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Chapter 336: Captured

When Chen Xuan returned to the Wanshan Wilderness, Xiao Canong had already been beaten beyond recognition. His suit was soaked with blood, his cheeks were swollen like watermelons, and nearly half his teeth were gone. Honglian had tied him to a chair and was leaning against the side, panting.

Even so, Xiao Canong didn’t groan much. His swollen mouth was still faintly curled up, as if he didn’t care at all about what he’d gone through.

Not until Chen Xuan walked up to him.

After he saw clearly who it was, he visibly froze for a moment, a trace of surprise flickering in his bloodshot eyes.

"Beitian Academy... held?" Honglian asked anxiously.

"Yeah, they retreated." Chen Xuan nodded.

The pity was that their side had no way to further expand the victory. By the time he’d teleported himself back into the shop, the Thousand Machines Lock Moon array outside the main gate had also been lifted, and all the Ability Users who hadn’t entered the courtyard took the chance to flee. As for the casualties and results inside the academy, they hadn’t been tallied yet, and no one knew how many prisoners they’d eventually manage to capture.

That said, Honglian had clearly been holding in a bellyful of rage and showed not the slightest mercy to her former superior.

"Are you very disappointed?" Chen Xuan walked up to Xiao Canong, looking down at him from above. "Thought you’d caught a big fish, only for it all to end in smoke?"

"Indeed." He actually admitted it, mumbling with his drafty mouth, "I’m just a pawn running ahead of the organization’s horse. Exchanging me for a Wanderer with such powerful abilities would’ve been a very profitable deal. But I still underestimated you... This time the Mechanism has lost completely."

"How could the Mechanism not lose?" Honglian cut in angrily. "From the moment you betrayed the founding purpose of the Dimensional Limit Mechanism and willfully persecuted Ability Users, you were digging this organization’s grave!"

"Heh..." Xiao Canong let out a light chuckle.

"You can still laugh?" Honglian flew into a rage again and gave him another punch, making him cough up blood once more.

"Cough... I’m laughing... because the whole thing is ridiculous in itself." He took a few breaths before speaking. "Miss Honglian... tell me, even if your entire team were here and had joined me in this operation, would we have won?"

Honglian paused slightly.

"You’ve noticed it, haven’t you... The outcome wouldn’t have been any different. The Wanderers won because they’re stronger. The reason this man killed you wouldn’t be that you uphold justice, but simply that you’re his enemy."

Xiao Canong locked his bloodshot eyes onto the gaze hidden behind Chen Xuan’s sunglasses, but his words were still addressed to Honglian. "...Would you surrender to the enemy without a fight and hand your fate over to them to butcher? If your answer is no, then what, exactly, is wrong with our actions?"

"Don’t forget... They were the ones who launched the first attack on the Mechanism. They’re the ones... who made the Mechanism their enemy. The Sha River Bridge performance to steer public opinion, blowing up the Erosion Zone in the botanical garden to push the Mechanism into the spotlight, and then planting informants inside to sabotage our expansion plans..." He paused. "So the Mechanism had no choice but to strike back."

The man was indeed quite eloquent. From their perspective, this war did seem to have been initiated by the Wanderers. And the reason they regarded the Mechanism as an enemy was because of warnings from the future.

However, Honglian didn’t know the truth about Lin Qing’s identity.

Seeing her fall silent, Chen Xuan was about to refute him when Honglian suddenly asked, "So to deal with an enemy, you can use any means at all? Even if it harms completely innocent civilians?"

Xiao Canong lifted his eyelids slightly. "For example?"

"The recent Ability User crimes in Jiang City... and their source, the Ability Potion incident—you know very well what I’m talking about!" Honglian said in a low voice. "After those incidents, I tried to contact Captain Wan, but he’d already changed every way I could reach him. The Ability Potions were made from Dragon Blood from the Otherworld. Every drop of blood collected back then was registered, and the only one who could have accessed it privately was Wan Chongshan."

