Chapter 216: Transcendence

They didn't follow up.

Li Cheng squinted at the prison direction, observed for a while, confirmed no pursuers were coming, then tossed the two custom helmets to Grey Rain.

"Trouble? Took you this long."

Grey Rain, the Strongman, casually crushed the two helmets into hemispheres, then fused them together into a cradle shape to hold Angelica.

"Yeah. Ran into a white-supremacist Black Panther, a hawk-eyed guy with squinting eyes, and an American Captain who looks like an Indian."

Li Cheng pulled a fuel barrel from his 3D storage and filled the agricultural plane, "Cervantes likely possesses a Perfect-Quality item or skill that can twist, modify, or control psychics."

These three oddballs are just the vanguard—more are coming."

"Huh?"

Grey Rain blinked, "Wasn't Cervantes detained by the Special Affairs Bureau? How does he still have good gear?"

Don't they confiscate everything from him? Even when I just AFK in a game, my teammates steal my parents' stuff—even though I don't have any."

Li Cheng remained calm about this, "Cervantes is a core member of the Laughing Troupe. We can extract critical intel from him, and use him as a hostage or bargaining chip."

The Special Affairs Bureau won't let him just hang around some script world—they'll likely return some of his gear and items when he's assigned a mission."

Cervantes is definitely no good man—forget the Feng Youyun family he ruined in the previous Destiny Mission; victims of his across the globe could fill a year's worth of Today's Legal Talk."

But a cruel truth remains: even if the Special Affairs Bureau captures him, he won't be executed immediately."

History always favors the ruthless over the foolish. To survive in this chaotic situation, the Special Affairs Bureau must be ruthlessly rational, conserving every ounce of power."

From the Special Affairs Bureau's perspective, controlling Cervantes and using him as a chip holds far greater value than simply killing him."

Grey Rain nodded, half-understanding, "Then what now?"

"Still fly straight to the destination."

We reached near Denver successfully only because of the cover of night. Now it's daytime—low-flying aircraft are visible to spy satellites in low orbit and ordinary people on the ground."

So you'll need to cover the plane's skin and change its color to delay our discovery as long as possible."

Li Cheng said: "But first, we need to return to the prison."

He flew the plane back to the psychic prison—now empty, all prisoners had escaped.

In the prison's front yard, numerous freshly killed psychic corpses lay scattered, riddled with machine-gun fire.

Like Caroline and Angelica, these mutant corpses couldn't be stored in backpack slots—but they could be loaded into the agricultural plane's pesticide tank, which had a maximum takeoff weight of 7257kg.

"May I ask… why take these corpses?"

Caroline, who had remained silent until now, couldn't help asking: "Are you trying to expose Pioneer Corp's scandals and reveal to the world that psychics truly exist?"

It won't work—Pioneer Corp and its behind-the-scenes interest groups control the media so tightly, no TV station or newspaper will dare report it."

Even if a journalist, driven by conscience and professional ethics, tries to speak out, they'll be assassinated quickly."

Any scattered leaks will be dismissed as lizard people or flat-Earth conspiracy theories—no one will take them seriously."

Caroline had personally witnessed several of her colleagues vanish mysteriously within days after opposing Pioneer Corp's human experiments—never seen again.

She once anonymously contacted several famous journalists in Washington, trying to leak the truth—but as soon as they heard it involved Pioneer Corp, they immediately cut off contact.

The only journalist who didn't cut contact seemed to have ties to Pioneer Corp—he tried to lure Caroline out for a meeting."

As for the Avalon Organization, which psychics regard as their savior—

Honestly, if they truly had the power to change the world, they wouldn't still be hiding on some Pacific island—they'd have announced themselves to the world long ago."

"I never planned to expose anything."

Li Cheng smirked—he'd only be in this script world for a few dozen hours; the exposure wouldn't have much impact in such a short time. "I just want a Justice League of our own to fight Cervantes' Avengers."

With that, he pulled out a scalpel and, under Caroline's horrified gaze, sliced open a psychic's skull, exposing the brain matter.

————

"Denver is still 1500 kilometers from Angel City. At the AT-802's cruising speed, it'll take at least five or six hours. If they don't want to fly straight into an ambush, they'll have to detour—and detouring will make them even later."

