Sacred Souls: Genesis
Chapter 590 - 569: Beautiful Woman (4000 words)

Chapter 590: Chapter 569: Beautiful Woman (4000 words)

The person offering "milk for free" had an extensive network, as did Jiang Qiao, yet when it came to gaming in the dark, most would still choose their old acquaintances.

So the faces involved in this major heist were still those familiar to Jiang Qiao.

Firstly, the participants were divided into four teams, each consisting of five members.

The first team was the hostage control group, comprising the person offering "milk for free," Jiang Qiao, Can Xin the president of Abyss Temple, as well as Silver Boss and a nameless casual player.

Silver Boss joined the team primarily because he was very interested in the heist series of missions, and the team convened by the person offering "milk for free" was making the fastest progress, so Silver Boss chose to join as a nonchalant player.

Not to say that he was loafing, as a street fighter, he was fairly skilled at controlling hostages, although guessing a bit technologically, Silver Boss at least put in some effort to practice.

The second team was the guard control group, whose job was to incapacitate all the guards in the Filling Sanctuary vault, aiming for a one-hit kill.

This group included an assassin player from the Cola Fanatics, Juan Canyun, and three experts who preferred to keep their names unknown.

The third group was the external response group... broadly speaking, their job was to delay the Hunters who tried to enter the vault as long as possible, and they would join the third group once the second group had completed their task.

Zhao Mingwei was one of the members of this group, alongside Black Pot Stew Meat and Fluffy Bunny, and likewise two anonymous players.

The fourth group was the most critical part, the vault looting group, tasked simply with stealing the loot.

This group consisted of White Emperor, who was brought in by Zhao Mingwei, the blasting genius Lu Wei from the Titans team who had been missing for a long time, and the technicians Little Feather and Fading Star Scripter Team.

"Listen up, all the staff in the Silent Vault are synthetics, they are all machines. I know some of you Spirits with overflowing emotions will say machines have feelings too, but this time it’s serious! If those machines show any resistance, eliminate them!"

As the main planner of this robbery, Drake was giving a psychological briefing to this team of Spirits.

"The most important thing is that these synthetics have no hostage value; the key is the guests in the vault! You should be able to distinguish who are guests and who are useless synthetics... You surely know more about the details of the Silent Vault than I do! Alright! It’s time for a practical lesson!"

With a wave of his hand, Drake instantly opened the portal to the Filling Sanctuary.

The Filling Sanctuary was accessible to all life on the star map, so to invade the Filling Sanctuary, only the simplest Governor’s authority was sufficient.

This bank heist mission required a quick run.

A quick run was the only option.

The super spatial shielding device created by the Sustainable Sanctuary could only maintain a barrier for twenty minutes.

During these twenty minutes, the Hunters of the Filling Sanctuary would be unable to use teleportation to reach the vault; they would have to make their way on foot.

The team led by the person offering "milk for free" had to find the water of the Forgotten River in the vault within these twenty minutes and evade the pursuing army to return to Biland Island.

Every preparation for the operation was thoroughly complete, except for the potential mishap of an Eternal level guest being among the vault’s customers.

Dealing with such a high-level presence would be troublesome enough, let alone taking them hostage.

Therefore, as soon as Jiang Qiao, a member of the hostage control group, passed through the portal and entered the vault’s main hall, he immediately scanned the lifeforms in the entire vault with his reconnaissance magic.

The highest level of the vault guards was merely eighty-nine, while the levels of the guests generally ranged between forty and sixty.

In an ordinary realm, this might already be considered a Transcendent existence, but in the presence of these Spirits, it still seemed somewhat insufficient.

The opulent vault hall paused for a moment due to the arrival of this gang of Spirit robbers, seemingly unclear about the purpose of these Spirits who had suddenly appeared.

Jiang Qiao, however, took a more direct approach, detonating his fire spirit magic overhead as soon as he entered the vault, causing an explosion.

The energy of the Devouring God spread out from the explosion, shattering all surrounding glass.

No matter if the glass was enchanted with a Magic Barrier or made of special materials, in the face of the Devouring God’s power, it proved to be frail.

At the very instant the surrounding glass shattered, the guests inside the vault hall finally realized something was amiss. However, by the time they grasped the situation, the guards inside the vault had all been taken out.

"This is a robbery, ladies and gentlemen, do you understand?"

Jiang Qiao’s hands produced another new fire spirit, the glow of which illuminated his smiling face as he looked toward the guests who had been gathered by the hostage control team.

There were a total of fifteen guests in the hall, and judging by the reactions of the synthetic servers around them, some of these guests likely were high-status, important clients.

"A robbery? Do you fools know whose things you are stealing?"

One burly guest, unafraid of Jiang Qiao’s threat, stood up with an ax in his hand, seemingly ready to confront Jiang Qiao.

"I am aware, it’s either the property of Filling Sanctuary or the stuff of the Annihilation Legion, and... I also know one more thing," Jiang Qiao said as he pointed at the burly guest. "I know that some of you are not afraid to die."

