Night Infiltration of the Chancellor's Estate

Top floor. Chairman's office.

After Li Qinghe finished reporting the events in the underground containment facility, Gu An's brow furrowed deeply. He sat in silence for a long moment, then slowly nodded.

"Understood."

"It seems the containment facility will need additional personnel going forward," he said gravely.

Li Qinghe didn't say much. Even guarding the underground containment facility was work reserved for Night Watchman elders proper — Honorary Elders weren't normally expected to stand watch. It wasn't really her concern, and the same applied to Lu Yuan.

"Uncle Gu, if there's nothing else, we'll be heading out."

Gu An smiled. "Thank you both for your trouble."

Li Qinghe and Lu Yuan left the office.

Inside, a heavy silence settled. Gu An sat with his head bowed in thought until the middle-aged man beside him spoke.

"Chairman, could it really be connected to the recent Aberration surge, like Elder Zhang suggested? The frequency of Aberration Events has been significantly higher than before."

Gu An rubbed his forehead. "It's not impossible. Old Liu, see to the arrangements — dispatch two more elders to the facility and raise each guard rotation to seven."

"Understood."

Li Qinghe and Lu Yuan took the elevator down.

"Is there anywhere else you'd like to go, Little Yuan?" Li Qinghe asked.

Lu Yuan shook his head. "Not really. By the way, Sister Qinghe — are there any missions coming up that we'll need to handle?"

Li Qinghe grinned and poked his cheek. "Oh? Eager to get to work already?"

"That's just how I am," Lu Yuan said with complete earnestness. "Born to work."

"Please."

Li Qinghe clicked her tongue. "You have no idea how to enjoy life. Cultivation is exhausting enough as it is."

She thought for a moment, then smiled. "Aberration Events have been picking up lately. There might be an emergency mission in a day or two — headquarters will contact you when one comes in."

Lu Yuan considered this. "Could you put in a word? See if they can route more missions my way?"

The Evolution Cube was already hovering on the edge of its next metamorphosis. More Aberration Events — more exposure to aberrant energy — should push it over the threshold sooner.

Li Qinghe gave him a helpless look. "Then let's stop by the mission room first and introduce you to the people there."

They returned to the mission room. The moment they greeted the supervisor, the man's face lit up with genuine warmth, a trace of delighted surprise in his eyes as he looked at Lu Yuan.

*He's looking at me like I'm some kind of savior.*

Not that Lu Yuan could blame him. Honorary Elders were a different breed from the elders who answered directly to the Night Watchmen. Getting them to take assignments was notoriously difficult — most of them went out of their way to avoid anything troublesome. An Honorary Elder actively requesting more missions was practically unheard of. With Aberration Events multiplying by the day, someone like Lu Yuan truly was nothing short of a godsend.

After leaving the mission room, the two of them returned home. They had spent the entire day at Night Watchman Headquarters, and by the time they arrived, night had fallen. After dinner, Lu Yuan and Li Qinghe each retreated to their own rooms.

Lu Yuan had only just left the Land of Origin — re-entry would have to wait another six days. There was no rush. Once Li Qinghe had entered the Land of Origin and the night had deepened, dark mist swirled around him, and a pitch-black silhouette materialized before him.

A Shadow Clone — conjured through Shadow Dominion.

He had a visit to pay to the Chancellor's estate, and he intended to find out once and for all whether Tong Menghan was actually hiding something.

Lu Yuan synchronized his senses with the Shadow Clone. In the next instant, the clone dissolved into the darkness and became a streak of silent motion, racing soundlessly toward its destination.

He had already looked up the location beforehand. It was easy enough to find — situated in White Willow District, right at the district's heart, in a stretch of the city occupied exclusively by the grand estates of the nobility and high-ranking officials.

The Shadow Clone carried one-third of Lu Yuan's combat power and wielded darkness-type abilities. At night, its speed was extraordinary.

Before long, the clone arrived at the gates of an enormous estate. Within the grounds stood several magnificent villas surrounded by manicured gardens, sprawling lawns, ornamental ponds, and artfully arranged rockeries. The sheer scale of the complex was staggering.

