Chen Xiao stood at the cave mouth, his voice drifting down into the molten hush below. "So it's our brothers from the Samba Homeland. Come on up — we're all bound by fate in this game, after all."
The Samba Homeland men passed the Euro Alliance and began to climb. Their skin was raw with heat, flushed crimson from the furnace beneath.
The Euro Alliance watched, anxiety building. "What do we do, Lord Little Zeus?" "We should stop them — they can't be allowed out!" "We can't wait any longer!"
Little Zeus held his team back with cold calculation. "Wait and see. I don't believe those Huaxia dogs will actually let them go."
Attacking now would be stupid. Unless they wiped out the Samba Homeland entirely — costly in stamina and lives — it wasn't worth it. Better to let Huaxia decide first, then pick through the spoils.
On the surface, Joseph bowed politely as he neared the cave mouth. "May I ask the name of the Huaxia leader?"
Chen Xiao waved a hand. "I make no secret of my name. I am Cao Linxuan, the Thunderclap Divine General."
The words fell like a stone; everyone in the cave heard them. Murmurs spread among the climbers: a Divine General at the mouth? Cowardly, despicable.
Joseph took another step forward — then Chen Xiao's foot shot out and blocked him. "Hand over the fire seeds first, then you may climb up." He glanced to the side. "Longqi, Yuanhang. Search them."
Zhang Longqi and Zhao Yuanhang dove down. The furnace heat hit them like a blow; the cave bottom was no place for the living. Still, they searched and counted twenty-one fire seeds in total.
Chen Xiao crouched, cold amusement in his eyes. "No storage on the body, then?"
Joseph nodded earnestly. "Believe me, Divine General. This is all we have."
Chen Xiao smiled and shook his head. "You're confident. Then strip."
Protests broke out. "You can't be serious!" "We've been pushed to our limits already — this is humiliation enough!"
Chen Xiao didn't care. He had time. "Strip, or stay down there forever."
Joseph's jaw tightened. Pride warred with survival; in the end he gritted his teeth and began to disrobe. One by one the men followed. A Yao and Jiang Ling had already turned away.
As the others stripped, Chen Xiao's eyes caught a man hesitating, fingers clutched too tightly to his wrist. The bracelet.
Water obeyed his will. A giant hand of water snatched the man up.
"What are you doing?! I already gave you the fire seeds!" the man screamed as he thrashed, but the grasp held. Chen Xiao pulled the bracelet free and the man's struggle ended abruptly.
A line of text blinked before Chen Xiao's eyes.
[Dimensional Bracelet]Description: Beyond the dimensions of space lies another realm.Effect: Grants access to a small pocket dimension for storing and retrieving items freely.Note: Living creatures cannot be stored.
An Opportunity — exactly what Chen Xiao suspected. He peered into the tiny pocket. No larger than a bathroom, it was stuffed with junk — and eleven hidden fire seeds.
The man had been hiding them. This wasn't his alone. Chen Xiao's smile turned icier. "Leader of the Samba Homeland. How do you explain this?"
Joseph's face went pale. He pointed to the corpse on the ground. "That bastard! Even in death he drags us down with him! Divine General, I swear I didn't know!"
For a moment Chen Xiao almost believed him. Then Joseph peeled a sticker from his wrist — what Chen Xiao had taken for a tattoo. It was an eye, lifelike and unsettling. He handed it over.
Text appeared.
[Wrist Watcher]Description: A gift from the Omniscient God to the mortal world.Effect: Summons a panoramic eyeball to continuously monitor an area, sharing its field of view with the holder.Note: A maximum of three Watchers can be placed at once. Summoning a fourth will replace the first.
Chen Xiao's expression flickered with amusement. "Now that is a treasure."
Spatial storage was trivial to him — the Mountain and River Map already covered that need — but a Watcher that could surveil an area was invaluable. On par with an S-rank talent, perhaps better. He pressed the sticker to his wrist. It sank into the skin like a living tattoo, sending a cool, electric shiver through his arm. The eye inked itself into his flesh.
Concentrating, Chen Xiao placed the Watcher at the cave mouth. A small, fist-sized eyeball materialized and floated in midair. The instant it did, a full 360-degree feed flooded his mind: the Euro Alliance's stunned faces, the Samba Homeland's naked, trembling bodies, the smoldering rim of the furnace, and the distant place where the T-rex had vanished.
He wondered, for a brief second, whether the Watcher would persist after the game. If so, the implications were staggering — a permanent, remote surveillance tool the likes of which no military command possessed.
He tucked that thought away. For now he had two concrete gains: seeds and sight.
"Clothe yourselves," he said. "If anyone lies to me again, I won't be merciful."
Joseph rehung his clothes with shaking hands. The others scrambled to do the same, grateful and humiliated.
Chen Xiao flexed his wrist; the Watcher's pulse beat beneath his skin like a second heartbeat. The eye kept watch without blinking. The cave mouth was secure, every approach visible. With seed caches counted and the Watcher's vigilance, he had bought himself time and the certainty that nothing would sneak up on him.
For the moment, that was enough.