026. Long Time No See, Have You Reached the Moon? (Part 1)
The young lord's kidnapping was quickly noticed, and the guards pursued relentlessly in their hover cars. Fortunately, Barnum's driving skills were decent, and after two hours of wild racing and zigzagging, they managed to shake off the guards who were discreetly tailing them.
The hover car stopped in an abandoned factory to evade low-earth orbit satellite searches. Li Aozi dragged the tightly bound Marlis out of the car and threw him to the waiting Bemudes rebels who had been lying in ambush.
"This is—Marlis, the Grand Duke's son!" a Bemudes soldier shouted excitedly. "You did well, Mr. Li Aozi, you're truly our hero for capturing Marlis."
"Just a coincidence," Li Aozi said casually. "You can interrogate this guy—but don't kill him. He's a Beta level; your weapons won't harm him. Also, there were many issues in today's battle..."
Li Aozi wanted to say more critical words, but when he saw the wounded Bemudes soldiers peeking out from behind, he couldn't bring himself to say anything.
After all, as a hired thug from the Tianhuan, he wasn't qualified or responsible to point fingers at a group of blindly passionate rebels. He might end up leaving himself open to criticism, so it was better to say nothing and just do his own job.
Although Li Aozi wasn't particularly intelligent, his emotional intelligence was at least passable. He pulled Barnum out of the car and handed him over to the Bemudes people, telling them to teach him how to shoot and fight, and also to gather information about these people. Compared to Li Aozi's strong image, someone like Barnum, who was weak and powerless, was better suited to infiltrate and gather intelligence.
Marlis was taken away, and Li Aozi leaned against the vehicle, a cigarette in his mouth, looking thoughtful.
"...Interesting."
In fact, the Yellow Cuckoo Blood Pact and the [Inquisitor] were just urban legend-like Easter eggs in the previous life, discovered by some story enthusiasts who dug into the backstory. People only then realized that there were still many untapped stories from the old era of the Azure Star, and that the Gulanth Duchy, which seemed to have a harmonious relationship with the Frost-Plated Republic on the surface, had its own secrets.
Li Aozi had originally prepared to storm the Surut Palace to forcibly capture someone and then ask about the [Inquisitor]'s whereabouts. Unexpectedly, Marlis came in a hurry, without any bodyguards, perhaps overconfident in the city's lockdown and his Beta level strength.
However, both Marlis and the Grand Duke were mentally aligned with the Frost-Plated Republic. Although they were rulers of the country, they didn't care at all about the people's lives. Marlis, as the heir apparent, spent most of his time in the Twin Cities of the Frost-Plated Republic, spending 3 million derbies a week on his appearance, wearing the same clothes only twice, and he greatly disliked the traditional Gulanth national attire.
As for his father, Grand Duke Gamoth, despite being a Gamma-level powerhouse and having ruled the country since the old era as an immortal being,
To free himself from physical and spiritual pain, he was utterly subservient to the Frost-Plated Republic, long subjected to PUA by their presidents. On the international stage, he was essentially a mad dog for the Frost-Plated Republic, biting whoever he could, using his personal power and Gulanth's strategic location (surrounded by five colonies and protectorates of the Frost-Plated Republic) to continually send Gulanth people to the front lines, sacrificing them for the Frost-Plated Republic's women.
The Grand Duke's brain was long oxygen-deprived; it would be absurd if he could govern the country well. He maintained domestic stability by licking the Frost-Plated Republic's boots, exporting large quantities of grain and labor from there.
He didn't care at all about the domestic talent drain. To the Grand Duke and his son, what was Gulanth? They identified only with the Frost-Plated Republic, one of the four hegemonic powers, from the bottom of their hearts.
Yet Gulanth's agriculture was too advanced; it was like a super field where a single grain of wheat could yield 1,800 kilograms per acre by autumn. As long as people had enough to eat, they could bear it; at worst, they could try to flee. This lazy policy led the entire country to lose its motivation to progress. No one wanted to be a teacher in a middle school; many people found that after working all their lives, they could make more money by setting up a stall, and they broke down, becoming unemployed drifters on the streets.
Beyond Silpaya, the country's law and order were poor, with many unemployed people crowding under bridges. There weren't enough jobs to help them, but the cybernetic modification technology and advanced entertainment industry from the Frost-Plated Republic made them yearn for the developed four nations.
This led to an absurd situation: Frost-Plated Republic men longed to move to a small place like Gulanth, while Gulanth people desperately tried to go to the Frost-Plated Republic, at least there they wouldn't be at the bottom of the discrimination chain.
This was also why the quality of the rebels was so uneven. Fertile land and a lazy ruler left the only things that could unite the people being fleeing or picking up arms to rebel against the state.
It sounded laughable, but upon closer thought, it was sad. After the sadness, Li Aozi saw that the rebels didn't know how to deal with Marlis, and he had no idea what to say.
In short, the successful kidnapping was an unexpected surprise, but Li Aozi didn't let his guard down.
