A Dilemma

"Elder Lu, the governing body has forwarded us every file they have on this individual, and nothing unusual turned up. Is there something wrong with him?"

Sha Jian was puzzled. During Aberration Events, ordinary civilians could become aberrated — it happened often enough. Why was Lu Yuan taking such a personal interest?

That said, in Sha Jian's experience, anything that warranted Lu Yuan's attention was bound to be out of the ordinary. He was genuinely curious.

Lu Yuan smiled. "Nothing much. Have you sent anyone to look through his home and the shop where he worked odd jobs?"

Sha Jian nodded. "We've already dispatched people. Results should come back soon."

"No need." Lu Yuan waved a hand. "I'll go myself. Just give me the address."

The Evolution Cube was a razor-sharp instrument for detecting Aberration Entities — his chances of turning something up were far greater than anyone else's.

"You're going yourself?"

Sha Jian blinked, then quickly relayed Xiu Mu's information to him.

Lu Yuan's body vanished — Space Teleportation.

Sha Jian watched the empty air for a moment, a faintly puzzled expression on his face, then turned and headed off.

The North District of Yali City held no commercial zones, no Gene Warrior Association branches.

Its residents were mostly ordinary people.

At the entrance to the Lini Residential Complex on Mingli Street, the air rippled and Lu Yuan stepped out of nothing.

A street vendor selling breakfast and a white-collar worker on their way to the office both flinched, then looked at him with something caught between awe and unease before quickly lowering their eyes.

For ordinary people, Gene Warriors belonged to an entirely different world.

Lu Yuan glanced at the complex's name board and walked in.

According to Sha Jian's information, Xiu Mu's address was Building 8, Unit 1102 — property inherited from his deceased parents.

He found the apartment quickly.

At the door, several Gene Warriors were already letting themselves in.

Night Watchman branch personnel, by the look of them.

When they noticed Lu Yuan, every one of them froze — then their eyes lit up with undisguised reverence.

"Elder Lu! What brings you here?"

The man at the front, a middle-aged fellow, broke into a wide smile.

Lu Yuan returned it. "Just checking things over. Found anything yet?"

"We just arrived ourselves. Haven't gone in yet."

"Then let's go in."

The apartment was a standard three-bedroom unit — unremarkable, except that the interior was a disaster. Takeout containers were strewn everywhere, clearly untouched for weeks. Insects crawled over the rotting remains, and the smell hit them the moment they crossed the threshold.

Lu Yuan's brow tightened slightly. He moved through every room, watching for any reaction from the Evolution Cube. Nothing. A flicker of disappointment crossed his face.

Not entirely surprising, though.

He said his farewells to the Night Watchmen and made his way to the supermarket listed in the investigation — the place where Xiu Mu had picked up odd jobs.

He made a thorough sweep. Still nothing.

He had no choice but to give up.

*So that's as far as the trail goes.*

After Xiu Mu's capture, Tang Fei had continued behaving normally — nothing out of place. Now Xiu Mu's side had come up empty as well. The investigation had hit a wall.

The matter of Tang Fei would have to go up to President Gu An. Let him decide what to do with it.

*Time to head back.*

Lu Yuan disappeared from inside the supermarket.

A young mother browsing nearby with her son froze, staring at the spot where he'd been standing.

The little boy let out a yelp. "Mama! Was that a ghost?!"

She pulled him close. "Don't say things like that — he's a Gene Warrior. A very important person."

"A Gene Warrior? Then I want to be a Gene Warrior when I grow up!"

The boy declared it with complete seriousness.

His mother smiled warmly. "Then you'll have to study hard and take care of your body."

"Okay!"

Back at the Night Watchman branch, Lu Yuan knocked on a door in the guest quarters.

Franming answered shortly after, looking distinctly worse for wear.

Last night's celebration had involved a great deal of drinking. Even at Battle Venerable rank, with the rest of his team now all at Battle General — the alcohol had still taken its toll.

Lu Yuan felt nothing himself. His physical constitution surpassed even a Battle Sovereign; a little alcohol was no different from water. The truly potent spirit-infused brews were another matter entirely, of course.

Franming snapped to attention at the sight of him, forcing himself upright through sheer will.

"Elder Lu!"

Lu Yuan gave the bleary-eyed, thoroughly reeking man a faintly exasperated look.

