Chapter 884: Beaten!
It was 11 p.m. and this happened in the underground beneath the gully of the abyss.
After exactly 23 hours, the Union Government army finally arrived close to the volcano where the Nightmare Dragon was after traveling across over 5,000 kilometers.
At that moment, the 200-strong army had dwindled down to 176 people. The 176 people separated into a couple of smaller groups and began their search.
Fu Qingwei frowned as she looked around. She mumbled to herself softly while feeling puzzled, "That's strange. The coordinates Gong Sun gave is somewhere around here, but why can't we find the source of the monster horde?"
As the leader of the mission from the Union Government this time and the head of EA.2, she was sure that the information was legit.
"There's something here!" Someone from one of the teams shouted all of a sudden.
Fu Qingwei headed there immediately in a flash.
One of the members in the team voiced his observation, "There seem to be battle traces on the ground and they're recent."
The other few EA.2 members landed on the ground and took a careful look around.
The marks on the ground seemed to be cut by some kind of sword, but it might be caused by a monster with sharp claws too.
Fu Qingwei scowled slightly after looking around for a while.
"The monsters around this volcano have all been cleared!" All of the teams stopped searching immediately and joined the hunting team.
Around 20 minutes later, they finally cleared the area around the volcano and the ground was revealed. The people from the Union Government could eventually see the traces left from the battle of Bai and the rest as well as the pools of blood that had seeped into the ground.
"There are many battle traces around the volcano which is obviously not the result of a fight between monsters. The blood all over the ground has been here for less than 24 hours." The few EA.2 members came up with the same conclusion after checking the area thoroughly.
They had been beaten!
"There are saber marks, sword marks, frozen marks, burn marks and gunfire marks left from a firearms master... The battle covered a wide surface. It seems like it was a one-sided, large-scale massacre. It was clearly not done by a person. Only a huge army could've orchestrated such a thing!"
"But who would know about the Nightmare Dragon apart from us?" Fu Qingwei was a little puzzled. "That fella called Gong Sun mentioned that he didn't tell anyone else when he told us about it."
"What if Gong Sun lied?" A girl dressed in a camo asked softly.
Fu Qingwei was stunned when she heard this suggestion. The truth was right before her eyes, and it seemed like there was no other explanation.
If Gong Sun had not exposed the information to anyone else apart from them, there would not have been a second group of people who knew about the Nightmare Dragon's existence and they would not have been defeated.
"I would suspect the people from Dynasty if they hadn't been killed by the Luotian Sect," a young man with a buzzcut voiced his opinion. He was also one of the EA.2 members, and his name was Fei Yun.
Dynasty was the first name that flashed through Fu Qingwei's mind because it was the most capable one among the underground organizations that came in this period. They were the most likely culprits.
However, Dynasty had been killed by a local organization. She even got someone to confirm the news when she first heard about it a few days ago.
"Maybe it's the Purple Crow or Saint, or maybe it's the heretics. The heretics have the most techniques. It seems like their style whereby they leave quietly after taking everything and avoid a face-to-face confrontation with us," said a short, muscular hunk. He was also an EA.2 member, and his name was Feng Yong.
Fu Qingwei turned to look at the man in white robes next to her. "Can you predict this?"
"The success rate isn't high since it involves god, but I can try." The white-robed man nodded.
His name was Cao Zhen, and he was the only Diviner in the team.
The Union Government had released a piece of news earlier, saying they had two Diviners working for them. The intention was to confuse people out there so that the Diviner would not be targeted by underground organizations.
The probability of an underground organization assassinating the Diviner would be high if they knew that the Union Government only had one Diviner.
However, the underground organization would consider acting if there were two Diviners. The reason being it would only work if they were to kill both Diviners since killing one was futile. However, killing two would be much more difficult than killing one, and the price to pay might be higher too.
Cao Zhen took out a tortoise shell and three coins. He slotted the coins into the empty shell and performed a complicated hand signal as he chanted.
The tortoise shell hovered in the air and began rolling by itself.
As Cao Zhen grabbed the tortoise shell after he was done with the hand signal a while later, the shell exploded. Together with the coins, they shattered into dust.
Cao Zhen's hand hung in the air and he only retracted it after a while. He shrugged his shoulders and looked helplessly at Fu Qingwei. "It doesn't work."
"Let's see if we can find anything else." Since the prediction failed, Fu Qingwei did not get Cao Zhen to try again. She pointed at the volcanoes before them. "Look through those few volcanoes too."
The people from the Union Government separated into more than ten teams and began scanning around.
Around half an hour later, the teams that were responsible in the investigation came back one after another. Their effort was to no avail.
"It seems like the organization that took the God Figurine didn't leave us anything at all." Fu Qingwei was so pissed that she was smirking at their own stupidity.
"Let's return to Weiyang City!"
"Do we go back empty-handed?" Feng Yong said a little unwillingly.
"What else can we do? There's nothing here!" Fu Qingwei glared at him in annoyance.
"Let's go back for now. The Nightmare Dragon's God Figurine has been taken and the monster horde has ended. We can always come back if we want to in the future." Cao Zhen signaled Feng Yong immediately so that he would not get himself into any more trouble.
"There are too many cultivators who practice sword and saber, so it's difficult to find out who it was. But there aren't many cultivators who have frost and fire attributes. Neither are there many firearm masters." A ferocious gleam flashed through Fu Qingwei's eyes. "Help me find out when we get out. I'd love to see which organization has the capability of beating us!"
Lin Huang was just getting into bed at the Inn at the moment. He had no idea that Fu Qingwei and the people from EA.2 were cursing him underground.
However, he figured that it was about time the people from the Union Government arrived at the Nightmare Dragon's previous coordinates.
"The people from the Union Government should arrive there soon. I wonder when will the news of the end of monster horde spread." Lin Huang did not sleep as he lay in bed. His head was occupied with things that he needed the handle later. "I must find time to excuse myself from the Heaven Alliance to trade those monster carcasses for resources after the news comes out..."
"Now the biggest trouble is that True God's will called Gong Sun. The stone tablet can't locate it as long as it's in hiding."