Chapter 1468 – 1468 Dark Hole
Xia Fan and Nie Yan’s secret communication method could be considered simple and crude.
He left Hidden Mountain Outpost all by himself, then accelerated. About ten minutes later, Xia Fan arrived at a barren mountain three hundred kilometers away from the city. Standing there in the middle of the wilderness, Xia Fan calmly accessed his stealthed spatial ring, and retrieved a Star-region-grade long-range walkie-talkie.
The walkie-talkie that could communicate across an entire star region was quite sizable, as heavy and bulky as a solid brick.
Because the Outer Frontier lacked any interplanetary system communication network, they needed to rely on something like this to establish a connection with their headquarters. There was no way around it, given how the Outer Frontier was still nowhere as developed as the three Federations.
!!
Although the long-range walkie-talkie solved the communication issue between Xia Fan and Nie Fan, there was a very obvious flaw to it. Since the signal was being transmitted into s.p.a.ce, it was relatively easy for tracking systems dedicated to catching radio signals to discover it.
Though the radar would not be able to find out who was using the walkie-talkie or what they were talking about, they could pinpoint the location where the signal had originated.
Thus, the safest method was to run to somewhere desolate with no one around, then make contact. Frequently changing the location so this communication technique couldn’t be tracked might be troublesome for some people, but it was hardly an issue for a speedster like Xia Fan.
With the remote video call connection established, Xia Fan saw that Nie Yan was presently in Black Egg’s c.o.c.kpit, slightly nervous that she was suddenly getting a call from Xia Fan.
Xia Fan relayed what had happened to Traveling Buddha and himself. After explaining everything to Nie Yan, she nodded to him, “This problem isn’t being encountered by you two alone. Practically every single infiltration team that we sent has ended up in a similar situation.
“Indeed, in the promotion of this special ability Tyrant Battle by Murder Shrine, which they are calling ‘The Tyrant Coronation Battle across Eight Star Regions’, attractive rewards are offered, all for the purpose of finding the most powerful warrior across the Outer Frontier. However, when put into action, practically anyone who stepped up was not rejected, and a huge amount of warriors who clearly did not meet the requisites are being chosen to join the compet.i.tion.
“Headquarters is currently investigating this matter. But at the moment, the investigation is not yet complete, so you and Traveling Buddha can only go along with the original plan. But you need to be a little more careful. The moment you realize something is amiss, seek a.s.sistance from me immediately.
“Don’t forget, this special taskforce that the Union has sent, though not large, actually has some super experts like Grand Old Buddha among them. For the most part, the Union does have the ability to rescue you two from danger.”
Xia Fan nodded after hearing Nie Yan’s words. If a similar situation was happening in every preliminary venue, then that showed that for some unknown reason, Murder Shrine wanted to accept every special ability user from across the Eight Star Regions.
Were they intending to expand their ranks?
Xia Fan felt that the chances of that were very low. They were a group who had been very careful for years; suddenly recruiting so many new members who were not in line with their princ.i.p.als would only cause even greater confusion.
The members of Murder Shrine were not guerilla skirmishers, but a proper army. They surely had to know of that logic.
But then, for what reason would Murder Shrine change their original intent?
Given how things stood right now, just in Hidden Mountain Outpost alone there were over a hundred special ability users who had been selected, so there would be at least several thousand partic.i.p.ants when all eight star regions were added together, perhaps even surpa.s.sing ten thousand of them!
As such, the scale of the special ability Tyrant Battle would become astronomically huge; would they not be afraid of being exposed?
Or was it perhaps that Murder Shrine had other reasons even more secretive than the compet.i.tion that required a great many special ability users?
A shroud of secrecy hung around their secret mission before it even began. Several minutes had pa.s.sed during the call, so the cautious Xia Fan immediately changed his position. He then contacted Nie Yan again to receive the information that the Union presently possessed.
At the moment, the Union still had no clue where the location of the compet.i.tion between the eight star regions from the Outer Frontier would be held, so all they could do was quietly set up even more satellites around the Lywellian Star Region.
“I understand. Traveling Buddha and I will continue to stick to our duties,” Xia Fan told Nie Yan.
“You must be careful!” Nie Yan insisted with all the gravity she could muster, hammering the importance of caution repeatedly.
…
A dark hole. There would be humans pouring into it daily, humans that were being dumped into it via wars.h.i.+ps like they were refuse or garbage.
This dark hole was located in an unknown star region, on some unnamed planet, located in a desert where nothing grew except a deep and large dark hole spanning over fifteen kilometers wide. The warriors of Murder Shrine guarding this dark hole said that at the bottom of this hole was none other than the mythological place known as h.e.l.l.
In the distance, a black dot was rapidly advancing closer. When it entered the outer orbit of the planet, the black dot began to decelerate, pa.s.sing through the atmosphere before it arrived at the hole, and stopped to hover above it.
By now, it was no longer a black dot, but a black cargo s.h.i.+p.
There was a man with sharp eyes and a hooked nose sitting in an office temporarily set up by the lip of the hole. He received the inventory list of the cargo s.h.i.+p; on that list were not goods or produce, but a list of names that included their age, background, special ability, and their ranks.
This man with a hooked nose had a pen in his hand as he glanced quickly over the list. It took him but a moment before he ticked off a few names.
