Edge Paddle left the camp with the rest of the players, picked up the guy and got into the truck parked at the camp gate, and headed north of Avant City.

Although the big eyes of chocolate are gone, the beautiful legend about licking the dog and the infinitely tall figure remain in the hearts of the little girls.

Later, the news reached the ears of some fungi, and they suddenly became enthusiastic about charity as if they had discovered a new continent, so much so that the chocolates that were originally used to replenish sugar and calories for front-line soldiers at several save points were bought out.

And the story about licking the dog gradually went out of shape in the coaxing of the fun......

It just so happened that at this time, Lao Na and the elf king Fugui had just returned from patrolling outside.

As soon as the two got out of the car, they were surrounded by a group of cute children.

The elf king Fugui just wanted to greet them with a smile on his face, but he didn't expect that as soon as the latter opened his mouth, he was scorched on the outside and tender on the inside, and he was caught off guard.

"Trash fish! Candy!"

"Trash fish, trash fish, hand over the sugar!"

"Trash fish, trash fish!"

Listening to that non-standard Mandarin, the elf king Fugui almost choked out his throat.

"Ahem, which Dogecoin...... No, who taught you?"

Several eleven or twelve-year-old girls looked at each other, and the younger girl whispered.

"Uncle Mosquito won't let us say his name!"

As soon as her words fell, the girl with a ponytail next to her hurriedly covered her mouth.

"Shhhh You said you missed your mouth!"

"Mosquitoes...... I'm not surprised at all," Irena said with a smile as she handed the chocolates she was carrying to a girl who looked quiet and had a pair of glasses on the bridge of her nose, "What else did Uncle Mosquito say?" You tell us secretly, and we won't tell him."

The quiet-looking girl blushed and struggled with the chocolate in her hand for a while, and finally sold the mosquito.

"He also said that it was a Halloween custom, and that the children of the Alliance would be able to get candy every day by chanting this spell to the shelter dwellers......

Elf King Fugui: "Poof, why doesn't this guy do anything all day long."

"Hahaha! But don't you think it's funny? It's not much anyway." Irena laughed so hard that her stomach hurt, and under the ignorant eyes of a group of children, she handed them the rest of the chocolate, "Remember, this spell can only be used on good people like me, not against bad people."

"Good guys?" The quiet-looking girl tilted her head.

Irena smiled and touched her little head.

「e…… To put it simply, if someone runs out of sugar, or gets scared, or kills you, you just say 'I'm sorry' and run to the next Vault dweller."

The wasteland is miserable enough, and there's nothing wrong with having something more joyful.

There was no Halloween in the city of Avent.

But now there is.

……

In the alley north of the city of Avant, in the side of the logistics building, a corpse wearing an exoskeleton is surrounded by several soldiers of the Death Corps.

At first glance, the well-made equipment was not the product of the extensive industry of the Southern Corps.

Thanks to Big-Eyed Chocolate, the Edgepaddling group, with the help of the children nearby, effortlessly found the body lying next to the garbage can.

Perhaps because of the war, the children were not at all afraid to see the corpses, and one of them, about 12 years old, said with his index finger and the edge of the stroke.

"There was a big plane parked on the roof of the logistics building, and someone shot at them, and then the man fell and died."

Debt Big Eyes asked suspiciously.

"Didn't the people on the plane come down to save him?"

The other, slightly older boy, shook his head.

"Though they are well equipped,

But it doesn't look like it's going to be able to fight. Snipers in the distance fired several shots at them, and they didn't even know where the bullets were coming from, and they didn't return fire."

"That's right," stared at the candy left in Big Eye's hand, and the child next to him replied, "They flew away."

The construction site boy asked with bricks.

"And in which direction did you hear the gunshot?"

"Over here!"

Several children shouted in unison, but each hand pointed to a completely different point.

Not only were the construction site guys and the edge paddling dumbfounded, but the children themselves were stunned for a moment, and then they quarreled over who was right.

Only then did a child standing in the corner sigh and muttered in a low voice.

"It's obviously a Gauss rifle...... It's not gunfire that you hear."

He had heard from his father that there were many different types of Gauss rifles, some of which had a sound when they were discharged, some that could hear a sonic boom in mid-air, and some that used special bullets that only made a sound after hitting the target.

The old construction site and the edge paddling glanced at each other.

"The attackers have high-tech ...... Anyway, it's a clue."

"Could it be infighting in the academy?"

"There is so much infighting, should you still be in the province of Borneo?"

"It's just a guess, but I don't think it's very likely......

In this way, it should be the Enlightenment people.

Looking up at the roof of the logistics building, his brows furrowed slightly.

「…… The bullets must have come from the other side of the building, so a few people should come and take a look."

"I'll go with you." The construction site guy raised his hand and consciously followed behind the captain.

Bigeye in debt scatters the rest of the candy to the children who are still arguing about which direction the gunshots are coming from.

"Okay, don't argue, put the gunshots aside...... Where did the plane go?"