With his senses linked to the clone, Lu Yuan effortlessly perceived the teams of Gene Warriors conducting patrols along the perimeter. These weren't weaklings — he even sensed Battle King Rank and Battle Sovereign-level auras coming from within the estate.

In terms of raw power, his current strength surpassed an ordinary Battle Sovereign who had inscribed Emperor Grade genes. But at one-third capacity, the Shadow Clone was a different matter — it was no match for a Battle Sovereign in a direct fight.

Not that he had any intention of fighting. If the goal was simply to stay hidden and gather intelligence, the Shadow Clone's concealment in darkness was so complete that even a Battle Sovereign would struggle to detect it. This was a Sovereign Grade gene, after all — its mastery of dark-type power was far from ordinary.

From the shadows, Lu Yuan guided the clone silently over the outer wall and into the estate grounds. Two guard teams passed right by without the slightest sense of its presence. He navigated the open grounds with ease and slipped into the central cluster of villas.

He steered the clone toward the largest and most lavish of the buildings — a towering six-story structure, roughly a hundred meters wide on each side.

The Shadow Clone slipped inside without a sound. The doors were shut, but how could a closed door stop a shadow?

Inside, the clone emerged from the darkness and took stock of its surroundings. The décor was dazzling — gold-gilded and gleaming, elegant yet extravagant, with numerous paintings hung along the walls. Lu Yuan didn't recognize a single one of them.

*The Chancellor of the Red Maple Empire is absurdly wealthy.* Then again, this was a major noble house.

Unfamiliar with the layout, he decided to let the clone wander and observe. If Tong Menghan was genuinely affected by an Aberration, its corrosive influence might have spread — there was no telling whether she was the only one compromised.

The interior was busy with maids moving to and fro, guards stationed at regular intervals. For a Chancellor's residence, the household security was impressively thorough.

He swept through the building and came across a few members of the family. One was a golden-haired child throwing a tantrum at one of the maids — perfectly ordinary. The other was a dark-haired girl with a faint resemblance to Tong Menghan, noticeably younger — probably a little sister. She was in her room, painting, and seemed perfectly normal as well.

Based on everything he'd seen so far, the Chancellor's estate appeared entirely unremarkable.

*Too bad the Shadow Clone can't carry the Evolution Cube.* With the Cube present, he might have picked up on some trace of aberrant energy that would give something away. But there was nothing to be done about it — there was no way his real body was setting foot inside the Chancellor's mansion. If something went wrong, the consequences could be severe.

*This isn't cowardice,* he reminded himself. *Just being sensible. No reason to take unnecessary risks over an unconfirmed suspicion.*

He swept through every floor, from first to sixth, and found nothing out of the ordinary. He was starting to wonder whether he'd been wrong about all of this.

He hadn't run into Tong Menghan or the Chancellor, though he did come across two striking women — presumably the Chancellor's wives. Quite beautiful at a glance. Not that it mattered. He barely gave them a second look.

Finding nothing in this villa, he moved the Shadow Clone toward one of the others.

The clone descended back to the ground floor.

The moment it arrived, the front door swung open and someone walked in.

Ice shot down Lu Yuan's spine — it was Tong Menghan.

He held the clone perfectly still in a corner and watched.

She wore a gentle smile on her face, exactly as she had at the Harvest Day banquet and the engagement ceremony.

He fell into step behind her. Before long, a frown creased his brow.

She didn't go upstairs. Instead, she made her way toward a secluded corner of the ground floor.

Tong Menghan stopped before a black statue of an Elemental Warrior positioned against the wall. The statue held a Staff in its hands, a stone orb set into the tip.

She took a slow, measured breath. A look of feverish excitement spread across her face.

She extended a slender finger and pressed it against the stone orb. The next instant, space twisted and warped around it, splitting open into a spatial gateway.

Back at Li Qinghe's home, Lu Yuan's true body stared wide-eyed.

*A World Stone?!*

The spatial gateway, the way the stone mechanism operated — it was identical to the World Stone the Gnolls had produced during the confrontation on Ice Vein Star. A World Stone, hidden here of all places. And disguised, no less. He had suspected hidden passages or secret chambers and searched every floor carefully. But who in their right mind would think to look inside a statue's orb?