"The Network Division must closely monitor social networks along the route—any suspicious low-flying aircraft must be reported immediately."

"Deploy every available low-orbit spy satellite—if you can't borrow them, rent them; if you can't rent them, buy them outright!"

"Also notify the U. S. Homeland Defense Forces—under Pioneer Corp's authority, tell them a psychic terrorist has hijacked a plane and intends to replicate a 9/11-style building strike on the West Coast. Order them to max out radar power and destroy all suspicious targets!"

"Has the Angel City psychic mobilization been completed? We're arriving soon."

On Pioneer Corp's Gulfstream private jet, Cervantes issued orders without pause.

Standing beside him, the capture specialist Alexander was ecstatic—rarely had he been granted such vast resources; he immediately leveraged his old connections within U. S. intelligence to assist Cervantes in organizing this grand manhunt.

(Alexander didn't die—he stayed in his command vehicle at the roadside motel and didn't follow the three SUVs into the farmland.)

The only unhappy person on the plane was probably the attaché.

"Mr. Cervantes! The company hired you to recover high-value targets, not to create headaches for us!"

The attaché growled, "Deploying spy satellites and conscripting Homeland Defense Forces consumes political and financial capital in Washington. It can't be squandered endlessly."

Cervantes glanced at him, ignored him completely, and continued issuing orders via satellite phone.

Honestly, after seeing another player cleanly eliminate three Level-4 psychics, Cervantes felt a flicker of insecurity.

Some of his gear and items were still held by the Special Affairs Bureau—he wasn't at full combat readiness.

In the Killing Ground, the system even deemed him the weaker side in direct combat and assigned him a company as a balancing factor.

The Laughing Troupe's style is madness, not stupidity. Rather than teleporting directly into danger, sticking to the original plan and continuing the encirclement was safer."

It's not that he's scared.

Cervantes' mind churned with thoughts.

The ignored attaché, furious and desperate, slammed his hand on the table and stood up, glaring at all company staff—including Alexander—ordering them to stop what they were doing and remember their place.

"."

Cervantes finally paused his actions, slowly turned his head toward the attaché, and for the first time, his eyes revealed not optimism or carelessness, but pure coldness.

The attaché was struck by an indescribable premonition and instinctively stepped back half a pace—but he quickly remembered his status, forced himself upright, and met Cervantes' gaze head-on.

"If I remember correctly, your company also has Class-4 espers serving as enforcers and guards.

These people could snap your neck in an instant like crushing an ant, yet when they see you, they all respectfully address you as Commissioner, sir."

Cervantes said calmly, "They don't fear you — they fear what stands behind you.

System, structure, organization, social order, state apparatus — whatever specific term you use, it all represents a collective force. Humans are social animals; they cannot exist apart from society.

That is precisely why those Class-4 espers far stronger than you bow and greet you with such deference.

But I am different."

Cervantes slowly approached. The commissioner's face grew paler and paler as he retreated step by step.

"I need nothing on this planet. I need no one to manufacture goods for me. I need no health insurance, no pension, no retirement fund. No desires, no demands — therefore invincible."

Cervantes produced a cylindrical glass vessel filled with a crystalline blue liquid. "This bottle may contain a virus capable of sweeping the globe, or it may not.

I might smash it on the ground, or I might not.

I stand outside your social rules, so I can despise them."

He extended his palm and pressed it against the commissioner's forehead.

The latter dropped to his knees, letting out a piercing shriek as his entire face melted like a candle.

"To put it in our Guild President's words — those self-proclaimed noble, morality-parading outfits like the Special Affairs Bureau and the Global Paranormal Alliance are, in truth, no different from our Laughing Madhouse — just locusts plundering different worlds.

We're all locusts, so why hypocritically prattle on about morality?"

Cervantes murmured in a voice only he could hear, then suddenly withdrew his palm.

The commissioner's face stopped melting and gradually returned to normal. He slumped against the chair in utter exhaustion, no longer daring to meet Cervantes's eyes.

"Now, get to work."

Cervantes slowly sat down, gazing out the window at the approaching coastline, waiting for the cooldown countdown of the Old Seal of Change.

(End of chapter)