Chapter 473: 473

Chapter 473: A Capture Squad With A Grand Lineup

The day ended in chaos.

When the starless night arrived once more, scattered gunshots and explosions rose again inside and outside Dragon City.

Numerous crimes happened again.

The main characters were robbers who had gained supernatural abilities for the time being by eating Deification Capsules but were a little off in the head.

The Dragon Citizens were warier than last night.

The robbers’ plans were also clearly not as sophisticated as the previous night.

Many of the robbers were discovered immediately.

But they did not intend to stay around and just be captured. Instead, they acted desperately and fought against the secret police as well as the righteous citizens.

The robbers, secret police, and righteous people all possessed supernatural abilities. When they clashed fists with each other, it was basically the same as main battle tanks clashing viciously in the city.

Even if the robbers were captured or killed in the end, they had resisted fiercely and caused major collateral damage.

The initial statistics showed that with every captured or killed robber, Dragon City suffered millions or tens of millions worth of yuan of direct economic loss.

And that was if they did not consider the innocent citizens who died or were injured in the scuffle, the large number of buildings that collapsed during the capture, leading to the citizens losing their homes, and the subsequent effects it brought.

The secret police were constantly at work and often lost sight of one thing while attending to another.

The Red Dragon Army was stationed in the city to defend the citizens’ lives, property, and safety.

But trying to use the army to handle the robbers hiding in the city was the typical case of using anti-aircraft machine guns to kill mosquitoes. Not only would they use up a lot of resources, the effects might not be entirely satisfactory either. If the robbers hid themselves in residential buildings, the army could not just bring out their artillery guns and shoot them, right?

The armed investigators from the abnormal beast research department made preparations for the battle. They defended the power plants, water treatment plants, crystal refinement factories, synthesized food factories, and other important places, worried that the monsters would enter while they were weak, so they did not dare to slack off.

But no monsters appeared.

Yet Meng Chao, Lu Siya, Ye Xiaoxing, and all the investigators were even more tense.

Everyone knew that if the Deification Capsules were really created by the abnormal beasts as a secret weapon to fight against Dragon City, the monsters would definitely not miss this God-given chance.

The monsters did not appear because the defenses in Dragon City had not been forced to their limits yet.

But if the abnormal beasts used the resources they stole to create ten times the number of Deification Capsules and sent them to the robbers so they would gain the destructive abilities of superhumans and then provided them with professional guidance on how to commit crimes, in less than half a month, Dragon City would become a paradise for crime, and societal order would be completely gone.

And the secret, armed investigators, and the Red Dragon Army would be wrung dry by the countless crimes. They would not have the energy to take care of the abnormal beasts invading them.

At that time, the abnormal beasts could secretly spread the zombie viruses and Blood Flower spores again to create an offense that was ten times stronger in terms of scale and power compared to the ambush on Noble Descent Hotel.

There was a high possibility that Dragon City would really sink into an abyss that they could never escape at that time.

The only way to handle this was to have the whole city be on guard and execute the strictest curfews and military control.

Dragon City had gone through periods of time when all citizens were treated as soldiers and everything adhered to a militarized management, but the result of having every citizen become a soldier was that the speed of economic development plummeted. They could not maintain the vigor required of a society, and they could not create enough effective jobs. In the long run, this would just drain their potential and was the same as drinking poison to quench one’s thirst.

Now, Dragon City was going through its second Great Construction Era. They were building more than ten new city areas and had more than one hundred projects going on at the same time.

If they executed a full militarized management at this point, it would be the same as hitting the emergency brakes for their economic development.

Unless it was absolutely necessary, the Survival Committee would have a hard time making this decision.

Fortunately, when on the second half of the night, good news came from Golden Tooth Lair.

Shen Yupeng told Meng Chao that ever since they sent the information regarding the large-scale robberies and Deification Capsures to Golden Tooth Lair, all the gangs in the lair became tense.

They were different from robbers.

The gangs required a certain degree of order in gray areas to gain profit for themselves.

The robbers, though, did not distinguish right from wrong and just wanted to destroy all forms of order.

After having learned that Golden Tooth Lair might have ended up as the robbers’ nest and that abnormal beasts were actually employing petty tricks under his nose, Saber Jin Wanhao became livid, just as they expected.

Gangs had their own ways to investigate the truth, and to a certain degree, they were even more effective than the secret police.

They started investigating from the ten illegal finance companies in Golden Tooth Lair and managed to find clues about a leak of name lists regarding people who took loans from them.

Then, through these clues, they found a few of the robbers’ hiding places.

However, these robbers were all the Vortex’s bewitched puppets. Capturing or suppressing them would not be very meaningful.

The key was still the mastermind hiding behind the robbers and the illegal lab that created the Deification Capsules.

Shen Yupeng was greedy. He wanted to capture the robbers and mastermind in one go.

He mobilized resources from all sides and came up with a plan.

During the series of crimes the previous night, two robbers had been knocked unconscious while they were running away.

Shen Yupeng captured them, and while they were unconscious, implanted mini-tapping chips and locating chips into their wounds.

Then, he intentionally threw them deep into some alley.

