I Am Your Natural Enemy

Chemical plant domain—the cleanup operations are still ongoing, and this isn't something that'll be wrapped up in just a day or two.

The number of zombies and ghosts inside is off the charts, especially the zombies—enough to form an entire zombie unit.

Even though the vast majority are just regular walking dead, there are quite a few hopping corpses, and there are at least twenty or thirty haired zombies.

Especially those green-haired zombies specializing in the corpse poison route—they've found two of those already.

If it weren't for the two deformed corpses and the eight black-haired zombie warriors lending a hand, just these two green-haired zombies alone could've wiped out the entire Scorching Sun squad.

But right now, everything is proceeding smoothly.

If all the zombies are low-grade and not too far apart in strength, they're actually pretty hard to control, but once the grade rises and the gap gets huge, the suppression is absolute.

Cai Qidong stood at the edge of the crater, staring down into the darkness, listening to his subordinates' report.

"We've basically figured out the general situation. What's underneath was formed after several domains broke apart. Between each domain, there are some pitch-black lightless zones.

Based on our observations and estimates, the Soul Devouring Beast had already suffered heavy damage beforehand.

No clue why it ended up like this. The scammer's dead—we'll never know the details.

But one thing we can be sure of: this place has been here a long time.

It predates the arrival of the Soul Devouring Beast.

And when the Soul Devouring Beast showed up, something must've gone wrong—on entry, it crashed through several domains at once.

And now, after getting tossed around for days, it's shrinking more and more, plus... it looks like it's trending toward falling into the darkness."

After listening to the report, Cai Qidong stood at the edge of the crater, silently mulling it over.

One hand drifted to his waist—the reins he'd borrowed from Virtue City Funeral Home have never left his person.

He'd originally pinned his biggest hopes on this item, but it turns out it's probably useless after all.

Even if, on the surface, this seems like the perfect moment to use the reins, he's not planning to try anymore.

On the one hand, don't complicate things—the current situation is already the best possible outcome.

On the other, after what the Soul Devouring Beast and that Fake Mo Zhicheng pulled off, he's got lingering chills.

He'd heard a brief version from Qin Kun: turns out Fake Mo Zhicheng had picked up too many old identities, turning into full-blown multiple personalities, and one of them got triggered during a voice recording—the guy snapped completely.

That's obviously not the whole truth, but Cai Qidong isn't planning to dig much further.

Qin Kun's already using "my brain's not right, I can't explain clearly" as an excuse—what more is there to ask?

Ask who, anyway?

Go question that Flying Zombie?

Being a leader, you've gotta have a minimum level of EQ. When someone shows up to help, you count your blessings; no point interrogating everyone for every last detail.

After this fiasco, he's really understood—ordinary people are getting left behind by the times.

Just like this case, going in and out of domains, everyone's got to get wet; their heavy machinery can't even get inside. Individual strength gets amplified limitlessly.

And even someone as strong as Qin Kun—even he claims he's not the real core player here.

Understanding and exploiting the rules, possessing unique abilities—that's actually the key factor now.

It's time to recruit more professionals. Otherwise, next time they hit a situation that their main force can't handle, they're screwed again.

This is something Feng Yao had already filed a report and proposal about a while ago.

But the way Scorching Sun Department usually operates, bringing in professionals isn't so easy. A professional who hasn't gone through training or seasoning—just throwing them into Scorching Sun's operations could be a huge mistake.

But now, they really have to start thinking about what comes next.

To be blunt, they've got plenty of warriors who don't fear death. Some things can be fixed with bodies. But there are other issues—even bodies can't patch those up.

"Pass it down: aside from the surveillance tech, no one goes near this place. No disturbances. No acting without orders."

If the Soul Devouring Beast is on its way out, if it's sinking into the dark void, then just leave it be.

The new sanitation and cleanup office has just been established, and he's rounded up all the people brainwashed by Fake Mo Zhicheng—giving him way tighter control over Nanwu County Scorching Sun. But that's just a bonus.

The main thing is, from those people, he's gotten hold of quite a few threads to follow.

Judging by what Fake Mo Zhicheng knew, some of it isn't the kind of stuff regular Scorching Sun field or internal staff should ever have access to.

He trusts the people in Scorching Sun—the big objectives are definitely aligned—but sometimes, people just disagree on the methods.

He also believes, after all these decades, if there's ever a shot at controlling the Soul Devouring Beast, there's bound to be people in Scorching Sun who wouldn't want to let that chance go.

The Soul Devouring Beast isn't some dead object, not one of those wondrous items with fixed effects.

Those wondrous items you can use within limits, but living things? Forget it.

The way things are now is plenty good.

Once Cai Qidong finished giving orders, his inner circle immediately understood what he meant, and how the report should be filed.

The Soul Devouring Beast is simply too dangerous. Let it dissipate on its own.

Once he's done here, he follows the waterway back to the temporary camp, only to see Feng Yao striding over from a distance.

"What's up?"

Feng Yao glanced around.

"Couple little demons just turned themselves in—claimed they were paid to keep an eye on this place."

As she spoke, Feng Yao produced a tablet, with a photo displayed—a Big Bird with most of its skull crushed in, species name tagged, and a National First-Class (国一) in brackets beside it.

"Our people checked it out: this is a photo from the scene. Confirmed, they were watching from the woods outside the camp. As soon as Wen Yan left, they tailed him all the way to the highway—then got sniped by a scrap of tomato stem, dead-on from nearly a mile away."