Chapter 95: Information, City Lord’s intentions (2)
Grey, the twin sisters, and Werner floated above the secret hideout of the High Order. The twin sisters were still only at the 1st Rank, but with Werner’s help, they were capable of taking flight. As for Grey, he didn’t need any help. He could fly indefinitely if he wanted to and could even sleep in the air for all he cared.
Werner was closely examining the barrier covering the entrance to the High Order. It was shaped like a honeycomb, and any attack directed at it would be neutralized effortlessly.
Werner’s body abruptly burned red, and a large amount of spiritual energy poured out from him as he shot a compressed fireball at the barrier.
Puff!
As soon as the fireball hit the barrier, it was neutralized completely, leaving no damage behind.
Werner then flew closer and examined the formation carefully, narrowing his eyes.
"This is a Peak Two-Star Defensive Array," Werner said after finishing his inspection.
"However, the formation flag is located inside the High Order’s secret hideout. It’ll take quite some time to break it."
Having access to the formation flag, or the item where the formation was inscribed, made things much easier to dismantle. Without it, however, breaking the formation was a lengthy process.
"How long will it take, Master?" Meiling asked curiously.
"If we start now, we could crack the formation in one hour... no, two hours! With Master’s help," Werner declared as he turned to Grey, who was staring deeply at the barrier.
[Your comprehension defies the heavens! By looking at the Two-Star Formation ’Dual Lock Barrier Formation,’ you’ve comprehended the ’Absolute Lock Formation.’]
Grey used his True Origin Sight, and immediately, the formation’s structure was laid bare before his eyes. He could see which nodes were connected, the paths through which energy flowed, and all he needed to do was destroy those nodes to collapse the formation.
This was exactly what he had done with the killing array earlier.
The True Origin Sight hadn’t turned out to be completely useless after he discovered Nexus Energy. It still had its uses.
Not only that, but by using it, he could also comprehend techniques and forge improved versions from them. He had even comprehended the killing array during the process of breaking it.
It was originally called the Bloodwind Formation, but after refining it into the Doom Engraving Formation with his cheat, it required far less energy to activate and could reach full power more easily. Once fully powered, it could kill multiple 2nd Rankers in a single strike. It was also equipped with a passive setting that automatically triggered when someone entered its range, meaning he no longer needed to go through the troublesome display of setting up formation flags like the High Order members did. Instead, he could catch enemies off guard and activate the array instantly.
This was his new trump card.
Grey turned to Werner and the twin sisters and flashed them a grin.
"One hour?" Grey asked, as his mental fluctuation spread out from his body, reaching every corner of the formation. Immediately after, the strong barrier that had effortlessly deflected Werner’s attack shattered into pieces like glass and dispersed into the air.
"..." Everyone stared blankly at Grey.
They didn’t know what to say anymore.
Did no formation have any effect on him at all?
Was he a natural bane to all formations?
The twin sisters and Werner didn’t know whether to laugh or cry.
They were all formation masters, but how was Grey so different from them?
And to make things worse, their grandmaster was a year younger than they were.
The heavens were truly unfair.
"Let’s go in." Grey waved his hand, and the entrance, sealed by a thick steel door, opened with a metallic creak.
"Yes!"
Werner and the twin sisters nodded, and one by one, they entered the hideout.
As soon as they stepped inside, the air turned cold. Looking around, they noticed that the interior was made of a special kind of steel, with screws holding the walls together.
Just below them was an elevator that blocked their view of what lay beneath.
The four landed on the elevator platform and looked around.
"To think their hideout would be this advanced. How long have they been here?" Meiying asked in disbelief.
"It looks like the High Order has been hiding here for years," Werner said thoughtfully. "To think they were this close to Ashspire City all along. They were hiding in plain sight, developing continuously."
"The lives of thousands of civilians were at risk all this time," Werner added, shaking his head.
"Let’s go down," Grey said. His eyes flashed with light as he connected his hacking interface to the elevator and began operating it.
Pss!
With the sound of pistons pushing and the churning of motors, the elevator slowly began descending.
It went down steadily, and after a solid three minutes, it finally stopped.
"Such depth," Werner said as he looked upward. "We are several hundred feet underground. I believe even basic detection units wouldn’t be able to detect this place."
"Indeed," Grey nodded. Even he was slightly surprised by the depth of this facility. What was below them was far larger than he expected.
In front of them stood a massive steel door. Grey slowly pushed it open, and beyond it lay rows of small rooms that looked eerily similar to the laboratory he had infiltrated the previous night.
The smell of medicine and cold metal filled the air. The temperature dropped, and a sterile chill spread through the place. Everything about this area screamed laboratory.
Grey’s eyes flashed, and he immediately detected several signals, almost a hundred of them, coming from within those rooms.
There was no doubt about it. These signals matched those of cybernetic implants.
"So this is where I picked up the signals from earlier," Grey muttered. "I don’t sense any other signals. I guess every High Order member came out to fight us."
It made sense. The person they were dealing with was a middle-stage 2nd Ranker, just one step away from undergoing Law Reshaping and ascending to the late stage. To deal with someone like Werner, they would need an army far greater than what the High Order currently had.