*This is giving me a headache.*

Before Tong Menghan stepped through, he concealed the Shadow Clone within her shadow.

Following her inside, the clone slipped into the Small World.

The Small World housed within this World Stone was not large — perhaps a few hundred meters across, smaller than the one the Gnolls had used. The ground was bare grey rock, with scattered furnishings that suggested someone lived here.

Two figures occupied the space. One was shrouded in a black cloak so deep in darkness that nothing beneath it could be seen — no face, no discernible gender, no race, nothing. The other was a middle-aged man with handsome features, long black hair, and an air of authority that came from a lifetime in power.

Lu Yuan had seen him in the news. Chancellor Tong Shu.

At this moment, Tong Shu stood before the cloaked figure with an expression of fervent, almost reverential devotion.

*So the Chancellor's household really does have something going on.*

*But whether it's connected to Aberrations — I still can't say. Without the Evolution Cube, there's no way to be certain.*

*And who exactly is this black-robed figure?*

While Lu Yuan was still studying the cloaked figure in puzzlement, Tong Menghan's entrance drew the attention of both. Tong Shu regarded her with a questioning look.

"Menghan. How did it go?"

Tong Menghan cast an eager glance toward the cloaked figure, her face alive with excitement.

"Si Tingfeng trusts me completely now. I've gotten a near-complete picture of the Red Maple Guard's patrol routes and rotation schedules."

A gleam entered Tong Shu's eyes. He looked toward the cloaked figure.

The figure spoke in a voice that was hoarse and strangely unsettling.

"Good. The next step is obtaining the Night Watchman's underground containment facility layout and guard lineup. Once that's in hand, we can give the Red Maple Empire a little surprise."

*The containment facility layout?!*

Hidden within Tong Menghan's shadow, Lu Yuan went rigid with shock.

*What do they want with the underground containment facility floor plan?*

The only things down there were Aberration Entities — tens of thousands of them.

*They want the Aberration Entities? Why? To release them? To steal them all?*

The containment facility held tens of thousands of Aberration Entities. The A-grade and S-grade entities combined numbered in the dozens alone. If they were released, the devastation would be catastrophic for Night Watchman Headquarters — and the destruction could spread across the entire Imperial Capital. If they were taken and scattered across multiple cities, the number of cities reduced to ruin was beyond calculation. Just A39 alone — the only A-grade entity Lu Yuan had personally witnessed — was enough to annihilate an entire major city.

*What the hell is this black-robed figure? How completely unhinged do you have to be?*

A cold weight settled deep in his chest.

Just then, the cloaked figure paused — and its gaze snapped down to Tong Menghan's shadow.

"Hmm?"

Beneath the dark hood, a pair of blood-red eyes stared out, utterly cold, utterly void of mercy.

The instant those eyes found him, Lu Yuan's mind erupted with a deafening roar, and his senses were forcibly severed from the Shadow Clone.

The cloaked figure reached out and plucked a mass of dark shadow from Tong Menghan's silhouette.

"What is—"

Both Tong Menghan and Tong Shu recoiled, eyes wide. Tong Menghan in particular had gone deathly pale, shaking violently.

The cloaked figure's voice came out soft and glacial.

"Useless."

With a casual flick of its hand, Tong Menghan crumpled to the ground, releasing a sharp and piercing shriek. Her entire body convulsed as threads of blood seeped from across her skin.

Tong Shu's face drained of color. He dropped to his knees and prostrated himself, trembling uncontrollably.

The figure lingered over the punishment for a moment longer, then stopped.

Tong Menghan lay gasping on the floor, struggling to pull herself upright, offering a broken stream of frantic apologies.

"Hmph... so a little insect managed to find this place." A pause. "I'll need to relocate."

In Lu Yuan's room at Li Qinghe's home.

Lu Yuan, who had been sitting cross-legged on his bed, snapped his eyes open. His face went white, and he spat a mouthful of blood. Thin threads of crimson wept from the corners of his eyes.

But quickly, under the combined influence of Great Solar Spirit Body and Life's Aria, the wounds healed and color flooded back into his face.

He sat motionless for a moment, a lingering tremor in his gaze.

*That black-robed figure — definitely a Battle Emperor. And not just any Battle Emperor. A powerful one.*