141: Chapter 141 All Involved

"The mechanical pod exploded during the descent?" the Branch President was the first to break the silence, asking.

"According to the last images transmitted from inside the pod, it seems... during the descent, the mechanical pod collided violently with an unidentified object, causing severe damage to the outer hull."

The operator said, sounding somewhat incredulous.

After speaking, he quickly operated the equipment, retrieving the final footage sent from inside the mechanical pod and projecting it onto the massive surveillance screen.

On the screen, the outer shell of the mechanical pod could be seen twisting and deforming instantly, while the Giant-Multiplier Man imprisoned within was crushed until he vomited blood. Immediately after, the image spun wildly, accompanied by a blinding flash of light, before the feed was lost.

"What on earth did it hit?" the Branch President asked again, his expression grave.

To ensure nothing went wrong, before the Hero Association transported these Transcendent criminals from Prison City, they not only injected them with large amounts of drugs to suppress their physical activity but also used top-tier materials for the shells of the mechanical pods used for transport, which were unimaginably hard.

Previous rigorous testing had shown that even if the mechanical pod fell rapidly from tens of thousands of meters in the air to the ground, it would suffer almost no damage.

With such a sturdy mechanical pod, what on earth could it have collided with to cause this level of damage?

"That is unclear... there are no recording devices on the exterior of the mechanical pod," the operator replied with a helpless expression.

As the mechanical pod was a vehicle for quickly transporting prisoners to designated locations, naturally, no recording equipment was installed on the outside.

Installing cameras inside each mechanical pod was only for monitoring the status of each prisoner.

However, to be able to destroy a mechanical pod in mid-air required at least the strength of a top B-Rank Hero.

The Hero Association had equipment capable of detecting the location of every officially registered Transcendent within the entire region.

They had previously scanned C City and confirmed that no registered Transcendents existed within it.

Analyzing all aspects of the situation, the most likely possibility for destroying the mechanical pod at high altitude...

...was the Monster named Chen Moxuan, whom Wan Chaoren had specifically targeted for elimination in this operation.

"What exactly is the background of this Monster named Chen Moxuan?"

The Branch President turned his gaze toward Wan Chaoren and asked cautiously.

Previously, he had seen Wan Chaoren's dark expression and dared not rashly ask for too many details.

But now that the situation had developed to this point, he had no choice but to bite the bullet and ask.

The definition of a Monster had actually always been very vague.

A Monster could be an alien race, a Transcendent criminal, or even an antisocial Awakener.

Generally speaking, anyone who openly opposed the Hero Association and posed a substantial threat to public order would be defined as a Monster.

In the eyes of the general public, Monsters were a group completely opposed to Heroes.

They were extremely dangerous, like walking disasters; wherever they went, they would inevitably destroy everything around them until it was unrecognizable.

In a sense, a Monster was more like an opposing image deliberately established by the Hero Association to maintain its own authority.

Originally, the Branch President thought that this Chen Moxuan had merely offended Wan Chaoren over some matter.

Thus, he was defined as a Monster by Wan Chaoren, who wanted to get rid of him directly under the guise of the event.

If Chen Moxuan were a potential Awakener, perhaps even reaching B-Rank or higher, then the situation would be completely different.

The Branch President did not yet know the deeper reasons behind this, but he did know that in the eyes of the Superpower Association, the value of an Awakener was far higher than that of Transcendents who were born with Special Abilities.

It was precisely because of this that even though Wang Puchuan had repeatedly harmed the Hero Association over the years, other heroes could at most feel resentful and ostracize or suppress him behind his back, yet they could do nothing about him.

As long as an Awakener did not do anything too outrageous, the Superpower Association would gladly accept them whenever they wanted to register as a Transcendent.

Even if some Awakeners were unwilling to register and did not want to formally join the Transcendent system, the Superpower Association would fully respect their personal wishes and never force them.

In the Dazhou Nation, such examples were not uncommon.

After all, most Awakeners had spent over a decade, or even several decades, as ordinary people living mundane lives.

It was understandable that they would find it difficult to adapt to such a huge shift in identity and status for a while.

Faced with such huge changes, some Awakeners inevitably developed somewhat eccentric personalities.

