Chapter 45 A One-Time Attack Formation

The Underground Drainage System of North City District has main tunnels that are separate and independent from each other, but the auxiliary tunnels intersect with each other at regular intervals.

By interconnecting and intersecting with each other, they indirectly link the main tunnels together.

The entire guidance system is like a giant underground maze. If one’s sense of direction is poor, it is easy to lose oneself and fail to find one’s bearings in the system.

To be on the safe side, Chen Yuran pulled out her tablet to turn on the location tracking, called up the blueprint of the guidance system from the information bank of the patrol bureau, and confirmed the position by comparison.

Chen Yuran proceeded a good deal along the south-bound auxiliary tunnel chosen by Li Jing, but seeing no signs of discovery, she came to a halt mid-flight using the Sky Control skill.

?

Li Jing also stopped in mid-air, casting an inquiring glance at her.

"We’re now an equivalent distance of nine blocks away from the shelter," Chen Yuran began to explain.

"To change direction towards the Examination Institute now, we’d have to traverse at least twenty-one blocks."

Twenty-one blocks.

Li Jing furrowed his brows.

The distance was a bit too far.

The key was that, in the underground guidance system, they could only move along the tubes and couldn’t cut directly through like they could on the surface.

After a brief reflection, Li Jing looked at Ji Qing.

"Have you noticed anything on our way here?"

"Noticed nothing. My nose is about to lose its efficiency, though," replied Ji Qing, scratching the tip of her nose with her paw.

"The concentration of Demonic Qi residuals here is slightly higher than that beneath the shelter, and the interconnecting auxiliary tunnels around here are about the same."

Seeing that Ji Qing couldn’t provide more help, Li Jing turned to Chen Yuran.

"What’s our next move? Should we backtrack towards the Examination Institute or...?"

"I’m not too sure myself."

Chen Yuran shook her head.

"Ji Qing confirmed that the residual Demonic Qi has thickened a bit here. If we continue to move forward, we might make some discoveries. But if we don’t, changing course for the Examination Institute will be quite a hassle."

Speaking, she purse her lips.

"Maybe you should decide?"

"..."

Li Jing was left speechless.

He had asked Chen Yuran for a decision, hadn’t he?

But now the ball was back in his court...

Without thinking too much, Li Jing said,

"If it were up to me, I’d say we keep going southwards. The fact that the concentration of residual Demonic Qi is relatively high here must indicate something. Let’s continue ahead..."

Halfway through his sentence, a female voice was heard through the communication earpiece.

"Captain, my team discovered a group of Rat Demons at the intersection of the west-bound main tunnel and the auxiliary tunnel beneath the Examination Institute. There are only twenty-seven of them. The Rat Demons have been eliminated, and Ji Xiumin, the suspect, was not found. We’re continuing the search."

"Understood,"

Replied Dai Hong, and then said,

"All members, continue the search and converge towards the Examination Institute."

"Noted."

"Noted."

Responses were given accordingly by the other two teams.

Li Jing’s eyebrows knitted as he listened to the communications between the members of Heavy Case Unit 6 through his earpiece.

The members of Heavy Case Unit 6 had discovered the Rat Demons so quickly, and even right below the Examination Institute.

This came as a surprise.

In another hour, Yang Yongan would leave the detention center to be transported to the Examination Institute.

However, both the detention centre and the Examination Institute were unlikely to be the places where Ji Xiumin would attack.

The former was a place for holding detainees while the latter was the place where detainees were tried.

Not only are there patrols stationed round-the-clock, twenty-four-seven, but there are also a large number of administrative officers handling daily affairs.

The shortage of manpower in the Patrol Bureau does affect these two places.

But no matter how severe the impact, the Patrol Bureau would never redeploy forces from the detention center and the Examination Institute.

If anything were to happen at either of those locations, it wouldn’t just be a simple case of the Patrol Bureau losing face.

Ji Xiumin was too shrewd to be blatantly obvious.

If she were to make her move, it would most likely be during the transport.

However, on a second thought, Li Jing realised that wasn’t absolute.

Evil Cultivators had a knack for acting unpredictably.

No one could precisely predict whether or not Ji Xiumin would defy expectations and directly confront the Examination Institute.

As he was pondering, Chen Yuran raised her hand to press her earpiece.

"Captain Dai, the Spiritual Cat has sensed a slight anomaly here in the southward auxiliary tunnel, but we can’t confirm its existence yet. You can handle the situation at the Examination Institute. Li Jing and I will continue the search."

"Alright, both of you be careful."

Dai Hong replied.

Apparently, the concerns that Li Jing had, he had as well.

The order to converge towards the Examination Institute was given solely because Rat Demons were found.

Seeing that Chen Yuran had no intention of rejoining the main team, Li Jing did not oppose.

Dai Hong’s team could certainly handle anything that might happen at the Examination Institute.

With only nine people in this journey, concentrating everyone in one place wouldn’t make much sense.