"Then let’s not waste words!"

The guest raised his ax, but the very moment he lifted it above his head, his body’s movements froze in place.

A deep blue angelic insignia appeared behind him. This was the ’Spiritual Blessing’ skill, which usually enhanced the intelligence and spirit attributes of allies.

However, ’Spiritual Blessing’ had been discovered to have a different use—significantly speeding up the thought processes of other life forms, creating an effect close to immobilization.

Due to its enhancement effect, it could last up to five minutes, but the downside was that it could only control a single NPC with relatively weak mental resistance at one time.

This one... must be the case.

"Anyone else want to give it a try? Next time I won’t guarantee your lives," Jiang Qiao said, poking his head out from behind the immobilized guest, addressing the group of hostages.

They all uniformly shook their heads while looking at this group of robbers wearing rainbow unicorn masks with a gaze torn between horror and regarding someone as insane.

"All hostages in the hall are under control. The other two teams, report your status."

The puppet master of the operation, Silver Chief, began to check the progress of the other teams.

"Team three, no problems. The enemy’s response is slower than expected. Team two has joined up," Zhao Mingwei was the first to respond to Silver Chief.

"Team four has infiltrated the interior of the vault. By the way, ’White Simpleton’ is quite useful as a humanoid radar! Found it, found it! The vault containing our primary targets. Boss... if we blow this place up, can we snatch some other stuff?"

The second reply came from Lu Wei of the Titan Team, which made Silver Chief’s brow furrow slightly. Normally, the commander of team four should be ’Little Feather.’

But Lu Wei was naturally ignorant of concepts like rules and order.

"The structure inside the vault is very fragile, be careful to avoid a collapse like the one that happened during practice," Silver Chief cautioned Lu Wei, the erratic. Originally, when raiding dungeons in dark gaming sessions, Lu Wei had blown up the entire vault out of greed for the rewards.

"Don’t worry, I’m a professional! Professional means I know what to blow up and what not to," Lu Wei replied.

So this meant... that incident blowing up the entire vault was intentional?

Silver Chief sighed and exchanged a look with Jiang Qiao, who was communicating with the guests at a distance.

"What’s wrong?" Jiang Qiao asked.

"We might need an important hostage for our escape, one so crucial that even Filling Sanctuary’s Hunters wouldn’t dare to attack us carelessly."

Silver Chief had a premonition early on. Like ’Spiritual Blessing,’ he knew the raiding actions of the past month were simulations by the system, but this time was the real Filling Sanctuary heist.

Real meant that unexpected situations could arise. Although the escape routes and methods had been rehearsed countless times by the team, Silver Chief still needed to add an extra layer of insurance.

"Is there really a guest among these people that could make the Hunters hesitate to shoot?" Jiang Qiao was skeptical about this.

The reason hostages were useful now was that Filling Sanctuary wanted to maintain its reputation on the star chart, but individual hostages likely didn’t carry that sort of... significant importance that Filling Sanctuary would dread.

"Yes." Silver crossed over the hostages and came to a woman sitting on a sofa.

She appeared to be a woman in her thirties, her deep brown skin and light grey long hair exuding a wild beauty from head to toe. Since the start of the heist, she had been sitting on the sofa, lazily smoking a silver pipe.

"Would this lady be willing to come with us for a while?" Silver extended the invitation to the special female with a gentlemanly demeanor.

Jiang Qiao’s scouting technique revealed that her level was forty, identifying her as a member of the divine race.

"Why choose me?" she asked, showing no sign of panic, but rather looking at Silver with an intriguing gaze.

"When we appeared, the only person those Hunters seemed interested in protecting was you," Silver replied.

"Interesting, but you’re not up to it... Let that little fellow invite me, and I might agree."

She seemed totally unaware of her hostage status, and with her silver pipe, she pointed directly at Jiang Qiao.

"Little... little fellow?" It was the first time Jiang Qiao had been addressed this way.

"President Jiang Qiao, bear with it," Silver said to Jiang Qiao through the voice channel.

Jiang Qiao, not one to fuss over such matters, walked up to the grey-haired beauty.

"Come with us..." Before Jiang Qiao could finish the invitation, she suddenly extended her hand... Watching closely for a long time, the one offering milk without extra charge immediately took out their crucifix.

But Jiang Qiao raised his hand to signal not to get excited. She showed no intention of attacking and completely disregarded the one offering milk without extra charge, going straight for Jiang Qiao’s rainbow unicorn mask.

With a somewhat cool touch, she grazed Jiang Qiao’s cheek, a satisfied expression on her face as if she had seen some exquisite collectible before retracting her hand.

"Perhaps I may walk with you for a while, Spirit," she said after stroking Jiang Qiao’s cheek, not taking any further action.

The one offering milk without extra charge still looked at her with a somewhat terrifying gaze, but at that moment, the chat channel announced that the fourth group had completed their task and the target vault had been completely emptied.

"Time to leave," Silver glanced at the time—just under seven minutes.

