Chapter 168-2: The Central Monster, Legendary-Grade Divine Item (2)

Wang Zong focused his gaze. He recognized the shells of Li Xingyue and Ye Xiaoqi.

As for An Yun, An Ying, and the other Intelligence Division team members, while he wasn’t personally familiar with them, he could identify most of them with about seventy to eighty percent certainty.

That samurai wearing full lamellar armor and wielding twin blades was an old colleague who’d transferred departments, Fang Yifei.

Then, one particular figure drew his attention, a shell clad in a gold-embroidered mage’s robe, wearing a mask, holding one long and one short staff.

“Just from the gear, you can tell this person is something special… Could this be a powerful operative Li Xingyue secretly transferred in from Yun Capital?”

Wang Zong had heard that not only in Wen City, but in every city, Thunder Tribulation squads had been newly established. Each squad would have one or two elite Apostles dispatched from headquarters to assist in combat.

This mage shell, equipped to the teeth, was probably an elite Apostle Li Xingyue brought in from headquarters.

“Connections really are different… the people they can pull in look fierce as hell… Huh? Why don’t I see our Armed Division’s good son-in-law?”

He knew Lin Xun’s shell very well. During the suburban battle last time, he’d watched that towering knight transform into a jet-propelled warrior, it was still vivid in his mind.

Yet among all the Intelligence Division personnel who’d come to reinforce them, there was no sign of a shell like that.

Seeing that Intelligence Division support had finally arrived, Wang Zong stopped chasing the giant wolf.

“Maybe that kid got held up with something…”

For an ordinary Apostle, swapping shells was an extremely cautious process. First, before possessing a shell, you couldn’t accurately judge its quality and grade, you could only estimate based on combat text prompts.

Second, acquiring a shell never guaranteed obtaining the True Name item. If you went through all the trouble to get a powerful shell but couldn’t manifest it in reality, your combat strength in the real world was basically reset overnight.

Wang Zong had fought in the game for many years, and even now, the number of times he’d swapped shells was still in the single digits.

Lin Xun’s knight shell was exactly the kind of shell that suited Wang Zong’s tastes. For a newcomer, it was the sort of shell you could keep using until the end of days.

So for a moment, it hadn’t even occurred to him that Lin Xun might have switched shells.

“Li Xingyue, you’re finally here!”

“Come on, come on, this beast is all yours. My damn legs are about to break from running.”

The giant wolf stopped tearing at the tortoise shell formation. Its blood-red eyes narrowed as it watched the newcomers stepping into the contamination zone.

With speed that belied its huge frame, it suddenly lunged toward the group.

The samurai in full armor and dual blades said nothing and charged forward to meet it head-on.

The woman in the trench coat and beret raised the massive firearm in her hands, a combination of flesh and machinery.

The alluring female assassin lifted her cross-shaped scythe. Her long, slender legs kicked off the ground, leaving streaks of afterimages as her graceful form blinked right up to the giant wolf.

The ferocious beast swiped its forepaw to bat the samurai aside but could not evade the scythe’s slicing arc.

The cold gleam of the blade flickered in tandem with the assassin’s agile movement, carving huge, savage wounds across the monster’s massive body.

The giant wolf howled in pain and lunged straight at the most petite figure among them, the woman gunner.

Its colossal bulk was still midair when a barrage of gunfire split the night.

The giant wolf flinched but continued its unstoppable charge toward Ye Xiaoqi.

“Xiaoqi, get back!”

The female assassin let out a sharp cry.

Just then, the masked mage who had been standing next to Ye Xiaoqi suddenly stepped sideways to block in front of her.

Beneath the mask, a single pink eye opened, gazing directly at the charging central monster.

The giant wolf’s body instantly seized up. Carried by its own momentum, it crashed to the ground at the mage’s feet, sending sand spraying everywhere.

The beast collapsed limply as if it had lost all ability to move, twitching uncontrollably. It opened its jaws, tongue lolling out, foul drool spilling onto the ground.

Its huge eyes were filled with vacant confusion.

Everyone watched in disbelief as the once-ferocious central monster lay prone in the sand. One after another, they activated their shell skills and began bombarding the helpless target.

Even Wang Zong, who had been chasing it in vain, hefted his hammers again and vented his frustration by battering the giant wolf mercilessly.

Brilliant lights from the shell skills engulfed the monster. Before long, it had been reduced to a mutilated corpse.

