The Highest Bounty

Chapter 197: I Just Wanted To Have A Bout

On a planet more than fifteen billion light-years away from Jerr, a tall, large man threw up a mouthful of blood. “What exactly is that brat made of? He has such a powerful monster kept within his soul space. It may look like an infant on the surface, but it has consumed one-fifth of my soul in less than ten seconds…”

Kratos was feeling a little upset over this. He had lost the bait along with the fish. He had lowered down his will projection for the sake of obtaining that chain god item. In the end, he did not have his hands on the god item and instead handed over one-fifth of his strength, which was in his will projection, and one-fifth of his soul energy.

However, the fear was still lingering within him. He was secretly glad for not choosing to push open that black door. He still remembered Gu Ding’s words. “Blackie is the pet of the neighbor on the right.”

That door on the right was the big, black door he had initially planned to push open. The master of such a pet was definitely not anyone easy to deal with. If he had pushed open that door then, it might not just be his will projection that was lost.

At that moment, Gu Ding was within the soul space with the little black dog, which was originally as large as a palm of a hand but was now growing speedily right in front of his eyes. In less than half an hour, it had grown from the size of a palm to a size of more than thirty centimeters, double of what it was previously.

“Blackie, you haven’t grown in so many years, what made you have this growth spurt that made you grow twice as large? Have I been feeding you the wrong kind of food?” Gu Ding rubbed Blackie on the head and voiced out the question.

…

On Jerr, Gu Ding read his physical data projected by Neptune and found it strange. He had no idea what had transpired within his soul space. It felt like he had done nothing at all and yet, that deity’s projection collapsed on its own and was absorbed by Gu Ding’s body. After that, he suddenly realized he had a breakthrough, finally bypassing Rank 6, which he had always had difficulty achieving and now obtained a third gene chain.

Not only that, but he had also obtained a new special ability, which was the martial arts field he had always coveted. The strangest thing about this was that his taboo energy was also enhanced. Everything had happened in such a baffling manner.

“Do you know what had just happened? Why did that deity’s will projection crumble? Also, what about that chain weapon spirit? I can’t feel its presence anymore, it’s as if it had just vanished within my body,” Gu Ding had so many questions about what had just happened.

However, Neptune was not able to give him an answer. “This time, I truly have no idea what happened. I have always been monitoring our physical condition and have found nothing unusual. I’m guessing there might have been a change that happened with your soul. That is an area that I am yet to be able to probe. I know you’ve progressed a great deal this time, even your taboo energy has been enhanced. It’s a difficult thing to enhance taboo energy…”

Neptune’s voice suddenly stopped as the communicator rang. The number belonged to Liliath.

“We’ve been hovering above Jerr for more than an hour. Our communicator hasn’t been able to get through to you. What’s happening right now?” This was the first question out of Liliath.

“Nothing much. We’ve run into some minor problems and Neptune had been blocked off. We’re heading toward the harbor right now and I’m getting Neptune to activate the harbor’s canopy,” Gu Ding planned to explain the details of the day when he returned to the ship.

Gu Ding was not far from the harbor at that moment. It was just a few minutes’ walk. After Neptune activated the canopy and turned off the system of the armor-piercing cannon, Gu Ding made a mad rush toward the harbor.

At the harbor, Noami and the others were also aware of the appearance of a deity’s will projection. They were anxiously waiting for the signal block to end in order to confer with their superiors on the next best step. It was only half an hour after the deity’s will projection had dissipated that Noami was finally able to get through to her superior’s number.

No one knew that Neptune was the one who had blocked the entire planet’s signal during that half an hours’ time. This was because Neptune knew that once the Hunters had gotten in touch with the Army, they would take immediate action and it would happen while Gu Ding was absorbing energy atop the building. Neptune deactivated the signal block only after Gu Ding had succeeded in his enhancement.

“Chief Commander, this is Mushroom from Team 8,” Mushroom was Noami’s codename. Hunters would never refer to one another with their real names and would use codenames instead.

“What’s the matter? Is the mission not going well?” A middle-aged man’s voice could be heard but he did not sound too worried about whether Noami’s mission was going well.

“It’s not about the mission. It’s about a deity’s will projection on Jerr. We have no idea who the deity is battling. All our equipment’s signals have been blocked and we aren’t able to monitor a thing. The only thing we are aware of is the ground trembling,” Noami explained.

It finally hit the chief commander how serious the situation was. “Are you certain that a deity has descended?! Tell me everything about it right now and don’t leave out any details. I need to report this to the marshal and His Highness The Lord.”

“Understood!” Noami started reporting everything she knew to him.

“Did you say the deity’s projection dissipated in less than ten kilometers away from you? Did you take any videos of it? It should be close enough at that distance,” the chief commander questioned anxiously. If there was a video clip of the entire thing, it would be much easier for him to explain things to the people upstairs.

