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After listening to the words of the guards, Xia Fan had already learned that the woman’s name was Sarah, and she was an Advanced investigator from the Special Bureau of the Sacred Federation.

Though they were in close proximity to one another, Sarah had not spoken a single word to Xia Fan, and would only occasionally glare at Xia Fan with hostility. Perhaps it was because Xia Fan had killed her companion when they last met.

Xia Fan could feel her stare, but when he turned around to look at her, she would instantly shift her gaze to the floorboards, hugging her two legs close to her as she remained huddled in a corner.

—

On the third night, Xia Fan had not yet fallen asleep when he heard a minute sound of scratching coming from the window of the cell. Xia Fan had been standing by the window all evening, and was looking very anxious, constantly rubbing his nose. This abnormal behavior made Sarah very curious, but she did not ask him any questions, as the only thing Sarah felt for him was hatred.

Though Xia Fan had killed Gaolong and appeared to have saved her, Sarah was of the belief that the wretched man had not slain Ma Gaolong out of the kindness of his own heart. He most likely did that because he wanted her for himself instead.

The disruptor cuff Xia Fan had on ought to have sealed Xia Fan’s special abilities. But for some reason, though Xia Fan no longer had his Speed special ability, his Scent special ability still remained. Of course, the effect of the disruptor cuff still persisted to a certain degree, and it was only half as efficient as before.

But his half-strength Scent special ability was already enough to smell something unsettling hanging in the air. If Xia Fan’s judgment was not off, that something ought to be directional demolition bombs!

There were many of them: over five hundred directional demolition bombs had been planted all around the encampment, surrounding the place!

Xia Fan’s mind was racing. There were plenty of explosives in Ashen Moon that were a far greater threat. So why did they stubbornly stuck to using archaic directional demolition bombs?

The reason could not possibly be because Murder Shrine was planning to kill the warriors in the encampment. Had that been the case, a single nuclear bomb would have been enough to achieve the same effect, and there would not have been a need to go through the hassle of setting up all the bombs around the encampment. They were munitions that excelled in penetrative power, but their lethality was much less lethal as far as explosives went.

Just what were they up to?

Xia Fan was deep in thought, but he simply could not make sense of things. To make matters worse, because he had been imprisoned, he was not in contact with Traveling Buddha and sharing with him what he had learned.

Traveling Buddha probably did not know that there were bombs planted all around the encampment, right?

He hoped that the night would pass in peace, and that nothing would happen. That way he could relay this information to Traveling Buddha when they met tomorrow. Griffin had already stipulated that Traveling Buddha would be able to visit once daily given he was Xia Fan’s younger brother, but when Traveling Buddha came to visit this afternoon, the smell of explosives had not permeated the air. They had only appeared after dusk settled, which meant that Murder Shrine had only begun to lay the explosives under the cover of the night.

Xia Fan was growing anxious when suddenly more guards arrived.

“Tonight we’ll be giving out supper for you two,” the guard said, placing two metal containers just outside the bars to their respective cells. The metal containers were rather large, longer than Xia Fan’s arm. But it did not look like a metal container that held food inside, and there was even an electronic lock to the container, making it impossible to open.

The guard spoke in a serious tone, “Since it’s supper, you’ll naturally have to wait till late at night before you can eat them. There’s an electronic lock on the container that will open when it reaches twelve AM. Eat it then. Remember, twelve AM.”

With that, the guard departed.

Xia Fan took the container into his hand, while Sarah remained huddled in her corner. Through his Scent special ability, Xia Fan could tell that Sarah was absolutely terrified, her body releasing a large amount of dopamine in order to suppress the fear in her heart. Perhaps Sarah thought that poison had been added to the contents of the container, and that Murder Shrine had finally decided to just poison her to death.

But Xia Fan knew very well that there was no food inside the container. Instead, he could smell metal, the kind used to make combat weapons!

Why would a guard send him a weapon? What was up with this?

Xia Fan was at a loss, but the midnight supper time was probably very important, or there would have been no reason for the guard to have reminded them twice. This had to be a way for him to pay attention when the container would automatically open.

But just what exactly would happen at midnight?

The directional demolition bombs had been planted all around the camp, and then the guard had sent a weapon to the cells. Could this guard be an informant that the Union had hidden in Murder Shrine, and that he had already gotten word out, so tonight at midnight, the Union would be attacking and he was being sent a weapon in order to meet the needs of the plan?