They might choose to hide among ordinary people, give themselves chuunibyou-esque titles like 'Dragon King,' and play out the trope of enduring and biding their time before stunning everyone with a sudden display of power.

Toward these types of Awakeners, the Superpower Association always maintained a highly tolerant attitude, giving them enough time and space to slowly adapt to this brand-new identity.

Once they grew tired of playing, they would naturally realize the wonders of the Transcendent system, and it would not be too late to invite them to join then.

As long as they did not kill other high-Rank Transcendents or become core members of anti-Transcendent organizations.

The Superpower Association had always been very magnanimous toward Awakeners.

Of course, besides this, there was another type of person called Other-Soul Beings.

The Branch President did not have a deep understanding of Other-Soul Beings, knowing only a little bit.

However, there was one thing he was very clear about, and that was that the Superpower Association's attitude toward Other-Soul Beings was extremely special.

No matter what kind of mistakes an Other-Soul Being committed, the Superpower Association would try every possible means and spare no effort to recruit them.

Facing the Branch President's question, Wan Chaoren's eyelids twitched.

Background? He would rather know where this ant named Chen Moxuan had popped out from.

Back then, with that one punch, he had clearly felt the other party's internal organs suffer heavy damage, and their heartbeat had stopped as a result.

Yet shortly after, news suddenly broke that the other party had survived.

However, at that time, he had already learned from his assistant that his good-for-nothing younger brother had unauthorizedly instructed the assistant to arrange for Chen Moxuan to be admitted to the Qingqiu Psychiatric Hospital, which was controlled by Nightmare.

He thought that once inside that place, the ant would never be able to walk out in this lifetime, so he didn't pay any more attention to the matter.

But who could have imagined that just two days later, news came again that the ant had been discharged from the Qingqiu Psychiatric Hospital completely unscathed.

However, in his eyes, Chen Moxuan was still an insignificant ant, and he couldn't be bothered to personally take action to crush him to death.

But the existence of this ant also made him feel a trace of displeasure.

Therefore, that afternoon, he proposed at the relevant meeting that C City be chosen as the venue for the Continental Carnival.

Who knew that within a short two hours after the meeting ended, he received a video.

From the video, he learned that his good-for-nothing younger brother had died miserably at the hands of that ant, and even more, from the fact that the tracking mechanism hadn't been triggered, he learned that the ant was an Other-Soul Being!

This meant that if he didn't crush this ant to death as soon as possible, in the future, this ant might even climb onto his head!

This was absolutely not allowed!

Wan Chaoren took a deep breath and gave the answer he had prepared in advance:

"This Monster has a close relationship with the previously wanted Madman Society cadre; I suspect he is also one of the Madman Society's cadres.

The official, nationwide broadcast of the Continental Carnival is about to begin. To prevent this Monster from plotting anything in secret, we must race against time to eradicate him as soon as possible and eliminate future trouble."

"It actually has to do with the Madman Society?!" the Branch President exclaimed.

The Madman Society was an organization that had only begun to emerge in the Dazhou Nation in recent years and had quickly been listed by the Superpower Association as the most dangerous antisocial organization.

Previously, the Madman Society's scope of activity had always been outside of G District, until recently, when traces of activity vaguely appeared in G District.

If he was a cadre of the Madman Society, even an Awakener would inevitably end up on the wanted list.

"The time for the nationwide broadcast of the Continental Carnival has already been set and cannot be changed, but because of the barrier, Heroes are currently unable to enter the interior..."

The Branch President only then realized the purpose of Wan Chaoren's temporary proposal for the warm-up event.

"So, this is the main purpose of the warm-up event—to hunt down this Monster?"

Wan Chaoren nodded: "That's right. I originally thought Giant-Multiplier Man would be enough to deal with this Monster, but it seems these prisoners have stayed in Prison City too long and are somewhat useless."

Listening to these words, the Branch President inwardly grumbled:

"After injecting so many suppressants, you'd be useless too if it were you..."

Suddenly, Wang Puchuan, who had been standing to the side listening quietly, pondered for a moment and suggested:

"In my opinion, the situation is special, so don't worry about the subsequent development of the event; let's just send in the two prepared A-Rank prisoners and the eight B-Rank prisoners all at once."

"Let's go straight to the climax of the warm-up event."