He Ao gazed at the eyeball nestled within the cave ahead, his eyes slightly lifted, a faint trace of surprise flickering within the purple glow.

He was well aware that the floating eyeball was not the true form of the powerful exotic beast; it was the mountain below his feet.

The enormous soul shadow almost completely enveloped the mountain.

This exotic beast was indeed formidable; its power had far surpassed the standard B-level, even nearing the threshold of the Incomplete Angel Level, though lacking the strength of a higher Position.

But as long as the Angel didn’t intervene, with its power, it could easily bully most ordinary exotic beasts.

Moreover, it was very intelligent, and most crucially, it had formed a rudimentary ’self.’

Having a ’self’ means having consciousness and barely qualifying as a sentient being.

Yet its self was not strong, and the consciousness and memory in its mind were intermittent.

However, through these fragmented memories, He Ao had figured out the reason for its presence here.

It somewhat related to He Ao.

The exotic beast was inherently inactive, originally living a life of isolation in the wilderness outside Yilan City.

Then about two years ago, during the Linen Copy World incident, the Angel of the Abyss descended from the Abyss; He Ao fought the Angel of the Abyss to the north of Yilan City, harnessing the War God power.

In the midst, mysterious shadows and the powers of Divine Beings like the Life Goddess were involved.

Currently, the wilderness north of Yilan City remains a vast expanse of molten earth.

This exotic beast was at the battle’s edge; had it not fled quickly, it would have been nearly killed by the aftermath of that battle.

Following that event, it dared not linger near Yilan City and gradually moved north.

Its pace wasn’t fast to begin with, and it had to avoid the Federation’s trade routes, to steer clear of being hunted by the Federation Mercenary Corps, taking almost a year to find a quiet place near Ains City, but it barely settled down.

The Dark Lizard appeared.

He Ao once again tapped into the War God power, engaging the Dark Lizard outside Ains City.

This exotic beast felt the pressure from the War God power escaping and turned to flee without hesitation.

A few months ago, it finally reached this vicinity and settled down, and due to its inherent power, and surviving on the edges of Angel and Divine Being battles twice, the high-level strength it carried directly intimidated the surrounding exotic beasts.

This led to the creation of this narrow path forcefully ’squeezed’ out.

Then, here, it encountered He Ao once more.

He Ao stared at the eye cowering in the cave. The eye shrank within the cave, akin to a lifeform crouching on the ground, cautiously observing He Ao, seemingly fearing He Ao might, on a whim, ’consume’ it.

Of course, the exotic beast hadn’t associated He Ao with the Angel who demonstrated prowess outside Yilan City and Ains City, but it faintly sensed the formidable power He Ao exuded.

After multiple encounters with higher beings, it seemed to have been ’tainted’ somehow, making its perception of significant power more acute.

Nonetheless, since the exotic beast has remained here, it’s the perfect witness.

He Ao glanced at the eye and directly asked, "Have any convoys passed through here in the past few days?"

With a casual gesture, strands of flame floated from his hand, forming into models of trucks.

As he queried, the exotic beast’s eye trembled slightly, and fragments of memory surfaced in its mind.

This ’inquiry’ paired with probing memory is the ’energy-saving mode’ of Super Memory He Ao discovered.

Most people’s surface-level memories are impressionable nodes, the easiest to read, and it’s these memories.

Delving deeper requires more profound exploration and pulling, thus reading these memories demands more energy consumption.

But if He Ao only needed specific memories, he could directly ask, prompting the other party to retrieve the deeper memories to the surface.

This saves retrieval time and energy, significantly conserving He Ao’s power and sparing Hawke’s body from excessive strain.

Accompanied by the exotic beast’s recollections, fragmented chaotic memory shards were also appearing in He Ao’s mind.

The exotic beast’s consciousness wasn’t complete, nor were its memories.

However, faintly visible were trucks racing along a path through the mountain forest, carving deep tire marks into the muddy roads.