But that was not right, either. There was not just a single guard. When the guard who came to deliver the weapon had arrived, there were two others outside who clearly knew about his arrival.

Could the three guards all be working for the Union? That was impossible!

If the Union had managed to worm their way into Murder Shrine like that, they would have been able to destroy the organization internally with so many spies inside. From the fact that Murder Shrine had been such an unbearable itch to the three Federations, yet the latter were still incapable of doing anything substantial to the former, the Union should have absolutely no control of what happened in Murder Shrine.

Indubitably, those guards were not with the Union, so why would they send him a weapon like this? And they had even personally instructed him to wait until midnight, when the container with the weapon inside would automatically open?

...

There were just fifteen minutes left until midnight. Xia Fan’s anxiety was pretty much pushed to its limit by now. For the entire night he had been staring out the window, not moving at all. Such a strange behavior naturally drew Sarah’s attention, but she did not seem like she was intending to communicate with Xia Fan at all, and was still huddled in her corner.

“Sarah, you better hug that container tightly,” Xia Fan suddenly said, even using her name in the process.

Sarah lifted her head up, her eyes completely alert. It was probably because of her rebellious mentality that she did not do what Xia Fan had advised.

Xia Fan appeared to be somewhat nervous, raising his voice to warn her, “The guards are quickly dispersing from the camp. Though I have no idea what’s happening, you better hug that container tight! There are weapons inside it!”

Weapons?

Sarah was stunned. She finally got up and looked out the entrance. Beyond the doorway was where the guards lived, but when she strained her ears to hear, she was unable to pick up any sound of chatter. Perhaps it was as what Xia Fan had said: the guards had already left the prison?!

But why would the guards suddenly leave like that?

This barbarian from Deserted River, why did he know these things? Why did he say that there was a weapon inside the container?

Thinking back to the scene when Xiao Wu has his throat sliced by Xia Fan, Sarah felt absolutely revolted by what he had done. After he had killed the Mad King Ma, Xia Fan had even dragged Sarah along by her hair for quite some time, all the way until they were back to his bed. He was definitely thinking of doing the unthinkable to her!

Nevertheless, Sarah had a strange feeling about Xia Fan. She had this feeling that this barbarian seemed to want to save her life!

After pondering for several minutes, reason ultimately won out. Sarah lifted the container from the ground and hugged it tight to her chestl. Though she still did not say a word to Xia Fan, she remained vigilant the entire time.

Seeing Sarah clutching onto her container, XIa Fan said nothing more to her, and continued to look out the window nervously.

When there was just less than two minutes from midnight, Xia Fan suddenly saw something small draw near him in the darkness. It seemed to be a mouse, yet it did not smell like one. It was something Xia Fan was absolutely certain of with his Scent special ability.

That mouse that gave off no odor whatsoever was very alert. It came scampering through the darkness, stopping every short distance to vigilantly observe its surroundings.

When the strange mouse ran past a lit area, Xia Fan could finally see it properly, and noticed that it was no normal mouse, but a very small and fantastical creature. It looked like it had been 3D animated! Though its teeth, hair, and ears were all very similar to a real mouse, Xia Fan was someone who had learned about taming beasts from Fisherman Grandpa, and his in-depth understanding toward animals easily allowed him to realize the differences between this mouse and a real mouse.

Xia Fan suddenly recalled that there was a young man called Thousand Ink among the infiltration teams, so perhaps this Thousand Ink had learned that he had been locked up, and sent his war beasts to get in touch with him so as to relay some information!

Would he be able to communicate through this beast manifestation? How would he do it?

Just as Xia Fan was thinking fast, awaiting Thousand Ink’s Drawn beast to get to him, something unexpected happened.

The clock struck twelve, and the directional demolition bombs all around the encampment went off abruptly at the same time. The very ground shook violently, and began to crumble from the blast. It was as if the entire piece of land had suddenly turned into a landslide of sorts, everything rapidly collapsing beneath their feet.

If Xia Fan was standing in mid air right now, he would have been able to tell more clearly what had happened.

Sure enough, it was a landslide. The land which this encampment had been situated atop of was near that deep dark hole, and when those directional demolition bombs exploded, this piece of land rapidly went sliding down into the chasm!

By this time, the people from Murder Shrine had already silently slipped away from the encampment, and most of the Outer Frontier warriors were in the middle of sleeping. Thousand Ink’s war beast did not manage to make it to him in time, while Xia Fan’s container with the weapons inside had not opened when midnight struck!