreme authority right into the crack in the granite!

Angela dropped to her knees.

Every Temple Knight dropped to their knees.

Not because they'd been ordered to, but because their legs had gone too weak to hold them up.

Bibi Dong stood on the token's shattered remains, looking down at the spy in the crater. Her face showed no rage, only an utterly chilling calm.

"Do you think a pack of old dogs like you can meddle in my forbidden grounds?"

The spy spat out blood mixed with several broken teeth.

His bloodshot eyes were fixed on the fragments of the token beneath Bibi Dong's feet. Terror tore through him.

She was mad!

That woman had gone completely mad!

She had crushed the Worship Hall's Elder Token. She'd torn all pretense aside in public, slapping those old fossils hard across the face!

Bibi Dong looked away, her voice indifferent.

"Throw him out of the inner city."

Two Temple Knights scrambled forward, hauled the spy up, and dragged him away at a run.

A long, dark-red streak of blood remained across the paving stones.

Angela lay prostrate on the ground, trembling like a leaf. She didn't dare lift her head.

Bibi Dong didn't look at her.

She turned around, her gaze passing through the crack in the door and falling on the bamboo recliner inside the Library Pavilion.

Su Chen was curled up on the chair, his collar askew, his face pale, his shoulders shaking violently.

The furrow between Bibi Dong's brows eased slightly.

A mechanical voice sounded in her mind.

[Ding—Emergency Protection Mission complete! Reward issued: Slight increase in mental strength.]

A cool current flowed into her Sea of Divine Consciousness, calming her roiling killing intent.

Bibi Dong withdrew her gaze and turned to leave.

Her steps were steady. She didn't look back.

Only the corner of her mouth pressed down ever so faintly, as though she were suppressing an emotion she shouldn't have felt.

Half an hour later, in a dark alley in Spirit City's outer district.

The spy leaned against a moldy wall, his legs twisted at unnatural angles.

With the only hand he could still move, his right, he pried a Miniature Soul Guidance Communication Bird from a hidden pocket in his sleeve and infused it with the last wisp of his Soul Power.

The secret message finished burning onto it.

The communication bird beat its wings, but didn't fly toward the Angel Temple.

It avoided every patrol route, skimmed over the city wall, and finally landed in a deep valley a hundred miles outside the city.

At the bottom of the valley, a gaunt hand, thin as a ghost's claw, reached out of the darkness and caught it.

The Library Pavilion.

The stench of blood had faded.

Su Chen sat upright in the bamboo chair and dusted off a speck of nonexistent lint from his collar.

A golden notification appeared on the Light Screen.

[Binder No. 001 has completed the protection mission. Lord of Creation's hundredfold critical-return effect activated! Reward obtained: Mental strength increased a hundredfold! Sea of Divine Consciousness expanded by 20%!]

A warm current flowed into the Sea of Divine Consciousness, and the World Tree's crown spread a little farther.

Su Chen closed his eyes, feeling his mental strength surge.

Fantastic!

In the corner of the Light Screen, the favorability score quietly jumped.

[Favorability: 23→28]