I'm late...

As Leon stared intently at the unconscious black-haired woman, doubting if she was the real deal, the Aquarius Director beside him looked at the rubble and stalactite shards scattered everywhere, making the core of the earth seem ruinous and chaotic, and sighed with visible melancholy.

The Zodiac Bureau's [Sea of Silent Stone] used to seal the solidstone realm is gone now. It seems we'll really have to take the risk of facing the Three Tribes head-on... It's all because of these two damned Slaughter King Association members!

With murderous intent in his eyes, he glanced toward Dongya and his companion. Upon seeing that familiar face in "Snow Ugly's" hand, his anger flared instantly, his eyes bloodshot.

At this moment, using Xixiph's illusions to irritate me again?

Recall the previous experience where he was ambushed due to Xixiph's illusion, allowing the opposition to successfully stall him, preventing him from stopping the destruction of [Sea of Silent Stone]. Filled with fury, the Aquarius Director struck out in anger, fiercely clenching his fist from hundreds of meters away towards "Snow Ugly" in the distance!

Crack!

In the fearful eyes of the fake Snow Ugly and real Dongya, the small world surrounding him seemed to compress entirely at this grasp, beginning to solidify uncontrollably at a rapid pace.

The area, previously allowing free spatial passage, began transforming from "porous and loose" to "smooth and hard" like pottery burnt into a vessel, continually compressing and shrinking towards the center.

Even the air inhaled into the lungs became heavy and dense, with a soil-like smell rushing in through the nostrils, easily bursting his nasal and throat cavities, rupturing the blood vessels and alveoli in his lungs, and swiftly coursing through his entire body via his bloodstream...

"Wait a minute!"

Using the Black Goat's soul vision, Leon noticed something peculiar and hurriedly reached out to push away the Aquarius Director's frighteningly heavy arm a bit.

With Leon's proactive interference, the Aquarius Director's "aim" was slightly thrown off; the spot-covered hand couldn't entirely capture Dongya and his companion upon clenching fully, but skewed a bit towards the magma pool gurgling behind Dongya.

"Ding!"

With a crisp yet strange clang, the magma pool targeted by the blue-haired old man's palm was compressed by hundreds upon hundreds of times in an instant.

The bright red magma, originally a mixture of molten iron, sandwiched with stalactite fragments not yet dissolved, along with the dark stone walls of the magma pool, were simultaneously compacted into a sculpture of a hunched elderly person, drooping softly into the undisturbed magma below.

...

[Name: Mud Mason Hand (Formation)]

[Appearance: A hand of an old person, with all fingerprints burnt off, covered in mud within the fingernail gaps, and the fingertips faintly glistening with oil]

[Ability: Mold Objects into Mud]

[Cost: Permanently lose part of tactile sensation]

[File: One hundred and two years ago, within the tribes of the western mountains of the Northern Kingdom, dozens of population disappearance incidents erupted collectively, yet a large number of bizarre mud sculptures, exquisitely shaped and made of some kind of biological flesh, surfaced.

Barto Higgins, serving as a Level 3 Cleaner in the Aquarius Branch at the time, along with his brother, undertook the task and proactively went to the western mountains for investigation with the blood-and-flesh mud sculptures collected in Rehe City…]

[Evaluation: An ordinary abnormal object, generally usable by Level 3 Cleaners, but in the hand of a Zodiac Director, paired with suitable auxiliary abnormal objects, it possesses a terrifying power sufficient to easily kill a True God]

[Contamination Value: 8.1]

Wow... does that mean if I hadn't intervened, the two True Gods from the Slaughter King Association might have been crushed to death by him?

Glancing at the Aquarius Director's palm in surprise, Leon explained to him upon facing his puzzled gaze:

"Hold on for a moment, the woman seems a bit odd... Director Barto, is she someone you know?"

"Yes..."

After glancing at "Snow Ugly" who had suffered a frontal hit from his abnormal object and was bleeding from all seven orifices with mud gushing out, almost on the brink of death, the Aquarius Director nodded slightly.

"She's Xixiph, who used to be a Level 1 Cleaner in the Aquarius Branch, and also... also the mother of Melly and Harvey. However..."

However, she died in a mission ten years ago?

After verifying his judgment against the Aquarius Director's response, Leon pondered briefly, then wiped the tiny screen on the snake bracelet and asked the Aquarius Director:

"May I ask how Miss Xixiph… Auntie died?"

"Xixiph... When I was transferred to the core of the earth to participate in sealing the solidstone realm, she was responsible for dealing with the tribal members of the Three Tribes attempting to detonate a volcano. Unfortunately, she sacrificed herself in that mission, supposedly dying somewhere underground at Hexagonal Snow Mountain."

Supposedly died? Somewhere?

Hearing this, Leon couldn't help but raise his eyebrows.

"So you didn't see Aunt Xixiph's body, could you not even confirm if she really died?"

"?!!!"

Facing Leon's near blunt inquiry, the Aquarius Director's eyes widened, irresistibly glancing towards the distant, unconscious black-haired woman, but soon shook his head with dimmed eyes:

"Impossible. In the Aquarius Branch, we have a domino in the storeroom, which, once a name is engraved on it, forms some secret connection. If the corresponding soul disappears from this world, the name engraved on the domino will vanish synchronously, and Xixiph..."

"The disappearance of a soul doesn't necessarily mean death, it could also be due to being devoured... I mean captured or confined."

Leveraging the Black Goat's soul vision to observe the peculiar state of the black-haired woman's soul, Leon, with considerable expertise in soul-consumption scenarios and possessing the authority to speak, remarked:

"Her soul is harmoniously integrated with her body, with hardly any traces of [pseudo-illusion] authority, suggesting she didn't perish ten years ago, or she died and was subsequently resurrected by someone from the Slaughter King Association using some method."

Not dead? Resurrected?

Though time interacting with Leon was short, the Aquarius Director had already somewhat grasped his character, understanding that he wasn't the type to shoot recklessly; even if he said "doubt," he was probably already eighty to ninety percent sure.

So Xixiph is still alive? But why did the people from the Slaughter King Association resurrect her? And bring her in front of me? Could it be that...

Whoa!

Recalling the earlier scenario, the Aquarius Director, whose heart hadn't fully healed, felt his pupils constrict, instantly deducing Snow Ugly's intention.

Previously, his [Heart Lake] had already been damaged by a sneak attack from the opposition. If he did strike angrily and ended up killing the real Xixiph, there was a high likelihood that his not yet recovered Heart Lake would collapse directly!

And in front of the Heart Lake God, the consequence of emotional collapse...