Master of the Stars

From what Luo Nan could remember, this was the first time Zhang Yingying was truly furious like a raging storm. He was used to her laughing and smiling all the time, without a serious appearance at all. This sudden change was quite shocking.

Luo Nan didn’t blame Zhang Yingying for being this emotional. During the Society’s training, he chatted a lot with Bamboo Pole and Papercut. Any time the topic involved Headquarters, none of them had practically anything good to say. Luo Nan found this very odd. How could such an organization retain people?

Papercut gave him the answer. It was because of resources, power, less restrictions, and the like. But Papercut also admitted that all these benefits were as weak as a bubble during serious conflicts of interest.

Bamboo Pole’s answer was much more flowery. "Not every city is like Xia City."

Xia City certainly had an excellent and large environment, but it was no utopia that transcended worldliness. It could be influenced. Recently, the Headquarters’ investigation team roaming in Xia City created an animosity like the one between a chicken and a dog.

What was truly bizarre was the fact that Headquarters was able to seize the chance to act with malicious intent even under the cold processes and underground measures of vigilance arranged by the Xia City branch.

Luo Nan was not prepared to argue with Zhang Yingying. He changed his train of thought while launching his own peculiar ways of connecting with people. He didn’t give Xue Lei a call. Instead, he simply unleashed his mental senses.

Fifty or so floors separated him, who was at the viewing platform, from the party location, which was on the eighty-eighth floor. After he calculated, he figured that the distance ran a straight line that was less than a couple hundred meters. This was within the range of his mental senses.

Luo Nan easily found Xue Lei on the floor where the party was being held. Then he gave off a subtle mental vibration, and Xue Lei’s martial instincts were immediately on alert. Communication on the mental plane followed after that.

Since the communication was unidirectional, and Xue Lei wasn’t used to this method, Luo Nan didn’t spend too much time going deep into detail. Xue Lei was able to tell just how serious the situation was, even though Luo Nan was notifying him via this method. He immediately said a few words to Xiu Shenyu, hung up the phone, and rushed to get to Luo Nan.

At the same time, Zhang Yingying slapped her thigh because she didn’t hear Luo Nan immediately respond to her. "Do you understand what I’m talking about at all...."

"I already notified Xue Lei. He’s heading up here right now. You can give him a call and get in contact with him."

Zhang Yingying was stunned for a moment, then she recollected her meaningless emotions in the blink of an eye and asked, "How many floors away is he? Forget it. I’ll just ask him. Also, your mental senses should be activated right now, right? You have a sensing range of eighty meters. That should be enough. Remember, this is a matter of life and death. You must hold on no matter what. You have to keep your eye out for any suspicious targets.... Don’t hang up. I’ll open parallel communications."

Luo Nan grunted in acknowledgment as he heard the quick exchange between Zhang Yingying and Xue Lei in his ear and as his mental senses noiselessly covered a vast area of a kilometer in radius.

The lustrous landscape of the star river unfurled in his mind.

It covered nearly a hundred and seventy floors from the underground space of Ocean Sky Cloud City and up. The Life Sketches of tens of thousands of livings beings lit layer by layer, formed from stars and filling the sky. They were numerous and close together. In truth, most of these Life Sketches could be ignored. Luo Nan just combed through the areas where his mental senses could not penetrate.

The answer came quickly and was beyond his expectations.

It was the high-speed elevator he was just on.... The elevator next to it. There spiraled a mass of hazy dark mist. A few stars flickered in and out of sight.

Right now, the suspicious elevator had already reached the 130th floor, the office area of some multinational company. Some people had called for the elevator, hence the temporary stop. But soon, the elevator resumed moving upward.

Luo Nan sighed, "Not good."

Zhang Yingying immediately asked, "What happened?"

"Actually, there’s someone heading up here. Someone with unknown strength."

"Avoid him. Employ your advantage in sensing. Don’t face him head on. If the enemy also has a sensing ability and you can’t shake him off, then go inside a crowd. Don’t give those guys a chance to make a move."

Luo Nan looked around the viewing platform, and his lips upturned into a silent, wry grin. At present, very few people loitered on the viewing platform. The so-called ’crowd’ didn’t exist. Even if it did, Luo Nan was absolutely unwilling to use innocent people as shields.

In the end, he casted his gaze up at the darkening sky. No matter what would happen today, it would be hard to unearth any new secrets of Gear. Speaking of which, it seemed that he didn’t inherit an ’intuitive instinct’ in his blood.... He was unqualified to be his parents’ son!

Wasn’t that right?

The completely unreasonable thought churned the emotions in his heart a few times. He smacked the protective glass hard, giving Tian Si quite a surprise.

"Junior?"

Luo Nan didn’t explain what was on his mind to her. He simply said, "We’re going."

Tian Si was stunned. Luo Nan was acting very strangely right then, but she was clever and knew wiser than to say anything. She gave a faint grunt and adopted the submissive attitude of a retainer following a lord.

Zhang Yingying also found things strange on her end. "You’re leading someone? Who?"

Luo Nan didn’t answer. He led Tian Si toward the elevator area with large strides. Taking into account the speed of the elevator, he had a chance to break away from the unidentified fellow.

But he only walked halfway there when new elements appeared within the range of his mental senses.

Luo Nan suddenly stopped walking.

His mental senses were focused inside the crystal pillar. This enormous pillar was a hundred and twenty meters in diameter. It housed thousands upon thousands of species of marine life, but 99% were muddled and hazy in his mental senses. Their Life Sketches were scattered and could simply be ignored.

The sole exception was the devil ray. It was a Mutant with a powerful and dense aura, and it didn’t really know how to conceal itself. Most of its Life Sketch revealed itself outside nebulae. It was very eye-catching, standing above the crowd.