In death, the wolf’s eyes still held nothing but dazed bewilderment, it had sunk into eternal bliss.

As the central monster perished, the sandstorm vortex surrounding the Public Security Bureau gradually subsided.

All that remained was a sea of yellow sand and the ruins of collapsed buildings, silent witnesses to the anomaly and contamination that had taken place here.

The masked mage looked up at the sky. Above, the graceful silhouettes circling in the night were clearly visible.

Wang Zong dispelled the defensive item, and the tortoise shell formation along with the ancient soldiers vanished into the void.

The Armed Division Apostles who had been sheltered inside the protective circle now appeared before everyone’s eyes.

The burly man hurried forward, checking each team member’s injuries one by one.

“Personnel from the other departments, including medics from the Logistics Division, are already on their way…” Li Xingyue released her shell manifestation, revealing her office lady outfit, suit skirt, black stockings, and the air of a cool, commanding beauty.

Wang Zong wiped the sweat from his forehead after all his exertion. “Not bad, not a single one missing. Missing limbs and broken legs are minor injuries, Logistics can handle it.”

He tilted his head toward the masked mage. “Li Xingyue, aren’t you going to introduce us? When did you transfer an elite Apostle from Yun Capital without even giving me a heads-up?”

The black-stockinged beauty smiled faintly. “Lin Xun, come over here so Team Leader Wang can see for himself.”

Wang Zong’s bull-like eyes widened in disbelief. The elite Apostle who had made the giant wolf lose all resistance with just a glance… was Lin Xun?!

The mage shell began to fade away, and in its place appeared a strikingly handsome young man in jeans and a T-shirt.

It was none other than the Armed Division’s treasured son-in-law, Lin Xun.

“Hss…” Wang Zong sucked in a cold breath. Without even thinking, he turned to Li Xingyue and blurted. “Just be straight with me, what conditions do I have to meet to get him into the Armed Division as our live-in son-in-law?”

“Get lost!”

—

In the early hours of the morning, third floor of the Cultural Bureau, Division Leader’s Office.

Inside the office, only Li Xingyue and Lin Xun were present.

“The meeting’s over, so what are you dragging me here all secretive for?”

A trace of uncharacteristic unease appeared on the cool, alluring face of the black-stockinged beauty.

She crossed her long legs wrapped in sheer black stockings, sitting upright on the sofa as she turned her head to look at the young subordinate beside her.

“Of course it’s something very important… Come, let me show you something good…”

Li Xingyue’s beautiful eyes widened suddenly as she saw Lin Xun manifest a palm-sized, transparent, disc-like object in his hand.

Inside was a cloudy liquid, a little like a filler injected to enlarge fruit.

[Crystalline Core of the Veiled Aberration (Epic-grade item). A trace amount of chaotic divinity left behind by an unknowable god remains on this crystalline core. Using this item will grant 1 point of Divinity.]

“So it’s a divine item.” Li Xingyue’s brows relaxed. “I thought you were going to show me something else… Well, I suppose it makes sense. Your soul talent has already reached +3, getting another divine item can’t strengthen you any further.”

“So, you’re submitting this divine item in exchange for other organizational resources.”

Lin Xun nodded.

“Very good, smart decision.” The female superior patted him on the shoulder. “If you put this item up for auction in the library, the resources you’d get wouldn’t be anywhere near what the organization will give you.”

“Tell me, do you want equipment, skills, or special items?”

Lin Xun grinned. “Um… Team Leader Li, does the organization happen to have any extra legendary-grade divine items?”

The moment he spoke, Li Xingyue’s brows furrowed deeply.

“Epic-grade divine items circulate fairly often, mainly because quite a few Apostles in the organization, like you, have soul talents that reached +3.”

“Epic-grade divine items no longer help them, so they turn them in to trade for other resources.”

“But legendary-grade divine items correspond to the soul talent stages from +4 up to +6.”

“When a legendary-grade divine item appears on the market, it means it was exchanged out of the hands of an Apostle whose soul talent had reached at least +6.”

Li Xingyue adjusted her posture and sat very straight on the sofa.

“Those people are the real core of the Apostle Security Council, members and councilors. Thinking you could trade a single epic-grade item for a legendary-grade divine item…”

“Even with your outstanding talent and with me using all my internal connections, that’s practically impossible.”

Lin Xun had already expected this. He just smiled faintly.

Then, he manifested another huge pile of the exact same crystalline objects.

“What about this much?”