"Get some rest," he said. "We head back tonight."

Franming's face broke into a relieved grin. "Yes, sir!"

"Go on."

Lu Yuan returned to his own room. The memory of last night surfaced — Gillian pretending to be drunk and making a bid for his door — and his temples ached.

Several other female Night Watchman Warriors had been casting him looks that lingered a beat too long, but none had been quite as direct as Gillian.

Fortunately, he was not that kind of person.

*Good man,* he commended himself silently.

By evening, Franming and the others had recovered.

Sha Jian and Maika personally saw them off at the airport.

"Elder Lu, come visit again whenever you have the time."

Sha Jian smiled broadly.

Lu Yuan nodded. "Of course."

His gaze passed briefly over Tang Fei without comment.

For now, Tang Fei was still embedded here — waiting for something, most likely. No reason to expect any sudden moves.

Once back home, he'd report it to Gu An and have someone keep a close eye on him.

Lu Yuan made his farewells, ignored the quietly wounded look Gillian sent his way, and boarded the battle aircraft with Franming and the others.

Late that night, Lu Yuan's team arrived back in the Imperial Capital.

By the time they reached headquarters, working hours were long over. Everyone went their separate ways, with debriefs scheduled for the following morning.

Lu Yuan returned to his townhouse in White Willow District.

Li Qinghe still hadn't emerged from the Land of Origin — understandable, given it had only been four days.

Settling into his room, he picked up his phone and found messages from Si Tingxue and Rebecca.

*Si Tingxue: Why haven't you come to train with my sister?*

*Rebecca: Ah Yuan, Ah Yuan — where did you disappear to? Haven't seen you in two whole days!*

Lu Yuan smiled and replied to both, giving them a quick rundown of the past few days. Neither responded — they were probably deep in cultivation.

He settled into a cross-legged position and resumed his study of Heaven-Sundering Slash and Steel Body.

Without a sparring partner, he was finding the pace of improvement noticeably slower.

*Maybe I should go back to the academy and train with my mentor,* he thought. *Wonder if she has any other Spirit Techniques I haven't seen yet.*

He could handle missions as they came up. But the Land of Origin time slots were non-negotiable — those remained the cornerstone of his breakthrough cultivation.

The night passed in quiet practice.

Early the next morning, Lu Yuan arrived at the Imperial Capital headquarters.

Moving through a corridor of respectful greetings from passing Gene Warriors, he took the elevator to the top floor and knocked on the door of Gu An's office.

Inside, Gu An and his secretary, Liu, both looked up and blinked.

"Elder Lu," Gu An said, "weren't you just dispatched to Yali City to handle an Aberration Event?"

Lu Yuan wasn't particularly surprised that Gu An hadn't heard. As president of the Night Watchman's general headquarters, every Aberration Event across the entire Red Maple Empire that escalated to a critical threshold ultimately fell to him. His workload was immense. And since Yali City's debrief required Lu Yuan to appear in person, the branch had no need to file a direct report upward. A single overnight gap was hardly enough time for the news to reach Gu An.

"The Yali City Aberration Event," Lu Yuan said, smiling, "has been resolved."

Silence fell over the office. Gu An's eyes went wide.

"You — weren't you dispatched just the day before yesterday? How is it resolved already?!"

Two days. A full urgent-grade mission wrapped up in two days.

He could barely trust his own ears.

Lu Yuan walked him through everything that had happened in Yali City.

"The Aberration Entity had made an attempt on my subordinates. Since I had already left some safeguards on them beforehand, I was able to intercept it successfully. What I hadn't anticipated was that behind the entity stood an aberrated human wielding a Soul-Devouring Orb. This individual was extraordinarily powerful — Battle Sovereign rank. If my own abilities had been any less, things might have gone very badly. Even so, I only just managed to pull through."

Lu Yuan reflected privately that he hadn't really exaggerated. He had, after all, spent a considerable number of trump cards — going so far as to deploy Great Solar Spirit Body, Star Realm Roaming, and Sacred Brilliance in the fight.

He still had a reserve or two intact, but a significant portion of his arsenal had been committed.

Gu An and Secretary Liu listened to the account with expressions that kept shifting, as though they weren't quite sure whether they were receiving a mission debrief or being read a story.

When Lu Yuan finished, both men stared at him in silence, their faces deeply complicated.

