Chapter 227: 226 Reaction

"Stop!"

The moment the Aquarius Director hastily withdrew and the 【Time Gap】 was completely sealed, a massive barrage of dazzling attacks instantly arrived.

The first to appear was an inexplicable sweet fragrance; near where the middle-aged Joshua "opened the door," as if just welcoming a cloying drizzle, various desserts sprouted like bamboo shoots after rain and began to expand at a frantic pace.

Yet before these suddenly appeared sweets could successfully swell, hundreds of sea-blue tentacles, thick as an adult's waist, shot out first, waving wildly with an aura of crushing everything, instantly grinding the sweets on the ground into a rainbow-colored sugar paste, only to then be sliced and carved by a vast number of invisible blades, melted into a sky-spanning spray of pinkish mist by a mass of dreamy fog.

Immediately following came the scarlet blood domain, sobbing whispers, the golden river, the nameless ring seal, the pale puppet covered in thorns, the ten-eyed knee-crawling demon weeping blood, the masked mouthless martyr's corpse, the fierce-eyed evil moon reflected in a pool of green lake water...

As if at an abnormality exposition, a huge number of things that looked obviously wrong appeared one after another at the spot where the Aquarius Director fled, violently destroying the abnormal abilities that had arrived first, only to be torn apart even more savagely by attacks that arrived later.

Until the very last moment, the Eye of the Sun in the sky suddenly dimmed, casting down a sun-shade darker than the deepest night, annihilating everything on the main platform, and only then did the diverse attacks of the Cleanup Bureau's crowd come to an end...

Damn it...

Watching the main platform washed countless times within a second, Hearing Li Ang, who had been dragged away early by his own Director, couldn't help but shudder violently, his back clothes instantly soaked by cold sweat.

When the 【Gate to the Other World】 began to close, Hearing Li Ang had originally planned to pick up two more weights, but suddenly his right shoe turned into a wafer cookie, hundreds of tentacles covered in suckers quietly emerged around him, and a familiar cluster of bright red hair silently coiled around his waist.

The Director is preparing to scoop me up... so staying here any longer would be dangerous?

Although the 【Time Gap】 hadn't fully closed and Hearing Li Ang had enough speed to dodge the red hair's entanglement and continue picking up weights on the ground, out of trust in his own Director, he didn't move, letting the Director's hair wrap around him, and then...

It was just a hair's breadth from there being no "then"!

Along with the Freckled Prince and Senior Jerry, Hearing Li Ang, who had been pulled out by the Director's red hair and witnessed attack after attack falling, was now infinitely grateful for having restrained his greed.

These fierce people of the Cleanup Bureau, although they couldn't catch the speed-enhanced Aquarius Director, would find it ridiculously easy to kill me; looking at that plowing-like area-saturation attack, if I had stayed in place to pick up weights, even with a thousand lives I would have been wiped out on the spot!

And just as Hearing Li Ang was still trembling with fear, the red-haired Director who had saved all three of them also couldn't help but let out a long sigh, then slightly nodded towards the Director of the Lion Branch, saying:

"Beverly, thank you for lending a hand."

"No need to thank me; I almost made things worse."

Raising a hand to point at Hearing Li Ang's right foot, restoring the shoe that had been turned into a cookie, Beverly, the Director of the Lion Branch, explained with a hint of apology:

"I originally intended to turn the three of you into sweets; that way, even if you were torn apart by subsequent attacks, as long as a bit more sugar and dough were added and mixed, you could be reshaped and revived.

However, there were more people intervening than I expected; even the Director deployed the 【Sun Shade】 to cast down. If you had truly been turned into sweets by me, you would have suffered greatly."

"You must be thanked."

The red-haired Director insisted:

"My intervention speed wasn't fast; if you hadn't lent a hand to block some of the summoned 【Sea Tentacles】, I really might not have been able to get them all out intact. This time I owe you... Also, don't think these people were Hand Too Heavy."

At this point, the red-haired Director turned to look at the three of Hearing Li Ang, who were still shaken, and explained with a rather helpless expression:

"The first few to act, even if they truly wanted to try to intervene and keep you, applied slightly too much force, but they all held back their power regarding your positions, allowing me to barely pull you out despite so many attacks.

As for those who acted afterwards, they actually intentionally avoided you; so rather than wanting to keep you, it was more about showing loyalty, proving they weren't colluding with the Aquarius Director; everyone was just putting on a show."

"..."

After hearing the red-haired Director's words, Hearing Li Ang pondered for a moment and immediately understood what was going on.

This incident involved the Watchtower Palace, which touched the Cleanup Bureau's vital point, coupled with the sudden "defection" of the Twin Branch Director; therefore, no matter how the Aquarius Director was handled afterwards, the "Aquarius Faction" within the Cleanup Bureau would inevitably face extremely strict scrutiny and crackdown.

So even though these branch directors knew clearly that their attacks wouldn't hit anyone, they still had to follow the trend and make a move, especially those who might have taken benefits from the Aquarius Director; it was to show their attitude of breaking with the Aquarius and to demonstrate their stance to the General Bureau, avoiding being targeted later...

Indeed, choosing sides is humanity's eternal problem, and even an organization like the Cleanup Bureau is no exception.

"Enough!"

Clearly, the red-haired Director wasn't the only one who understood this; after waving his hand to disperse the dark Sun Shade beside him, looking at a pile of branch directors who were useless when the crisis hit but were faster than anyone else at following the trend to choose sides, the Director of the Cleanup Bureau, eyes full of anger, roared:

"Stop wasting time on useless things; the most important matter now is how to deal with the Wa... um..."

Silently lowering his head, looking at a small head below him fiercely biting his pant leg and another small head barking Wang Wang at him, the two-headed evil... cute dog, the Director of the Cleanup Bureau couldn't help but say with a dark face:

"Whose abnormal object is this? Put it away immediately!"

"Ah! It's mine!"

Frantically shaking the dog bell in his hand, recalling the fierce yet cute puppy that had started gnawing on the Director's shoe, the Acting Director of the Lyra Branch stood up, first apologizing repeatedly with a flushed face, then stumblingly explained:

"I'm sorry; our Lyra Bureau's Director and those Level One and Level Two seniors are all frozen in the polar regions right now. I am the most senior in the bureau, so the Star Palace dragged me here to attend the meeting...

This... although I am the most senior, my actual strength is quite average; I only barely promoted to Second Rank last month. I really couldn't withstand the General Bureau's suppression on abnormal objects, so I could only summon a puppy to hold up the appearance, making a fool of myself before you, Director..."

"..."

So it was the Lyra Bureau, which ranked second-to-last in performance; no wonder their level was so poor...

Waving his hand to indicate it was fine, and letting this substitute director who had come to fill a seat sit down, the Director of the Cleanup Bureau turned around, looking towards a certain branch that ranked first in performance, and asked with a furrowed brow:

"Olivia, have your people explain exactly what happened just now; why did the Twin Branch Director suddenly defect?"