Special Operations Department vs. Xu Zhiyu

Xu Zhiyu sat in the abandoned Xu Pharmaceutical Group building, which had once housed nearly a thousand employees.

But after taking control of the conglomerate, Xu Zhiyu had directly abandoned all its businesses, liquidated most of its assets, and previously launched a venture with the Finality Empire.

Xu Zhiyu leaned back on the sofa. In the now-empty chairman’s office, only the sofa beneath him and a cabinet against the wall remained.

Xu Zhiyu repeatedly hurled the baseball in his hand against the cabinet, catching it as it bounced back.

He was waiting for news—a reply from the Finality Empire.

Smack!

The cabinet, battered by the baseball too many times, suddenly split apart. Two corpses in suits tumbled out.

The bodies were already covered in maggots, and the stench of decay rushed forth.

"Tch, can’t you stand properly even after dying…?"

Xu Zhiyu rose to his feet and lifted the two corpses back up. Scarlet light on his right hand coiled like a giant python, forcibly binding the bodies upright.

These two were his father and younger brother, formerly the chairman and director of Xu Pharmaceutical.

Xu Zhiyu gently brushed the maggots from his father’s and brother’s faces, then tidied the hair of both corpses before sitting back down.

"A person can lack talent, but they must learn how to pick a side, Father, little brother…"

"I already told you the world would become like this. I told you to assist me in becoming Korea’s king, but you said I was crazy. Sigh, that hurts my feelings too."

The woman outside the door saw this and lowered her head, not daring to enter.

Che Zixi increasingly felt that Xu Zhiyu had truly gone completely insane.

No normal person would arrange and play with the corpses of his own father and brother like this.

"Come in."

Che Zixi shuddered, but she still pushed open the door and entered. The stench of rot assaulted her nostrils, and she immediately felt like vomiting.

Whoosh, splurt!

Xu Zhiyu appeared behind Che Zixi in an instant, and two bursts of force pierced through her skull.

The next moment, Che Zixi realized she could no longer smell the odor. She sniffed, then realized that she had lost her sense of smell.

"Relax, Miss Che. I merely took away your sense of smell temporarily. Tell me about what I asked you to investigate first."

When he was not going mad, Xu Zhiyu was quite refined and courteous. Che Zixi had once thought he was the genuine young master of a wealthy conglomerate.

But now she had become deeply entangled in the Yi Xin Society’s affairs. Xu Zhiyu knew her true identity and home address, leaving her no chance to break away from him.

"Yes, Chairman. The Blue House has indeed secretly formed a Reincarnator team. This department is concealed within another department. I have yet to find its precise location, but its scale can be roughly estimated as small, with around ten Reincarnators. There are no signs of any Title-level Reincarnators."

"Furthermore, Li Xianhou of the March Group previously discussed this with the president, but the president rejected it. We can infer that this department does not belong to the March Group. At the same time, the March Group may be forming its own Reincarnator force."

Smack!

Xu Zhiyu suddenly hurled the baseball with force, smashing his father’s corpse’s head to pieces.

"See, Father? You simply can’t compare to Li Xianhou."

Che Zixi lowered her head and pretended not to see it as she continued analyzing the remaining intelligence.

"Miss Li Qingzi of the March Group, whom you ordered us to monitor, previously went to Southeast Asia and has now returned. Some say she brought a man back with her."

Che Zixi then took out a tablet. It contained only a very blurry portrait, depicting a man with a terrifying enormous phantom behind him.

Xu Zhiyu accepted the portrait and lightly tapped it.

Beep, beep.

His phone rang. He answered it, and a deep male voice came from within.

"His Excellency says to abandon the plan to seize Korea and proceed directly to the transfer point. We will receive you and bring you into the Empire."

Xu Zhiyu’s tapping hand froze. He frowned, and his voice turned cold.

"I recall that we had reached an agreement."

The man on the other end did not accept Xu Zhiyu’s threat and gave a simple explanation.

"We have our own intelligence channels. Simply put, Mercenary Tao has arrived in Korea. In accordance with the principle of avoiding losses among High-tier Reincarnators, we believe that taking Korea is no longer cost-effective. Therefore, we are abandoning it. That is all."

Whether in population or resources, Korea was hardly abundant. Its only praiseworthy asset, its economy, was no longer an irreplaceable resource under the current circumstances.