"Let me get this straight," Gu An said slowly. "Behind this Aberration Event, there was a Soul-Devouring Orb. The aberrated human wielding it had reached Battle Sovereign rank. And you killed this Battle Sovereign aberrant."

By the last sentence, the look on Gu An's face suggested his confidence in the laws of the universe had taken a significant blow.

Lu Yuan produced a black box from his storage.

"This is what's inside."

He opened it. Golden light pulsed outward. A palm of condensed Spirit Power lifted the Soul-Devouring Orb free.

The moment they saw it, Gu An and Secretary Liu both went still. The room fell into dead silence. Both men's gazes fixed on the orb.

Lu Yuan's voice was measured. "President Gu — I need to ask. Is the Soul-Devouring Orb from Xili City still in containment?"

Gu An drew a slow breath. "Old Liu," he said, "go down to the underground containment room yourself. With your own eyes — confirm whether that orb is still there."

Secretary Liu grasped the stakes immediately. He gave a solemn nod and left without another word.

After he was gone, the two remaining men sat in silence. The atmosphere was heavy.

After a long moment, Gu An spoke carefully. "Elder Lu — Qinghe mentioned you were present when the first Soul-Devouring Orb was obtained?"

"Yes," Lu Yuan said. "At the time, Qinghe was investigating the location of the orb, and we were sharing a flat during the search. Things took a certain turn, and I witnessed the orb firsthand."

Gu An rubbed his forehead.

"According to what Qinghe told me, the orb at that time was delivered to the aberrated individual by a third party?"

"That's right."

Gu An exhaled slowly. "If what we have here is truly a second Soul-Devouring Orb — Elder Lu, what do you think we're looking at?"

Lu Yuan felt the headache coming before he could stop it. He smiled wryly. "If there's a second, there could easily be a third, or a fourth. This is an S-grade Aberration Entity. Even a single one, left to reach full maturity, produces a Battle Emperor-rank aberrant. The threat to our Empire is enormous. But what concerns me most is whoever is distributing these orbs. That person may be the greater danger of all."

A beat of silence. Then, with a small, humorless laugh: "Honestly, if I had to choose — I'd rather the underground containment room simply lost the first one."

Hearing that, Gu An thought of the anonymous message that had appeared not long ago. When he'd had it verified, it turned out that Si Chengxin, Si Tingfeng, and other senior figures had received it as well.

It was almost certainly authentic.

He shook his head with a bitter smile. "But if the underground containment room has a breach that serious, that's equally catastrophic."

A gap of that magnitude would mean that any sufficiently powerful actor intent on stealing from containment could almost certainly succeed.

Either way — a second orb distributed by some shadowy hand, or a containment breach — both outcomes were a nightmare.

Gu An felt exhausted just sitting with the thought.

Lu Yuan caught Gu An's implication. Though nothing had been stated outright, something clicked — and the memory of a certain anonymous message surfaced in his own mind. His expression turned faintly odd.

*So... both roads really do lead somewhere awful.*

Then a thought struck him: could whoever had been distributing the Soul-Devouring Orbs be the same person who'd been planning to steal from the containment room?

He dismissed it almost immediately with a wry smile. The two incidents had no clear connection — how could they possibly be the same actor?

Though, if he was being honest with himself, he would have preferred it if they were. Because if they weren't — if there were two entirely separate forces working to bring the Red Maple Empire to ruin — that was considerably more troubling.

Before long, Secretary Liu returned.

Both Gu An and Lu Yuan looked up the moment the door opened. Their expressions were hard to read.

"Well, Old Liu?"

Secretary Liu's mouth tightened at the corner. "The Soul-Devouring Orb is still there."

Gu An opened his mouth — and said nothing. Silence.

Then, with a rueful smile: "Understood. Have this one placed in the underground containment room as well... I'll report the matter to the Emperor personally."

"One more thing," Lu Yuan said. "There was also this Aberration Entity." He hadn't had time to properly examine its full capabilities yet, "but what I can confirm is that when the door is opened, it creates a traversable spatial passage — and it cannot be detected by any Spatial Type Transcendent Gene."

He produced the wooden door from his storage — the one that had appeared so utterly ordinary before. It was now bound tight with multiple layers of restraining rope. Whatever unknown energy it had once radiated had been absorbed by the Evolution Cube, and since then it had gone still, making no attempt to resist.