Chapter 714: Forcing Growth

Chapter 714: Forcing Growth

Baili Changqing was not only Gao Changkong’s friend but also his fan.

Given his understanding of Gao Changkong’s abilities—and his partial understanding of Zhang Ye’s—he was firmly convinced that HQ would have Gao Changkong lead the next mission to wipe out Shiyue.

Zhang Ye didn’t argue with Baili Changqing. His gaze was calm and unreadable.

Logically speaking, Baili Changqing’s reasoning was solid.

But he was, after all, a soldier. He didn’t understand what power struggles were really about.

Gao Changkong did indeed have better combat skills and leadership ability than Zhang Ye.

However, his background made it impossible for him to lead this operation.

Overshadowing one’s superior—that was the deadliest sin a subordinate could commit, from ancient times to now.

To put it bluntly, even if Gao Changkong earned the most merit in this operation, Blizzard City would still focus its propaganda on Zhang Ye—not on him.

“We’ll see.”

Zhang Ye slapped his thigh. “Right, now that I’m the Tengu Squad’s captain, that means I can access captain-level weapons and gear, right?”

He pointed toward Yang Xinxin. “I’ve got three people assisting me. They’re going to be temporarily added to the Tengu Squad. I’ve already run it by Commander Zhu.”

“So they need equipment too.”

Baili Changqing nodded.

“No problem. Just tell me what gear you need, and I’ll have someone deliver it.”

Zhang Ye’s smile only grew wider.

He shook his head. “No need. We’ll go ourselves. I need… a lot of gear.”

Baili Changqing’s eyes widened. Looking at the strange grin on Zhang Ye’s face, he seemed to realize what this guy was about to do.

Not long after, Zhu Zheng—still working in his office—received a report from the quartermaster.

“What? Zhang Ye took a massive amount of weapons? Extremely massive?”

“Commander Zhu, he used his spatial ability to collect a huge batch of weapons. The quantity… is a little outrageous.”

The quartermaster whispered from the corner, glancing back at Zhang Ye, who was happily on a shopping spree in the armory.

He had worked this job for years and had never seen anyone collect gear like this.

Zhang Ye looked like a housewife clearing out a discount store.

Zhu Zheng thought for a moment and then smiled, shaking his head.

“This kid really lives by the motto, ‘Only a fool passes up free stuff.’”

“Fine, whatever. Give him whatever he needs.”

After all, it was just regular hot weapons. In the apocalypse, their effectiveness was already greatly diminished.

And manufacturing them wasn’t difficult—so long as you had steel and gunpowder, you could crank out as many as you wanted.

After collecting a huge haul of weapons, Zhang Ye returned to the villa in Zone A.

Soon after, Zhu Zheng would formally announce the formation of the Tengu Squad and Zhang Ye’s appointment as its captain.

Zhang Ye didn’t care about that at all.

The prestige of Blizzard City meant nothing to him.

What did concern him was how Liang Yue was doing.

Rationally, he knew the Deng family wouldn’t try anything on Liang Yue at a time like this.

But he’d trained himself to be cautious for years—he never let go of that sense of potential danger.

Around 9 PM, Liang Yue called.

Zhang Ye picked up immediately.

“Liang Yue, how are you feeling? Anything strange going on?”

On the other end, Liang Yue was wearing nothing but a light blue lab outfit that covered only the essentials, showing off her athletic figure.

Surrounding her were more than a dozen staff members in white hazmat suits. Behind her stood a massive blue experiment chamber.

The staff were still performing final checks.

Hearing the worry in Zhang Ye’s voice made Liang Yue’s heart warm.

She said, “The prep work is done. I’m about to enter the chamber they prepared for me. The experiment will last three days. I won’t be able to contact you during that time.”

Zhang Ye was quiet for a moment. He wanted to say something like “take care,” but it didn’t feel quite right.

After hesitating for a while, he finally said, “I’ll be waiting for you.”

Liang Yue’s smile deepened at the corners of her eyes. “Mm.”

After that brief exchange, she handed her phone to a staff member, who stored it securely in a lockbox.

A female technician then walked over and asked Liang Yue to lie down in the chamber.

Liang Yue nodded and followed instructions.

Outside the lab, on the second floor, Deng Yuanbo stood watching with Lian Cheng and the lab director.

The director turned to Deng Yuanbo and asked, “Chairman, are we really going with A-grade [Source] supply for this? That level of experiment costs us a lot.”

“It’s second only to what we spent raising the young master.”

Deng Yuanbo narrowed his eyes and replied calmly, “Do it as I said. In business, big upfront investments bring rich returns later.”

“This time, we must not lose again to Shiyue!”

“And I’m going to use this opportunity… to root out the traitor inside Blizzard City.”

A cold gleam flickered in Deng Yuanbo’s eyes.

Zhang Ye knew that rapidly increasing a superhuman’s strength like this consumed a massive amount of energy.

But he had no idea how terrifying the cost actually was.

The more gifted a superhuman, the more energy it took to boost their powers.

And that included the inevitable loss during the energy transfer.

To put it bluntly—the resources it would take to level up someone like Liang Yue could be used to create ten investigation team-level supers.

That’s the cost of forcing growth.

If someone wasn’t truly a genius, this kind of forced upgrade would only drain their potential.

But Deng Yuanbo had no doubts about Liang Yue.

Her body and spirit had been honed through countless trials.

…

After collecting all his gear, Zhang Ye returned to the Zone A villa and started analyzing strategies against Shiyue together with Yang Xinxin.

He didn’t know much about warfare, but he had plenty of experience in battles between superhumans.

The intel Deng Shentong died to obtain was extremely valuable.

It was clear that Fujimiya Jin was going to be an incredibly difficult opponent.

He had immortality, brutal close-combat strength, and future vision empowered by a witch.

All those abilities combined made him overwhelmingly oppressive.

But if a power existed, then so did a way to counter it.

Zhang Ye needed to find the exact method to neutralize Fujimiya Jin—and the other powerful supers under him—before he could even think about taking action.

Thankfully, Shiyue was currently in a resting phase.

They still had some time to prepare.

Author's Note