After ending the call, Chen Yuran looked up.

"Let’s continue."

"Alright."

In response, Li Jing used Sky Control to continue their forward journey.

...

In the blink of an eye, they have flown nearly eight blocks.

Still no useful findings.

Instead, members of the Major Case Sixth Team reported through the communication earpiece that they had found three more groups of Rat Demons, totaling over seventy.

Upon hearing the news, Li Jing felt heartache.

Nearly a hundred Rat Demons, how much experience was that?

If he had encountered them, wouldn’t he have shot up into the sky?

They continued heading south.

After passing two more blocks, Ji Qing suddenly spoke up.

"Left! I sensed waves from an array!"

Li Jing and Chen Yuran both paused, looking at her in astonishment.

Array waves?

The two humans and the cat had been following the remnants of Demonic Qi, but what Ji Qing found was not a monster, but array waves.

They turned their heads to look left.

At this moment, they were at the intersection of a south-bound auxiliary road and a wide main road. Turning left would lead them towards the main road.

Recalling the illusion array laid down by Ji Xiumin at the coastal residential area’s site, they suspected that this array was also set up by her. With shock and suspicion, Li Jing and Chen Yuran made no delay and turned left as directed.

After entering the main road on the left, Li Jing asked.

"Ji Qing, have you dabbled in array methods?"

"I studied them for a while when I had nothing to do. I know a little bit."

Speaking lightly, Ji Qing added.

"Mostly during that time, I suffered from insomnia and the array diagrams had a good sleep-aid effect."

"..."

Li Jing.

Array diagrams had a good sleep-aid effect, really.....

Upon careful thought, it seemed there was nothing wrong with it.

Upon hearing that Ji Qing had researched on array methods, Chen Yuran asked quietly.

"Can you determine what kind of array you sensed?"

"We need to go to the location to find out. If it’s an array diagram I recognize, it won’t be hard to identify."

Responding, Ji Qing pointed forward with her small paw.

"Not far ahead, the wave is right at the intersection of the side road on the right."

Hearing this, Chen Yuran raised her eyebrows and her face sank immediately after.

Li Jing also strained his face as he looked at the scene in front of him.

The side road turning right that Ji Qing had pointed to, clearly bore the traces of an array imprint.

To be precise.

The array was directly drawn on the duct.

Neither of them knew about array methods.

However, they both knew that arrays that were directly drawn, rather than cleverly arranged, were powerful one-time attacking arrays.

Why would Ji Xiumin set up a one-time attacking array so far from the Examination Institute and Shelter?

Flying quickly to approach the imprint, Li Jing and Chen Yuran hovered in the air.

Before they could speak, Ji Qing, who got to see the array imprint closely, began to speak.

"I’ve seen this array before, it’s a one-time exploding array. It’s a low-level first-order array diagram and not very threatening — any later-stage Second Realm cultivator could withstand it."

"..."

Li Jing.

"..."

Chen Yuran.

Seeing the two silent, Ji Qing looked up in confusion.

"What’s wrong? Did I say something wrong?"

"Do you know where we are right now?"

Li Jing spoke up awkwardly.

"I haven’t looked at the map, so how would I know..."

Reacting instinctively, Ji Qing shrank, and then shuddered.

"There isn’t any marsh gas in this sewer, is there?"

"Since it’s a sewer, how could there not be marsh gas?"

Li Jing rolled his eyes, saying.

"The sewage from the entire North City District, whether domestic or industrial, is channeled through this underground guidance system. If there was an explosion here, it would be..."

Before he could finish speaking, Chen Yuran spoke up.

"When the guidance system was built, they considered these circumstances. The pipelines are made of special materials and would not be devastated by a single explosion. But if targeted by an array for directional blasting, causing a section to break off and leading to ground collapse, that would be inevitable."

As she spoke, she picked up her tablet.

"We are now underneath the North City Spiritual Energy Station."

A Spiritual Energy Station!?

Li Jing drew in a deep breath.

Ji Qing, too, widened her cat eyes in surprise.

The people of this world provided their own Qi for daily use.

However, that was only limited to personal use.

Large-scale civil facilities that needed continuous power supply relied on Spiritual Energy Stations.

Like factory production lines, hospital life support systems, traffic command systems and so on...

If the Spiritual Energy Station were to suddenly have an accident, it could easily cause a variety of problems, and in severe cases, may even lead to a city-wide shutdown!

Ji Xiumin... she really dared to do it!

"Ji Qing, do you have the ability to deactivate this exploding array?"

Chen Yuran looked serious.

"It will take time."

Ji Qing replied, saying,

"A one-time attack array doesn’t have an Array Eye, so if you want to deactivate it, you have to erase the spell formula hidden in the array diagram. It’s a technical job that requires patience."

No sooner had she finished speaking than she abruptly bristled and suddenly looked to the east.

"Someone’s coming."