The Bemudes soldiers finally decided, with excitement, to lock the young lord in the dungeon, but they didn't have the capability to execute or disarm him. Li Aozi had to use gravity to break his limbs before he felt safe handing him over to the Bemudes.
Killing him outright wasn't an option—it would cause quite a stir, not to mention that Li Aozi noticed a layer of frost on this guy's body, indicating he might have been possessed by a ghost.
"Considering that the Grand Duke himself is a [Shaman], it's normal for him to leave a ghost to monitor his child."
Killing Marlis directly might alert Gamoth immediately. Li Aozi had no choice but to use his rudimentary knowledge of the occult to add some runes near the dungeon, trapping the ghost inside so it couldn't escape.
The [Shaman] class was quite ridiculous; not only were they proper spell tanks, but they could also manipulate souls, walk in the spirit world, temporarily ignore physical laws, and had extremely versatile abilities, especially effective against reckless [Warriors].
However, the [Shaman] had a high operational threshold and could also suffer soul erosion during combat. If not careful, they might even end up in a comical situation of "I killed myself."
In this regard, [Mediums] were much better. They mainly communicated with spirits and used psychology, rather than directly merging with them, though the drawback was that their formation was slow, and they were physically weak.
Li Aozi's [Gravity] didn't work on spirit entities, but his [Natural Ignition] was highly effective. However, against a Gamma-level [Shaman], who was far more skilled at playing dead and resurrecting than even a [Biochemist] professor, it would be difficult.
Of course, there was some good news.
Li Aozi's interrogation of Marlis revealed something interesting: Grand Duke Gamoth's physical condition was extremely poor. He hadn't obtained the life support device customized by the Frost-Plated Republic for Gamma levels. His overly powerful body couldn't be sustained by the environment of the Azure Star.
This situation was essentially like nuclear weapons; developing them alone wasn't enough. Without long-term storage capability, whether they could even detonate was still a question.
The same applied to combat. Without strong logistics, professional guidance, high morale, calm judgment, and swift thinking, having a powerful body was nothing more than extra protein, easily burned up.
Although the difficulty of the "Roar of Freedom" mission was only B, there was still an unavoidable issue if it was to be completed perfectly.
Li Aozi looked at the Bemudes members: After a day of fighting, they had all retreated from the city, most of them injured and demoralized. Although Li Aozi had captured the Grand Duke's son, it couldn't decisively overthrow the regime.
Even if the Grand Duke were killed, the Frost-Plated Republic would just airlift a governor over, failing to escape colonial rule.
Unless international forces were leveraged—but that would take too long.
The best solution was to kill the Grand Duke, dissolve the Gulanth Duchy government, and within a day, reorganize the government to attend the GTB summit as a nation—Li Aozi believed the Tianhuan would certainly recognize their legitimacy, but whether this would spark a war was unknown.
However, looking at the situation with Bemudes, the group was a mix of all sorts—you're a young officer, I'm a civilian militia, he's a religious leader—like a manganese nodule of complexity. Expecting them to elect a leader accepted by all seemed unlikely.
Even if a popularly elected leader came to power, so what? Gulanth's terrain was mostly fertile plains covered in volcanic ash, with occasional valleys. The Frost-Plated Republic's mobile armor could theoretically advance 1,000 kilometers in a day, making resistance futile.
They could only choose to appease the Frost-Plated Republic and seek external assistance, like from the Tianhuan.
The Tianhuan never signed the arms embargo treaty. If it came to a fight, the Frost-Plated Republic might not be able to quickly occupy Gulanth.
Li Aozi basically gave up trying to unite this group. After all, he wasn't a Gulanth native; although his reputation was good, reputation alone couldn't bring bullets and tanks.
Gulanth's fate could only be decided by the Gulanth people.
Li Aozi knew this was easier said than done; the fate of a weak nation wasn't in its own hands.
Whether it was him or the Tianhuan, neither intended to leave the Frost-Plated Republic with a full granary. Inflicting damage on a great power like the Frost-Plated Republic couldn't be resolved by simple independence.
Considering this, obtaining the [Inquisitor] was the safest option for Li Aozi.
After talking with the Bemudes people and learning that they planned to gather forces to attack the capital, Silpaya, again, Li Aozi abandoned the idea of acting with them.
In his view, the decapitation plan was still the best approach, no exceptions, though he needed a little help.
Li Aozi gave Barnum a coordinate, and the two drove straight to the K region on the outskirts of Silpaya. It was a sealed-off, abandoned industrial area where Li Aozi could see a huge concrete sarcophagus used to seal off an old-era nuclear power plant leak.
"Isn't this a wasteland? The Arkia nuclear power plant, a relic from the old era, supposedly caused a fire covering tens of thousands of hectares 300 years ago due to a nuclear leak. It took pilots dropping sandbags from fighter jets a week to extinguish it."
Barnum also recognized the landmark and looked puzzled.
"Are you sure your 'fiancée' is here?"
"This is the place." Li Aozi replied.
Barnum, skeptical, casually turned on the radiation detector.
Click, click, clatter, hiss, click, click...