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With only one witness, things were much simpler to handle.
"System, can I see Vivian’s evaluation?" Martin inquired.
The panel unfolded:
[Name: Vivian
Star Rating: 3 Stars
Cultivation Potential: Low
Personal Talent — Coordination: High]
Eyebrows raised at the character panel, Martin mused.
From the fragmented information he had previously acquired, Vivian was a mid-level employee at a cold chain company in Riverland, with only two years on the job.
Her talent for coordination explained her swift career advancement.
Casting aside all other thoughts, Martin said, "I’m going to seal away these true memories of yours and overlay them with false ones. Once the investigation is over, I’ll restore them to you."
Vivian could only nod hesitantly.
She didn’t know what to believe, but she was aware of her powerlessness to resist.
After a moment of silence, Martin added, "Once your memory is restored, we’ll talk about what comes next."
Observing her pretty, wide eyes fixed on him, Martin simply walked away with his bicycle.
A desire to transcend her class, to escape the mundanity of life, sometimes dreaming of marrying into wealth, yet possessing a stubbornness to succeed on her own.
This was Vivian.
This was also a true representation of many female white-collar workers of her time.
Martin saw this quite clearly.
All things considered, Vivian was just an ordinary woman, not bad at all.
The future Divine Shield Association could not possibly consist only of five-star talents.
Given their shared fate as housemates and having experienced extraordinary events in the early stages of a monster invasion, Vivian alone was certainly not someone they couldn’t accommodate.
Of course, everything would have to wait until her memory was restored, for whether she would want to join the Divine Shield Association was another matter altogether.
Martin mounted his bicycle, heading toward his dwelling, some seven or eight kilometers away.
Vivian gazed bewilderedly at his retreating figure, not quite catching up.
Wasn’t he supposed to seal her memory?
But in the next second, her eyes clouded over with confusion, and when she came to, she found herself standing foolishly in the rain.
Why am I here?
That’s right, I came to mediate a compensation issue for a client, and as I passed by here, I got startled by lightning striking the same spot repeatedly, and my umbrella was blown away.
Feeling the chill seeping into her bones, she hurried towards her destination.
"What a rotten day!" Vivian lamented in misery.
...
Meanwhile, inside the abandoned factory.
Eamon was drenched to the bone, his spirit seemingly drained as he stumbled to the blackened remains and began to claw them away, tooth and nail.
The char was hard, its broken edges sharp, but he was heedless, soon covering his hands in fresh blood.
At last, Jovan’s bulging eyes emerged from the charred rubble.
The lightning hadn’t struck him.
Eamon reached out with trembling hands, probing around Jovan’s nostrils, then his fingers clenched, tighter and tighter!
Amidst his pain, he fished out a cellphone from Jovan’s pocket, the password still the same as always, six sixes, never changed.
He tapped the screen thrice, almost numbly, and then held it to his ear.
"Hello, this is the Riverland emergency center," a brisk female voice came through the phone.
Eamon took a deep breath, his voice devoid of panic, devoid of doubt, gravely clear, "I need to report an incident, location: BB District, middle of Qiu Shan Avenue in the northern food industrial area, in an abandoned factory on the north side."
"Alright, I have noted the address, can you describe what happened?" the operator, not sensing panic in his tone, took a soft breath and asked.
"There’s a monster, one with tentacles all over."
"Ah?" The operator nearly doubted her own ears, "Are you sure?"
"I’m sure. My colleague is dead, my apprentice is dead, my best friend is dead…"
Eamon’s voice was a somber murmur, his hand holding the phone slowly lowered as he knelt to the ground, looking up at the sky.
The relentless rain continued to pour, striking his face, cold to the bone.
His facial muscles trembled, his chest heaved, a sobbing tone creeping in as he bowed his head, "Jovan..."
The next second, he let out a harrowing scream that pierced through the noisy veil of rain, traveling far and wide into the gloom.
...
A helicopter settled steadily at a military base outside Cresthaven.
Under the watchful guard of two escorts in bulging black suits, Emory disembarked from the aircraft. A glance revealed a squadron of armed soldiers who had long been on watch.
Not far off, a camouflaged armored vehicle stood with doors ajar, waiting.
Without much for pleasantries, he exchanged salutes with the local commander and boarded the armored vehicle, leaving the mountains’ shelter behind.
The two guards were stern, no smiles to be seen.
Emory, too, was somber. As the newly appointed head of Solantia’s "Anomaly Bureau," a special department, it was his duty to report regularly to his superiors.
This was not bureaucracy but precision.
Because what he was tasked with was far from ordinary.
In introspection, Emory recalled an incident from half a month prior.
At that time, having only been assigned to the city for two years since his departure from the military, he received a secret reassignment under the vigilant eyes of many soldiers to Cresthaven.
There, in a room, he watched a video.
At first, there was confusion, as the footage showed the ongoing "Orient-2020" joint military exercises, which had been heavily featured in the news.
Being an institutional man with a military background, Emory had paid close attention and recognized the scenes instantly.
But what followed was beyond his imagination.
The scene shifted to several enormous, writhing, gelatinous creatures in the wastelands.
Then, the video showed self-propelled artillery barrages, intense explosions shaking the earth, kicking up clouds of dust and debris.
Modern artillery was no weak display from a TV drama; a single shot could bring down a building, which was no difficult feat.
As the dust settled, the hillock was nearly leveled.
But...
What shocked Emory was that, despite their sorry state, the slime creatures were still alive, continuing their relentless advance.
Finally, a barrage of rockets traced white arcs across the sky, descending ferociously. After the screen blazed with flames, the wasteland was devoid of life.
The video ended there.
The Anomaly Bureau was formed in secret, with Emory at its head.
Almost every convenience was afforded to him—staff, funding, authority.
It was virtually all-inclusive.
The purpose was clear and daunting.
To ascertain the reason behind the sudden appearance of these monsters, how to prevent them, and to lead a lab of elites from various fields to develop specific countermeasures.
As the armored vehicle approached the city outskirts, Emory switched to a black sedan and took the highway into the city, ready to report on recent developments.
Suddenly, his phone rang.
Recognizing the number, he answered promptly.
A deep, authoritative voice came through: "A new type of monster has emerged in Riverland."
Upon hearing this, Emory’s gaze grew profound...
