Warehouse Incident

Night,

Gusts of breeze, carrying the sand and dust of the Western Wilderness, blew into the army's garrison.

Nights in the Western Legion were quiet. The soldiers' daytime training had already been exhausting enough; once they returned, they collapsed into sleep. The tents in the camp stood in neat rows, and the occasional faint snore drifted out from within—the soldiers had entered sweet dreams.

Few people moved about the camp. The occasional patrolling soldier would even lighten his footsteps, afraid of disturbing his comrades' rest.

Yet tonight's tranquility was shattered by an abrupt black figure. Like a ghost, the figure silently slipped out from between the camp tents.

His movements were as light as a phantom in the night sky. Every step landed precisely within the shadows, as though he had merged with the darkness itself.

He seemed intimately familiar with the camp's layout, cleverly avoiding the patrol soldiers' line of sight and evading the scans of the soul-guided detectors in the sky.

Whenever a patrol soldier turned around, whenever a detector's beam swept past, he was always able to conceal himself at just the right moment.

At last, he reached the outer perimeter of the camp's soul-guided barrier. The barrier was a sturdy line of defense for the camp, radiating a faint glow like a transparent screen that isolated the camp from the outside world.

He took a small soul-guided interference device from his clothes. Its surface was engraved with mysterious soul-guided runes that emitted a dim glow.

His hands rapidly operated the device as soul power circulated through them, making the runes flash more intensely.

With his manipulation, a brief flaw appeared in the soul-guided barrier. Like a black vortex, it flickered across the barrier and vanished.

In that fleeting instant, several figures swiftly vaulted in from outside the camp. Their movements were equally agile, and they made not the slightest sound when they landed.

They wore fitted black outfits, with black cloth covering their faces and revealing only pairs of sharp eyes. Their objective was clear as they rushed toward the Western Legion's warehouse.

Inside the camp, the patrolling soldiers continued their rounds in an orderly fashion, seemingly completely unaware that danger had silently descended.

The soul-guided detectors in the sky continued tirelessly scanning the area around the camp, but that momentary flaw had already disappeared, as though nothing had ever happened.

Yet an undercurrent was quietly brewing beneath this seemingly peaceful night.

Base Warehouse

This warehouse stood in the northern part of the base and stored more than half of the Western Legion's fixed-installation soul-guided artillery shells below Grade Seven.

The warehouse doors were forged from heavy alloy and covered in complex, precise rune arrays. They shimmered with an eerie blue glow, as though warning anyone who dared try to break in.

The black figure skillfully inserted two keys into the keyholes on either side of the doors. The keys fit the locks perfectly, producing a soft click.

Yet the doors did not open. A special password still had to be entered, but just then, the uniformed figure, Lieutenant Colonel Zhang, suddenly stopped.

His body trembled slightly, and a trace of hesitation and struggle showed in his eyes.

Lieutenant Colonel Zhang slowly turned around to face the others, his voice low and restrained. "I brought you in, just as you asked. Where is my family now? I need to make sure they're still alive."

His gaze remained fixed on their eyes, trying to find even the slightest clue about his family's safety.

The leading black figure let out a low, cold laugh. "Hehe, Lieutenant Colonel Zhang, don't worry. For the sake of our long-term cooperation, of course we won't kill them." As he spoke, he pulled a pink hair clip from his clothes and slowly handed it over.

A tiny cartoon character was set into the hair clip. Under the dim light, it looked especially absurd.

The instant Lieutenant Colonel Zhang saw the pink hair clip, his gaze sharpened. His hands clenched unconsciously, his knuckles turning white from the force.

He recognized it as his daughter's favorite hair clip, the one she wore every time she went out. Thinking that his daughter might be in danger at this very moment, fury instantly surged into his heart.

"You!" Lieutenant Colonel Zhang's eyes widened in rage. The hand holding the hair clip trembled slightly, as if he were about to explode. His chest heaved violently like that of an enraged lion.

Yet when he thought of his family's safety, that fury gradually died away. His brows drew tightly together, and pain appeared on his face.

In the end, he could only let out a helpless sigh, his eyes filled with unwillingness and helplessness.

He slowly walked to the password lock, drew a deep breath, and tried his best to calm himself.

His fingers lightly tapped the password lock. Every tap seemed to strike his heart. As the final number was entered, the doors gave a low rumble and slowly opened.

A pungent smell of gunpowder rushed toward them. Rows upon rows of fixed-installation soul-guided artillery shells were neatly arranged inside the warehouse, gleaming with metallic luster beneath the lights.

Lieutenant Colonel Zhang stood at the entrance, looking at the scene before him with a tangled mix of emotions.

He knew that what he had done might bring enormous disaster upon the Western Legion, but for his family's safety, he had no other choice. Silently, he prayed that it would all end quickly and that his family would remain safe.

"Very good, Lieutenant Colonel Zhang. You're a smart man. A pleasant cooperation!" The man in black nodded in satisfaction.

Just as he stepped into the warehouse and prepared to collect and transfer the soul-guided artillery shells—

Suddenly, a shrill, piercing alarm tore through the once-silent night like the roar of an enraged primordial beast.

It whirled and shook wildly above the base. Every blast hammered against people's eardrums, filling them with fear.

More than a dozen high-powered soul-guided searchlights, like a dozen small suns, instantly turned the dim surroundings around them bright as day. Blazing beams converged from every direction, shooting directly at the area where the men in black stood.

The light was glaringly white, nearly impossible to look at.

Beneath that intense illumination, the men in black were like clowns exposed at center stage, with every movement and expression laid bare.

From the surrounding buildings, squads of well-trained soldiers poured out like wolves. They wore uniform military attire and carried advanced soul-guided weapons, their eyes bearing the Western Legion's characteristic resolve and courage.

The soldiers swiftly formed a tight encirclement around the warehouse, trapping the men in black firmly in the middle.

"You've got some nerve, setting your sights on my Western Legion."

A figure slowly stepped out from the crowd. He stood tall and straight like an unshakable steel fortress, radiating the iron-blooded aura of a veteran of countless battles. This man was the commander of the Western Legion—Limit Douluo Dong Zi'an, the Rank 99 Fierce Wolf Douluo.

His face was resolute and cold. The scar slanting from the corner of his left eye down to his cheek was like a savage centipede, adding several degrees of chilling majesty to his presence. His eyes gleamed sharply, every glance like a keen blade that could pierce into a person's heart.

Behind him, Minister Li, Xie Jiayun, and the other senior officers filed out one after another.

One of them seemed to realize that the situation had turned bad. His eyes flickered as he was just about to secretly make a move.

Dong Zi'an keenly caught that subtle change. He narrowed his eyes slightly, and a fierce look shot toward the man like lightning. In an instant, a vast and terrifying power of space surged from his body. Like invisible shackles, it instantly enveloped the entire warehouse.

The black figure who had tried to act felt as if the space around him had frozen solid. His body was tightly locked by an overwhelming force, and he could not move even a finger.

The surrounding air seemed to suddenly become heavy, crushing him until he could barely breathe. He could clearly feel the strength of that spatial power—a force beyond his understanding that filled him with despair.

Dong Zi'an coldly looked at the immobilized black figure, the corner of his mouth lifting into a disdainful sneer.

Without even looking at them again, he turned and left, leaving behind only a voice that echoed through the warehouse like muffled thunder. "You're not qualified to cause trouble on the Western Legion's territory."

Minister Li immediately gave the order as well, instructing the surrounding soldiers to seize them.

"Arrest them and send them to the Intelligence Department for a thorough interrogation!"

"Yes!"