As for Mercenary Tao, it had now been proven that he possessed the strength to kill High-tier Reincarnators such as the Millennium Worm Sage head-on. He had even successfully returned from a world where all Supreme Experts had vanished.

It was not worth becoming enemies with Mercenary Tao for Korea.

Xu Zhiyu frowned. He felt that he had merely spent a few days away from the Infinite Dimensional Space, yet he was already starting to have trouble understanding what these people were saying.

Mercenary Tao had arrived in Korea, so what?

Mercenary Tao was merely a newly risen vicious figure. One or two people like that emerged in the Space every few missions. Some rose, and some died. It was nothing remarkable.

Beep, beep, beep.

The call had already ended. The Finality Empire had acquired the manpower it wanted and had become much colder toward Xu Zhiyu.

Xu Zhiyu raised the baseball, about to smash his younger brother’s corpse apart again.

But Che Zixi immediately spoke.

"Chairman, Mercenary Tao survived the recently concluded abnormal incident in the B711 Secondary World. Many now speculate that he possesses Fierce-tier combat power. The Empire just lost Tang Sanzang, so they are likely unwilling to make an enemy of Mercenary Tao."

Xu Zhiyu frowned. His body flashed, and he returned to the Space. Due to the difference in time flow, he reappeared before Che Zixi almost immediately after vanishing.

But he had already purchased a highly detailed intelligence report from the Space.

"Moon Demon, Mercenary Tao…"

Xu Zhiyu knew very well that Li Qingzi was Moon Demon. Therefore, he also knew that the man Li Qingzi had brought to Korea was Mercenary Tao. He simply had not expected that after a single mission world—

Mercenary Tao, whom he had previously not even considered worth his attention, had become a "High-tier Reincarnator" capable of making the Finality Empire back down at the mention of his name.

Beep, beep.

His phone rang again. He glanced at the caller ID, which clearly displayed Li Qingzi’s name.

After answering, Xu Zhiyu did not speak, but a soft laugh came from the other end.

"Mr. Xu Zhiyu, I still have my eye on that treasure map. I hope you haven’t traded it away."

There was undisguised greed in that voice.

Xu Zhiyu rose and walked to the window. Sure enough, he saw that the street below the building had somehow become completely deserted.

"It seems Mr. Mercenary Tao wants that treasure map very badly…"

Click.

The nearly inaudible sound of a bolt being drawn rang out. Xu Zhiyu pressed one hand against Che Zixi’s head, and then the world seemed to slow to a halt in his eyes.

A large-caliber bullet pierced through the wall and shot toward him through his nearly frozen world. Through the bullet hole left in the wall, he clearly saw several figures in black leather jackets appearing inside the building.

Bang!

"Careful, the shot missed!"

Seeing that no blood was flowing from the figure in her thermal sniper scope, the woman sniper immediately issued a warning.

The next moment, the burly man at the front roared. His body instantly expanded, and he smashed through the wall as he lunged at Xu Zhiyu.

This was the Korea Special Operations Department’s first operation. Failure was absolutely not an option.

Whoosh.

The woman codenamed Azure Firefly suddenly saw the target vanish from the thermal imaging. She raised her head to warn her teammates, but when she opened her mouth, she could not make a sound.

Splurt!

Blood gushed from her neck. Air flooded into her chest, and the woman clutched her throat as she turned around. She saw only Xu Zhiyu in a blue suit standing behind her. The thing that had slit her throat… was his fingernail…

Thud.

As Azure Firefly fell to the ground, the few people who had rushed into the chairman’s office finally realized what had happened. They turned back to see their teammate already lying in a pool of blood.

Xu Zhiyu’s eyelids hung low as he held the phone to his ear. A cruel curve formed at the corner of his lips.

"Mercenary Tao, this is interesting…"

The world nearly froze again in his eyes. With one step, he appeared behind the men in black, and lines of blood emerged across their necks.

Mercenary Tao’s voice came through the phone at that moment.

"Keep it up, Mr. Xu. Wipe out your president’s Special Operations Department. Once I’m done here, I’ll come find you."

"Aah!"

The continuous screams over the phone made it obvious that Mercenary Tao was carrying out some plan of his own as well.

Xu Zhiyu was quick-witted and immediately realized that the other party was using him.

But with the March Group’s support, he likely no longer had any power to turn the situation around.

Roar!

A howling roar erupted from the ground floor. The next moment, a massive white tiger raced along the exterior wall, charging straight toward the building.