Chapter 271 - Release (1/2)

”Do not go outside no matter what. If anyone approaches you, run to the nearest military installation.”

Hao Xuan looked at the message and then at the mushroom cloud in the distance that kept getting bigger and bigger by the second.

”What's going on?” Xu Qing's worried voice grabbed his attention.

At some point, she had run out of her room still in her nightwear with a white robe. Her unkempt hair showed just how much a hurry she was in.

Hao Xuan looked at her with a forced smile.

”Everything is okay. They're just doing some drills and experimenting with a few things. First brother just sent me the message. Go back to sleep,” he said while walking up to her and fixing her robe.

Hao Xuan knew with she might not believe him but he didn't want to worry her needlessly, especially since she couldn't even see the mushroom cloud in the background.

To her whatever he said would be the truth, or a version of it.

”Are you okay? You seem...different, somehow,” she leaned in and asked in a low voice.

He didn't know whether she was talking about his physical appearance or something else entirely,

but he couldn't help but chuckle and give her a light hug looking at her worried expression. The hug took her by surprise as he had never really been this forward before but she didn't avoid it.

Her ear pressed up against his chest and she heard his two heartbeats

”Mhm, better than ever. Go back to sleep. I'll be out for a bit.”

She looked up at him with her glass-like eyes, Hao Xuan's handsome profile reflecting in them. He felt bad about lying but telling her the truth would be pointless.

Sometimes, ignorance really was bliss.

She released her tightened grasp on his shirt and looked away.

”Be careful, please. Don't be out too late,” she said in her usual gentle tone and walked back to her room.

*Beep*

As soon as her back disappeared from his view, Baracus's voice rang in his ears.

”Something big is happening.”

”What?”

”Not sure. There is too much chatter to make sense off. Calls are coming in about a group of hooded individuals that has 'attacked' a top-secret military compound near the outer edge of the city.”

Hao Xuan frowned, ”What's not to make sense of here?”

”You don't understand, as long as it has been connected to the net or anyone has ever mentioned of it, ever, I know of its existence, if not have a direct link to it. But I have no record of this place in my database. If it really exists, barely anyone other than the top brass knows about it and everything related to it has been kept off the books. This can mean a lot of things, but mainly that...”

”What? Just say it!”

”...that whatever is going on in there, it's not really 'legal'. There is no other explanation for it. Every other top-secret facility has to go online at least once, but not this one.”

”!!!”

Hao Xuan's smile froze as he turned around and looked at all his severs standing in a straight line in front of him.

Each of them had broken through to the Spirit realm and some had even jumped several stages.

Bo, for example, was already at the top of the Spirit Realm when Hao Xuan first got him, and now his cultivation had returned to its original state.