Chapter 536: Hope to See Enough Exciting Performances

When the doors of the Qiu Ce Yuan command center were pushed open, the inside was already a battlefield.

It wasn't people who were chaotic.

It was the screens that were chaotic.

On an entire curved monitor wall, the satellite view of the North American Pollution Belt was maximized.

North of the old Chicago site, above the Weird Domain of the Wasteland Royal Court, a dark red light column pierced the cloud layer, crossed the stratosphere boundary, and burned the high‑altitude ozone layer into concentric strange ripples.

The energy‑level curve beside it rose continuously.

The red line jumped from the D Ji scale to A Ji, then crossed the S Ji alert line, finally pushing the whole chart into the blank area.

The technician's fingers hammered the keyboard at breakneck speed.

"Pollution index has broken the historical peak."

"Fluctuation covers thirty‑seven observation stations in eastern North America."

"Third satellite lost calibration, reconnecting now."

"Not an equipment issue."

"That thing is interfering with observation."

As Jiang Yuan entered, shadow already pressed beneath his feet.

Su Ming followed behind, hand on his pocket.

The Time Marrow Worm was still agitated.

That thing, usually lazy enough to lie still, now rolled wildly beneath the fabric, striking Su Ming's back of the hand with a numb tingling.

Liang Wen carried the Black Flame Knife into the doorway, just about to launch a couple of cliché lines, but when he looked up at the red line on the screen, he swallowed his words.

"WTF."

He paused half a second, then added another sentence.

"I, the king, grant you three seconds of fear."

No one took the joke.

Lord Wei sat directly in front of the command platform.

His graying hair was neatly combed, he still wore that plain administrative jacket, and a cup of untouched tea rested beside him.

The red alarm light flickered, casting a cold half‑face on him.

"Report."

Those two words lowered the din in the command center a notch.

The chief operator swallowed.

"North American Wasteland Royal Court energy‑level jump, source suspected to be a new S Ji Weird Object."

"No complete form captured yet."

"From satellite images, the source lies at the center of the Pollution Belt, with traces of wild tricksters nearby."

Su Ming stared at the red mass on the screen.

"Wild tricksters?"

"In North America they call them scavengers."

The chief operator pulled up a thermal image.

The picture was blurry.

In the ruins' center, a dozen silhouettes gathered around a red circular zone.

Corpses fell, some dragged severed limbs retreating, others crawled toward the zone.

Liang Wen clicked his tongue.

"Apocalypse blind‑box, indeed someone bets their life on the first draw."

Qin Zhixia's communication projection linked in from the side screen.

She was still sealing the internal network outside the medical area, her mechanical prosthetic attached to a data cable, speaking rapidly.

"Qiu Ce Yuan's internal network has cut off external active pushes, retaining only one‑way reception."

"Medical Team fully submerged."

Jiang Yuan nodded.

"Good."

Lord Wei did not turn around.

"What's the North American command's stance?"

Another liaison lifted his head, sweat dripping down his chin.

"Still hesitating."

Lord Wei said, "The Federation does not accept useless nonsense."

"Open the Wasteland Royal Court airspace within ten minutes, or we will treat it as a global pollution spread incident."

The liaison straightened his back.

"Yes."

Jiang Yuan looked at the screen.

"Chief, I request deployment."

Su Ming also spoke.

"I'm going too."

Liang Wen flicked his wrist.

"Count me in. Post‑meal exercise may be unsavory, but I, the king, have always been considerate of the world."

Wei Gong did not nod immediately.

He stared at the beam of light, a deep furrow forming between his brows.

"First, wait."

Jiang Yuan was startled.

"Director?"

Wei Gong raised his hand and pointed at the energy-level curve.

"It's rising."

"But the diffusion circle hasn't expanded in sync."

Su Ming quickly switched to the contamination model.

Sure enough.

The red energy was absurdly high, yet the outer edge of the Weird Domain in the Wasted King Court did not expand outward.

That scene, which defied common sense, made people's backs tighten.

A newborn Weird, its energy index surpassing Sai Men, yet it neither immediately devoured the city nor followed any diffusion rules.

It glowed in place.

Like bait.

Su Ming forced the word back down his throat and looked up at Wei Gong.

Wei Gong was also looking at him.

Neither of them said a word.

And at this moment,

Thousands of miles away.

In the center of the Wasted King Court.

Ma Luo knelt on the black earth.

The Crown was clasped between his two hands; its fine‑toothed edge cut his palm flesh, and blood crawled upward along the pattern.

Seven red eyes turned.

Those eyes did not belong to a human.

They had just awakened.

Lacking mature thought and a complete personality, yet already possessing a higher‑level judgment.

The surrounding Weird manipulators were still approaching.

Some raised guns, some gripped knives, some wore greed on their faces, some wanted to flee yet couldn't part with that box.

