High Martial Arts: Enlightenment after Practices

Chapter 425: Chapter 425: Settlement

"Did that human do this?" the female Divine Son asked in a low voice.

"Besides him, who else could be so brazen?" Chaolu Men sneered. "A single man destroyed an entire mineral vein, killed three Priests, and escaped from right under Batu’s nose."

Batu was that burly Priest. Peak level 46, with combat power on par with an ordinary Divine Son. The fact that even he couldn’t stop him proved that human’s strength was greater than the intelligence reports estimated.

"What’s our next move?" the male Divine Son asked. "West Seventh District is huge. If he decides to hide, he’ll be very difficult to find."

"He won’t hide." Chaolu Men shook his head. "I know his type. People like that are never satisfied with a single success. They’ll just keep looking for their next target."

He looked at his two companions. "Send the order down: have all outposts heighten their alert, especially at important resource points and transit hubs. I’m certain he will strike again soon."

"And when he does, that’s when we’ll hunt him."

A cold, murderous glint flashed in Chaolu Men’s eyes.

The Blood Wolf Order had been issued. A bounty of one hundred thousand merit points was enough to tempt anyone.

But Chaolu Men didn’t care about the merits; he cared about his reputation. As a Divine Son, if he couldn’t even capture a single human Innate, his standing within the clan would plummet.

So, Xu Wuyi must die.

By his hand.

...

After leaving the mining area, Xu Wuyi didn’t return directly to the camp in the East Third District.

Hundreds of kilometers of scorched earth and treacherous terrain separated the West Seventh District from the East Third District. The path was dotted with heavily concentrated Celestial Wolf Civilization outposts, making a direct return far too risky.

He chose a more circuitous route, first heading north to detour through the relatively neutral "Ash Plains."

From there, he would turn east and eventually reach a temporary camp established by the Federation Military on the edge of the West Seventh District.

The journey took him four days.

Along the way, Xu Wuyi encountered three Star Beast herds and two small Werewolf patrols, all of which he managed to avoid.

It wasn’t that he couldn’t defeat them, but that it was unnecessary. The mission was complete, and the most important thing now was to bring the intelligence and results back.

On the morning of the fifth day, Xu Wuyi stood atop a low hill, gazing forward.

At the edge of the scorched plain, the silhouette of a man-made structure appeared.

A grayish-white alloy wall stood out starkly against the dim red sky. Atop the wall fluttered the Federation flag: a blue field of stars, bisected by a golden lightning bolt.

That was "Ironwall" Camp, one of only three Federation Military outposts in the West Seventh District.

Xu Wuyi descended the hill and walked toward the camp gate.

When he was still five hundred meters from the gate, a searchlight from a guard tower swept over him.

A piercing white light lingered on him for three seconds before moving away. This was the standard identification procedure.

Xu Wuyi’s biological information, linked to his access code, was already in the military’s system. The scanner would identify him automatically.

The main gate slowly opened a crack just wide enough for a single person to pass through.

Xu Wuyi walked into the camp.

The interior was more spacious than he’d expected, but exceptionally spartan.

Aside from the necessary defensive fortifications and communications towers, there were only a few rows of temporary prefabricated buildings.

The camp wasn’t crowded. Most people were Martial Artists and technicians in military uniforms, all hurrying about their business with few stopping to talk.

Xu Wuyi headed directly for the largest prefabricated building in the center: the mission settlement office.

He pushed the door open to reveal a small room.

Behind a long alloy table sat three officers—two men and a woman. Their shoulder insignias indicated they all held the rank of major.

A few other Martial Artists were queued up in front of the table, discussing mission details in low voices.

Xu Wuyi went to the back of the line and waited quietly.

He didn’t deliberately suppress his aura. In the cramped space, the Qi and Blood fluctuations of an Innate Martial Artist were like an undercurrent beneath a calm surface. Though not overwhelming, it was enough to make the few Martial Artists ahead of him glance back instinctively.

Twenty minutes later, it was Xu Wuyi’s turn.

He walked up to the long table and placed his personal terminal on the scanner pad.

"Name, mission number," the female officer in the center asked without looking up.

"Xu Wuyi. No number," Xu Wuyi replied.

The female officer’s hands, which had been tapping at a keyboard, paused. She looked up.

She appeared to be in her thirties, with short hair and sharp eyes. A faint scar ran across her face, from her brow bone to her cheekbone.

"No number?" She frowned. "Are you a Battle Group Martial Artist? Battle Group missions are settled internally. The military doesn’t process them directly."

"This wasn’t a Battle Group mission," Xu Wuyi said calmly. "I undertook an independent operation and have come to settle it now that it’s complete."

For a moment, the atmosphere in the room grew subtly tense.

The other two officers also looked up at Xu Wuyi.

Independent operations weren’t uncommon on the Star Realm Battlefield, but they were typically small-scale missions like reconnaissance or intelligence gathering.

For someone like Xu Wuyi to come in alone to settle an account usually meant he had completed a combat mission—and succeeded.

The female officer turned her attention back to the screen, pulling up Xu Wuyi’s clearance information.

When tags like "Innate Martial Artist" and "Specially Invited Member of the Dongjiang Battle Group" appeared, her expression grew more serious.

"Settling an independent operation requires an action report, combat logs, and proof of results," she said. "Do you have them?"

Xu Wuyi nodded. He took a metal storage device from an inner pocket of his combat suit and placed it on the table. "The action report and energy-fluctuation logs are on here. As for proof of results..."

"...the contamination of the Black Stone mineral vein in the West Seventh District, the kill record for three Priests, and follow-up intelligence on the destruction of outposts seven, eight, and nine."

The room fell completely silent.

Even the two other Martial Artists waiting in line stopped talking and turned to stare, their eyes filled with disbelief.

The female officer stared at the storage device for two seconds before reaching out, picking it up, and inserting it into a terminal port.

Data began to scroll rapidly across the screen—lines of text, images, and energy-waveform graphs flashing past.

Her pupils slowly constricted.

The other two officers leaned in to look, and one of them couldn’t help but gasp.

"The Black Stone mineral vein... you contaminated it by yourself?" the female officer’s voice was a little hoarse.

"I did," Xu Wuyi replied. "I used three Erosion Source Agents, injected at the vein’s origin point. Based on the energy diffusion models, the purity of the entire vein will drop by over seventy percent. It will be unusable for manufacturing high-precision equipment for the next three years."

"The kill record for three Priests... Do you have residual energy samples?"

Xu Wuyi took a small, sealed tube from his belt. Inside were several filaments of dark-gold energy. He had extracted them from the Priests’ corpses using the Power of Heart Image; they carried a unique, unforgeable signature.

The female officer took the sealed tube and inserted it into a scanner. A few seconds later, a confirmation message appeared on the screen: "Energy signature match confirmed. Celestial Wolf Civilization, Priest-class unit. Time of death consistent with record."

She looked up, studying Xu Wuyi anew.

This time, the scrutiny in her eyes was gone, replaced by pure, unadulterated shock.

"Wait here," she said, then turned and walked toward a door at the back of the room.