When the two robbers woke up, they thought that they had fortunately escaped being captured, and naturally, just like other robbers, they fled in alarm to Golden Tooth Lair.

Shen Yupeng believed that the mastermind would not just cast aside these two “talented people” who had successfully escaped once and now had great experience in committing crimes and fleeing.

Regardless of whether the mastermind would show up directly and give the two robbers more resources and guidance or whether it would give them remote commands through the internet again, Jin Wanhao would be able to get more clues, because he was the Underground Emperor of the lair.

Of course, if the mastermind were really an abnormal beast, the lair would have a hard time killing it with its own fighting strength.

In the face of an unprecedented threat, Saber Jin Wanhao decided to step aside and allow the fighting power from the world outside the lair to enter Golden Tooth Lair, all so that they could capture and suppress the mastermind.

Of course, the Underground Emperor also set up his conditions. He did not wish that the secret police, abnormal beast research department, and the Red Dragon Army would use brute force in the lair and break the tacit agreement they had built over the decades.

This was not a problem.

The hundreds of crimes outside had already wrung the secret police completely dry of energy. The abnormal beast research department also had to fend off the abnormal beasts’ infiltration and ambush at full force. As for the Red Dragon Army, it was not suitable for them to use their heavy equipment for a battle in the 3D maze that was the lair.

Besides, the secret police, abnormal beast research department, and the Red Dragon Army had never been the only top fighting powers in Dragon City.

The four great research centers, Dragon City University, the alliance of the five universities, Universe Corporation, Sky Pillar Corporation, Soaring Dragon Construction, and the other six mega corporations had veteran superhumans who had survived through hundreds of battles and possessed unbelievable, practically sci-fi tech.

Very soon, a capture squad formed of more than ten Heaven Realm superhumans led by Man-eating Shark Zhou Chong himself, who was at the peak of Heaven Realm, came from the various insurance companies in Dragon City.

They took into consideration that the environment in the lair was complicated and had hundreds of thousands of innocent citizens. Even if Deity Realm superhumans entered, it would be difficult for them to go all out and fight to their hearts’ content.

Hence, this capture squad had an average fighting strength of Heaven Realm, and it was already an unprecedentedly grand lineup.

“Don’t worry. Zhou Chong is a senior in the hunter circle. His sense of smell when it comes to hunting is much sharper than that of the average person.

“When he was in the wild, he once caught countless monsters skilled in disguising and hiding themselves. He has already memorized the scents of quite a number of robbers and the Deification Capsule. If he can smell even a whiff of their scent, the mastermind won’t be able to escape!”

Shen Yupeng was at his wits’ end because of the hundreds of crimes over the past two days, but his righteous nature was still stirred up, and he swore that he would not stop fighting until he died. He punched the air and said to Meng Chao when he came to ask for information, “Just wait for good news. Dragon City won’t suffer through a third lawless night!”

Meng Chao cast a glance at the capture squad list that Shen Yupeng gave him, and he saw quite a number of famous names.

They were all like Man-eating Shark Zhou Chong, idols from his teenage years.

But he was still a little uneasy and a little agitated. He thought about it and said earnestly to Shen Yupeng, “Big Brother Peng, can I join the capture squad and enter the lair with Senior Zhou and the others?”

Shen Yupeng was surprised. “Why?”

Meng Chao did not come to this decision on a whim.

He did not want to play hero in front of veteran hunters like Man-eating Shark Zhou Chong, either.

Instead, after he thought about it carefully, he discovered three reasons behind why he had to go.

First, if the mastermind was really the Supernatural Entity Vortex, he might be able to unravel more of the Mystery of the Supernatural Entities through this creature.

Second, the fire that ignited in Golden Tooth Lair in his previous life dealt a decisive, negative impact on the direction of the Monster War.

But Shen Yupeng told Meng Chao that Golden Tooth Lair was built based on the standards of shelters and war fortresses, so it was impossible for an accidental fire to affect the whole lair.

If it were not an accident, then what sort of scheme lurked behind the fire that had yet to happen?

Meng Chao remembered that in his previous life, the fire led to at least one hundred thousand lair citizens dying or being injured.

No matter what, he had to stop this tragedy from happening.

The third reason was related to the X-shaped Eye.

Ever since he saw the X-shaped Eye in the Demonic Abyss Eye’s dying memories, Meng Chao secretly searched through all the major medical organizations in Dragon City, including the files related to the medical organizations that no longer existed since around twenty years ago.

But he never discovered the existence of the X-shaped Eye.

However, Golden Tooth Lair could be considered as a living fossil. There were plenty of places in the lair that still retained their original look from decades ago, and there were a large number of illegal workshops, secret labs, and unlicensed private medical organizations hiding in it.

Meng Chao believed that he might be able to find the answer in Golden Tooth Lair.

With that thought in mind, he said decisively, “Of course it’s because I hate the wicked and swore when I was young that I will be the mortal enemy of evil! I will definitely cut down the mastermind who extended its claws toward Dragon City’s innocent citizens!

“Big Brother Peng, trust me. I won’t hold Man-eating Shark Zhou Chong and the others back!”