Chapter 337 Blood Smoke and Thorn Flowers Bloom (2)

I once heard that the third captain's philosophy is "justice never delayed."

You believe that mistakes should be stopped before they happen. Once a major mistake has been made, delayed justice is meaningless. Therefore, you and your team members are always elusive throughout the Third Order, preventing problems before they occur. Thus, major crimes within the Poetry Umbrella are always stopped before they occur.

I think it is a great idea to put the safety of all living beings on the shoulders of a small team.

That’s why I really want to know where the limit of “justice” is.

Trek held the letter higher to hide it from his daughter. He wanted to tell Rico casually that this was no big deal, just like the previous ones, but the instincts he'd honed on the battlefield prevented him from pretending to be relaxed.

"Li Ke, take everyone to the command room," he said. "You might not be able to contact me for a while, so don't panic."

[The rules of the game are very simple.]

An unknown number of bombs were planted throughout the Third Sequence.

All bombs will be detonated today, but the explosion time of each bomb is random.

In other words, even I don't know where the next explosion will happen.

If you can defuse all the bombs, it means your "justice" has won.

And if you fail to catch any of the bombs, your "justice" has failed.

I hope you are ready. 】

Trek pulled a compass from his pocket.

The pointer that would normally point to where the crime occurred was now spinning madly and aimlessly, turning into a phantom of despair.

The moment you see this line...

The game begins. 】

The spinning needle suddenly stopped, the compass pointing directly in front of him. The messenger's tears of blood had dried up at some point, and blood-red smoke flowed from his hollow eye sockets. His body instantly expanded like a hot air balloon, and just before it exploded, a wooden spear dropped from the sky, impaling the soldier on the ground!

"What a hassle," said Trek.

At the same moment the wooden spear entered his body, he and the soldier appeared above the desperate battle line. He kicked the soldier, sending him flying into a swarm of contaminated beasts. The soldier erupted the moment he landed, and a blood-red light rose from the battle line!

Entire herds of alien beasts were utterly destroyed. Level 4 aliens, proud of their strength, didn't even stand a chance against the bomb. Even the parched earth vanished, the detonation point transformed into a hole as deep as a meteorite crater, and blood-red smoke rose from the hole, mingling with the dust.

A mercenary in the back was stunned: "The city-state's new weapon?!"

"There will be lots of fireworks today," Trek told him.

He vanished again, returning to the bustling city of the Third Vein. The immense distance of the teleportation brought a brief sense of emptiness, but after the crime was stopped, the Holy Honor Cup's self-circulation replenished the lost energy. The distance from the city-state's mainland to the center of the desperate frontier was too great, but he had to conduct his experiments in an area that wouldn't endanger the civilian population. The compass pointed to the balloon rising from the crowd, and thoughts flowed through Trek's mind like a stream.

The initial strike that penetrated the soldier was a sealing technique, isolating the flow of energy. The bomb's normal detonation suggests a lack of precise internal structure, or perhaps an overly complex, integrated design. Judging solely by destructive power, a single bomb was equivalent to a full-strength attack from a top-tier Seismic Point Four weapon, with a range that could cover at least a city block, meaning at least thousands of casualties.

How many bombs? Hundreds? Thousands? Even taking the ideal figure of 100, hundreds of thousands of lives would be directly threatened. And he couldn't spare a single one.

Thinking stopped temporarily, Trek grabbed the colorful balloon. The child who jumped up to grab the balloon looked aggrieved.

"I'll give you a new one later." Trek told him with a smile.

Teleporting again, the balloon exploded above the battle line, its aftermath affecting only a few birds. Again, no remains were left, only smoke. This bomb seemed to be highly effective against living things, the blood-red smoke the remains of their decomposition. Trek collected the smoke in a bouquet of flowers as a sample for preservation, his compass beginning to waver once more.

Trek injected more mental strength: "You should also be more serious."

This compass is his Holy Cup. It points the way to evil, bringing the power to bring justice to a timely manner. He can use it to appear at crime scenes, battlefields, and other places rife with evil, or to appear near his comrades, thus preventing crimes before they occur. The compass of justice can also remove people and objects, but this requires a doubled consumption of mental energy and a more precise manipulation.

Thanks to the compass, Trek had been able to maintain his composure and foresight. But this time, he had completely miscalculated, allowing the enemy to operate in the Third Pulse until now without even noticing. The compass hadn't even realized it until this moment...

Not only that, the team members' routine checks yielded no results, and even the Jingsha Temple had no warning. Everyone maintained the attitude of "everything was fine until yesterday" and faced the current situation.

(They have access to a vast amount of information. Including my abilities, the Divine Guards' routine inspection methods, and even a method of concealing information from the Divine Tree... A traitor has appeared in a very high position.)