Their scent was filthy.

It wasn't bloody.

It was desire.

Cheap, noisy, coarse.

The Crown hated this kind of thing.

It could hear these people's thoughts.

"I want power."

"I want to be king."

"I want to kill everyone who looks down on me."

"I want women, food, territory, slaves."

"I want to trample others beneath my feet."

"Too low‑level."

"Too noisy."

"Too unaesthetic."

Within the Crown's seven red eyes, dark‑red patterns contracted in concentric circles.

When it was born, the Creator gave it no complete command.

But when the Creator cast it, it left behind an extremely light concept.

Lesion.

Removal.

Screening.

It understood.

Those who vie for the throne are unfit to become king.

Beasts led by desire are also unfit to wear a crown.

What it needs is not a pack of stray dogs fighting over trash.

It needs the deepest resentment.

The dirtiest evil.

The sharpest teeth.

Someone who can bite the world to bleed for it.

Ma Luo's whole body convulsed.

His skin split open dark‑red patterns, and a shattered laugh forced out of his throat.

"Mine."

"It chose me."

"You all must kneel."

The Crown's seven red eyes turned toward him simultaneously.

Malo's smile stopped.

Because those seven eyes held no approval.

Only disgust.

In the next second, the fine teeth along the Crown's edge closed together.

Malo's hands vanished from his wrists.

There was no spray.

There was no scream.

The flesh and blood were swallowed cleanly by the Crown, leaving not even bone fragments.

Malo lowered his head to look at his empty wrists; his throat was stuck for a while before he forced out a dry, hoarse sound.

"No."

The Crown rose from his chest.

The blood‑red pillar of light grew ever more dazzling.

The surrounding manipulators were pressed down to kneel on the ground; some began to cry, some kowtowed to it.

The Crown paid it no heed.

Its consciousness spread outward.

It passed over the Ruined Royal Court.

It passed over the North American Pollution Belt.

It passed over that land gnawed by nuclear‑blast shadows.

It smelled many things.

There was the evil of capitalists.

There were the lies of politicians.

There was the greed of warlords.

There was the fanaticism of cults.

There were also butchers hiding in the gutters, Fake Person cloaked in human skin, and madmen who wielded justice as a blade.

But that still wasn't enough.

Those scents were strong, yet scattered.

None coalesced into a core that satisfied it.

It needed a bearer.

A person suitable to wear it.

The sky over the Ruined Royal Court began to bleed.

It wasn't rain.

It was fine red dust.

Falling to the ground, the polluted soil sizzled.

The Crown rotated.

Within its seven red eyes, countless images were reflected.

Abandoned hospital beds in the Corridor.

Suppressed evidence in the courtroom.

Soldiers discarded by comrades on the battlefield.

Child forced to collapse in a school corner.

People chained in the basement.

And something far away, breathing in the darkness.

That thing harbored resentment.

It also held malice.

More intriguingly, it no longer considered itself human.

The Crown halted.

The seven red eyes contracted simultaneously.

It found it.

Inside the command center, the alarm frequency suddenly spiked.

The chief operator almost rose from his chair.

"Energy peak second jump!"

"The stratosphere was pierced."

"North American air defense system has locked onto the source; they are preparing to deploy orbital weapons."

Lord Wei's eyes felt a chill settle.

"Make them stop."

"Too late."

On the screen, the North American orbital platform began charging.

Three space‑based penetrators entered the launch sequence.

Liang Wen cursed with a filthy remark.

"Are these people really that forgetful? Has Chicago not taught them enough?"

Su Ming stared at the energy curve, tapping his fingertips on the table twice.

"It's waiting for them to fire."

Jiang Yuan turned his head.

"Are you sure?"

"Not sure."

Su Ming stared at the red mass, his tone low.

"But if I were Weird, I'd enjoy humans making the first mistake."

Wei Gong picked up the Communicator.

"Connecting the North American President line."

Before the line could connect.

The blood-red light column on the screen suddenly retracted.

It wasn't weakening.

It was the entire column being forcibly pulled from the high sky back to the ground by some force.

The stratospheric red spot vanished.

The polluted cloud layer collapsed.

At the center of the Ruined King Court, the source point compressed into a speck of dark red.

The technician's face turned pale.

"The energy is collapsing inward."

"It's not extinction, it's convergence."

"Source point mass reading lost."

"Rules reading lost."

"Thermal imaging lost."

"Satellites can't lock onto it."

Jiang Yuan stepped forward half a pace.

"It's trying to flee."

The words just fell.

In the Ruined King Court footage, the crown turned into a dark red meteor.

It didn't fly along the ground.

It didn't follow the velocity curve.

It also left no conventional trail.

Space was sliced, leaving an ultra‑thin red scar.

The crown vanished from the center of the wasteland.

