late at night.
Shuofang City.
War room.
Zhou Zhenguo held a cup of hot water, silently looking at the documents projected in front of him.
This was collected overnight; it included reports from teams that had ventured deep into the Erosion Zone to hunt.
His gaze swept over the records one by one.
After a long while, he scanned the last record and let out a heavy sigh.
" Elder Zhou, have you finished reading?" Li Boyuan asked from the side.
"Hmm." Zhou Zhenguo leaned back in his chair, picked up the now-cooled hot water in his hand, and took a sip.
Have you noticed anything unusual?
"No, the only differences between us and other teams are the direction, how we kill the Calamity Beast, how we go deeper into the enemy territory, and the battle process!" Zhou Zhenguo said wearily.
It had been a while since he had reviewed so much material at once in such a short period of time.
Li Boyuan sat to the side and nodded slightly, showing no surprise.
He also checked those documents, and again, found nothing.
Or rather, it's just some data; it's already quite good that we were able to detect anomalies in the data during a brief interaction.
It's really too difficult to learn anything from the data obtained through this kind of connection.
After a pause, Li Boyuan seemed to suddenly remember something and asked:
" Elder Zhou, do you think Captain Shen will be able to find out the information he wants this time?"
Zhou Zhenguo pondered for a moment and said, "If we want to know the true purpose of the Calamity Beast, it might be difficult, but as he said, obtaining some information about Calamity Beast movements shouldn't be a problem!"
"Then..." Li Boyuan paused, then continued, "Could these movements really help us analyze the Calamity Beast's purpose?"
"That depends on our capabilities!" Zhou Zhenguo said heavily, leaning back in his chair.
He paused, then added:
"Moreover, this is indeed our most promising way to find out the purpose of the Calamity Beast!"
After a moment's hesitation, Li Boyuan slowly nodded.
The meeting room fell silent for a moment.
" Elder Zhou!" Li Boyuan suddenly spoke up.
"What's wrong?" Zhou Zhenguo, who was taking a short rest, looked over.
"What do you think would happen if we failed to sabotage this time?" Li Boyuan asked in a slightly heavy voice.
Zhou Zhenguo remained silent without responding immediately.
After a moment, he said in an equally heavy tone:
"If the plan, which the Calamity Beast painstakingly devised, fails to be sabotaged, what consequences do you foresee?"
After a moment of silence, Li Boyuan:
"Thousands?"
There was no response.
"Tens of thousands?"
There was no response.
"Ten... thousands?"
This time, Zhou Zhenguo finally replied.
Maybe!
After the voice faded, the meeting room fell silent.
That concludes our discussion.
Zhou Zhenguo glanced at Li Boyuan, who was reviewing the reports again, trying to find any information that might have been missed before, and then slowly looked away.
Unnoticed, his eyes darkened slightly.
Two years, hundreds of thousands...
Could the Calamity Beast's meticulously planned scheme really be filled by just tens of thousands of people?
Furthermore, given their current understanding of each other's situation, is this suddenly devised strategy truly... capable of stopping it?
I turned my head to look out the window.
The Erosion Zone was pitch black in the dead of night, with only a few specks of black snow falling.
Zhou Zhenguo looked outside, his fingers unconsciously tightening slightly as he gripped the handle of the cup.
Suddenly, the scene from half a day ago seemed to appear before his eyes.
The young man stood still, his gaze calm yet clear as he spoke.
"Every cause has its effect. Since the number of Calamity Beast has increased, there must be a reason for this increase. The Ruins Realm wouldn't increase the release of Calamity Beast without a cause..."
"They could indeed fabricate lies to deceive us, and they themselves might not even know their true intentions..."
"We don't need to care what the Calamity Beast are saying; we just need to see where they generally want to go, and then..."
This kid is really capable; he managed to find a path even when there was none.
It's still uncertain whether it will work out.
Zhou Zhenguo turned his gaze back.
Hopefully it will work out...
at the same time.
High altitude in a Plateau Erosion Zone.
Shen Heng hovered in mid-air, his eyes slightly unfocused.
One voice after another rang in my ears.
The sound of the cold wind, the sound of the Calamity Beast's footsteps, the sound of wings flapping, the sound of claws digging in the ground...
One sound after another flowed into my ears and entered my mind.
It was then processed quickly.
Shen Heng lowered his eyes, his brain rapidly processing the sounds one after another.
The sound transformed into specks of light, landing on the empty map in my mind.
Then, the point of light moved slowly, but steadily, across the map.
The Calamity Beast have indeed made new moves, and they truly don't know what Calamity Beast 're planning to do. Even if they occasionally capture a Fifth Tier Calamity Beast, they might only obtain inaccurate information...
Well then, since that's the case, let's ignore what those Calamity Beast say and see what they do!
To do this, you need to grasp the movements of most of the Calamity Beast, and analyze those movements to figure out what they want to do and whether they have a clear destination!
Well... in tech terms, this is big data! In classical terms, it's about separating the truth from the false!
We will analyze massive amounts of data to uncover the true answers hidden within them!
Answers can lie, but actions do not!
Individual actions can be deceiving, but collective actions do not!
If all group activities involve deception, then it wouldn't be called deception!
Just like an exam.
You can say you have bad grades, and you can genuinely not do well on tests, but you can't make the whole class like you and not do well on tests!
If the entire class fails to perform well on the test, that can only mean one thing!
Your class did indeed do very poorly in this exam!
However, trying to analyze the essence in this way is not so easy.
In fact, it can be said to be extremely, extremely, extremely difficult!
Within a radius of two hundred kilometers, countless Calamity Beast were moving about.
You may not need to remember the movements of every single Calamity Beast, but at the very least, you need to remember the movements of the vast majority of Calamity Beast.
Only in this way can you ensure that the final data you produce is reliable!
Shen Heng remained suspended high in the air, his brain constantly processing wave after wave of information.
His brow furrowed slightly.
Fine beads of sweat appeared on his forehead.
The number of light spots is increasing, and the map is becoming denser.
Finally, Shen Heng moved.
His head seemed to lose all strength and drooped downwards, but was immediately supported by his raised hand.
The eyes, which had been lowered, closed completely at this moment.
In my mind, the map became clearer.
One point of light after another moved across the pitch-black map.
At first, the speed was a bit slow, and there were even some lags.
But soon, as time went on, their speed began to gradually increase, and then faster and faster.
Left, right, up, down...
One by one, the points of light dimmed.
At the same time, one by one, the points of light began to become clearer.
The light spot moved, attempting to simulate the possible path using its original behavior.
Finally, all the points of light, in general, seemed to be pointing in the same direction!
"Did you find it...?"
Shen Heng slowly raised his gaze and looked in that direction.
There, the Light Gate connects to Blue Star...