Chapter 65: Raid
Among the common knowledge circulating among the Chosen Ones, everyone acknowledged that the Ember Path really was untouchable. At the same time, there was another undeniable truth: within a workshop, a craftsman’s authority was absolute.
Sometimes, even a Celestial Being could find themselves humiliated under the creations stored within certain workshops, let alone those on the same level or rank as the workshop master. It was like facing a heavily fortified fortress unarmed. There would be ballistae, arrow carts, falling rocks, rolling logs, let alone very disgusting traps, like those that simply boiled excrement on battlements to splash intruders in the face.
Ji Jue firmly believed that even if the outside world collapsed, and Haizhou was swallowed by earthquakes or flooded to oblivion, as long as Professor Ye remained in her workshop, life inside would continue as usual. Its defense and suppression were that terrifying and overpowered.
Unfortunately, a proper workshop was far more than just a room with a furnace. Just as automated curtains didn’t make an entire house smart, a workshop was not some gimmicky, all-in-one setup.
A proper workshop required three generations of craftsmen, spanning over a hundred years to complete. It needed a full set of tools covering every aspect of alchemy, often specialized and modified according to the techniques passed down within the school. And this was just the bare minimum.
It required a power source capable of supplying all spirit matter consumption. In the official Taiyi Ring channels, the cheapest portable Spirit Matter Sun cost 242,009,411 units. God knew why the price had both zeros and exact digits. Ji Jue had used every coupon he could, and it still fell short.
On top of that came full-space spirit circuit installation and pre-embedded rune containers involving various sacred rituals and blessings of the Supreme Benevolence to enhance output quality. Ascension improved refined output rates, Origin granted craftsmen greater control, and Vortex ensured that even if the furnace exploded head-on, the craftsman would remain completely unharmed.
Not to mention the external defense systems, the all-encompassing risk monitoring system that watched the entire situation in real time, and the necessary alchemical support modules. Each of these was a bottomless pit of complexity, each one capable of consuming more than a decade of a craftsman’s life without ever being fully completed.
The fact that the devil's work ball could compress this entire system into a mobile, pocketable workshop showed its extraordinary value.
Inside, it contained all temporary and emergency processing tools. Its core instructions were vast enough to respond autonomously to every unexpected situation, and it could even go toe-to-toe with Mercury’s workshop defense system despite its small size.
Unfortunately, a simplified version was still just simplified, and its operator was still Ji Jue, a mere apprentice who knew nothing but how to press buttons. Simply defending against incoming threats nearly overloaded it.
And now, the challenge before them was a grandmaster whose workshop encompassed an entire rift realm, a god who could do anything inside her workshop!
The situation was so dire it was as if Ji Jue, a little kid, had wandered into Mercury’s amusement park, he would have been left completely at the mercy of whoever wanted to toy with him. They could squish him flat, roll him into a ball, maybe even toss him into the furnace and forge him into a weapon.
The good news was that Mercury was gone. Or at least, it seemed so!
The bad news was the same—Mercury was dead. There was no admin access left to manipulate the workshop and let them out. They had to face a workshop loaded with all sorts of defensive protocols and extermination programs head-on.
But what if she wasn’t completely dead...? Just the thought of some ancient ghost lurking in the shadows, watching visitors for who knew how many years, made Ji Jue shiver all over.
At least, thankfully, Mr. Ball was pretty tough. Even after taking a hit from a spirit intrusion and an EMP, it could still boot up and self-start, enough to evade the workshop’s search. It even helped Ji Jue with signal shielding so they wouldn’t be treated like pests and immediately subjected to the workshop’s extermination measures upon entry.
At least for now, they were safe.
Once deployed, the devil's work ball could form a safe space with basic workshop functions, even including a shower and a restroom, minimizing the troubles of surviving outdoors.
Under Mr. Ball’s protection, Ji Jue and An Ran managed to get a decent night’s rest.
Five hours later, when both were mostly recovered, they set out again, carefully following the clues Mr. Ball provided, inching toward the church at the center of the city.
To be precise, it was a towering bell tower standing intact amidst the ruins and debris of the rift, like a crane among chickens.
From their brief encounter upon entering the realm, Mr. Ball had already precisely traced the flow of spirit matter within the rift and marked many key locations. Among them, the place most likely to be the workshop’s core was that bell tower. Unfortunately, the bell tower was far too conspicuous.
It wasn’t just them who noticed it. Anyone with eyes would probably spot the anomaly after a search. Whether there were clues or evidence didn’t matter; in the rift, exploration required patience and attention to detail.
Some people had already been smart enough to set their sights on other Chosen Ones.
Even if I can’t handle the bell tower, that doesn’t mean I can’t deal with others. Aren’t they all just loot drops anyway?
Twenty minutes after setting out, Ji Jue had already dismantled a second tripwire mine from the ruins along a necessary route. He couldn’t help but feel a little concerned about the mental state of the contemporary Chosen Ones.
How do you all manage to turn every game into a battle royale? What happened to love and peace?
But since nobody bothered to be honorable anymore, Ji Jue had no qualms either. He simply rotated the tripwire mine and reinstalled it, then placed a new one on the most obvious spot across the way, issuing a command through his ability. If anyone tried to disarm the wire, it would detonate instantly.
