Wen Ye turned away to leave and prepare for rest. But at that moment, Qingshan suddenly issued a warning in his mind.
【Dao Lord, an escalation in ground-based investigation activities targeting you has been detected.】
【Investigator: Su Mingzhe.】
【New development: He has contacted overseas intelligence personnel and is attempting to place a bounty on your information via the dark web.】
【Threat level: Low, but handling is recommended.】
Wen Ye frowned.
Su Mingzhe...
That cousin of Su Yun was truly relentless.
【Shall I terminate his investigation?】Qingshan asked.
Wen Ye thought for a moment and shook his head.
"No. Just give him a little warning.
Let him know that continuing to dig further will do him no good."
【Understood. Generating warning protocol...】
Meanwhile, above ground, Su Mingzhe stared at the bounty section of the dark web; he had just posted a piece of information.
【Bounty: Looking for the mysterious person who used a drone to save lives in Jiangcheng a week ago. 100,000 USD reward for effective leads.】
Less than five minutes after posting, there were dozens of replies.
Most were scammers, but a few looked somewhat interesting. One private message in particular caught his eye.
【I know the person you are looking for. But he is not someone you can afford to offend. Cancel the bounty and forget this ever happened; it will be to your benefit.】
Su Mingzhe narrowed his eyes and replied:
【What do you know?】
The other party replied quickly:
【I know he comes from a place you cannot imagine. I know that what he is doing concerns the survival of this world. I also know that if you continue to investigate, not only will you meet with disaster, but your sister and your entire family will as well.】
Su Mingzhe felt a chill in his heart.
【Are you threatening me?】
【No, it is a warning. Some people and some things are not meant to be touched by ordinary people. Stop while you still can.】
After this message, the user went offline and could no longer be contacted.
Su Mingzhe stared at the screen, his palms sweating. Was what they said true? Was the person who saved Xiao Yun really involved in that kind of level?
Just then, his computer screen suddenly went black. Then, a line of text appeared.
【Last warning.】
【Stop the investigation.】
【Otherwise, face the consequences.】
The text lingered for three seconds, then vanished. The computer returned to normal. But Su Mingzhe discovered that the bounty post he had just created had been completely deleted. Even the posting record had disappeared. It was as if it had never existed.
He slumped into his chair, his back cold. How much power did that mysterious person, or the organization behind him, possess?
Should he continue to investigate? He thought of Su Yun's expectant eyes, the exhortations of his family elders, and the bold promises he had made. But he was even more reminded of the warnings from just now and the terror of having his throat gripped by an invisible hand.
After a long time, he picked up his phone and dialed Su Yun's number.
"Xiao Yun, brother has something to tell you..."
Zhulong Base, lounge.
Wen Ye lay on the bed, playing with the newly forged Heavenly Dao Compass in his hand. Qingshan’s voice sounded.
【The warning has been sent. Su Mingzhe should restrain himself for a while.】
"Mm."
Wen Ye responded, but his thoughts were elsewhere.
He was going to the Northwest tomorrow.
He would face enemies who had been waiting for ten thousand years.
He would complete that unfinished war.
He closed his eyes, his consciousness sinking into his Dao Foundation. There, Qingshan and Aya were making final adjustments around the Heavenly Dao Compass.
【Dao Lord,】Qingshan asked, 【Do you fully trust Master Mo and the Zhulong?】
"Not completely," Wen Ye answered. "But they have fought against the Outer Dao for fifteen years and sacrificed twenty-eight people. At least on this goal, we are allies."
【What about Su Yun?】Aya asked suddenly. 【You saved her, but you don't want her to find you. Why?】
Wen Ye was silent. Why? Because he did not want to drag her into this dangerous world? Because he did not want her to know that the person who saved her was an old monster burdened with ten thousand years of blood debt? Or because of some subtle emotion that even he was unwilling to admit?
"She is just an ordinary person," Wen Ye finally said. "Ordinary people have their own lives. Our war has nothing to do with her."
Aya wanted to say more, but Qingshan stopped her.
【The Dao Lord needs to rest.】Qingshan said, 【Tomorrow, there is a hard battle to fight.】
Wen Ye turned over and looked at the clock hanging on the wall of the lounge. 3:00 AM.
Three hours until dawn.
Less than twenty-four hours until the reunion that spanned ten thousand years.
He gripped the Heavenly Dao Compass tightly.
"Outer Dao..."
"I have returned."
"This time, it is time for an end."
………………
There was no sunlight in the early morning at the Zhulong Base.
Inside this world one hundred and fifty meters underground, time was kept by digital clocks accurate to the millisecond, and air circulation relied on a massive ventilation system buried in the rock strata. When the lighting in the base’s main corridor switched from the soft glow of night mode to the full spectrum of day mode, a new day began.
Wen Ye completed his final energy cultivation in the lounge. The Heavenly Dao Compass hovered at his Dantian, rotating slowly; each rotation pulled the surrounding Dao Rhyme, like the gravitational center of a miniature galaxy. After a night of integration, the fusion rate between the compass and his Dao Foundation had increased from 12% to 19%. Although it was still incomplete, it could already stably provide about double the processing power.
Both Qingshan and Aya were in silence mode. They were performing final logic optimizations for the upcoming battle.
A knock sounded at the door.
"Come in."
The door slid open, and Dr. Lín Yǔ stood outside, holding a tablet computer. She was not wearing her white lab coat today, but had changed into a dark gray tactical suit; her hair was tied in a neat ponytail, and her glasses were replaced with goggles more suited for action.
"Master Mo is waiting for you in the command center. One last briefing before departure."
Wen Ye nodded and followed her out of the resting area.
The base corridors were much busier than they had been yesterday. Personnel in different colored uniforms hurried about, small transport robots buzzed past carrying various equipment, and coordination orders from different departments drifted over the intercom. There was a tense atmosphere, unique to the eve of battle, in the air.
The command center was one floor above the World Tree hall, a semi-circular room with a holographic projection table in the center and dozens of surveillance screens around it. Master Mo, Léi Gāng, and six tactical team members were already waiting there.
"Wen Ye, come."
Master Mo beckoned him to the front of the projection table.
The holographic image displayed a 3D topographic map of the Northwest Gobi, with a striking red dot marked somewhere on the edge of Lop Nur.
"According to the tracking of the World Tree and your location, we have locked in the precise coordinates of the core node."
Master Mo pulled up satellite imagery, zooming in to reveal a desolate Yardang landscape. The wind-eroded mounds and ravines looked like the dry, cracked wrinkles of the earth.
"There are no buildings on the surface, but there is an intense anomaly in logic 1,200 meters underground."
He switched to the geological scan.
"Fifteen years ago, when we found the Bone Fragments here, we conducted a preliminary survey. There is a massive natural cavern underground, with an area of about three square kilometers and a height of over one hundred meters. At the time, we thought it was formed by the drying up of an ancient riverbed, but now it seems..."
"That is the perimeter of the seal," Wen Ye interjected.
"In the great war ten thousand years ago, the Dao Lord—that is, me—sealed the main force of the Outer Dao into the Abyss of Logic. The core of the seal is in the deep Information Sea, but the anchor point in the real world must be in that cavern."
Léi Gāng frowned.
"You mean to say that the place we are going is actually an ancient battlefield from ten thousand years ago?"