Three penetrator projectiles from the North American orbital platform arrived half a second late, all landing in the now‑empty source point area of the Ruined King Court.

The earth was struck, producing three glaring rings of fire.

But the crown was already gone.

On the monitoring wall, all readings dropped to zero simultaneously.

Rows of red alarms went out.

The global anomaly halted.

Outside Qiu Ce Yuan, the sky receded from dark red to light blue.

On the field, the trainees still lying on the ground lifted their heads, staring blankly as the sun peeked through the clouds.

Someone, barely surviving the disaster, laughed out loud.

Someone else collapsed into a sitting position.

The command center, however, showed no relaxation.

Energy reset to zero does not mean the danger is over.

A snake slipping from under the lamp into the grass is the most troublesome.

At Su Ming's wrist, the Time Marrow Worm was quiet for two seconds, then emitted finer, more frantic friction.

It wasn't fearing an eruption.

It was fearing disappearance.

The Shadow beneath Jiang Yuan's feet also behaved oddly.

Those Shadows did not expand outward; instead they clung to the ground and retracted, while the soldiers in the darkness emitted suppressed agitation.

Jiang Yuan raised his hand and pressed the Card Bag.

"Shadow Ghost is warning."

Liang Wen let the Black Flame Knife hang, its tip touching the ground.

"I, the king, also want to warn it. The problem is where it went now?"

The chief controller frantically replayed satellite data, with a dozen screens searching in sync.

"No trail."

"Spatial residue lasts only 0.3 seconds."

"Intercontinental teleport? No, that's wrong; on the Rules level there is no landing echo."

It bypassed all physical barriers and Weird monitoring nets.

Su Ming's complexion was poor.

In other words, it can appear anywhere.

A brief static crackle came from Qin Zhixia's projection.

The Qiu Ce Yuan intranet shows no intrusion trace.

The medical area is normal.

The containment zone is normal.

Lord Wei set the Communicator down.

He stared at the zeroed monitoring data and remained silent for a long while.

After a moment, he finally said, "Notify the Global Alliance."

All A Ji and above anomalous entities, stand by.

All Weird Domain quarantine zones, re‑examine abnormal carriers.

From now on, any source‑less crowns, boxes, or red‑eye markers shall be handled as Quasi‑S level source items.

Liang Wen scratched his hair.

Director, it's all gone; could the Quasi‑S be set too low?

Lord Wei turned his face.

Those aged eyes held no anger, causing Liang Wen to swallow the latter half of his sentence.

The rating is for the subordinates to see.

Truly dangerous things never wait for you to label them.

Su Ming whispered, "What is it looking for?"

Jiang Yuan looked at him.

Su Ming lifted his wrist slightly.

The Time Marrow Worm's recent reaction didn't resemble facing a Weird Domain.

It was more like confronting a predator.

That thing doesn't want to fight; it is selecting.

Lord Wei tapped the tabletop with his fingertip.

"Select what?"

Su Ming shook his head.

"Can't find it."

"At least for now, can't find it."

The monster that roared openly has become a venomous snake in the shadows.

It only shows its teeth when it bites for the first time.

Lord Wei rose.

Everyone turned to look at him.

The elder's back was straight, his administrative jacket stained with a dark hue by the alarm light.

"Then we wait for it to show its teeth."

"At the same time, prepare to pull the teeth."

He turned and looked at Jiang Yuan, Su Ming, and Liang Wen.

"You all go rest."

Meanwhile.

Qiu Ce Yuan Medical Office.

Chu Che carried the tea from the Cafeteria, standing by the window.

The sky cleared.

The blood‑red hue that had just pressed down faded completely, and sunlight returned to the playground.

In the distance, someone was running, someone else shouting.

The world panicked for a moment, then began to mend itself.

Chu Che lowered his head to glance at the paper cup.

The tea bag had steeped too long, its color too dark, its taste poor.

He didn't pour it out.

His fingertip nudged the Gold Thread Glasses.

On the lenses, the clear sky overlapped with the bustling silhouettes in the distance, excessively clean.

The crown did not go on a killing spree in the abandoned royal court.

That's good.

A Weird that only expands is a beast.

A Weird that learns to select hosts is merely a tool.

Chu Che sipped his tea, his eyebrows unmoved.

Bitter.

These Cafeteria tea bags really need a new supplier.

Outside the door, a nurse hurried past pushing a medicine cart.

Chu Che placed the paper cup on the windowsill.

Outside, the sky is clear.

And deeper down, the fish bait he personally cast has already left the Defunct King's Court.

It will go looking for the sharpest teeth.

To find that crown‑bearer who is hateful enough and evil enough.

Chu Che's lips lift slightly.

Very gentle.

And also very patient.

"For this final round, I hope to see a sufficiently spectacular performance."