bookbashuk Chapter 178 Clash!
Chapter 178 Clash!
"Bang!"
Inside the temporary command post, a hot-tempered senior officer slammed his fist on the alloy tabletop.
He roared, "This is outrageous! This Zhao Gang is taking advantage of our misfortune! He's trying to sow discord among us!"
"This is not the time to talk about these things." Old Master Long frowned and looked at Su Chen:
"Xiao Su, if this matter isn't handled properly, all our previous efforts will have been in vain."
"People outside are panicking and waiting to see how we handle this."
Su Chen remained calm, ignoring the argument in the conference room.
Instead, he asked directly, "How are the injured?"
"He's been taken to the medical center. He's not in life-threatening danger, but his injuries are severe."
"Where is that Wotan warrior?"
"They've been locked up by the tyrant; we'll deal with them later."
Su Chen nodded: "I'll go check on the wounded soldiers, and then I'll personally interrogate that Wotan man."
He didn't make any decisions immediately; in times like these, the more chaotic things are, the more important it is to stay calm.
At the medical center, Su Chen saw the wounded soldier.
His exoskeleton armor was dented from the impact, and he was still unconscious.
Su Chen reached out and mobilized a wisp of pure world power, slowly injecting it into the soldier's body.
Nourished by his power, the soldier's broken sternum began to heal at a visible speed.
His pale face gradually regained some color.
After confirming that the soldiers were unharmed, Su Chen went to the temporary solitary confinement cell where the Wotan soldiers were being held.
The tyrant was there too, his grey-blue face filled with gloom.
"Su Chen, I'm very sorry, my people were too impulsive."
The tyrant took the initiative to apologize.
Su Chen waved his hand: "It's no use talking about this now. I need to know the truth."
He walked up to the young Wotan warrior.
Although this Wotan was bound by energy shackles, his eyes were filled with defiance and anger.
Su Chen didn't speak, but instead used his mental power to communicate with the other party.
This is the power of the Lord of the World, capable of transcending language barriers and reaching the level of the soul.
Under his questioning, the truth of the matter quickly came to light.
It turns out that the Wotan warrior was not there to loot any supplies.
It was because the detector he carried with him tracked down a highly suspicious signal source.
He showed Su Chen the data records on his scanning device.
Deep beneath those ruins, there exists a high-frequency energy signal that belongs neither to humans nor to the Wotan people.
The energy characteristics of that signal... matched the residual energy of the Seraph with a 97% accuracy!
Su Chen's heart skipped a beat.
Wasn't the Seraphim already broken down into the purest particles by the world's core energy that he detonated?
How can there still be residual power left on Earth?
He immediately realized that things weren't that simple.
Su Chen immediately ordered the area to be sealed off, and then personally led a team to conduct an underground investigation.
Hundreds of meters underground in the ruins, they discovered a cleverly hidden, separate space.
Inside the space, there is a golden spherical energy body with a diameter of about three meters.
It was suspended in mid-air, emitting a faint but pure golden light.
Su Chen carefully probed using the power of the world and quickly figured out the origin of this thing.
This is a "data node" that the Seraphs secretly placed on Earth during their "civilization test"!
Its function is to record all the raw data from the Seraphim's comprehensive scan of Earth.
This includes the Earth's laws and structure, the distribution of core energy, and its geological formation.
Even... an assessment report of the abilities of every awakened being on Earth.
It can be said that this is the most comprehensive database about the Earth.
More importantly, Su Chen is in this data node.
They also discovered a hidden command from the Starsea Council, encrypted with the highest privileges.
It took him a full hour and a great deal of global power to barely crack the encrypted command.
The moment Su Chen saw the instructions, he felt as if the blood in his body was about to freeze.
The instruction was very simple, consisting of only one sentence.
[If the tested civilization passes the test, its development trajectory will be secretly monitored during the novice protection period. If its development speed exceeds a preset threshold, the 'secondary cleansing' protocol will be immediately activated.]
Second cleaning!
Su Chen stood before the golden energy sphere, his heart churning with turbulent emotions.
He finally understood.
The Starsea Council has granted a one-year "newbie protection period".
It's not a benevolent "buffer period" at all, but a carefully designed "observation period"!
If Earth develops too slowly, the protection period will end in a year, and it will be devoured by covetous scavengers.
But if the Earth develops too fast, showing potential beyond their control, exceeding the so-called "threshold" they set, it could lead to a crisis.
Parliament might even intervene directly, launching an even more terrifying "second purge" to wipe out Earth's civilization from its very roots!
What a vicious and meticulously planned dead end this is!
Regardless of which way Earth chooses, whether it goes left or right, the final outcome is all within the calculations of the parliament.
What they want is not a powerful ally at all.
Instead, he was an obedient "little brother" who could be manipulated at will and could never threaten their position.
Su Chen took a deep breath, forcing himself to calm down from the immense shock and anger.
He did not choose to destroy the data node.
Doing so would only alert the enemy immediately and make the Star Sea Council aware of the anomaly.
He chose a smarter, and more insidious, approach.
He used his power as the master of the world to manipulate the laws of the world.
Embedded in the external transmission signals of data nodes is an extremely sophisticated, almost imperceptible layer of "information camouflage".
From now on, all data about Earth transmitted by this data node to the Star Sea Council will be "filtered" and "modified" by Su Chen.
He wanted the Star Sea Council to see the Earth they wanted to see—a "new civilization" that was developing normally, had limited potential, was plagued by internal conflicts, and posed no threat whatsoever.
The real "Earth Evolution Project" will be carried out madly in the deepest shadows.
As Su Chen turned to leave the underground space, a cold smile appeared on his lips.
You want to use me as a pawn?
Okay, we'll see.
Let's see in the end who the player is and who is the pawn caught in the middle.
Just then, a new message in his bullet screen system made him abruptly stop in his tracks.
[The cage in District Seven can barely hold me anymore... If the ruler of Earth could hear this... the "Prophet's" next target isn't Earth... it's the Council itself.]