Chapter 22: Anomalies in the Chaotic Void

During middle school, the class beauty had a flirtatious relationship with another boy. Although he had no interest in the girl himself, his jealousy over that boy’s closeness with the class beauty drove him to have the boy ambushed in an alley, where he was brutally beaten. They shaved the boy’s head and slashed a long scar across his face, leaving him disfigured.

In university, he even escalated to coercing girls into intimate acts.

Over the years, Tianxing Ji had worried endlessly about Yun Ji, discreetly pulling strings to smooth over countless troubles for him.

He had originally believed that sending him to the military camp would bring about change, but it proved futile.

It was precisely because his eldest son, Ling Ji, was lost early on, and he then had two daughters in succession, that Yun Ji—his son born late in life—became all the more precious. Pampered from a young age, this indulgence led to the situation he faced today.

But now, it was far too late to dwell on these things.

It was like playing an online game where the main account was hacked before it was leveled up. By the time the secondary account was fully developed, the main account was recovered—and was even stronger than the secondary one. Naturally, no one would treat the main account poorly.

After all, the secondary account was nurtured from scratch, the product of one’s full energy and affection.

It was human nature to siphon some resources from the recovered main account to support the secondary one.

Anyone would do the same.

In gaming, these are just strings of code, evoking no real sympathy, and no one would judge you for it.

But when this analogy applies to a person, the actions that Tianxing Ji took against Ling Ji, his “main account,” were undeniably unfair, even cruel.

Yet Tianxing Ji was completely oblivious to this.

At this moment, his mind was full of his own “unmatched cleverness.”

Meanwhile, in the headquarters of the Divine Bureau, inside the director’s office—

Zhongjian Nangong watched a live broadcast with furrowed brows. He glanced at his assistant and quietly asked, “Does such a form of magic as Ji Tianxing described really exist in this world?”

The assistant shook his head slightly. “I don’t know for sure. But General Ji has always been an honest man; he doesn’t seem the type to lie. After all, he is a general of the Dragon Nation. In such a serious military program, he must be responsible for his words. I doubt he’d have the nerve to lie to the whole world.”

“Moreover, the Ji family is indeed descended from the ancient emperor’s clan—the Yellow Emperor’s surname was Ji, and his given name was Xuanyuan. Though there are gaps in historical records and we don’t know much about his life, we do know he existed—he was an ancient deity.”

“The Ji family being descendants of the Yellow Emperor and possessing some secret ancestral inheritance unknown to outsiders is quite plausible.”

“That’s true.” Zhongjian Nangong nodded slightly, then looked at his computer. “It seems Ji Ling really is a glory seeker. I was planning to transfer him into the Divine Bureau after he returned from the Eastern Theater Command.”

“But now, it might be better to reconsider. We’ll have to observe him further.”

...

Nightfall.

Eastern Theater Command.

Base 3176.

Ling Ji returned to his dormitory, exhaustion weighing heavily upon him. He closed the door behind him.

These past days, because the twenty-eight Divine Contract bearers in their unit had been tasked with opening paths through the Black Mist, their work had been extremely grueling. Hence, General Lin had ordered some special privileges for these twenty-eight bearers.

One such privilege was exclusive access to individual dorm rooms.

Normally, the dormitories for these twenty-eight were shared by ten or more people. Even Generals Lin and Xu set an example by sleeping cramped alongside the soldiers.

But once the twenty-eight Divine Contract bearers returned to camp, twenty-eight rooms had to be vacated to give them private resting spaces.

At first, Ling Ji and the others resisted this privilege, but they eventually complied, unable to argue with Generals Lin and Xu.

The other soldiers had no objections to granting these special rights, so Ling Ji and his comrades accepted them with peace of mind.

The effort to carve out safe zones from the Black Mist had been fruitful. The safe area had expanded more than tenfold, greatly increasing soldiers’ activity range. The supply problem was temporarily eased.

Occupying the coastline allowed soldiers to fish in the sea to supplement rations, and wild fruits on land also served as food.

Base 3176 itself still held a fair amount of supplies and ammunition, so currently, food and ammo shortages were no longer issues.

However, after five days of opening the Black Mist, with the twenty-eight Divine Contract bearers probing relentlessly in eight directions daily and having slain countless strange creatures, there was still no sign of the BOSS—almost as if this bizarre invasion lacked a central figure.

Yet every day, after exploring, the Divine Contract bearers would mark the boundaries of the newly cleared safe zones.

The next day, upon returning, they would see the Black Mist had swallowed the previous day’s markings, even reclaiming a large portion.

This meant the BOSS still existed, continuously nourishing the Black Mist and allowing it to spread.

Though slowly, this implied that without locating the BOSS, the strange invasion could not be resolved.

Over these days, the Divine Contract bearers had gathered the divine statues they found and stored them collectively in Base 3176, refraining from making new contracts.

According to General Lin, the soldiers already possessed combat capabilities; having them contract divine statues was essentially a waste. Even uncontracted, the soldiers had the ability to counter the Black Mist.

The divine statues should be granted to those outside the Black Mist with no combat skills.

By empowering them, the Dragon Nation would grow stronger.

The more Divine Contract bearers there were elsewhere, the greater the nation’s strength.

In future battles across other war zones, if similar situations arose, those Divine Contract bearers outside could provide effective aid.

Ling Ji had personally examined each newly collected statue, confirming their identities as Dragon Nation divine statues. To his surprise, a small portion were foreign statues.

This shattered the previous belief that the statues appearing on their own border were all native deities.

It also explained why other countries possessed divine statues from foreign lands.

Ling Ji sat cross-legged and closed his eyes.

These days, he had noticed that the divine statues he helped soldiers contract manifested corresponding spectral images of those deities within the Chaos Space.