These trucks resembled the repair trucks He Ao previously saw at the Wilderness Wanderer Camp, likely the Church of the Grim Reaper’s vehicles for transporting remains.

Has the Church of the Grim Reaper changed tactics? Redirecting the convoy along the narrow southern path?

He Ao examined these memories, then noticed something else in another memory fragment.

Several unmarked black armored trucks appeared.

These armored trucks weren’t of uniform design, seemingly hastily assembled into a unit at the Wilderness Wanderer Camp, only uniformly painted black to differentiate.

Some vehicles weren’t entirely painted black, merely having black plastic stickers applied, covering apparent markings.

These armored trucks escorted the small trucks from front to back, seemingly protecting them, steering the small trucks along the mountain road.

In the eye’s fearful and anxious gestures, He Ao examined all memories and withdrew his consciousness.

These armored trucks didn’t seem like vehicles of the Church of the Grim Reaper, which favored white, using it for clothing and vehicles.

The armored vehicles seemed more like they belonged to the intruding forces.

So, did the intruders succeed?

He Ao slightly raised an eyebrow, the memory fragments of the armored vehicles flashing in his mind again.

Sometimes, images within memories can convey a lot of information in themselves.

The armored vehicles carried several electromagnetic cannons, basic armaments, possibly even an amateur squad.

While this could align with the traces they left when attacking the Church of the Grim Reaper convoy, it seemed implausible for such a team to successfully assault a cult organization’s convoy.

Moreover, in Wild’s memory of escorting remains onto the convoy, Wild had approached a certain ’target silhouette’ in the corner.

Yet in Wild’s memories, there was no image or recollection regarding this target silhouette; the memory abruptly ended there.

This indicates that the person Wilder came into contact with at that time was a key figure in the Church of the Grim Reaper, so the angel behind the scenes erased that part of the memory. It might even be related to the angel.

Since this caravan involves a key figure in the Church of the Grim Reaper, the protection of this caravan couldn’t possibly be weak.

Unless there are a few powerful B-level individuals hiding in this armed attack squad, He Ao couldn’t think of why this squad could easily succeed.

The attack squad didn’t even leave a few armed vehicles at the scene, indicating that the attack was very swift and successful.

Moreover, how did such an attack squad obtain the movement details of the Church of the Grim Reaper’s caravan?

Judging from their actions, their target seems to be those ’corpses’. What kind of people would intercept the remains of these young people who were suppressed and killed?

It seems that this caravan itself is hiding some special arrangement.

He Ao slightly lowered his gaze and turned back, looking north, the direction he came from.

The headquarters of the Church of the Grim Reaper in the wilderness near Ains is now deserted.

This cult, which mostly keeps silent and believes in death, has clearly mobilized for some special purpose this time.

Then he withdrew his gaze, turned his head, and looked towards the deep night in the south.

Extending past this small road, one can bypass Limen City and reach Monite City, and then follow the trade route directly to Dawn City.

He Ao raised his hand, and a triangle badge appeared in his palm.

He bowed his head, staring at the eye that faintly appeared in the middle of the triangle badge.

Now the entire Federation is rife with rumors that Grim Reaper is ’K’.

His fingers turned over, playing with the badge in his hand, and at the same time, another badge that existed between illusion and reality was fetched from his pocket.

The main task of the system is to ’uncover the conspiracy behind the Illusory Heart.’ What exactly is the Illusory Heart?

The entire event seems to have reached a crucial turning point, but he seems to have no clue at all.

Moreover, where should he go next?

He Ao lowered his gaze thoughtfully, his body gradually merging into the darkness.

······

Hiss-hiss-hiss——

The slightly glowing eyes peered out from the black cave, cautiously scanning the surrounding rocks and trees.

The quiet night sky enveloped the world again, and the elderly figure who stood under the night sky had disappeared at some point, leaving no trace.

——

Dawn City · South Gate

The night sky covered the heavens, and the brilliance of the stars was obscured by the white glow of the city lights.

