The Highest Bounty

Chapter 201: The Truth

Noami led Elizabeth and Midea toward a hovercar.

When Elizabeth bent down slightly to get into the driver’s seat, she noticed that Naomi had a pained expression on her face. Elizabeth could not help but ask, “I noticed that a few people on your team were hurt. Were they affected by the waves caused by the deity’s attack?”

Elizabeth had always been an observant person. Previously, when she got off the spaceship, she immediately noticed that quite a few people were wounded. Nevertheless, they had tried to put up a strong front. Noami, who was their team leader, was not that seriously wounded. That was why Elizabeth only noticed that Naomi was hurt when the latter bent down a little.

Noami hesitated for a while before she decided to tell the truth, “It wasn’t because of the deity. It was Gu Ding. We left eight of us at the harbor in an attempt to surround and capture him, but he defeated us all…”

“How is it possible that Gu Ding has become so powerful now?” Elizabeth was a little shocked. She had only watched videos of Gu Ding fighting a few days ago. In those videos, it was shown that he was only able of fighting it out with Rank 11 Gene Body powerhouses. Only a few days had passed and he was now powerful enough to take out an entire Hunter squad?

The Hunter squad comprised two Rank 12 Gene Body powerhouses and eight Rank 11 Gene Body powerhouses. Additionally, members of a Hunter squad were considered much more powerful than their counterparts because of Ultimate Arts. If such a team had been defeated by Gu Ding so easily, it meant that Gu Ding had made great progress in his abilities.

“I’ve found footage of the battle,” Midea managed to find videos of Gu Ding fighting the Hunter squad from Skynet. She proceeded to project the videos.

With the help of Phoenix’s ability to space leap, Elizabeth and the others took only a day to reach Jerr. By that time, the few videos of Gu Ding fighting had been uploaded onto Skynet for a day and had accumulated more than a hundred million clicks within the short time frame.

In fact, many were interested in the clip when they saw its title that mentioned the Hunters. This was because the Hunters were considered a mysterious organization for ordinary citizens. Normal videos on Skynet occasionally showcased clips of Hunters carrying out missions and obliterating their enemies. This time, however, they were shown being beaten by Gu Ding. That was why the videos had quickly become a hot topic of discussion.

The videos showed Gu Ding beating Noami’s team without much difficulty even though it was a one VS eight fight. Consequently, Elizabeth and Midea noticed the change in Gu Ding.

Midea voiced out her opinion after watching the videos, “It looks like he has advanced to Rank 6 and has also managed to awaken an ability similar to combat effectiveness field within him. It’s very clear that the Hunter squad’s Ultimate Arts is no match for his Ultimate Arts. He seems much more at ease in the battle compared to his previous fights.”

“I think so as well. It looks like our previous assumption was correct. He’s cultivating the complete version of Ultimate Arts that was passed down from ancient civilization.” Elizabeth lifted her black hood. There was a serious look on her face.

Only after listening to the discussion coming from the backseat did Noami finally realize something. She had noticed that Gu Ding’s fighting techniques were similar to their Ultimate Arts. Now that the Lord had mentioned this, she came to understand that Gu Ding trained with the complete version of Ultimate Arts.

Midea nodded. “I heard that the complete version of Ultimate Arts has 12 levels and is able to enhance one’s combat effectiveness by 320 times at its maximum potential. It’s a very powerful increase under the circumstance that your opponent is not a deity. Judging by Gu Ding’s basic effectiveness, him being able to go against Rank 12 Gene Body powerhouses definitely has something to do with Ultimate Arts.”

“When you challenged him in the Virtual Arena a few months ago, did you expect him to achieve such progress?” Elizabeth smiled as she asked.

Midea shook her head. There was a smile on her face as she said, “I had expected him to make something of himself, but I never thought that it would happen so fast. I thought it would take him at least three years or more to even make a name for himself. Nevertheless, it hasn’t even been three months. Missy, you should take responsibility for him reaching such exponential growth. Who would gift a stranger Dark Iron Grade Combat Armor on the first day of their meeting?”

“I’ve never met him before. All I did was watch you fight him onstage. It was only natural for me to compensate him since you bullied him.” Elizabeth did not think that there was any problem with her gifting him the Combat Armor.

“It was not bullying. All I did was give him a kiss on the lips. You do know how little restraint I have when it comes to cute boys like him.” Midea covered her mouth as she laughed.

Noami listened on as the women continued chatting. Since Noami was also a woman, the two seated in the back were more open with their topic of discussion. On the other hand, this allowed Noami to learn of things she had previously been unaware of.

A little more than half an hour later, the car finally arrived at Leoben Prison.

The women seated at the back finally quietened when they saw the prison completely destroyed.

Elizabeth lifted up her hood once again to cover her face before stepping out of the car.

Another car arrived right after them, and Nimitz got off the vehicle along with Caputin.

The four of them looked at the scene before them, not knowing what to say. They had seen the condition of the place in the video but that was only through a virtual screen. Watching the video and seeing it in real life were completely different things. Hence, they felt overwhelmed, standing in front of the completely destroyed prison.

