Chapter 57: A Batch of Federal Energy Cannons—Where Did They Come From…?

Ambulance sirens frequently passed by the window outside, wailing as they turned, accompanied by blinding red lights.

Xie Jianxun was woken several times in the middle of the night by the blaring horns and couldn’t get a proper sleep.

He sighed, weakly rolling over to lie face up. Nothing felt comfortable—the bed wasn’t soft, the blanket wasn’t warm, the pillow was too high, and there was Delin’s snoring.

He usually complained that the Mechanical Puppet’s body was too hard, but now he missed it terribly.

With one less person by his side, it felt like half the space was empty.

Delin: “Snore, snore—”

Xie Jianxun: “…” He silently rolled over again, facing the wall, pulling the blanket over his head to cover his ears.

Eventually, he drifted off into a hazy sleep. When he woke up, he saw Delin sitting on the bed opposite, holding a long baguette slathered with butter, smearing sour fruit jam into it.

“You’re awake!”

Delin spotted him groggily opening his eyes and greeted him enthusiastically: “Boss! I brought your breakfast up. Garlic butter or jam?”

From his perspective, the young and handsome colleague was yawning like a kid reluctant to get up in the morning, eyes squinted with tears, soft curly hair messy and disheveled.

His hand fumbled randomly on the bed, finally grabbing a corner of the blanket, hugging it to his chest, then leaning back into the pile of bedding for another minute-long makeshift nap.

Delin couldn’t help himself and reached out to ruffle the boss’s soft hair.

Xie Jianxun came to his senses in a daze and let out a couple of hums.

“Jam, I guess. Less strong flavor.” He snapped back to reality and made a rational choice.

Delin handed him the prepared baguette, watching fondly as he nibbled and chewed from one end, only to grimace at the sour jam in the creamy middle.

The insect disaster had only just begun two days ago, and the attacks weren’t too fierce yet. After the city defense forces held off the initial waves up front, things had actually quieted down a bit afterward.

But in contrast, more insects were mysteriously appearing inside the city.

The checkpoints were all guarded—how were the insects getting in?

When Xie Jianxun came out of the washroom after washing his face, the City Lord’s Mansion servants were mopping the floor while discussing the matter.

“Maybe they overlooked some checkpoint.”

“I say, there must be someone neglecting their duties inside. The City Lord will have to strip them of their position once they’re found.”

Some didn’t take it seriously: “No matter what, they won’t reach the City Lord’s Mansion. We can just stay here safe and sound.”

Others said ominously: “I think it’s spies from Golden City… Have you heard of some cult groups, like that Research Society? You know about it?”

The housekeeper emerged from the washroom stall and scolded: “You done with your work?”

The servants scattered like birds and beasts. The housekeeper sighed in relief, then noticed Xie Jianxun was still there. He was about to chew him out too but suddenly remembered this was a friend of that lord’s.

He swallowed his words and casually asked: “Sir, what do you think?”

Xie Jianxun: “Hmm… I have a guess. Have you checked your sewers?”

…

He followed the housekeeper quickly down the long corridor of the City Lord’s Mansion building to the conference room at the end. The housekeeper knocked and led Xie Jianxun inside.

The Middle-Aged City Lord stood at the head, with five or six people gathered around a large square table, studying the marked hotspots of insect outbreaks on the map.

Seeing them enter, his furrowed brows relaxed slightly.

“…What is it?”

“City Lord, this gentleman here has another idea.”

The housekeeper bowed to everyone present and repeated Xie Jianxun’s guess.

Someone immediately objected: “We already knew about the sewers, but we regularly spray insect repellent down there. They shouldn’t be coming out in large numbers.”

Xie Jianxun spread his hands innocently: “Okay, thanks. I was just guessing—how about combining it with the cultists and the sewers? Could they have torn extra passages for the insects?”

It was possible, though the odds weren’t high.

A few scattered cultists sneaking in and out of the sewers at night would have been caught by the Patrol Troops as suspects long ago—they didn’t live in the sewers originally.