The children looked at each other, but this time there was no dispute, and they all pointed their index fingers at the top of their heads.

"It flew straight into the sky!"

"That's right! It's like an airship, it flies into the sky and starts breathing fire, and then it's gone."

It's okay to fly vertically.

Holding his forehead with a headache, the roller shampoo smiled and patted him on the shoulder.

"Don't be discouraged, maybe they're flying out of the atmosphere? That's a clue."

On the other side, Edge Paddler and Builder circled to the other side of the building and glanced toward the northeastern outskirts of Avent City.

It was a stalled apartment building, which looked a bit like a low-cost housing house in the Union, but judging by the scaffolding that had been removed, it was probably a long time since the building was suspended.

The wasteland has finite resources, and this resource is not only mineral, but also industrial, construction, and labor.

Even the Southern Corps, with its 2.7 million square kilometers of colonies, could hardly balance war and development at the same time. If you choose one way, you have to stop the other.

After all, they don't have players who can't die.

Sometimes edge paddling can't help but wonder what an alliance would be like without players, or if it wouldn't have been born at all.

He didn't think about how important he was, and that the citizens of the Coalition should be grateful, but simply because he was worried about how those who stayed behind would face the challenges that might arise in the future if they left here one day.

I don't know when it began, and it became more and more difficult for him to treat the world as a game.

Or to put it another way.

He played this game with emotion.

「…… Did you find anything?" The construction boy and the brick glanced at him, interrupting his thoughts.

Edge paddled and shook his head, lowering the telescope in his hand.

"It's so densely packed that bullets can come from anywhere......

I don't know why these researchers chose this building, it's like a live target."

"I guess it's because this building can see the Tower of the World," the construction boy and brick glanced in the direction of the city, "I guess those researchers didn't expect that the war was over and they could still have their butts stolen."

At this point, he paused for a moment, then suddenly continued as if he had thought of something.

"I wonder if there's a possibility, when they were investigating the Tower of the World's 'suspected brood creatures', and someone from the Enlightenment or some other organization was eyeing them."

Edge paddling shook his head.

"Either way, it's hard to find them...... Anyway, let's recover that unlucky guy's body first."

As he spoke, he was about to turn around when suddenly a warning sign crept into his mind.

Time slowed down in an instant—

Or to be more accurate, his brain's information processing speed has doubled several times in an instant!

That's the perceptual talent he unlocked at level 30!

Adrenaline rushes when danger is detected, and passively triggers effects like "bullet time"!

Edge paddled back sharply, holding up the binoculars to look at an unfinished window somewhere in the complex.

Almost at the same time, a man with a Gauss rifle put his gun away in disbelief and dodged out of the sniper position.

He could clearly see the bewilderment on the man's face, who clearly didn't expect to be discovered.

Without a moment's pause, Edge Paddle immediately turned on the communication module and contacted the rear command.

「…… This is the Death Corps, we find a suspicious target, apply for a drone."

After a brief pause, a response was quickly heard from the other side of the communication channel.

"Command received, drones are coming online."

"Roger!"

Hanging up the edge of the communication, he stroked and threw the telescope to the bewildered construction site, then selected the map icon on the V screen, and then basketed out a large area on the pop-up map.

"Attention of all units of the Death Corps, block all exits in the marked area. The target may be carrying an optical camouflage device, so remember to bring an infrared identification device."

An answer soon came from the communication channel.

"Roger!"

At the same time, the man who had just been withdrawn from the sniper point had a shocked expression.

His name was Flynn, and he was a disciple of the Enlightenment, and he was also the dark line that the Enlightenment had buried in the city of Avent.

The Southern Legion hierarchy has long been in conflict with the Enlightenment, and it is for this reason that Martin and his "death potion" can be reused by Tyr.

However, the Southern Army's contact with the Enlightenment Society was known only to a few high-ranking members of the Southern Army, and even the Chief of the General Staff, Augustus, was not fully understood, let alone the vast majority of officers.

Although the previous turmoil in Eternal Night Harbor caused the name of the Enlightenment to appear in the public eye, due to the lack of evidence and clues, it became a farce of "drug addiction" and did not cause much waves.

In fact, in the Tower of the World building, where Tyr's "Weapon of Decisive Battle" is stored, almost half of the researchers are directly provided or helped by the Enlightenment Society.

In addition to the researchers, the Enlightenment higher-ups also sponsored a number of achievements that could be directly put to use.

For example, the "Gaia Seed" that the Enlightenment will get from the "Celestials".

Flynn wasn't a professional researcher, and he didn't know what the "Gaia Seed" was for, except that the Order's higher-ups were interested in its actual combat data.

On the other hand, the Celestials hope that they can get a research ship of the academy to facilitate the direct exchange of materials with the space station at the Lagrange point.

According to the judgment of those guys, the academy that has some information about the "Gaia-like lifeform" and does not want the information to be leaked will definitely hide in a place unknown to the alliance to secretly observe and collect information.