Not a single part of land was spared in the scene right before their eyes. There were many cracks in the ground; the whole area looked like a dense spiderweb.

As for the Leoben Prison which once had been known as indestructible, signs from its previous grandeur were evident as the building stood in shambles.

Elizabeth and the other demigods could vaguely sense whatever had been left behind by the deity’s will projection.

“There’s definitely the presence of a deity’s will here,” Midea affirmed.

Marshal Nimitz nodded in agreement. “It should be a 2 Star or 3 Star Lower Ranking Deity. There are only remnants of one deity. His opponent must have had the god item that was mentioned by Miss Midea previously.”

At that moment, Elizabeth reached out her hand and pointed her palm toward the sky. A colorless, translucent screen appeared in front of her.

Then, a picture slowly appeared on the screen. The picture was a bright light that began to descend from the sky and later coagulated in the air, forming the deity’s will projection…

It was Elizabeth’s special ability, Image Restoration.

Her ability, Image Restoration, was not carried out by turning back time. Instead, it was through her deduction of what had happened; the assessment of remaining energy left on the scene and the backtracking of energy usage. That was why the deity’s will projection that was being shown on the screen was blurred out, and the deity’s face, as well as form, could not be seen clearly. Nevertheless, her ability was the most accurate way to reveal the truth of the battle to everyone under their current circumstances.

As the deity descended on the screen, a huge python quickly formed within the prison. It was indeed the god item that had fought the deity.

After this, the screen continued to show the battle that happened between them.

Everyone watched the screen closely, unable to turn their eyes away. They witnessed the collapse of Leoben Prison and what had transpired that destroyed everything around it.

At the very end, the god item was seen to have lost the fight. It attempted to escape by running in different directions while the deity gave chase.

“Let’s head to the second scene of the fight.” Elizabeth disappeared immediately after speaking.

Nimitz and Midea quickly followed behind her.

“Stand guard here. We’ll be back after we’re done,” Caputin instructed Noami and immediately vanished from where he was as well.

“Is that the teleportation ability of a demigod?” King Kong asked softly after a while.

It took less than a minute for the four of them to appear on top of the Oedipus Tower; the place where Gu Ding had been.

“This should be where the deity’s will projection vanished,” Caputin confirmed the location with the coordinates Naomi had given him. It was right there.

“But… I can’t sense anything from the deity.” Midea was a little doubtful. All four of them had been able to sense remnants of the deity clearly at the battlefield near Leoben Prison. They even had been able to feel the energy waves left over from the battle. However, there were no signs of battle at their current location, nor were there any remnants of the deity.

“Let me have a look first.” Elizabeth reached out her hand, and a screen appeared once again. Nevertheless, nothing appeared even after a long wait.

Quite some time had passed when Elizabeth finally put down her hand and shook her head. “There’s no sign of any remaining energy waves nearby.”

Midea poked two fingers out. “There can only be two possibilities. This was not the location where the deity vanished. The other would be, his remaining energy was absorbed clean by someone. However, the chances that the second possibility happened are very low because we saw the deity’s will projection crumble. Its energy pieces, having crumbled, would have left up to a hundred million pieces of energy dust. No one would have been able to absorb them completely unless the deity’s opponent was also a deity.”

Caputin dialed Noami’s number. “Mushroom, are you sure that the deity’s will projection crumbled near that huge building? Did you make a mistake with the location?”

“Chief commander, there’s no doubt that it is the right location. Our whole team witnessed it. The deity’s will was projected in the air above the Oedipus Tower. That building is highly recognizable. It’s more than four hundred meters tall, and it’s double the height of all the other buildings around it. Not only that but the deity’s will projection that was there was seen floating more than 300 meters high. With both heights added together, the total comes up to 700 meters high. It was only a few kilometers away from the harbor, so it’s impossible that the location is wrong,” Noami answered confidently.

Caputin had put her on loudspeaker, which was why everyone could hear Noami’s voice.

Everyone looked around them and saw that the surrounding buildings were just as Naomi had described. They were all much shorter than the building they were on.

“It should be here then!” Caputin trusted his subordinates.

“According to the current theory, a third person was probably involved in the battle. This third-person could have been the one who destroyed the deity’s will projection and absorbed it completely,” the white-bearded Nimitz frowned slightly. The situation was getting more complicated than he thought.

“However, there’s still something I don’t quite understand. If that third person was able to crush the deity’s will projection, that person must have been a deity too. In that case, it would have been pointless for him to absorb the other deity’s will projection, right? The deity that had his will projection destroyed was but a 2-Star or 3-Star Lower Ranking Deity; his energy pieces would have limited uses even for a 1-Star Lower Ranking Deity.” Midea did not understand the situation.

“It is possible that the opponent was a Monster demigod. If that was the case, it would explain everything. The Monster demigod would have needed the deity’s energy pieces to speed up the transformation of his body!” Caputin voiced his opinion.

“That would seem to be the most logical explanation at this point…” Midea was still doubtful, but she could not think of a better explanation.

“I’ll return to the first scene and try to get some inspiration to achieve a breakthrough to become a deity. You can continue taking care of matters here,” Elizabeth disappeared immediately after giving her instructions.