Chapter 477: New Plans

– At the Private Beach –

“Xuan Kai!” Feng Mian called out and rushed over just as I teleported here with Zhao Xiuying. “Oh, thank god you’re safe…”

I nodded. “For now. But the Midnight Syndicate has taken over Fragment yet refrained from destroying it completely. I’m not sure why they did this as opposed to the total destruction of Shenzhen, but… it’s definitely nothing to be happy about.”

Yu An Yan and the other girls walked up beside Feng Mian, then gave a firm nod.

“… Whatever it is they’re planning, it’s big. Otherwise, they wouldn’t have laid dormant for so long only to emerge again now, and take the Magic Capital by storm like that.”

“To think they became so powerful in the matter of a few years…” Ling Xin murmured. “Even my seniors in the Council couldn’t hold a candle to them…”

But I shook my head. “No. Judging from their strength levels alone, your seniors in the Council actually have them outmatched. However… the Midnight Syndicate has a new trick up their sleeve this time around.”

Qing Yue nodded in agreement. “Big Brother Xuan Kai has a special ability to sense others’ strengths, so if he says so, it must be true. As for the new trick they have up their sleeve… it’s called…”

“… Antimagic,” Zhao Xiuying finished, having memorized the words that came out of that wolf demihuman’s mouth when he had been chasing us. The other girls, who had left before that happened, blinked in surprise.

“Anti… magic…?” Lan Xiao Su’s eyes widened. “By definition, that means… a counter to magic. Something like that… exists?”

“If it didn’t before, it sure as hell does now,” I muttered in disdain. “You all saw it too, didn’t you? That tiger girl’s Solar Nova was nullified by a single ray of white light as if it hadn’t been there in the first place. I don’t know how it works, but without a doubt, that white light is the antimagic they were talking about.”

“No way… if they can nullify our magic, then… how do we even fight against them?” Feng Mian murmured in worry, frowning as she racked her head for answers.

“Fufu… it’s simple, is it not?” Axilia chimed with an innocent smile as if none of this was of any concern to her. “Anti… magic. It counters magic… but not True Essence. Darling, you get what I’m saying, don’t you~?”

“Hm… Ling Xin, will that work?” I asked, raising an eyebrow in hesitation.

Ling Xin pondered for a while, then pursed her lips. “… I’m not sure, in all honesty. It will depend on how strong their antimagic is—and the longer we let this go on, the more advanced they will develop it. In other words, if we are to use True Essence to conquer this antimagic technology, then we’ll need to do it fast.”

“True Essence…?” The other girls tilted their heads in confusion, and very quickly, Ling Xin gave all of them a brief explanation of what True Essence is. After they all understood, I continued the conversation from where we left off.

“That man with the black knight mask and midnight robes seems to be their leader. His name was… X, if I recall correctly.”

“X. How mysterious and utterly cliched,” Qing Yue remarked with a wry grin. “But considering how strong his subordinates are, he must be no easy foe himself.”

Feng Mian nodded in agreement. “Speaking of his subordinates… most likely, we’ll need to defeat them before we even get a chance to confront this ‘X’ person. It will be a hassle, but we won’t be able to simply go for the commander’s head without even knowing his exact location.”

“The plan for now is to find each of X’s subordinates and get information out of them, then, correct?” Yu An Yan asked for confirmation.

“I suppose so,” Ling Xin murmured. “However, there’s a slight problem. All of X’s subordinates wield antimagic, and in this Realm, Xuan Kai, Axilia, and I are unable to use True Essence due to the lack of it in the atmosphere. Going after them right now without understanding anything would be suicide.”

“He is, immune.”

“Huh?” All the girls turned to Zhao Xiuying in surprise, who had interjected her way into the conversation and was now pointing at me with her finger, a neutral expression on his face.

“Xuan Kai, you’re… immune to the antimagic?” Yu An Yan inquired, an expression of shock on her face.