“No, we don’t. When the deity’s will projection descended, not only did our communicators fail to work, even our surveillance equipment wasn’t working,” Noami knew that her answer would not make her superior happy.

“How did you know the deity dissipated? Did the color slowly fade away or was the will projection hit by something and exploded?” The chief commander could only rely on Noami’s description of the situation as there was no video evidence of it.

“It wasn’t either. It was more like it crumbled away. How should I describe it? It was as if the energy suddenly disappeared and the body ended up crumbling and dissipating,” it took Noami quite a while to think of how best to describe the situation.

The chief commander mumbled to himself, “That sounds like it was killed by the soul energy the deity was possessing. Did you manage to see who the opponent of the deity’s will projection was?”

“I didn’t. Although, judging by the magnitude of the clash, I presume that his opponent must be a large being. The tremors could be felt even though we are two hundred kilometers away,” Noami gave her analysis.

“Okay, I’ve got a rough understanding of the situation. I’ll report the matter to the marshal and His Highness The Lord before deploying Army backup to you. Secure the battle scene now and stop anyone from damaging it. Also, send over videos of the battle scene immediately.”

“Understood!” Noami hung up and called King Kong’s number.

“King Kong, inform everyone to cease the lockdown of the harbor.”

“Why? Won’t that allow Gu Ding and the others to escape?” King Kong did not understand why the decision was made.

“The chief commander wants us to preserve the battle scene of that deity’s will projection. We need lots of manpower to do this. It has been more than three hundred years since Faye Comic Nation has had any trace of a deity. This situation with the deity’s will projection has been made the top priority. Everything else has to make way for it,” Noami gave a simple explanation.

“Okay!” King Kong immediately set out to make arrangements.

Many were shocked to see most of the Army standing guard leave the harbor, but they speculated that it had something to do with the ‘earthquake’ earlier.

After making arrangements for the Army to fall back, the Hunter squad, made up of ten people, once again got together.

“The chief commander’s orders are very clear this time. He wants us to head to the battle scene immediately and preserve it. The first thing to do is to take videos of the scene and send it over to him immediately. We’ll split up into two teams. The first team shall head toward the scene of the battle where the deity’s will projection was. The other team will go toward where the projection had dissipated…” Before Noami could finish, a few of her team members looked up at the sky above the harbor.

The sky above the harbored was open.

“I didn’t get them to open up the Sky Shield,” King Kong had just blurted this out when everyone witnessed a black and white Golden Eagle slowly descend from the air.

“That… That’s the spaceship of Gu Ding’s crew, isn’t it?” Someone finally reacted to it.

Noami’s expression changed slightly. She found it a little strange that Gu Ding’s crew would choose this moment to descend and not wait for her team to leave the harbor before making this move.

“Gu Ding should be aware we haven’t left the harbor. Are they issuing a challenge to us?!” King Kong had a bad temper and was convinced Gu Ding was doing this on purpose.

Gu Ding had gotten Neptune to pick this exact timing. It was at the precise time when the ordinary members of the Army had left, leaving the Hunter squad. It was not a challenge from Gu Ding to pick this moment, it was because he wanted to have one battle with the Hunter squad.

If they waited a little later, the Hunter squad would no longer be at the harbor. If it was a little earlier, a large amount of Army officers would be quite disruptive, and it will only end up with them getting wounded or dying.

Just as King Kong made his exclamation, Gu Ding’s figure slowly walked over to them. He had taken off his mask and wig. Only his clothes remained unchanged while his eyes were still blue. “I’m not issuing a challenge on purpose. I just wanted to have a duel with all of you,”

At that moment, the Golden Eagle had anchored, and the hatch door opened. Elsa and Tagore walked out.

Tagore immediately appeared on Gu Ding’s shoulders while Else appeared by Gu Ding’s side after a while.

“Elsa, both of you shouldn’t take on this fight. This battle is mine,” there was no hesitation in Gu Ding’s voice. Elsa could tell that Gu Ding had become stronger. Tagore jumped off Gu Ding and sat down beside him.

“Four-eyes, Monkey, head to both locations now and record the videos to be sent out to the chief commander,” Noami handed out new missions to them.

“But…” The man in glasses wanted to object but was stopped by Noami.

“There’s no room for ‘buts’. The chief commander’s mission needs to be carried out by two people. We’ll take care of the problem here and join you soon,” Noami glared at the man in glasses.

“Yes, madam!” Both of the men saluted and left quickly.

“We can begin now,” Noami’s eyes were cold. The thought of Gu Ding tricking her twice with his fake identities was really pissing her off.

Gu Ding activated all three of his special abilities of Rage Attack, Iron Block, and martial arts field at once while pushing his Ultimate Arts to Level 11 at the same time…