Recalling the memory back to reality.
The wilderness stretched before them.
The group, just returned from the Nether Realm, had exhaustion written across their faces, yet their eyes still held a glimmer of survival’s afterglow.
“Let’s talk about it,” Gu Qiancheng broke the silence first.
“What happened after you three went in?”
Gao Yuan nodded and spoke up first.
“I’ll go.”
“This should count as a cursed starting hand.”
Gao Yuan gave a bitter smile; the word carried a clear ironic edge coming from his mouth.
“After regaining consciousness, I quickly realized that the identity the Nether Realm had given me was none other than Lu Sanshan, political commissar of the 103rd Division.”
He paused, sorting through the unfamiliar memories flooding into his mind.
“I thought to myself, this identity is great! I could do a lot of things, get a lot of intel.”
“But…” Gao Yuan’s voice was calm, but his fingers unconsciously tightened.
“Soon a squad of fully armed soldiers burst in. Without a word, they grabbed me by the arms and dragged me out.”
“I tried to struggle, but Lu Sanshan’s body was too weak. I couldn’t break free. After that, they took me into an underground cavern and locked me up.”
“At first it was just me. The place was pitch black, not a single person to talk to, until…”
He paused here and looked at Du Qiang, whose expression had grown complicated.
Du Qiang cleared his throat, breaking the silence.
The rough, burly man rarely showed an embarrassed look.
“My situation… ahem, is a bit special.”
He scratched the back of his head.
“The first thing I felt upon regaining consciousness was… my perspective was off.”
He gestured.
“I’m originally six foot one, but at the time my line of sight was only around five foot four. Then there was the weight distribution…”
He made gestures at his chest and hips.
“There were some… extra burdens I shouldn’t have had.”
Hearing that, Gao Yuan couldn’t help snorting with laughter, then quickly stifled it after Du Qiang shot him a glare.
“The Nether Realm turned me into a woman,” Du Qiang said with a wry smile.
“The name was Wang Yun, head of the Confidential Section of the 103rd Division, a hardcore supporter of Political Commissar Lu Sanshan.”
He shook his head, as if trying to shake off the absurd memory.
“The moment I opened my eyes, I was already tied up and about to be taken into custody. Anyway…”
Du Qiang clearly didn’t want to recall certain details about Wang Yun.
He kept shaking his head.
“It’s just… hard to talk about.”
At this point, he suddenly looked up at Lin Mo and forced a smile.
“Speaking of which, Old Gao and I owe our escape to Minister Lin.”
“If he hadn’t sneaked into the underground cavern and saved us in time, we would have been dead without even knowing how.”
As his words fell, everyone’s gaze shifted to Lin Mo.
Lin Mo didn’t bother being modest.
In a calm tone, he said, “Calling it death is a bit exaggerated. Su Xihe didn’t plan to kill you…”
“Let me talk about what happened after I entered the Nether Realm. Actually, I was luckier than Old Du and Old Gao.”
“The identity the Nether Realm gave me was Zhu Yanqing, a young officer who had just been pulled off the front lines for rest not long ago.”
“Not long after I woke up, Zhu Yanqing’s unit received an operational order.”
Lin Mo’s speaking pace was steady, his tone always flat, and he recounted everything that happened after he entered the Nether Realm in clear order.
When he finished this part of the narration, the atmosphere suddenly fell silent.
Gao Yuan and Du Qiang’s experiences, though dangerous, were mostly about imprisonment and escape.
But Lin Mo’s journey—a trek across tens of kilometers of active combat zone—was an endless marathon of slaughter.
Alone, facing a collapsing world, crossing a hellish battlefield, and finally reaching his destination.
This required not just strength, but an iron will.
And even then, some luck was needed.
“Alright, alright!”
Gu Qiancheng let out a soft whistle, breaking the heavy atmosphere.
“Put the tragic hero stories on hold for now.”
He turned to Chu You, wearing that special, infuriatingly teasing smile of his.
“Some people probably don’t know this, right? After you three entered the Nether Realm, it mutated and no one else could enter.”
He deliberately paused, his gaze sweeping over Lin Mo, Gao Yuan, and Du Qiang.
“It was… ahem, it was Chu You who insisted on taking the risk to enter.”
“Tsk tsk… Alone, charging into a region where even the spatial structure was collapsing.”
“Such a huge favor—in ancient times, you’d have to kowtow a couple of times to thank her, right?”
When the words fell, everyone’s eyes locked onto Chu You, especially the person beside her, Lin Mo.
Chu You’s body stiffened noticeably.
She still kept her head down, but the tips of her ears reddened at a visible rate.
She could feel Lin Mo’s gaze—that look always carried a special weight, and now it was burning so intensely that she could barely sit still.
Sensing Lin Mo watching her, Chu You’s neck went rigid.
She didn’t dare turn back.
She stared at her knees, her fingers unconsciously twisting together.