This pace was so swift it nearly broke their fastest record, but it wouldn’t truly be a new record unless they left without a hitch.

The retreat, however, was easier than Silver expected, with not a single Hunter obstructing their way.

This feeling... was almost as if they were handed the contents of the vault on a silver platter.

Everyone in the team felt something was off, but this feeling persisted until all members had safely reached the evacuation point and stepped through the portal one by one.

Until... only Jiang Qiao, the one offering milk without extra charge, and Zhao Mingwei were left.

Zhao Mingwei was the first to react. The state of Dragon and Tiger Howl enveloped him instantly, and he threw an unforgiving punch at the grey-haired beauty who should have been a hostage.

But it was futile... a deep grey aura enveloped Zhao Mingwei, and his figure vanished from in front of Jiang Qiao.

"President!" The one offering milk without extra charge also realized something was wrong, but Jiang Qiao pushed her into the evacuation portal ahead of him.

The portal disappeared in an instant, leaving only Jiang Qiao and the grey-haired, brown-skinned woman standing face to face.

"Is this the usual plot? The hostage is the hidden BOSS?"

Jiang Qiao scrutinized the opponent again, whose strength was so great it deceived Jiang Qiao’s scouting technique!

In theory, this was impossible, as even an Eternal could not evade the scouting technique of the Devouring God.

When Jiang Qiao used his scouting technique on her again... a name emerged that made cold sweat bead on Jiang Qiao’s forehead.

’Lord of Annihilation•Hera’

Level: "?"

"Don’t look at me with that kind of eyes, you’re the most dangerous existence on the star map, the newly born Devouring God." She took a deep puff from the pipe in her hand, looking at Jiang Qiao with eyes filled with irony, "This time, your followers were stronger than I expected, but still no match for me."

"Are you flagging right now?"

Jiang Qiao hadn’t expected to meet the final boss face to face in this manner, the Lord of Annihilation... In Jiang Qiao’s mind, it should have been something akin to a Planet Devourer.

Who knew it would be this kind of exotically beautiful woman.

"Flag? A banner... Is it slang from your Primordial Planet?"

Her words gradually made Jiang Qiao’s expression grow solemn.

The reason why Jiang Qiao had listed the Annihilation Legions as a must-destroy enemy... was because they knew Spirit came from Blue Star, and their goal was to destroy Blue Star!

Other enemies were more intent on destroying Spirit itself.

"Don’t look so serious, I’ve already got quite a few copies of primordial planes in my collection, and I’m not actually very interested in yours." Her lips curved slightly upwards, her eyes on Jiang Qiao not so much like looking at an enemy, but rather like cherishing a treasured pet.

"Collection... item?"

"Yes, collectables." She took another deep drag from her silver pipe, exhaling smoke that carried a strange fragrance, forming the emblem of the Annihilation Legion, "My followers all think... that I treat those planes as food, needing to draw the power of the life forms on those planes to send them to battle."

"But that’s the evil you commit, Devouring God... Swallowing planes is your hobby, not mine."

"So you let the Annihilation Legions rampage across the star map, burning, killing, and looting, just to satisfy your... collecting mania?" At that moment, Jiang Qiao started to speak with a sarcastic tone as well.

"I don’t have the widespread sympathy that you do, Devouring God... You’re the only one of your kind on the star map. If you put this on and become my property, I might consider sparing your Primordial Planet."

She presented a very exquisite collar, and at that instant, Jiang Qiao realized she had indeed treated him like a pet.

"Goodbye." Jiang Qiao knew she was attempting to coax him to defect, but the battle hadn’t started yet... Who will win or lose was still uncertain.

"You should thank that Ascended Being." The collar in her hand disappeared, as if she anticipated Jiang Qiao’s refusal, "If it hadn’t been for that Ascended Being, my followers would already be on their way to destroy you."

"That’s truly fortunate." Jiang Qiao still responded to her dismissively.

"Your true bodies are not here, so you can be so boldly confident, Devouring God... My last piece of advice for you is that your only chance of winning is to consume that Ascended Being, giving you a chance to contend with me."

She didn’t intend to communicate further with Jiang Qiao, knowing it would be futile to continue. As the space beside her showed signs of breaking, she disappeared in the swirling smoke before Jiang Qiao’s eyes.

In her place, Zhao Mingwei broke through the limitations of the Exile Space and charged out, kneeling on the ground, gasping for breath with a look of exhaustion.

Zhao Mingwei’s magic had been completely depleted.

"Are you okay?" Jiang Qiao walked up to Zhao Mingwei and asked.

"I’m fine." Zhao Mingwei wiped the sweat from his cheek, pursing his lips as if lost in thought.

"Aren’t you going to ask who that beautiful NPC was?"

"Would it help us win against her if I did?"

Zhao Mingwei’s response was akin to asking the game developer, as if saying, would you have some cheat for me if I asked?

"No, you can’t."

This was something Jiang Qiao was certain of.

"Then let’s go back, Guild Leader... It’s time to curb the spread of those Void Swarms."