I shook my head. “Maybe, but I can’t be certain. When I was escaping with Xiuying, we took flight into the air. The wolf demihuman shot a beam of antimagic at me and hit my shoe with it, but it didn’t affect me at all. In fact… it almost felt like I was being empowered, like when I consume other people’s magic but on a greater level. But even so, it may just be a malfunction in the antimagic. One instance of me resisting it isn’t enough to prove anything. I’m not trying to get myself killed here, so I want to make sure I really am immune before engaging in combat with them.”

But to my surprise, Mei Gui shook her head.

“Master, I can confirm. You indeed are immune.”

“Oh…?” I tilted my head, prompting her to continue. She closed her eyes, then opened them again after a brief second as if preparing her speech.

“You have reached a level of comprehension of Chaos where you can consume all forms of energy, Master. Although antimagic is a counter to magic, it is in and of itself a form of magic as well, also made of mana at its core, just very much modified. That modification, however, means nothing in front of the power of Chaos, which can and will devour all.”

“I see… but do you know just what the Midnight Syndicate did to mana that made it turn into this… purifying antimagic?” I asked.

Mei Gui shook her head sadly. “Unfortunately not, Master. That is out of the range of my current abilities and knowledge. I apologize…”

“No need for that,” I quickly said, then lapsed into thought once more.

“Devour, consume… but come to think of it… Xuan Kai, isn’t your Chaos power somewhat similar to antimagic, in a way?” Feng Mian said thoughtfully. “I mean, both counter other forms of magic, right? It’s just instead of converting that magic into power for yourself, the antimagic merely destroys it. Apart from that difference, though, both antimagic and Chaos can be seen as similar forms of power.”

“Heh…? So you think the Midnight Syndicate may have half-copied darling’s powers?” Axilia swung her scythe around. “Unforgivable… hey, darling, can we go kill them, right now?”

“No,” I replied in a forceful tone, making my seriousness clear. “But if that theory is true… then everything falls into place. Maybe this was the Midnight Syndicate’s plan from the very beginning… that might be why they targeted my parents and I all those years ago, and why they’ve been continuing to hunt me down…”

“But that leaves the question—why did they suddenly stop one day?” Ling Xin proposed. “If they stopped, it would mean they somehow got what they wanted from you, no? When and how did they get the chance to do that—that’s the real question.”

“Hm… what are your thoughts on this, Lorelei?” I asked the fox perched on top of my shoulder, who promptly transformed into the human version of herself so everyone could hear what she had to say.

“Based on given evidence and facts, Lorelei believes this to be quite possible. However, what the black-haired girl pointed out is true—how and when were this cult able to obtain fragments of your power, Master?”

Ling Xin’s eyebrows twitched a little at being called ‘the black-haired girl’ instead of her name, but she didn’t interrupt.

And it was then that I realized—and it would seem Feng Mian did as well.

“Wait… Xuan Kai isn’t the only Chaos user here. There’s one more…” She turned to none other than Mei Gui, who had came to the realization as well. “Back then, Ling Xin had taken you to some lab…”

Ling Xin narrowed her eyes. “If you are accusing me of leaking the information to the Midnight Syndicate, I recommend you think twice. Back then, I gave Mei Gui to that doctor for my own curiousness about this Chaos power, nothing more. After you broke her out, the lab was destroyed personally by me. No evidence of what happened remains.”

“And when, exactly, did you destroy it?” I challenged, raising an eyebrow.

“When I went to check on the progress of the doctor, only to find him dead.”

“Right. And don’t you think between our escape and you finding the doctor dead… someone else could’ve infiltrated the lab?”

“That’s…” Ling Xin frowned a bit. “It’s possible, but hard to imagine. No one else should’ve known about that lab’s location, unless…”n/ô/vel/b//in dot c//om

“Unless we were being spied on by a third-party at the time,” Qing Yue concluded. “By… the Midnight Syndicate.”