A chilly wind blew through the streets, brushing past Christos’s strands of hair tinged with a bit of white.

"Mr. Christos, it’s already twelve o’clock," the assistant beside him raised his wristband, glanced at it, then turned his head to Christos and said softly, "You have a meeting early in the morning."

"Alright, I understand." Christos nodded slightly but did not make any move, continuing to stand quietly in the cold night wind and streets.

The South Gate of Dawn City remained bustling at night, with large trucks continuously driving through the city gate, entering the city via the wide highway intersections, supplying the resources this city needed.

There were also large trucks coming down from the highway intersections, forming a long queue in front of the checkpoint to complete the exit procedures.

Christos lifted his head, watching the continuous flow of vehicle lights forming a large stream of light on the road, sighing lightly, "It’s like blood."

"Yes, Dawn City has the largest consumer market in the Federation, the largest industrial production base, and the largest high-tech industrial park in the Federation. Half of the Federation’s patents are registered in Dawn City,"

The assistant beside Christos also watched the flow of light drawn by the vehicles coming in and out, sighing gently, "Even though the Federation Central Army and the mercenary corps of the conglomerates are already stationed outside the city and have even begun to control the trade routes, it’s still not possible to stop the pace of these trucks entering and leaving the city.

"In fact, vehicles entering the city have increased due to the surge in consumption caused by the short-term crisis."

He turned his gaze to Christos, "Dawn City is like the heart of the Federation, pumping blood to the entire Federation."

"I hope future generations won’t say that it was I who personally strangled the heart of the Federation." Christos sighed softly as he looked at the stream of light outside the city. 𝚏𝗿𝗲𝐞𝐰𝚎𝕓𝐧𝚘𝘃𝗲𝐥.𝐜𝚘𝕞

"Mr. Christos, although your policies are controversial," the assistant looked at Christos, speaking slowly, "but from an absolutely objective standpoint, your years in office have been the golden age of development over the past century in Dawn City."

He paused, "From the data, your industry stimulus policy has created a large demand for employment, the employee protection law has relieved employees of their worries, and a series of subsidized loans and work-for-relief projects have brought unemployment to its lowest in fifty years.

"And as employee incomes increased and concerns were relieved, consumption throughout the city saw a significant rise, and the economic data for Dawn City was also extremely impressive."

"When the representative from Noder Finance came to meet me a few days ago, they weren’t saying that," Christos said with a smile. "They said I was damaging the financial order and destroying the prosperous financial market of the Federation."

"Of course, because during your term, the profit margins of the Federation’s conglomerates have been significantly impacted, many conglomerates have seen their market value evaporate substantially due to various investigative events," the assistant said calmly. "For those conglomerates headquartered in Dawn City, or whose major markets and employees are in Dawn City, these years have been the most difficult years for them,"

He slowly spoke, listing them one by one, "Even though they saw significant revenue growth, their total profits even declined, and many conglomerates’ annual reports this year aren’t looking good,

"Of course, this is not just an issue isolated to Dawn City; cities like Yilan, Limen, Kay, and Wint have experienced similar situations to varying degrees, some even more ’extreme’ than Dawn City."

He looked at Christos, "Our city is large enough, the target is large enough, solve us, and the remaining smaller cities can basically be solved quickly as well."

"How do you think I’ve done?" Christos asked with a smile.

"From the perspective of the grassroots citizens, you are the best mayor Dawn City has had in decades," the assistant said slowly, "from my finance background,"

He smiled, "I must say, from the traditional academic view of the Federation, you’ve been ’disrupting the normal operations of financial and capital markets’ all along."

"They both sound like compliments." Christos chuckled.

"In a certain sense, indeed." The assistant nodded gently, smiling as he eyed Christos, "So, you won’t be the one who strangles the heart of the Federation."

"Clearly, the Federation is strangling its own heart." A slightly deep voice sounded behind the two.

Christos turned around, looking at the towering man in the light and shadow, smiling,

"Viktor, you’re back."