“Truly heartless.” He scolded the other unscrupulous explorers for their vile, despicable ways. He was helpless yet righteously indignant, fully immersed in the act.
“Mr. Ji, you’re such an upright man!”
An Ran, who had witnessed everything Ji Jue did, scribbled in his notebook. Ji Jue didn’t deliberately set a minimal explosive charge to injure, lure others closer, and ambush them. He simply delivered a clean, total kill. How noble and kind! Such an unwavering character shone even in the darkness of the rift.
As the boy observed and studied seriously, he suddenly frowned.
Blessing of the White Deer, a premonition of killing intent: Cicada’s Insight!
“Mr. Ji, someone’s coming.” The disabled boy propped himself up on the back of Horsey, the metallic scrape of the plates beneath his sleeves sounding faintly. Realization gradually dawned on him. “They’re probably coming for me. Sorry, I'm causing you trouble again.”
He pulled out his folding cane, ready to climb down from the back of Horsey, but Ji Jue held him in place.
Ji Jue shook his head. “Stay put. I don’t abandon my teammates.”
Setting aside any connection with Ms. Wen, since entering the rift, An Ran had saved him countless times. If he ran off at the first hint of trouble now, even Ji Jue would look down on himself. This wasn’t his first PVP, anyway.
He reached out, pulled the shotgun off Horsey’s gun mount, and racked the slide.
The instant the drone took off, a deafening roar erupted overhead, and the shattered skylight collapsed in an instant. A massive figure plummeted from above, and a sharp killing intent struck from behind him!
***
“Got it!” Two minutes earlier, inside the ruined building, a Chosen One holding a water tray was practically glowing with excitement. “He’s right ahead of us, less than five hundred meters away.”
“Are you sure it’s him?” the burly team leader asked cautiously. “I won’t tolerate any mistakes.”
“Absolutely. He’s of the White Deer Path, and looks like a girl. Only the kid from the An family fits that description. He has short hair, a limping leg... That’s our target. Who knows how much universally hated dirty work he’s done at the Security Bureau, but the crowdfunded bounty on him on the Wasteland Assembly alone is over seventy million!”
A woman sharpening her blade grinned. “And don’t let the one next to him get away either. There’s a big payout on him, too. I’ve been keeping an eye on it. Right before the rift opened, it shot up again by a huge margin.”
“Good. Stay sharp.”
The team leader raised his hand, pressing a pneumatic injector gun to his neck. He pulled the trigger, sending a full dose directly into his artery. His face turned crimson, and his physique swelled further.
A thick, heavy exoskeleton sprouted beneath his skin. In an instant, he became a giant over three meters tall. Five-fingered claws were as sharp as knives, yet his movements were astonishingly light and graceful. In the blink of an eye, he had skillfully scaled the ruins, following the guidance of the Aether Chosen One, and melted into the shadows.
The moment everyone was in position, he grinned. The giant beast clenched his fist and slammed it violently into the already crumbling ground after descending from the sky!
Ji Jue saw An Ran, sitting atop Horsey, whirl around. A flash of cold steel shot out from his sleeve, screeching straight toward Ji Jue!
But Ji Jue didn’t even move. He kept his aim steady, still locked onto the Chosen One falling from midair.
Soon, he pulled the trigger!
Bang!
Two deafening blasts overlapped, hitting simultaneously with no sense of which came first.
The single high-penetration round, engraved with the emblem of Swarm, struck the charging monstrous Chosen One dead on. He was blasted backward in midair, arms thrown up to guard his front. Deep cracks had already appeared in his chitin and bones, and he was drenched in cold sweat.
Behind Ji Jue, a shadow that had appeared out of nowhere had its dagger sent flying and shattered by the metal shard An Ran had thrown. Neither of their counterattacks had slowed the attackers in the slightest.
The giant’s wound instantly contracted and closed. With a ground-shaking roar, he charged straight at the boys.
At the same time, the attacker hiding in the illusion lunged again, this time straight for Ji Jue, striking with lethal intent. Halfway through, the woman extended her other hand.
In an instant, a burst of multicolored light erupted from empty space, flashing violently. The entire scene spun wildly, as if they had been thrown into a washing machine. The world turned upside down, and everything turned into a blur.
Ji Jue only had time to follow Mr. Zhang’s training: reinforcing his legs with the White Deer emblem, he launched forward, sprinting and diving and rolling to safety, all while feeling both awe and fear at the precision of this lethal ambush.
With a Vortex-type tank Chosen One to take the frontline and main assault, a Mirror-type Chosen One hidden in the back providing support, unleashing crowd control before coordinating with others lying in ambush, and even securing the initiative on top of that... And all of this taking place in a ruin where mechanical constructs were scarce to the extreme.
They had the right timing, terrain, and coordination. Everything was in their hands.
If Ji Jue had been alone, he would have absolutely died, as he had no chance of survival in that opening wave. Fortunately, An Ran was here.
And even more fortunately, behind them, that woman who had been relentlessly pursuing them like a shadow had a weapons belt around her waist.
If you’re going to ambush someone, fine. But why are you also carrying a grenade?
As Ji Jue fell through the air, he hit the ground and went prone, instinctively adopting a proper blast-resistance posture. He clenched his right hand.
“Detonate!”