The City Lord thought it over and casually dispatched: “Then, housekeeper, send a team of guards to check the nearest sewer entrance for anything unusual.”

The group continued their heated discussion, now even more interested in the cultist angle.

Xie Jianxun glanced around, saw he wasn’t needed but no one was kicking him out, so he stayed in the conference room to listen to them argue, finding it quite entertaining.

However, the guards dispatched by the City Lord’s Mansion really did find traces of insect intrusion in the sewers.

They also brought back news that shook the entire mansion: not only were there damaged, torn tunnels in the sewers, but there were also crudely made explosives embedded!

The explosives varied in quantity but were spread extremely widely.

The guard team had only searched for half an hour and already found three sites—not to mention the places they hadn’t reached.

If this batch of explosives were linked and detonated…

The city’s sewers—no, the entire city—would anything be left?

In the conference room, the Middle-Aged City Lord flew into a rage, sweeping the map of the city’s full sewer layout onto the floor. He had just received a report about mysterious figures with suspicious movements appearing in the city, preaching that the insect disaster wasn’t a catastrophe but the Insect Clan’s way of pushing human city-states to evolve.

He had no choice but to send out the Patrol Troops to arrest them and go clear the explosives.

But the explosives were scattered across the entire city, not necessarily all in the sewers.

An operation on this scale couldn’t be done in one or two months—the mastermind behind it must have planned for long-term, grueling activity.

Even dismantling one site took tremendous effort, and they were afraid it might blow up mid-process… What a nightmare.

People cooped up in the City Lord’s Mansion all day couldn’t sense the brewing storm, but outside, chaos reigned.

Looters grabbing supplies, robbers, kidnappers—incidents numbered in the double digits daily.

Pedestrians no longer walked the streets; every household barricaded doors and windows.

Fear of insects breaking in, fear of people breaking in.

Flour was looted, anti-infection drugs too, and some oddballs took advantage of the chaos to promote eating insect meat—don’t worry, you won’t starve. The dance halls blasting music stayed open all night; passersby frowned at the noise.

At the city gate sentry tower, the city defense forces had just rotated out a batch.

They returned to the rear camp under the scorching sun, hurriedly scarfing down some food before rushing back to the tower.

At the top of the sentry tower was a high-precision reconnaissance instrument.

A young city defense soldier listlessly poked at his meal, too hot to continue eating. He returned to the tower, calibrated the equipment to normal, then dazedly stared at the sky.

He didn’t have to join the frontline insect extermination, but he had to guard the tower day and night, watching over this silent hunk of metal.

They said this insect disaster was no joke, but no one told him the details.

He recalled the veterans’ warnings but didn’t take them seriously.

He’d heard his elderly mother had been bitten by an insect, but he still had to stay here, unable to return to her bedside. Otherwise, they might send him down to the gate to kill bugs—a grown man cooped up in the tower all day would turn soft.

What “King Insect”? No matter how big, could its shell withstand Golden City’s cannon fire?

The glaring golden desert flowed slowly in his view, sand grains whipped by the wind into tangible shapes.

He subconsciously glanced at the instrument’s observation screen, only to see it flashing entirely red, as if it had malfunctioned.

City defense soldier: “…”

A question mark popped up over his head as he reached out to tap the instrument’s “braincase.”

Another, more veteran city defense soldier climbed up to the tower and quickly stopped him: “Hey, don’t tap it—that thing’s fragile. Huh, what did you do? Why’s it red?”

He was baffled too: “No idea! I didn’t touch anything; it just went like that…”

As he spoke, his voice trailed off.

The veteran city defense soldier fell silent for a moment, his hand starting to tremble.

He pressed a button, zooming out the observation scale, zooming out further, finally locking onto a spot two hundred kilometers away in the heart of the Flowing Sand River.

“Go report to the City Lord’s Mansion now,” he shoved his comrade, voice heavy. “Tell them we’ve located the King Insect.”