Thus, today's action was born.

Everything went as planned.

His partner "Luo Yi" managed to infiltrate the research ship under his cover, and after eliminating all the researchers, he hacked the research ship's server and seized control of the research ship.

After taking care of everything, he planned to call it a day and retreat, but he didn't expect that because of that damn curiosity, he took a second look at the two guys with gas masks, and was targeted by one of them.

He had never seen such a mysterious thing, even if it was the special talent of the Awakened, it was too outrageous to ask for the enemy from such a distance.

Perhaps there is a "singularity" in this world that they don't understand.

Looking at the fixed-wing drone hovering low, Flynn carefully hid himself in the shadows, looking alertly at the street not far away.

The whole city is like a pot of boiling water, and trucks and off-road vehicles are speeding through the streets, and judging by the boiling dust, it seems that there is a lot of movement.

Whether it's for the research ship or the dead allies, these guys are serious.

Taking a deep breath of cold air, Flynn reached down and pressed it against his helmet.

"Something is wrong with me here...... It is temporarily impossible to go to the extraction point. You go to the outside of the settlement and stand by, and I'll find a way to leave myself."

After a pause, he added another sentence later.

"Those Alliance soldiers were a little weird, I don't know if it was intuition or what, but one of them caught my spot at a glance...... Anyway, be careful."

"If you're not sure you're going to hit them, don't just target them."

……

The Academy lost a research ship.

Chu Guang's first reaction when he heard this was that the old thing in the swamp had exploded gold coins again.

And it exploded at the right time.

The gravity well has been deployed, and the "seal" placed on this planet will be lifted immediately, and the alliance just lacks a vehicle that can operate in outer space.

Although the expedition recovered a lot of technical information from the relics of the pre-war era, it was clear that those things were not as good as the ready-made products.

However, after listening to the description of Li Ke, a B-level researcher in the special planning group of the college's Department of Foreign Affairs, Chu Guang soon realized that the water behind this might be deeper than he imagined.

A report that had appeared on his desk a long, long time ago had been picked up by him from the corner of the filing cabinet.

That was during the Torchlight Wars.

Based on the Guards' investigation of Vault 20 and the information revealed by the Academy, the Coalition learned for the first time that there was a group of descendants of the Expeditionary Force in the Age of Prosperity Starport at Lagrange.

These people have for some reason taken over the legacy of the Torch Church and are suspected of sponsoring part of the Enlightenment's actions.

The Academy refers to them as "celestials".

Since there had been no direct contact, Chu Guang had left this matter behind for a while, but the academy's loss of this scientific research ship made him suddenly think about it.

What is it that makes it so desperate to travel between the sky and the earth?

It's not the Eastern Empire.

"I've informed the frontline combatants about the matter, and they said they were investigating."

Looking at Chu Guang, who was back in the reception room, Li Ke, who was sitting on the sofa, immediately straightened up, looked at him urgently and asked.

"Any clues?"

Chu Guang sat down opposite him, signaled him with his eyes to calm down, and then said.

"By the time our men arrived, the battle was over. According to the locals, they saw the research ship rush straight into the sky and fly away. The materials used in your research vessel are so special that we don't have any signal left on our radar."

Looking at Li Ke with disappointed eyes, Chu Guang thought for a while and continued.

"Thankfully, those men still have little tails on the ground. Our men have cordoned off the city where he might be hiding, if they could

That guy might be able to ask something."

The main population of Avent City is the Willantes, and if that guy is of an alien race, it shouldn't be difficult to filter out.

Of course, this kind of thing is also not good.

Everyone is a descendant of the People's Union, who doesn't have two hole cards in their hands that others don't know?

Including himself.

After hearing Chu Guang's words, Li Ke sighed and said.

"I'm causing you trouble."

"You have indeed caused us a lot of trouble," Chu Guang looked at Li Ke with an embarrassed expression without any politeness, and continued straight to the point, "We are already looking for people, and now I want to know what your people were doing there at that time."

Hearing this request, Li Ke's face showed an embarrassed expression, and he looked away hesitantly.

"We ......"

Chu Guang raised his hand and signaled that he didn't have to make such an expression.

"I know you have your problems, but I want you to figure out one thing...... It is precisely because you did not inform us in advance that your actions in the city of Avent have caused this to happen."

"Besides, let's assume that the other party has cracked the data stored inside at the same time as they got their hands on the research ship, and your secrecy doesn't mean anything other than to increase the obstacles and difficulty of your investigation, our ally, do you understand what I mean?"

Li Ke wiped the sweat from his forehead, nodded with a wry smile and said.

"I...... Yes, but the level of secrecy of the project involved is too high, I can't decide to disclose it to you without permission, I have to consult my superiors......

Chu Guang nodded.

"If you understand, I'm sure you'll be able to convey my meaning to your superiors correctly."

As he spoke, he got up from the couch not long after he sat down.

"Don't waste your time here, go talk to your superiors."

"Or, let him come to me directly!"