Chapter 121: Bird in a Bottle

Chapter 121: Chapter 121: Bird in a Bottle

The Prison’s relentless tenacity was giving Xiang Yi a headache.

But one thing was certain — the Prison couldn’t keep stirring up trouble indefinitely.

Every move they made was another slap in the government’s face, and every operation they ran got another door slammed shut on them. After everything that had happened these past few days, they were running out of options.

In a sense, sending Lu Qi to probe Xiang Yi’s combat strength by throwing lives at him was a sign that they’d scraped the bottom of the barrel.

Which also meant they were making their final, most thorough preparations.

The next wave of attacks from the Prison would very likely be the last.

It would be the most ferocious assault yet — one designed specifically around his Spiritual Energy and every other ability he had.

All the evidence pointed that way.

Xiang Yi had always had a feeling — he was like a bird trapped inside a bottle, and Anka Star was that bottle, both confining him and shielding him at the same time.

The Prison and the company could keep dropping new enemies in through the narrow bottleneck from outside, but the size of those enemies was constrained by that opening — constrained, in other words, by the government.

The orbital strike earlier had been an exception, like someone pouring boiling water directly into the bottle. But he’d survived that too.

After this latest probe, whatever came next would be sized to plug that bottleneck perfectly. It would be the Prison’s final move.

If that wave couldn’t kill him, then the Prison would be completely powerless against him — unless they shattered the bottle entirely.

As long as the government held firm, he could keep living on Anka Star without issue.

"The Prison is almost finished."

Lu Qi let out a scornful laugh. "Even without the Prison, the company still won’t let you go. You think they’d just sit back and watch a Spiritual Ability User like you keep growing stronger?"

"Sooner or later, you’ll be following me out of this world..."

"Whether I die is still anyone’s guess. But you? You’re definitely checking out before I do."

He’d gotten what he needed on the Prison. Now it was time to squeeze out everything about the network.

Xiang Yi leveled the Laser Rifle and asked the same question he’d already asked dozens of times before.

Half an hour later.

The interrogation was over.

Xiang Yi had pried every last detail about the deep network out of Lu Qi’s mouth.

As a bonus, the question he’d been quietly curious about — why Lu Qi had become a key node in the second network layer as well — finally got answered.

It turned out Lu Qi had a military background, and not as a discharged officer like Xiang Yi had assumed, but as an enlisted veteran.

Someone higher up in the company had seen the value in those connections and granted Lu Qi a level of access well above his station.

In the end, it had all worked out in Xiang Yi’s favor.

The critical intelligence from both deep network layers could now corroborate each other.

That meant anyone whose name showed up in both sets of data was compromised beyond any doubt — every single one of them could be dealt with, one by one.

Beyond that, there was one piece of good news and one piece of bad news.

The good news: the Abnormality Strategy Department was clean.

The bad news: without more intelligence on the upper levels of government, there was still no way to completely rule out problems at the top.

But the impact of that bad news would likely fade as his assassinations continued.

He refused to believe that whoever was truly dirty could keep their composure and not slip up as the bodies kept piling up.

While carrying out the assassinations, Xiang Yi also needed to use these next few days to make his final preparations.

He knew the Prison was building up to something big. Sitting on his hands wasn’t an option.

In fact, Xiang Yi had already started thinking even further ahead.

Sooner or later, he’d have to break free of the bottle and leave Anka Star.

He needed to think about what came after he flew off this rock.

The company sure as hell wasn’t going to let him walk away peacefully.

Sure, he was strong enough on Anka Star that only a full-scale military force or Spiritual Ability Users from the Abnormality Strategy Department could realistically kill him — and even the Prison had to work within the bottleneck’s constraints when coming up with ways to deal with him.

But against a behemoth like Iron Shell Company, he was still just as vulnerable as ever.

He needed more power...

After silencing Lu Qi, Xiang Yi made his way back to the surface.

He swung by the junkyard and used his Spiritual Energy to scan for any usable materials.

This direct sensing ability was something he’d gained after surviving the orbital laser strike.

It burned through a fair amount of Spiritual Power, but it came in handy when dealing with non-Abnormality Materials that the system panel couldn’t lock onto.

Luck was on his side — a quick sweep turned up enough material to build roughly five transport conduits.

With the sky already beginning to darken, Xiang Yi wasted no time heading through the underground passage toward the outskirts of the city.

He made his way back to the research institute.

The moment Ning Ye spotted him, she asked with obvious curiosity, "You ran into a Flesh Beast in the city?"

"Yeah."

"You get it on camera?"

"Yep. Sent it to you already."

"Wooah~" Ning Ye pulled out her terminal, took one look, and made a strange sound.

Seizing the moment, Xiang Yi pressed forward. "There’s something I want to ask you."

Ning Ye’s eyes stayed glued to the terminal. Without looking up, she said, "What?"

"What exactly is Black Stone? Isn’t it supposed to be the source of Abnormalities? So why are Abnormalities showing up inside the city? I remember asking you before, but you didn’t want to talk about it."

"Black Stone, huh..."

Something unreadable flickered through Ning Ye’s eyes. "It’s a strange thing," she said.

"You know the symbol of the Abnormality Strategy Department? Every Human Federation colony has one, and their emblem is Black Stone."

"It’s something that always appears on any human-colonized planet starting from the fifth year of colonization. It can’t be detected, and it can’t be permanently destroyed."

"Every time it appears, the frequency of Abnormality sightings spikes dramatically. And if it isn’t destroyed when it reappears at the start of the second five-year cycle, it becomes a whole lot more dangerous."

"Wait — didn’t you just say it can’t be destroyed?" Xiang Yi interjected.

"It can’t be permanently destroyed."

"Destroying Black Stone each time it appears is still the top priority for local governments and Spiritual Ability Users. The main point of destroying it is to keep Abnormality levels in check."

"Black Stone has levels, just like Abnormalities do — or rather, to put it the other way around, the level of Abnormalities that can appear is capped by the level of Black Stone."

"A newly appeared Black Stone starts at Level 1. Every time it shows up at a five-year interval without being destroyed, it goes up one level."

"Didn’t I tell you before why I felt safe enough to join the scavenger crew?"

"It’s because Anka Star’s Black Stone was successfully destroyed at both the five-year and ten-year marks. It’s still only Level 1, which means the Abnormalities that show up here top out at Level 2."

"Abnormalities appearing inside the city means the colony is coming up on fifteen years."

"We need to be careful."

Seeing Xiang Yi fall into thought, head bowed.

Ning Ye turned to her computer, clicked around for a moment, and sent a file over to Xiang Yi.

"While you were out today, I went and closed the Blood Crystal deal. The money’s already come in — five million went toward buying the schematics, and the remaining seven million has been sent to you along with it. Go check."