Remnant Star Society

Smack!

The moment Mo Bai saw the canister, he summoned the Divine Dogs and had one carry it to Lynae.

He also noticed the man pinned beneath him perk up when he summoned his Shikigami.

"Heh. You really think you can take me down that easily?"

A smile spread across the spy's face as he spoke.

Beep!

Mo Bai caught a flash of red light on the man's white teeth.

He's probably using a backup plan or calling for help. "Lynae, could you take that thing to Professor Mornye at the Academy and have her examine it?"

Thud.

With that, Mo Bai knocked the spy unconscious.

He had wanted to see if he could get anything out of him, but the man was a suicide operative.

Still, Mo Bai had learned something. The way the spy had stared at his hand signs told him plenty.

"You mean I should head back while you stay here alone?" Lynae gripped the canister, hesitating.

"Yeah. He probably called his accomplices, and they're bound to be coming for me. If we ride back together, they'll intercept us. I might as well wait for them here."

Mo Bai recalled the Divine Dogs for the moment.

Seeing that he had made up his mind, Lynae stopped trying to persuade him.

After all, someone really did need to get the canister back.

She headed toward the parked Motorcycle.

When Lynae and Mo Bai first met, he had made it clear that he did not want to reveal his abilities.

In her experience, the Remnant Star Society was full of lunatics and perverts. They would go to any lengths to get their hands on something rare and unusual.

"Oh, right. Lynae, you've worked undercover before, haven't you? If you can, look into Verlaine," Mo Bai said.

Both Verlaine and the spy had shown an interest in learning everything they could about his abilities.

As far as Mo Bai was concerned, Verlaine had been on his blacklist for a while.

"I know. Come back soon, or the teacher for our next class will catch us skipping and dock our participation marks."

Even now, Lynae was reminding him about something so trivial.

But it also meant she had no doubt he would win.

Likewise, Mo Bai trusted her to deliver the canister safely to Professor Mornye.

He had named Mornye specifically because she was close to Rover, which made him feel more at ease.

Vroom!

As Lynae rode off, Mo Bai spotted another group approaching from the distance.

They wore red from head to toe, and every one of them had a mask covering their face.

They were Artificers of the Remnant Star Society, despised in every nation.

Beep—

Then Mo Bai noticed something targeting him.

Boom!

A deafening blast shook the broad plain.

A Remnant Star Society member in the distance had fired a missile at him.

"Hope I don't get dragged in for another lecture."

Mo Bai muttered as he looked at the huge crater nearby.

He had already used Cursed Energy to accelerate out of the way when the missile was launched.

Whoosh!

But the instant he dodged it, two figures appeared silently behind him.

Clang!

Mo Bai spun around and drew the Swift Blade at his waist, blocking both attacks.

[Blackstone Weapons]

This was the general term for the weapons commonly used by Solaris Resonators. Their defining feature was the ability to channel Resonance.

The Swift Blade in Mo Bai's hand had been made by Moqu, a student in the Tunneler engineering department.

Its quality was nothing special, but its properties suited Mo Bai well.

Whether resonance power came from an outside source or was stored within the weapon, the blade could absorb it and grow sharper.

In other words, before a fight, Mo Bai only had to ask Moqu to "charge it up."

"Tch."

The two Remnant Star Society members moved like ghosts. When their first strike failed, they tried to retreat and look for another opening.

"Great Serpent."

Mo Bai had no intention of letting them. He summoned Great Serpent's tail and bound the two of them tightly together.

Manifesting only part of a Shikigami used far less Cursed Energy than summoning it in full.

Beep—

When he heard another targeting tone, Mo Bai used the serpent's tail to swing the two Artificers into the path of the attack.

They were shields and hostages both. Surely the enemy would hesitate with their comrades in the way—

Boom!

"Aaah!"

Mo Bai was about to shout a warning, but the enemy's missile struck the two hostages first.

He fell silent as they screamed, crumbled into black dust, and vanished.

Most members of the Remnant Star Society had been forcibly fused with Tacet Discords. As a result, when they died, their bodies usually disintegrated into chaotic frequencies, leaving nothing behind.

They looked just like Tacet Discords.

But that was not what bothered Mo Bai.

"No mercy, huh? Guess I got unlucky," he muttered.

There were two kinds of people in the Remnant Star Society: those who had joined by force and those who had joined willingly.

The latter were far more fanatical and reckless when carrying out a mission.

Mo Bai suspected the people he had run into belonged to that second group.

What kind of person would willingly fuse with a Tacet Discord? It was hardly surprising they would kill their own comrades without hesitation.

Whoosh.

After recalling Great Serpent into his shadow, Mo Bai made up his mind.

There was no need to go easy on scum like them.

"Divine Dogs."

He summoned the shadow Divine Dogs, which hovered between substance and shadow.

Whoosh, whoosh, whoosh.

The numerous shadow Divine Dogs charged the Remnant Star Society's Artificers.

Some were struck down along the way, but with Mo Bai supplying Cursed Energy, the rest managed to bite into the enemies and hold them in place.

"Damn it!"

"Quick! Owl Mask, blast these things off us!"

Unable to break free, one Remnant Star Society member pointed at another who carried a heavy cannon and barked an order.

"..."

But the man called Owl Mask hesitated.

If he fired a shell at his own feet, the shock wave would blow the pests away or scatter them.

He did not do it, for one simple reason.

He would die.

And instinctively, he did not want to die.

"Damn you! You've disgraced the Remnant Star Society! You don't deserve to be—"

Slash!

By then, Mo Bai had reached them. He drew his Swift Blade across their throats one by one.

"That's... unexpected," he muttered afterward.

He had thought killing people would shake him more than this.

But it had not. He felt calm.

Was it because they were scum who had all tried to attack him?

"Yes. How unexpected."

Just as Mo Bai confirmed that all the Artificers were dead and turned to leave, an aged voice rang out.

He went on alert at once.

"I thought they would at least force you to show a few of your hidden cards. It seems I underestimated you."

The aged voice came from among the Remnant Star Society members' corpses.

Then Mo Bai watched the bodies begin to merge.

In moments, they became a tall figure in a black robe and mask, holding a staff from which a lantern hung.

Even in broad daylight, the sight of that figure made him seem like a Guide sent to lead the living into the Underworld.