It was heading along the Flowing Sand River’s course, slowly approaching Golden City.

Surrounding it were dense, uncountable red dots—its Insect Generals and soldiers, thousands upon thousands, completely filling the river.

The scanned King Insect was enormous; by the scale, it was over a hundred meters long, its outline showing serrated forelimbs and bent hind legs.

No elytra visible, meaning this King Insect couldn’t fly—a barely consoling bit of good news.

Crash—

In the City Lord’s Mansion study, the desk was flipped over, wine and ink staining the expensive carpet into an abstract painting of varied colors and scents.

Two hundred kilometers—for the King Insect, that was just a day’s journey.

The Middle-Aged City Lord gasped roughly, plunged into terror.

He wasn’t young anymore.

He had lived through the last Insect Clan invasion war, facing the King Insect head-on in his youthful prime, knowing full well how terrifying it was.

Its massive body could smash through city walls in one charge, and the accompanying Insect Clan weren’t like these minor outbreaks now.

That was the true Insect Clan invasion force—the one that turned the entire Desert Planet into a bloodbath back then.

Golden City’s cannon shells?

In front of it, they were nothing! Not even enough to crack the outer shell, let alone truly harm it.

He paced in panic, the terrified housekeeper standing by, urging: “City Lord, if worst comes to worst, let’s just leave!”

Abandon this place, hand Golden City to the insects, and flee for their lives.

The Middle-Aged City Lord rejected it without thinking: “No. Here, I’m the revered City Lord, collecting tributes and taxes every year… Outside, how would I survive? I’d just be a powerless, lowly citizen!”

Housekeeper: “Then, what do we do?”

He suddenly paused, lowering his voice: “City Lord, how about we go beg that lord again?”

“Beg”? His eyes flashed fierce, hand slashing across his neck.

This meant threatening Huo Jing to make his fleet step in.

The City Lord shook his head, fearful: “If that’s the case, I’d rather leave.”

He didn’t dare entertain even a sliver of such an idea against him.

If that Great Star Pirate were truly at his mercy, would his fleet obey orders to rescue fully, or… abandon this weak leader and blast him along with Golden City in one shot for revenge on the former leader? One thought made it clear what they’d choose.

The housekeeper fell silent.

He stepped back, bowing to the City Lord: “I obey the City Lord’s every command.”

The Middle-Aged City Lord stood by the floor-to-ceiling window, saying with difficulty: “Alright, first notify everyone to pack up their things, then tell the Transport Port to hold ships for us the next couple days. Also, the warehouse’s…”

He suddenly choked, whipping around to face the housekeeper.

The housekeeper jumped at his abrupt change, cautiously asking: “City Lord?”

“…Doesn’t the mansion have a batch of repair technicians?”

The housekeeper was puzzled: “Yes, City Lord.”

Silence hung in the City Lord’s Mansion study for a moment. The housekeeper looked up to see the Middle-Aged City Lord’s oily, pomaded face transform from despair to ecstatic relief, like grasping the last straw after calamity.

As if life had suddenly sparked anew.

He slapped his forehead: “Right! How did I forget—we still have that thing!”

“Back then, they used it to blow open the King Insect’s head!!”

The City Lord bellowed orders: “Get the stuff from Warehouse No. 1 out—carefully! Then summon those repair technicians! Heavy rewards for whoever fixes it!”

All the repair technicians were called to the hall, utterly confused.

The City Lord stood on the high staircase platform, looking down at them.

Xie Jianxun followed in, equally baffled.

Delin said seriously: “So solemn—did he finally grow a conscience and decide to pay us wages?!”

Xie Jianxun thought about it and figured it unlikely.

Then he heard the City Lord announce: “Everyone, it’s your turn to step up and save our shared home. Here we have a batch of damaged Star Annihilation Energy Cannons—whoever can repair them gets to make one request to the City Lord’s Mansion, and I’ll fulfill it unconditionally!”