Chapter 575: A Fragment

This construction site is at the river bend. Luo Qi stared, dumbfounded, at the gears of the giant excavator; the diameter of the gears was about three times his height. When operating, they should rotate to churn up the soil, then transfer it to the conveyor belt connected to the giant teeth. This is similar in principle to an ancient waterwheel, only much larger. Standing before the entire set of machinery, Luo Qi was insignificantly small; the steel muscles of humanity seemed to be silently flaunting their power in the ancient river valley.

"Brother, when it's my birthday, I want you to give me this!" Luo Qi said blankly.

Du Zhengyi, who was bowing his head to examine a corpse, turned his head at the sound and took a look, ignoring him. Luo Qi hurriedly added on his own, "Only little kids want Legos; I want this, not Legos! Just telling you, don't get it wrong!"

"Get lost," Du Zhengyi said leisurely, picking up the arm of a corpse and turning it over.

There were about forty-some corpses in the river bend area, their states of death miserable, the causes of death generally similar: abdomens torn open, some internal organs missing, and some people had fractures at their shoulders and elbows. These miners, who were using large machinery for illegal gold panning, must never have expected that they would die miserably and silently in the river valley. Du Zhengyi found hunting rifles beside some of the corpses, used to deal with large beasts and other humans. Perhaps from this perspective, it was a good thing that Mages discovered them rather than human military police.

Most of the guns were empty, and shell casings were everywhere; Du Zhengyi could tell they had resisted. People who could come to this place to risk their lives for wealth must be the most ferocious part of humanity; no matter what horrific sight they saw, they had fought back.

These guns did not look like they were produced by legitimate human arsenals; they should have been machined on lathes by some underground dens. Du Zhengyi tried firing one; although the gun was a knockoff, the deviation was slight, and there was no big difference in use. Du Zhengyi even found a gun capable of firing depleted uranium rounds. He had seen this when studying human weapons; the density is higher than ordinary bullets, capable of piercing steel plates, so humans commonly call this thing an armor-piercing shell. The human carrying this weapon wore a gold chain around his neck and was dressed ostentatiously; holding this gun should have just been his personal preference. Du Zhengyi did not see metal on the casings of the remaining bullets; they should also be homemade weapons, as the depleted uranium bullet casings manufactured by human armies would be wrapped in metal.

Du Zhengyi turned around and calculated the direction in which this person had fired. If it were a Psychic Beast with a sturdy exterior, this gun would be the most likely to harm that thing.

Xiang Qian was walking toward him and asked in a low voice, "What do you think attacked them? Is it the same kind as the thing that attacked you and Luo Qi?" Du Zhengyi glanced in Luo Qi's direction; Luo Qi had entangled Yan Hao and was persuading Yan Hao to pry open a human safe for him. Du Zhengyi shook his head. "Doesn't look like it; that kind of monster shouldn't be so eager to eat internal organs."

"Do you think the Seal has been opened now?" Xiang Qian asked in turn.

Du Zhengyi did not answer. Luo Qi had already successfully persuaded Yan Hao; Yan Hao had now cut open the entire safe, and Luo Qi was picking out gold from inside to share with Yan Hao. Wen Lin was not far away, looking over tentatively. He nodded, and Wen Lin immediately walked over; her heels were not very convenient, and every step she took in this place sank into the mud.

"Mage Wen Lin," Du Zhengyi said, "you have seen many of the Seal Beasts already in the Qionglin at Fan Shi's place. Are any of them adept at creating such wounds?"

Wen Lin shook her head, deep lines furrowing between her delicate brows; her lips were chapped in the wilderness wind. "I have never seen a monster that only attacks the abdomen."

Du Zhengyi did not ask further. He walked straight along one direction and stopped by the water. A fragment like obsidian was stuck in the mud. Du Zhengyi leaned over and pulled the fragment out, his fingers touching a bit of mucus on one side of the fragment. From afar, the fragment looked like glass, but holding it in his hand, one would find it was not that brittle; the material was shiny and reflective but had a bit more toughness. He thought of the insect shell of an Alien creature; this was indeed somewhat similar.