"So that makes it his problem, doesn’t it?"

"He’s not just some stray cat or dog!" Honglian raised her voice. "He was the former captain of the branch, a cadre of the Mechanism. Even after stepping down he’d be under your surveillance for the rest of his life. How could he casually leak Dragon Blood? There’s only one possible explanation for this: everything he did had the Mechanism’s approval—he might even have been forced into it! And your authority far surpasses his. There’s no way you could have known nothing about it!"

"Though the process deviates somewhat... your conclusion is correct." Xiao Canong split his lips in a grin.

Honglian’s whole body shook, and disbelief flickered in her eyes. "You... admit it?"

"You dare guess but don’t dare confirm?" he said indifferently. "Once the existence of the Dimensional Limit Mechanism was forced into the open, we were unprepared for many things, including how to raise our reputation. Turning charismatic Ability Users into celebrities was a policy pushed by headquarters, and the quickest, most effective way was to manufacture opposition—where there is darkness, there will naturally be light."

"A pity that we could have kept its harm confined to a very small scope, yet those Wanderers just had to ruin it."

Xiao Canong sighed.

Ruin... Was he referring to that terrorist incident at the TV station? Chen Xuan twitched his mouth. At the time, he really hadn’t been targeting the Mechanism—they’d just received tickets and he happened to be taking Lin Qing out for a walk to relax.

"Even if small, it still concerned the lives of hundreds of people!" Honglian said indignantly.

"Ask your friend here..." Xiao Canong replied in a mocking tone. "Does he care about the lives of a few hundred people? Helping that Little Angel change history—how many millions of people’s fates did that affect? The people they’ve killed probably outnumber everyone the Mechanism has ever killed."

As expected, the Mechanism could also sense that the trajectory of that world had shifted. Chen Xuan said evenly, "Everything Elorie did was to save her own homeland. If she didn’t, tens of billions of people would die in the future."

"I believe you." Xiao Canong drew a breath. "To save tens of billions, sacrificing those few million is absolutely a worthwhile deal—"

Honglian slapped him across the face!

"That’s sophistry!"

Xiao Canong licked the blood at the corner of his mouth, utterly unfazed by her accusation. "Do people who haven’t been born yet count as people? In the end, the Dimensional Limit Mechanism keeps its own ledger. To keep this world from collapsing, sacrifices are inevitable."

"The Mechanism must be insane to appoint you as a general captain..." Honglian shook her head.

"You can’t see that far ahead, so naturally you don’t understand the price the Mechanism is willing to pay." He didn’t elaborate, instead turning his head toward Chen Xuan. "I’d like to ask you... Mr. Wanderer, what are you fighting for?"

Chen Xuan fell silent. To save the world? He’d never started with such an idea. After he obtained the shopkeeper’s ability, he’d only tried it out out of curiosity, and then it had spiraled out of control. The "still alive" written on the Ability Store’s interface kept pushing him forward, helping customers achieve their goals was just one of the means... Even though he had now come to enjoy this new life of adventure and excitement.

Did that mean he didn’t care about the world or humanity at all?

Chen Xuan knew that wasn’t true.

He could distinguish good from evil... Just like the "future" after Lin Qing disappeared: even if the Ability Store considered it the outcome of saving the world, he still couldn’t accept it. It was from that moment that a strong desire to change the future took root in his heart.

"I’m fighting for myself." In the end, Chen Xuan answered simply.

Xiao Canong looked a bit regretful. "Seems we were never meant to stand on the same side. You’ve won this round, but the Mechanism won’t stop here. For humanity to survive, the Mechanism will pour in everything it has."

"As if you represent all of humanity." Honglian snorted.

"Believe it or not, the Mechanism truly can foresee the fate of humanity. Headquarters has verified this many times already, and will verify it countless times in the future."

With that, he closed his eyes, as if he’d lost all interest in conversation. No matter how Honglian interrogated him after that, he never spoke again.