Because of this, Luo Nan suddenly discovered that this huge fellow had broken away from the middle-depths region of water it liked to stay in. It was advancing straight up, moving even faster than the high-speed elevator.

Originally, the monster fish was located around thirty floors below the undercover suspicious character. But by the time Luo Nan unleashed his mental clairvoyance, the monster fish’s height broke the 130th floor in the blink of an eye. Its speed wasn’t slowing down at all!

Luo Nan was more vigilant toward something else though. Next to this large fellow was another mass of hazy dark mist excellently concealing something. If it were not for the brightness of the monster fish’s Life Sketch, occasionally revealing that something’s extraordinariness, Luo Nan would have truly neglected it.

This was not some marine being. It was a living person.

This couldn’t be good. Luo Nan immediately changed directions and urgently asked, "Are there elevators that don’t pass through Heavenly Ocean Lake?"

There were 60 high-speed elevators in Ocean Sky Cloud City. It was a complicated structure. Luo Nan’s star river image wasn’t particularly apt at discerning inanimate objects. Luo Nan was desperate, so he had asked.

"There are." Tian Si’s response was worthy of praise. She had done her homework ahead of time, and it showed. She instantly pointed to the west side of the viewing platform. “The row of them there all are."

"Walk faster. We’ll split once we get there."

Tian Si practically went into a small jog from being urged on by Luo Nan. She was a bit out of breath. "Did Ju Maoxun and his gang come up here? Sorry, I was just...."

"It has nothing to do with you." Luo Nan had Tian Si eat her words.

"Wow, you’re quite the show off! If you have the mood to talk, you have the mood to walk, okay?" Zhang Yingying pressured him through the call, mocking him. Truth was, she was angry to the point of stomping. "Don’t pretend as if you don’t have the skills.... Xue Lei, faster!"

Xue Lei’s hurried voice could be heard. "I’m coming from the outside."

Luo Nan provided new information with revised positions of him and the enemy. "I reached the west side of the building. I will provide updates at any given time. One enemy is in the central elevator. The other is in the crystal pillar."

While speaking, Luo Nan took out a thumb-sized bottle from his pocket. He unscrewed the cap with a single hand, shook it, and threw it behind him.

The bottle fell to the ground. It sounded like it was empty.

Tian Si was completely lost. She didn’t understand what Luo Nan was doing at all. However, Luo Nan spoke over the phone with a tone that was full of the flavor of crisis that soldiers faced before a vicious battle. Luo Nan’s voice stabbed into her, causing her to break out in cold sweat.

In the end, Tian Si was an intelligent person who valued her life. She didn’t speak, but she secretly opened the communication function of her wristband. She hesitated for half a second as she decided who she should contact before making up her mind.

However, there was no response with the communications.

Tian Si’s brain was struck dumb. She walked with a lost mind and didn’t look where she was going. Her high-heels didn’t land correctly on the steps going down the platform, and she staggered. Luckily, Luo Nan caught her.

Luo Nan extended a helping hand, but his feet didn’t stop moving in the slightest. He half-dragged Tian Si as they walked forward. In such circumstances, even if he didn’t utter a word, the pressing feeling of danger felt like being wrapped in a thundering rain cloud. It loomed heavy and oppressive, terrifying to one’s soul.

Tian Si’s face went pale. She spoke not a word as she dimly walked seven steps. Only then did she break free from Luo Nan’s support. Her hand grabbed her drawing board deathly tight with a white-knuckled grip.

The two people walked in this manner toward the west side elevator area and encountered quite a coincidence. Luo Nan didn’t even press the elevator button, and an elevator just so happened to arrive. The bell rang with a ding!, and the metal doors opened.

Currently, Tian Si’s mind was just blank. She simply followed her instinct as she walked forward, but Luo Nan yanked her back. She immediately lost her balance, and her petite figure fell backward onto Luo Nan’s shoulder, pushing them both further away from the elevator.

Tian Si gave a faint gasp as the drawing board slipped through her fingers and fell to the ground. The drawing board got stepped on by both Tian Si and Luo Nan as they moved backward. Let alone being dirtied, the drawing board was now cracked.

But at this moment, Tian Si was already unable to deal with these details.

A man slowly walked out after the elevator doors opened. He wore a security uniform, and he wielded a police baton in his hand. The electrical switch was already flipped on, and the baton pulsated with the sound of crackling. This new type of police baton had an ’electric whip’ effect. Sparks could be seen flashing around it.

From Tian Si’s perspective, the jumping electric arcs truly possessed an enormous deterring might.

He was a security officer. Why wasn’t she asking for help?

It was because of this man’s face. It made her blood run cold from his strange look. Dilated pupils. Stiff flesh. The snot and tears that ran down. Everything of him looked filled to the brim with terror.

But the corner of the man’s mouth split and twitched upward. If one were to just look at this portion, it looked like the man was grinning.

This face had been forcefully jammed with completely opposite emotions. From Tian Si’s perspective, this scene was far more horrifying than the devil fish ramming into the crystal pillar a moment ago.

The electric baton was real, to say the least.

"He’s gone mad!" Tian Si murmured.

Her voice fell, and a devilish chuckle bubbled from the mad security officer’s throat. The man lunged with great force. He charged over, waving the electric baton.

Tian Si let out a gasp of a cry, and she shrank behind Luo Nan. Right after she hid within Luo Nan’s shadow, she heard the muffled sound of something heavy smashing to the ground. Then a clattering rolling sound.

Luo Nan’s body stood firm, moving not an inch and blocking the space ahead. As Tian Si did her best to calm her breathing, she dimly heard Luo Nan mutter.

"So there is a way to distort consciousness.... How fortunate."