But since Luo Qi had mastered the way to control Alien creatures, no one would easily use this set of weapons again; not only did it require too many people to control, but as long as the controller's Yajian Zhili was not as good as Luo Qi's, they would be backlashed in an instant.

Du Zhengyi glanced at Luo Qi again, not knowing what Luo Qi hoped to find; the result might not be very satisfying to him. He had thrown the gold and documents from the safe all over the ground and even stepped on them a few times. Du Zhengyi really didn't know how to describe this situation; perhaps Luo Qi looked so out of place on the battlefield that he attracted the full attention of those Battle Mages, just like a group of silly, big, dark, and rough hunting dogs seeing a kitten for the first time, each more stunned than the last.

He shook his head helplessly and suddenly flicked the fragment in his hand toward Shi Qian, who was the only one not watching Luo Qi's performance and was, for some reason, staring blankly the whole time. Du Zhengyi saw him reflexively catch the fragment, stunned for a long time before looking up at him. Du Zhengyi almost didn't remember this person; his silence was as substantial as if a mountain were pressing down on his head.

He looked at the fragment and then looked at Du Zhengyi in confusion.

Du Zhengyi walked over and reached into his pocket, wanting to take out a cigarette to share with him, but when his hand touched the cigarette case, he felt the shape was wrong and hurriedly took it out to check; who would have thought he actually pulled out a box of lollipops. He stood there stunned with the candy in his hand; the situation before him looked as if he had deliberately walked over to share a few lollipops with Shi Qian.

Shi Qian said understandingly, "Luo Qi did it. I saw him buy lollipops; these should be the ones he bought." As he spoke, as if to help him out of the awkward situation, he actually reached out and pulled out a piece of candy. "The first time we met, I felt he was quite flighty."

Du Zhengyi had nothing to say and tucked the candy back into his pocket, hoping to delete the memory of the past minute. "Let's not talk about this. Have you seen this material before?"

"What is this?" Shi Qian looked at the texture of the fragment and then flipped it over to look.

"This is probably the only thing humans have knocked off the attacker," Du Zhengyi said. "Look familiar?"

Shi Qian frowned and looked at the fragment back and forth for a while, finally spitting out, "No, I can't remember where I've seen it."

"Dozens of humans died; although they were a bunch of desperadoes to begin with, dozens of human lives only knocked off such a fragment from the opponent," Du Zhengyi said in a low voice. "This is not the situation we Battle Mages face; we are in a battle, but what these humans encountered was a massacre."

Shi Qian swallowed and looked up, asking somewhat flustered, "You also feel pity..." He paused, as if he had calmed down. "That's right, legends are just legends; look at your attitude toward Luo Qi, you are of course flesh and blood."

Du Zhengyi took the fragment from his hand and observed him silently. "Have you really never seen this thing?"

Shi Qian looked into his eyes, and Du Zhengyi saw tired bloodshot veins in his eyes. "We should go back."

"Have you seen Fan Shi recently?" Du Zhengyi asked.

Shi Qian shook his head, turned his eyes away in disappointment, and emphasized again weakly, "We should go back."

"Do you know you are very weak right now?" Du Zhengyi's voice was lower, as low as a whisper. "If I let Luo Qi come to ask you, you wouldn't be able to block his questioning at all."

"I really haven't seen Fan Shi." Shi Qian looked up again, looking at Du Zhengyi. "It's the same even if you let a Mind Mage interrogate me. But... but something is wrong; I know something is going to happen. We should go back."

"Go back? Then who will do this job? Look at it now; this is already the highest-spec battle team of the Qionglin. If we go back, the team sent next won't be much different from today," Du Zhengyi said. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Luo Qi open another safe; Yan Hao was practically being used by him as a can opener. But this time, Luo Qi squatted on the ground for a long time without standing up, half his body crawled into the safe. Before Luo Qi picked up something else and hid it, he had to go take a look. "I won't let Luo Qi do anything to you; whenever you want to talk properly, you can come find me."

After Du Zhengyi finished speaking, he went straight to Luo Qi, throwing the fragment to Liu Ziyu, who was studying the human machinery, on the way.

(End of chapter)