“Just these will do. The rest can be dumped,” the man calmly stated, almost as if his actions had not just decided the fate of whether a group of people would live or die. Instead, it sounded as if he was confirming which pigs would be sent to the slaughter, and which would continue to be fed, with not an ounce of emotion in his words.
Returning the list to the secretary seated by the office desk, she gave him a light nod and proceeded to open a line of communication with the s.h.i.+p.
“Keep those with the following names. Dump the rest,” the secretary relayed the man’s decision to the s.h.i.+p.
When the call ended, everyone gazed toward the dark hole in unison, watching as that cargo s.h.i.+p opened its cargo hold and human figure after figure was tossed off the s.h.i.+p.
Those who were tossed screamed in terror; those with good eyesight could see that they were all holding onto weapons, wearing protective gear similar to battlesuits made of reinforced fiber or hard armor, almost as if they were going in fully armed. Nevertheless, these fully-armed people were still being dumped right into the dark abyss.
Curses and screams filled their ears, but the warriors surrounding the hole did not react in the least. Perhaps it was because they were already used to such a scene, and even those among them who were soft-hearted had only been shocked the first time they witnessed this happen. Now, with the same thing happening every day, even they had become numb to it.
Once it was done with the dumping, the s.h.i.+p parked itself by the edge of the dark hole, near a location similar to a military encampment.
The lucky few who had not been dumped off the wars.h.i.+p were escorted out and handed over to the local army stationed there. Then, the cargo s.h.i.+p set off once more, departing the dark hole. In no time at all, it would return with a new batch of people, and repeat this sequence anew.
One s.h.i.+p. Two s.h.i.+ps. Three…
They were practically all the same fast cargo s.h.i.+ps, repeatedly doing the same thing. Meanwhile, the man with the hooked nose would select names from the lists each and every time, choosing who would be dumped and who would remain.
—–
After a good while, the work of dumping people into the hole seemed to have come to a temporary stop, and there were no s.h.i.+ps transporting over their cargo for a good while. When such occurrences cropped up, that hook-nosed man became very displeased.
“Too slow, it’s too slow,” that man muttered.
“But we’ve almost captured all the pirates in our vicinity already. Even if there are plenty of pirate organizations operating in the Outer Frontier, there’s still a limit to their numbers. Meanwhile, the higher-quality cannon fodder we’ve recruited from the eight star regions has yet to arrive, so of course we’ll appear to be dealing with such shortages for the time being,” his secretary answered with knit eyebrows.
The hook-nosed man shook his head. “A bunch of wastrels. If we’re done catching the pirates, then we can target the soldiers of the native empires, or the private guards employed by the major trading firms. We don’t need them to have special abilities. All we need is for them to demonstrate combat prowess, and to have killed people before. They are just cannon fodder to us, anyway.”
The secretary asked, “General, from what I can tell, there’s no rush to this matter. You’ve already said that the people we are dumping are simply cannon fodder, so we could not expect the cannon fodder to finish it off, right? At the end of the day, we still need to rely on the higher-quality cannon fodder to get the job done, who will help clear the way for us.
“As for the native empires and major trading firms, their existence is of great importance to the stability of the Outer Frontier’s strength. After all, when all is said and done, we still need the Outer Frontier to establish a new Federation, and if these local forces collapse, it’ll be of no benefit to us.”
The hook-nosed man spoke no further on the topic, and simply stared up toward the dark starry sky.
He of course understood the logic behind it, but he was still excited deep down. After all, the development speed of this dark hole was related to whether Murder Shrine could keep pace with the three major Federations.
Not trying to brag, but after all these years Murder Shrine had developed here in the Outer Frontier, whether they could get themselves a seat at the table all depended on what was happening right now, so of course he could not help but feel anxious.
“Send the instructions out. Hasten the special ability Tyrant Battle operation!” the hooked-nose man said through gritted teeth.
…
Xia Fan and Traveling Buddha carried their luggage. Before they departed, Xia Fan went to Yu Jiang’s sickbed to see him one last time.
“Do not worry, there will be someone that will bring you to the Inner Territories very soon. As for your injury, it wouldn’t be a problem getting it treated once you’re in Starcloud Union,” Xia Fan smiled as he spoke to Yu Jiang. He was rather fond of this man from Deserted River: someone who possessed the bloodl.u.s.t inherent in all men from his homeworld, while also displaying a measure of cleverness.
Yu Jiang nodded, and just watched as Xia Fan and Traveling Buddha departed. They were about to join up with the others, and were headed to the venue where the special ability Tyrant Battle would be held.
The notice had suddenly been sent in the middle of the night, so the two of them had no choice but to leave Old Yu’s abode before dawn broke. Old Yu and his nephews were sending Xia Fan off, and even though they said they were reluctant to see them go, Xia Fan guessed that they ought to be beyond elated right now.
Wearing the pendants he had received from Griffin around their necks, Xia Fan and Traveling Buddha both arrived at the s.p.a.ceport located at the outskirts of the city and saw a black cargo s.h.i.+p waiting for them.
If Xia Fan had seen that dark hole, as well as the scene where men were being poured down into said hole, he would have realized that the s.h.i.+p he was about to board was the very same model as those black cargo s.h.i.+ps…