"Quite normal..."
Bai Li had her right cheek lying on the desk, starting to feel numb. She lifted her head slightly to switch to resting her left cheek instead.
"From the perspective of ordinary people, as long as there are no deaths or disappearances, it's enough that it's not a monster incident."
"The one committing the anomalous crime is that anomaly wielder, not them."
"They only need to enjoy the pleasure of standing on the moral high ground, pointing fingers and passing judgment, adding some seasoning to their otherwise uneventful daily lives."
"The whole affair has no downside, only benefits for them. Does it really matter whether it's an anomaly incident or not?"
"Later, they can make excuses like 'Oh, I really didn't know it was like this,' and just apologize to end it."
"They might even outnumber and threaten others, saying 'I've apologized already, why can't you forgive me?'"
Bai Li kept muttering away, as if trying to vent all her frustrations.
Her explanations and reasoning were very clear, and she hadn't given up thinking despite her grief.
But as Hong Feiheng heard this familiar tone, he felt a twinge of pain somewhere inside.
He still remembered the day he challenged for the Nine Seats position, Bai Li was similarly muttering away while pummeling him with her power.
"Can I quit this job...
Why do the Nine Seats have to accept challenges...
Why is sitting down to fight disrespectful to others, I can manipulate energy without standing up..."
Hong Feiheng admitted he might have been a bit too loud in telling Bai Li to stand up and fight him that day, but did she really have to beat him to a pulp with full force...?
He may be a bit aloof, but he's not stubborn.
He made a note of those he couldn't beat, waiting until he could before talking smack.
He let Bai Li vent without interrupting.
After she finished, the logistics staff brought the topic back on track: "Today's meeting decided to have Sakura Island send someone to scout ahead first, and we technical staff will follow up."
"The support teams from other countries will arrive on site tomorrow to assess the situation. According to Deputy Director Yu, the information from the other four countries is that they plan to temporarily follow our lead."
There was another reason for Bai Li's exhaustion besides her personal state.
Today was supposedly a meeting, but in reality it was just a performance.
Whenever an issue came up, the five major countries would first kick the ball around, bickering endlessly.
At first, Sakura Island was rather smug watching them argue, planning out the entire lottery ceremony to ensure fair competition.
But as soon as Sakura Island's leadership stepped forward, they were immediately dazed by the barrage of balls kicked their way by the five countries.
You Sakura Island folks have this situation, you'd better send someone out, right?
Under the collective fire, no matter how reluctant Sakura Island was, they had no choice but to send someone.
"Captain Qi, what's your take on this?"
After the logistics staff finished reporting, they inquired with Qi Yuan.
This time, Qi Yuan was leading the team, so at major decision points they needed his confirmation to proceed.
Qi Yuan wasn't clear on the details, but his logistics staff had to follow protocol.
"Proceed. If anything else comes up, report to me immediately."
As long as it wasn't an SSS-level threat, there was no need to back down.
Qi Yuan had calculated this clearly.
Limited by his perspective and information, it would be difficult for him to pretend at two levels above his current power. But one level was still manageable.
This wasn't because he didn't try to study; the entire human race was in the dark as well.
If he could grasp how to overwhelm SS-level monsters, perhaps he could find inspiration for how to act like an SSS-level anomaly wielder.
"Got it, I'll notify all departments immediately."
...
The next day.
Dragon Country, Bit Buddha, and the other five major countries, along with Sakura Island, gathered in an area surrounding Xiaosaka City.
In the hastily constructed site, technical staff from each country were bustling about - some monitoring and testing energy levels, some operating high-tech devices to explore within Xiaosaka City, some constantly recording data...
Although the researchers from each country had arrived at similar conclusions by comparing the incidents in Shen City and Sanzhu, unverified information wasn't rigorous enough.
Qi Yuan couldn't possibly tell them that he could sense the monster's thoughts, confirming its claimed anomaly.
So the busywork had to continue.
Not only that, these technical personnel also had to further divide the process into stages, determining at what point they could initially control the area of reality, what percentage would allow them to level up, and so on.
The S-rank anomaly wielder sent by Sakura Island had already set out with equipment.
As for the unfortunate soul chosen...
When there's an idiot in a group, who else would it be besides Airplane Head?
There was no other candidate.
The silver lining was that Sakura Island's leadership didn't seem to want to lose this useful idiot either.
They swiftly gathered spatial anomaly artifacts, trying to protect Airplane Head.
Perhaps through the idiot's dumb luck, Airplane Head not only managed to gather sufficient intelligence as expected, but also successfully returned using the anomaly artifacts.
The most crucial piece of information was his confirmation of the monster's anomaly.
Consistent with everyone's guesses, it was a curse-type anomaly.
Although curse-type anomalies are convoluted and dreadful, they don't come without a price.
Whether a curse succeeds or fails, the anomaly wielder casting it must pay a cost.
Once the monster's anomaly was confirmed, its method of infection became clear as well.
Through the website, it lent its cursing power to ordinary people who inputted names, allowing those people to borrow its power to curse whoever they inputted.
In this way, the cost of the curse would be borne by the person inputting the name.
And by lending its power to ordinary people, it established a connection, allowing it to naturally infect and warp the will of those who inputted names.
Previously, Qi Yuan had wondered if enclosing the infected ordinary people within an anomaly domain might cause the monster's level-up to fail.