Gao Yuan and Du Qiang also turned their gazes toward her, their eyes filled with gratitude, surprise, and concern.
Everyone’s attention made Chu You uncomfortable.
She felt like a novice actor shoved onto a stage who had forgotten her lines.
“Th-that…”
She finally spoke, her voice much softer than usual, a little stammering.
“The Nether Realm’s expansion was a critical situation… Since you couldn’t enter… I, I just gave it a try…”
She spoke faster and faster, as if she wanted to end the topic quickly.
“Anyway, the result seems good now… Everyone is fine… That’s enough…”
She didn’t dare directly answer the favor topic that Gu Qiancheng had thrown out.
Instead, she responded from a more righteous perspective—a common way of thinking among Enforcers: mission first, personal feelings and credit later.
Hearing this, Lin Mo didn’t press further.
He just curled the corner of his mouth into an almost invisible smile, his gaze softening as he looked at Chu You’s reddening ear tips, and said quietly: “Thank you.”
Three words.
Simple, direct, without any embellishment.
But the weight they carried was clear to everyone present.
Chu You’s body trembled.
She buried her head even lower, only her bright red ears betraying her feelings.
Gu Qiancheng looked at Lin Mo, then at Chu You, and wore an expression that said, “I knew it.”
Feeling the timing was right, he didn’t dig further but switched topics.
“Speaking of which,” he explained on his own how they were able to enter the Nether Realm again, “The reason we could enter the Nether Realm—I mean the second time, after the mutation—thanks to those two sisters borrowed from the Beifu General Law Enforcement Bureau.”
He pointed at the tactical vest he was wearing.
Its surface was covered with complex silver patterns, now dim, as if drained of energy.
“The equipment those two sisters brought was a huge help.”
Gu Qiancheng said, “I don’t really understand the principle, but if it weren’t for this gear, we never could have re-entered after the Nether Realm mutated.”
“If that had happened, the outcome… well, it’s hard to say.”
Lin Mo nodded, acknowledging Gu Qiancheng’s explanation.
Then he slowly asked, “…So what happened at the end? How did you all come over together? How did you manage to appear directly in the void space where Yan and I were fighting?”
This was a mystery.
The spatial structure of the Nether Realm was extremely unstable.
Conventional entry methods couldn’t pinpoint a specific coordinate, let alone teleport directly into an independent subspace of a void nature.
Hearing this, Gu Qiancheng raised an eyebrow, his expression turning subtle.
“We split up after entering the Nether Realm,” he said.
“Xia Ji and I were one group. The others split into their own groups to find you as quickly as possible.”
He described their experiences after entering.
“I’m not sure what Tie Jiang and the others encountered,” Gu Qiancheng looked toward the Ye Shou squad, “but in the end, I think we all had the same thing…”
At this point, his brow furrowed slightly, as if recalling some indescribable sensation.
“A vague voice suddenly rang out in my mind. It wasn’t heard through the ears, but directly appeared in consciousness.”
“That voice said… ‘Do not resist. I will send you to where you need to go.'”
“Xia Ji and I both heard this voice.”
Gu Qiancheng continued, “It gave… an inexplicable sense of trust.”
“It wasn’t coercive, but you just felt you could trust it. I guess you all felt the same, right?”
Tie Jiang nodded, his voice low.
“We heard it too.”
“We had just finished fighting, and then that voice appeared.”
“It was just a blink of an eye,” Gu Qiancheng said.
“The space was pulled open like a curtain, and we appeared right where you and that European rat were fighting.”
“Precise positioning, direct deployment. That level of spatial control is simply unbelievable.”
Hearing this, Lin Mo nodded, forming a guess in his mind.
Gao Yuan and Du Qiang also wore contemplative expressions.
People who could influence the Nether Realm with their own consciousness were few and far between even within the entire Huafu Enforcer system.
Let alone being able to precisely locate and teleport multiple people to a specific coordinate amid the chaos of a Nether Realm collapse.
That required not just immense power but a profound understanding of the nature of space.
“Maybe the headquarters urgently dispatched a very strong senior to Beihai,” Lin Mo said slowly.
“But as far as I know, those capable of this level number no more than five, and most of them are permanently stationed at key nodes. They don’t leave easily…”
A few names flashed through his mind.
Each was a strategic-level presence in Huafu.
Their movements could affect the entire nation.
“Could it be…” Gao Yuan started but hesitated.
Just as everyone was lost in thought, trying to piece together possible candidates—a hoarse voice suddenly sounded from behind.
Not from the entrance of the cavern, nor from any comprehensible direction.
The voice seemed to appear directly in the depths of everyone’s consciousness, and at the same time, whispered in their ears.
It was old, raspy, yet carried a strange penetrating power that made everyone who heard it tremble from the depths of their soul.