The compass pinpointed his location, and he appeared in front of a hot dog stand, teleporting once more to unleash the explosion. Two seconds until the next target's detonation. Flower shop, grabbing flowers. Two seconds. In front of a flower cart, removing the logo. One second. A ball bouncing on the field. 0.7 seconds. The scholar's computer terminal. 1.7 seconds. The projection crystal playing. Three seconds...

There was absolutely no pattern. The timing, the location, or even the appearance of the bomb itself. Until the moment before the explosion, even he couldn't tell which of the objects around him might be the bomb.

The criminal had melted the core of the blood smoke bomb into ubiquitous objects. His material manipulation precision was extremely strong... Based on this, it could be inferred that he was likely one of the few rational Supreme Path Ascenders, most likely an Anti-Law Rainbow of Particle 5, for whom causing destruction was their specialty.

This ruthless bomber has no moral compass and cares nothing for the loss of innocent lives. Judging by the tone of the challenging letter, he's the most formidable and joyful criminal. He lurks among the crowd, patiently evading the search of the Divine Guards, crafting bombs one by one, all in the name of unleashing today's tragedy...

Trek cut his thoughts short. Something wasn't right. It was hard to imagine an Anti-Law Rainbow being so adept at hiding. These highly emotional individuals were quick to act and sought immediate results. If the Spiral Tower had been responsible, Rainbow Evil would likely have simply created a massive, unstoppable bomb and suspended it over the Third Vein, basking in the citizens' despair, rather than offering a specific opportunity to "stop" it.

Besides, the fact that the Supreme Path was hiding its tracks was itself very inconsistent... Is the criminal schizophrenic? The possibility of a gang committing the crime is very low. Who can cooperate with Anti-Law Hong...

0.9 seconds. After a short break, Trek appeared in front of the pizza stand, his pointer pointing to a chubby boy who had just eaten a large frozen burrito coated with honey.

"Do you want to eat some cake too?" the fat boy asked foolishly.

Trek was glad that he was still wearing sunglasses so that others could not see his eyes clearly.

"I'm sorry," he said.

He punched the fat boy in the chest, and the countercurrent of divine power caused the pancake to be vomited out. The bomb-like frozen pancake had already turned to light. It was too late to teleport. Trek's hands turned to wood, and his fingers, like branches, curled into a ball, locking the bomb.

Thorny Shackle Divine Art: Branch Prison, the first layer of divine protection. Simultaneously, Trek planted his feet into the ground, drawing strength to cast the second layer of divine protection. He didn't have time to cast the sealing spell. After strengthening his body, he lunged forward, crushing the bomb beneath him.

explode.

People heard a rumbling sound and felt the ground sliding as the blood smoke bomb's impact was transferred underground by its roots. Trek was blown a thousand meters away. He transferred the diffused main body of the bomb to high altitude, and the secondary disaster disappeared into the clouds.

Trek's vision went white as he took the direct impact of the bomb, leaving him briefly dizzy. It was stronger than the first one, and was its power also random?

He lost a precious second in his trance before realizing that he was lying in a broken wooden box, with the crushed fruit pulp beneath him. The pig stall owner looked at him in astonishment.

"Sir, you are injured! Don't move!" it said anxiously, "I will take you to the temple--"

Thanks for not making me pay for it, Trek thought. He disappeared from the stall owner's view and grabbed a wooden chair in the restaurant. The wasted time made it impossible to maintain his previous rhythm. He simply threw the bomb into the sea, and the blast tore through dozens of demons.

Eliminate this threat for the people. His mind raced uncontrollably, unsure if it was the aftereffects of his injury or the effects of the bomb. Trek calmed himself, wiping the blood from his face. Having gathered nearly enough information about the bomb, he expended a small amount of divine power to activate communication, accessing the teams' shared channel.

"The current situation at Mansa Star Fort is under control. Please report back, teams." He heard Benningtik's voice.

"Yes! There's nothing unusual with the second team!"

"There's a demonic insurgency here, and we're currently suppressing it while protecting civilians. Considering the potential for panic caused by evacuating the crowd, we haven't engaged in a large-scale firefight yet," Hariroa reported. "Thanks to the assistance of enthusiastic citizens, we have the situation under control."

"There's also a situation in the fields. A large number of unfamiliar mobile puppets have appeared, and they're extremely lethal to war plants." The fourth captain reported, "Ditto, thank you for your spontaneous support, seniors."

His terrible premonition had come true. Benintic had thought Mansa Star Fort and the military camps needed the most attention, but it turned out the amusement park and the fields were the scene of the trouble. If the third meridian was well defended, the enemy's main force would have taken the opportunity to shift to meridians 4 and 5. Fortunately, he had made preparations in advance, with two Sephiroth 5s to maintain order, and the unrest was under control. It seemed that the worst was happening on his side...

"Team Three, please report in," Benintic called out as he defused the bomb.

"Okay, okay, routine report. There are no abnormalities in the third team. Call me anytime if you need support."

Trek heard the voice of the man who was dealing with the situation.

That was his own voice.

(End of this chapter)