Lanikai Island
More than twenty days have passed in the blink of an eye.
On this day, in the conference room at the headquarters of the Supervision Bureau.
More than ten people sat around a round table in the conference room.
There were five of the Supervision Bureau's top combat personnel, the person in charge of various matters from headquarters, and several people in military uniforms who came to listen in.
The meeting room was bright and quiet.
Click!
The conference room door was pushed open.
Zhao Yonggang led Yan Yu in from outside the meeting room.
He glanced at everyone in the room, then walked to the head seat at the round table and sat down.
Yan Yu followed closely behind and sat down next to him.
The two had just sat down when one of the figures at the round table spoke up and asked a question.
"Minister, I heard you traded a portion of the Darkwing Heavenly Spine Beast with the Rice Country for something. Is that true?"
The speaker was a burly man over two meters tall, whose body was covered with a mix of old and new scars.
Zhao Yonggang looked at the man.
"Yes, Yue Zheng, you heard me right, and it's not just a part, it's half."
"Half?" Yue Zheng said with some difficulty, "What did we exchange for? We need half of Seventh Tier Calamity Beast's corpse."
"We've exchanged the right to investigate the island where the Darkwing Heavenly Spine Beast is located," Zhao Yonggang replied.
"Investigative power?"
Yue Zheng frowned, seemingly unable to believe what he had just heard.
"You mean you traded half the corpse of a Seventh Tier Calamity Beast for so-called investigative rights?"
"Yes, that's right." Zhao Yonggang nodded.
"Heh... hehe..." Yue Zheng laughed in anger.
"I really don't know what could possibly be on an island that would make you willing to exchange the corpse of Seventh Tier Calamity Beast for a so-called right to investigate?"
"Is it uranium ore? Rare earth elements? Or something more valuable?"
"Even if that were true, what use would it be if it were a hundred and eight thousand miles away from us?"
"Are you all sitting in the office all day? Are you so bored that your brains are starting to malfunction?"
"If that's the case, I advise you to mind your own business in the future."
"A bunch of people who just sit in the back and do nothing..."
"Are you questioning headquarters' decision?" Jiang Xingwei interrupted Yue Zheng with a detached voice.
"Heh, headquarters?" Yue Zheng sneered, his gaze fixed on Jiang Xingwei.
"Have you forgotten how difficult it was for us to kill the Darkwing Heavenly Spine Beast?"
"I was beaten to the point of near death several times, and Jiang Lin even died several times, yet the Calamity Beast we killed were simply replaced?"
"Even if it's headquarters, which has the authority to dispose of the Calamity Beast corpses, they should consult us before making such decisions."
Yue Zheng paused here, his gaze sweeping over Jiang Xingwei from head to toe, a sinister smile creeping across his lips.
"Oh, I forgot, you're at headquarters!"
"When they made this decision, did they ask you first, and then your mind, which doesn't think, just agreed?"
Jiang Xingwei's eyes grew cold.
"If you don't know the rules, then I can teach you!"
"Heh, wanna fight? Come on!" Yue Zheng grinned with a ferocious smile.
"Alright, alright." Li Daoyi yawned. "Since we've already made the change, let's see what the investigation has revealed first."
Upon hearing Daoist Master Li speak, Yue Zheng's lips twitched slightly, and he turned his gaze back to Zhao Yonggang.
Jiang Xingwei glanced coldly at Yue Zheng, then looked away as well.
Everyone looked at Zhao Yonggang again.
Zhao Yonggang glanced at everyone, his gaze finally settling on Yue Zheng's face.
I know what you're thinking, but I also hope you'll remember that.
"All orders issued by headquarters are made after careful consideration, not on a whim."
"Including this time?" Yue Zheng asked.
"Including this time." Zhao Yonggang nodded.
Seeing Zhao Yonggang say this, Yue Zheng took a deep breath and said no more.
Beside him, a man wearing gold-rimmed glasses, with a stern face and a neatly pressed black suit, glanced at Zhao Yonggang, then lowered his head to take notes.
"Alright, Professor Yan Yu, I need you to explain the investigation results to everyone." Zhao Yonggang looked at Yan Yu.
Yan Yu nodded, his indifferent gaze fixed on the top of the round table.
"Tianshu, project Lanikai Island."
"Okay." A mechanical voice sounded from inside the room.
The next moment, beams of light converged above the round table, and the pixelated streams of light recombined in the air, eventually coalescing into a unique island.
That was an island ravaged by nuclear fire!
In the center of the island lies a huge, deep pit.
The edges of the deep pit are formed by melting at high temperatures, creating wavy, glassy crystals.
Grayish-white dust particles floated in the air...
"This is the small island where the Darkwing Heavenly Spine Beast originally lived," Yan Yu explained.
"Ha, nothing's left. What's the point of investigating this?" Yue Zheng laughed sarcastically.
Yan Yu nodded. "If it's just about investigating this, then it's indeed meaningless, but..."
A piece of data appeared on the virtual projection edge.
136 P/cm³
"What is this data?" The somewhat thin young man, dressed in loose white linen clothes, stared quietly at the projection in the void.
Yan Yu explained:
"This data represents the concentration of Origin Power in the air; there is 136 Pa of Origin Power per cubic centimeter."
"If you don't have a concept of this, you can sense the Origin Power around you."
"The Origin Power concentration in Capital is approximately 84 P/cm³."
"Only about 23% higher than half the price of Lanikai Island."
Everyone nodded.
Yan Yu added:
"Additionally, it's worth mentioning that since the beginning of this year, the Origin Power in the air has been increasing at an extremely rapid rate."
"At the beginning of the year, the atmospheric Origin Power was 73 P/cm³, but by the end of March, it had reached 78 P/cm³."
"You should know that in the past eleven years, the concentration of Origin Power in the air has only increased from 0 P/cm³ to 73 P/cm³."
"But in just six months, the Origin Power in the air has already increased from 73 P/cm³ to 84 P/cm³."
"We noticed that too, and that's when we started the search."
"Ultimately, by comparing differences in global Origin Power concentrations, we gradually pinpointed the location of Lanikai Island."
"The subsequent events were caused by this discovery."
"Now, after investigation, it has been confirmed that the increase in the concentration of Origin Power in the air is due to Lanikai Island."
"So, this is all the investigation was for? To let us know that our Origin Power has increased rapidly in the past six months?" Yue Zheng said impatiently.
"That's just the surface." Yan Yu shook his head.
"Appearances?" The man in the suit slightly raised his eyes.
"Yes, that's right. What we care more about is what this appearance represents." Yan Yu said, looking up at the virtual projection in the air.
"Tianshu, release the image of that branch."
"Okay," the mechanical voice replied.
The data in the virtual projection dissipated and then froze on a carbonized branch.
The branches Distortion in an incomprehensible and abnormal way...
Everyone stared at the Distortion branch, waiting for Yan Yu's explanation.
"According to our investigation, the spatial curvature on Lanikai Island has reached an anomalous state."
"This state makes the connection between the space of Lanikai Island and the other world even closer, which is why a large amount of Origin Power seeps out through Lanikai Island."
"Although the Darkwing Heavenly Spine Beast have been overlapping for more than half a year, they have remained on Lanikai Island without making any moves."
"In other words, it must have been deliberately left on Lanikai Island."
"The goal is to stabilize the passage between the two realms."
"In other words..."
Yan Yu stopped, looked up, and solemnly surveyed everyone at the round table.
We've been targeted!