“Outstanding graduate of Beifu University… fastest probationary to full status… youngest Bronze Sparrow rank… youngest Silver Vulture rank… formerly the youngest Golden Crow rank Enforcer…”
The voice echoed in the cavern.
Every word was crystal clear, as if the speaker was right next to their ears.
“And the former captain of the Headquarters’ Seventh Tactical Squad Ye Shou, a defector declared dead…”
The voice paused for a moment, as if savoring the weight behind these titles.
“If I remember correctly, child… Chu… Qingqian?”
The moment the words fell, a small, thin figure suddenly appeared before Chu You and Lin Mo.
No spatial fluctuation, no energy ripple, not even a stir of wind.
He just appeared there, as if he had been standing there from the very beginning, only no one had noticed.
The old man wore a tattered gray tracksuit jacket with half the zipper broken, revealing a sweat-stained undershirt underneath.
His pants were cheap work trousers, shiny at the knees.
On his feet were old shoes covered in mud.
His hair was gray and messy, as if it hadn’t been combed in a long time.
A few strands stuck to his deeply wrinkled forehead.
His face was truly a network of ravines; time’s carving knife had left deep marks there.
His eye bags were puffy, his eyes cloudy, as if covered by a thin mist.
But if you looked closely, in the depths of that cloudiness, a sharp gleam occasionally flickered, like lightning breaking through a gap in dark clouds.
The old man lifted his head slightly, looking straight at Chu You.
He was only about five foot three, needing to look up to meet the seated Chu You’s eyes.
But for some reason, this simple act of looking up gave the illusion that he was looking down on everyone.
The strangest thing was—he was clearly standing right there, yet everyone present couldn’t sense the old man’s existence at all.
Visually, they saw him clearly: a small, thin old man in a ragged tracksuit.
But in perception, he was empty.
No life aura, no energy fluctuation, no body heat, and not even a shadow—the bonfire’s light passed through his body, casting a complete shadow on the rock wall behind him, but the old man had no shadow of his own under his feet.
Like… a texture suddenly pasted into the real world.
The boundary between reality and illusion blurred on him.
Time seemed to freeze for three seconds.
“Alert!”
Tie Jiang’s low growl broke the deathly silence.
Almost as he spoke, the six members of the Ye Shou squad scattered like they had practiced it a thousand times—not a chaotic retreat, but a precise tactical deployment.
Qing Luan stepped back three paces, the Barrett heavy sniper already in her hands.
Hua Yao sidestepped.
Yu Chan stood still.
Shadow melted into the darkness.
Mongoose leaped up to a high rock ledge.
All six awakened their Divine Commands simultaneously.
The atmosphere instantly became tense, energy fluctuations surging across the wilderness.
With the Ye Shou six’s movements, the others also reacted.
Gao Yuan and Du Qiang instantly rose, standing back to back.
Though they didn’t awaken their Divine Commands—their energy had been too depleted in the Nether Realm to use again so soon—their combat instincts had already put them in battle stance.
Only Lin Mo and Gu Qiancheng didn’t immediately assume an attacking posture.
Both furrowed their brows, staring intently at the old man, as if trying to confirm something but not quite daring to believe it.
And Chu You…
From the moment the old man appeared, her expression hadn’t changed at all.
No surprise, no fear, no hostility.
She just stood there, looking at the old man, her expression as calm as if she were looking at a familiar face she had expected to see.
Or rather, she knew clearly: if this old man wanted to do anything, even everyone present combined couldn’t stop him in the slightest.
Under everyone’s wary gaze, Chu You slowly stood up.
She patted the dust off her knees—a simple, almost casual action, yet it subtly shifted the tense atmosphere.
Then, facing the old man, she slightly lowered her head and said in a clear, calm voice: “Commander-in-Chief, long time no see.”
Seven words.
Like seven stones thrown into a calm lake, stirring up huge waves in everyone’s hearts.
Commander-in-Chief?!
The one they were thinking of?
The legend of the Huafu Enforcers, the national stabilizing pillar guarding the land of Huafu, the supreme commander of the Enforcer system—the General Director of the Huafu Enforcer Headquarters, Wang Zhenwu?!
The cavern echoed with the sound of sharp intakes of breath.
Gao Yuan’s glasses nearly slipped off.
Du Qiang’s mouth was slightly open.
The six members of the Ye Shou squad, though still maintaining combat stances, couldn’t hide the shock in their eyes.
Only Lin Mo and Gu Qiancheng, after the initial shock, showed a glint of “I knew it” in their eyes.
The old man—Wang Zhenwu—heard Chu You’s greeting, but his expression didn’t change at all.
That face full of wrinkles was like a stone sculpture, all emotions buried deep in the rock.
His cloudy eyes looked straight at Chu You for a full five seconds.
Then, in that hoarse voice, he said flatly: “You are no longer an Enforcer. There’s no need to call me Commander-in-Chief anymore.”