Chapter 449: Chapter 170: One Sword to Slay It
On the quiet street, aside from the occasional passerby and the vendors calling out from both sides, the fallen leaves of late autumn were the only real scenery.
The Observatory member had an anxious expression on his face. He was panting heavily as he spoke, completely out of breath.
The matter was so urgent that he had rushed over at full speed, not stopping for a moment.
The cold sweat beading on his forehead was more from panic than exertion.
"Natural disasters and man-made calamities?"
Shen Bai’s brow furrowed slightly when he heard the Observatory member’s report, and he loosened his grip on Amber.
He had once told the members of the Observatory that unless it was a major issue, there was no need to report to him; they should just follow the Observatory’s established procedures.
But now, a member had come to find him, and there could only be one reason. The situation must have exceeded the scope of their authority, perhaps even reaching an unmanageable point that required his personal intervention.
With this in mind, Shen Bai nodded. "Don’t panic. We’ll head to the Observatory. Tell me the details as we walk."
Since the event had already occurred, the priority was to understand what happened. Although the Observatory member had described it, his account was too general. Shen Bai needed more details before he could make a judgment.
The Observatory member nodded quickly, stepped aside to clear a path, and began to explain as he followed behind Shen Bai.
"It happened like this..."
...
Shen Bai remained silent the entire way, only stopping when they arrived at the Observatory.
From the Observatory member’s account, Shen Bai now fully understood what had happened.
Under the jurisdiction of Nanxing Prefecture was a State-level City called Garden State. Under Garden State, in turn, was a county-level city named Donglai County.
Donglai County was located in a fertile region. Its people were prosperous, living primarily off agriculture, and it had always been a picture of peace and stability.
But this very morning, strange phenomena suddenly manifested, catching the people of Donglai County completely off guard.
Storms, floods, disease...
Every kind of disaster imaginable had erupted all at once over the course of a single morning.
The people were besieged by disasters. Worse still, they became incredibly unlucky; even just walking down the street could lead to them tripping and splitting their heads open.
Crucially, it wasn’t just the common people; even Cultivators were affected.
Many Cultivators, as if cursed, suddenly encountered all sorts of mishaps. For instance, some made mistakes circulating their Qi during Cultivation and were severely injured.
And this wasn’t an isolated incident.
The local County Magistrate’s Office was powerless to investigate and could only report it to the State-level City. After receiving the report, Garden State dispatched members of its Observatory to investigate, but they came up empty-handed.
Subsequently, the matter was reported to Nanxing Prefecture.
Zheng Xing, the Landlord of the Registration Division and Shen Bai’s right-hand man, immediately issued a mission upon receiving the news. Reportedly, two Unity Realm members from the Bing Division went personally to Donglai County to investigate.
But they came back completely baffled.
They returned without success, having found nothing. The disasters had even begun to spread further, affecting more of the populace.
For now, it was still possible to contain it. But if this dragged on, even for just three to five days, Donglai County would suffer devastating losses.
Zheng Xing was stumped and didn’t know what to do, so his only recourse was to send someone to find Shen Bai.
And that was what led to the earlier scene on the street.
"Lord Shen, you’re finally here! What should we do?" Zheng Xing said.
He had been pacing back and forth in the Observatory’s courtyard, the very picture of extreme anxiety.
It couldn’t be helped. If they could find the cause, the Nanxing Prefecture Observatory had the strength to resolve it with ease. The crux of the problem was that they couldn’t find the specific cause, leaving them feeling completely at a loss.
Shen Bai asked, "In this entire vast Observatory, is there no one who knows a Divination Technique?"
From Shen Bai’s perspective, finding someone skilled in Divination Techniques seemed like the most effective approach for this kind of situation.
’If we can’t find the source, we use a Divination Technique to locate it. Then, from the source, we find clues, and by following those clues, we’ll get to the person behind all this.’
Zheng Xing gave a bitter smile. "We asked for help with Divination from people in the Daoist Sects, but their divinations yielded no results."
Zheng Xing certainly knew the proper procedure, but the problem was that following it seemed to be completely useless.
Shen Bai stroked his chin, then raised his right hand and circulated the Qi in his body.
He activated his Divination Divine Power. As Shen Bai performed his divinatory calculations, a fog materialized before his eyes, completely obscuring any clues.
’For every Divination Technique, there’s a counter.’
’Perhaps my Level 3 Divination Divine Power isn’t high enough. That, and the fact that the other party can conceal the clues, is probably why I can’t divine anything either.’
"Lord Shen, what’s the situation?" Zheng Xing asked.
In the past few days, he and Landlord Wu Tian of the Resource Division had been learning quite a bit about Shen Bai’s past.
The title of Eight Extremes Young Master, in particular, had left Zheng Xing deeply astonished.
’He’s the Eight Extremes Young Master, so he must have countless tricks up his sleeve.’
Zheng Xing was hopeful that Shen Bai’s many abilities could uncover the cause behind it all. As long as they found the source, the Nanxing Prefecture Observatory could surely resolve the matter with decisive force.
But looking at Shen Bai’s current state, it seemed that even he couldn’t find any leads.
This troubled Zheng Xing greatly.
Shen Bai was about to lower his hand when he heard this and subconsciously glanced at the mist his divination had conjured.
Just then, an invisible thread, undetectable to ordinary people, suddenly emerged from the mist. It floated around Shen Bai’s body, weaving up and down as if it possessed a Spirituality of its own.
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