But he quickly dismissed that idea - it was more likely for the anomaly domain itself to be infected by the monster's power instead of preventing its level-up.
As soon as the intelligence was presented, the S-rank and SS-rank anomaly wielders from each country quickly convened and made a judgment that they could attempt an entry.
They had gathered enough intelligence, so rather than hesitating further, they simply canceled their plans for a clearance operation.
Time was pressing, so each country went to mobilize personnel, entering Xiaosaka City from different entry points.
With the engines roaring to life, the vehicles carrying their team sped towards the interior of Xiaosaka City.
The chaotic scenes within Xiaosaka City gradually unfolded before them.
Xiaosaka City has consistently ranked among the top few most prosperous cities in Sakura Island, with a considerable scale and well-developed urban construction.
The once congested streets were now exceptionally wide open, with only their vehicles speeding along the roads.
On the streets, there were quite a few people wandering about with eerie smiles on their faces.
After observing the deserted city for a while, a sense of oppression gradually set in.
The tightly drawn curtains and closed doors were evidence that there were still living inhabitants in Xiaosaka City.
ive and Ruthless] Before his transmigration, Ye Xuan was playing a game called "Severing Emotions to Attain the Dao." The game's core wasn't about leveling up by fighting monsters, but about conquering various "bad women" with wicked personalities and cold, fickle natures. There was only one method to conquer them: stay unwaveringly by their side, then die at a critical moment, driving them to madness after losing the protagonist. The higher their level of regret, the higher the player's score. To dominate the server, Ye Xuan conquered all the bad women. In the early stages, he showered them with boundless tenderness, only to choose to sacrifice himself for them later, making them weep bitterly and drown in regret. Among them were: Xia Lengyue, the unfaithful immortal wife who chased after powerful men and discarded her husband like trash. Ye Qingcheng, the Demonic Venerable of the Joyous Union Sect, who appeared pure and innocent but was, in reality, promiscuous. Wu Lingxiao, the Empress of the Great Xia Dynasty, who lusted after men and loved maintaining a harem. Bai Qiangu of the Endless Demonic Sect: a bloodthirsty mass murderer. However, when the protagonist transmigrated into the game world, he made a horrifying discovery. Eight hundred years had already passed. The bad women he had conquered had now each become deities and revered ancestors. Faced with the endless stream of toxic women coming for him, Ye Xuan could only rely on his god-tier acting skills to carve a path of survival through this world of treacherous women.
. As long as he maintains the villain image and follows the plot to the grand finale, he can obtain generous rewards and return to the real world. So Gu Chen'an entered the role and began to act as a scumbag villain, but who would have expected that the female leads could hear his inner thoughts. Miss Su from the Su family was shocked: "I originally thought Gu Chen'an was a scumbag, but I didn't expect he turned out to be a gentleman! What? You said I have to call off the engagement? I definitely won't, I'll piss you off!" Bai Yuan Tian was dumbfounded: "Young Master Gu is usually unreasonable and a complete brat, but he actually calls me little sweetie in his heart? What, Young Master Gu even said he likes me?" As the female leads' images collapsed more and more, the plot also collapsed with it. Gu Chen'an looked at all this chaos. "Ladies, don't aggro me, if you keep this up the male lead really will stab me, I still need to survive to the grand finale!"
grated, and just when he finally managed to get into an elite academy, he discovered that he actually had a system, and the way to earn rewards was extremely ridiculous. So for the sake of rewards, he had no choice but to start acting ridiculous as well. Su Cheng: "It's nothing but system quests after all." But later, what confused Su Cheng was that while he was already quite ridiculous, he never expected those serious characters to gradually become ridiculous too. And the way they looked at him became increasingly strange... (This synopsis doesn't do it justice, please read the full story)
e bizarre and supernatural had descended. The previous emperor was a thoroughgoing tyrant; no longer satisfied with human women, he had set his sights on a stunningly beautiful supernatural entity. He met his end in his bedchamber, drained of all his vital essence. As the legitimate eldest son and crown prince, Wang Hao was thus hastily enthroned, becoming the young emperor of the Great Zhou Dynasty. No sooner had he awakened the "Imperial Sign-In Intelligence System" than he was assassinated by a Son of Destiny—a classic villain's opening. The Great Zhou, ravaged by the former emperor's excesses, was in national decline. The great families within its borders harbored their own treacherous schemes, martial sects began to defy the imperial court's decrees, and border armies, their pay and provisions in arrears, grumbled incessantly against the central government. Fortunately, the central capital was still held secure by the half-million Imperial Guards and fifty thousand Imperial Forest Army who obeyed the court's orders, along with the royal family's hidden reserves of power, barely managing to suppress the realm. As the Great Zhou's finances worsened and supernatural activities grew ever more frequent, the court sat atop a volcano. Ambitious plotters everywhere dreamed of overthrowing the dynasty, and even some reclusive ancient powers emerged, attempting to sway the tides of the world. At the first grand court assembly, the civil and military officials nearly came to blows, fighting tooth and nail over the allocation of fifty million taels of silver from the summer tax revenues. The spectacle opened Wang Hao's eyes—the Great Zhou's bureaucracy was not only corrupt but also martially proficient, a cabinet of all-rounders. Some officials even had the audacity to suggest the emperor release funds from the imperial privy purse to address the emergency. Wang Hao suddenly felt weary. Let it all burn.
