Chapter 629: Reaction

"Stop!"

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

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

Yet before these suddenly appeared sweets could successfully swell, hundreds of sea-blue tentacles, thick enough to match 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 dissected by a vast number of invisible blades, melted into a sky full of water spray by a mass of pale pink dreamy mist.

Immediately after came the crimson blood domain, the 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 ferocious moon with evil eyes reflected in a pool of green lake water...

As if opening an abnormality exposition, a huge number of things that looked obviously wrong appeared in a revolving display at the spot where the Aquarius Director had fled, brutally destroying the abnormal abilities that had arrived a step earlier, only to be more savagely torn apart by attacks that arrived even later.

Until the very last moment, the Eye of the Sun in the sky suddenly dimmed, casting down a sunshade 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 that had been washed who-knows-how-many times in one second, Hearing Li Ang, who had been dragged away early by his own Bureau Chief, couldn't help but shudder violently, his back clothes instantly soaked by cold sweat.

When the 【Gate of the Other World】 began to close, Hearing Li Ang had originally planned to pick up a couple 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 Bureau Chief is preparing to scoop me out... so staying here any longer would be dangerous?

Although the 【Gap of Time】 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 Bureau Chief, he didn't move, letting the Bureau Chief's hair coil 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 Bureau Chief's red hair and witnessed attack after attack falling one after another, was now infinitely grateful that he had restrained his greed.

This group of fierce people in 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, area-saturation attack, if I had stayed behind 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 Bureau Chief who had saved all three of them also couldn't help but let out a long sigh, then slightly nodded toward the Lion Branch Bureau Chief, 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, and after turning the cookie-turned shoe back to normal, the Lion Branch Bureau Chief, Beverly, 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 re-molded and resurrected.

However, there were more people intervening than I expected; even the Bureau Chief deployed the 【Sunshade】 to project downwards. If you had truly been turned into sweets by me, you would have suffered a great ordeal."

"You still deserve thanks."

The red-haired Bureau Chief insisted:

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

At this point, the red-haired Bureau Chief 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 people, used slightly too much force, but they all held back their power regarding your positions, which allowed me to withstand so many attacks and barely scoop you out.

As for those who acted afterwards, they actually intentionally avoided you; so rather than wanting to keep people, 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 Bureau Chief's words, Hearing Li Ang pondered for a moment and immediately understood what was going on.

This matter involved the Watchtower Palace, which touched the Cleanup Bureau's vital spot, and coupled with the sudden "defection" of the Twin Branch Bureau Chief, 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 these branch bureau chiefs, even though they knew clearly that acting wouldn't hit anyone, 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 stance of breaking with the Aquarius Director and to show their own position to the General Bureau, to avoid 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 Bureau Chief wasn't the only one who understood this; after waving his hand to disperse the dark sunshade beside him, looking at a pile of branch bureau chiefs who were useless when the crisis hit but were faster than anyone else at following the trend to choose sides, the Cleanup Bureau Chief, eyes full of anger, shouted fiercely:

"Stop doing these useless things; the most important thing now is how to handle the water... uh..."

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—a two-headed evil... cute dog—the Cleanup Bureau Chief 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, after recalling the fierce yet cute puppy that had started gnawing on the Bureau Chief's shoe, the Acting Bureau Chief of the Lyra Branch Bureau stood up, first apologizing repeatedly with a flushed face, then stumblingly explained:

"Sorry, our Lyra Bureau Chief 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 Order last month, and I really can't withstand the General Bureau's suppression of abnormal objects, so I could only summon a puppy to hold up the appearance, making you, Bureau Chief, laugh..."

"..."

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 after letting this acting bureau chief who had come to fill a quota sit down, the Cleanup Bureau Chief turned around, looking toward a certain branch bureau that ranked first in performance (last), and asked with a furrowed brow:

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

(End of Chapter)