The Systemic Lands

Chapter 323: Day 735 – Tears Of Blood

Chapter 323: Day 735 – Tears Of Blood

I had a skip in my step as we made our way back to the meeting point. We had left the day previously right after I was done with grinding. I had managed to get just over 20 million points worth of crystals. More than enough for an extra bribe, or payment, to be shown how to work the airboat.

Once the Forbidden City was robbed, I wouldn’t have time to sort it all out myself. And if the instructions were written in Chinese, then it was very easy for Bao Wang to lie about something to take me out.

I also wanted enough leeway in case there were complications. A miracle had fallen into my lap and I was going to squeeze it for everything it was worth. The information of an entire evil empire was nothing to laugh at. They probably had stolen or traded information with the United City States that had been in the East before Purgatory.

The first thing I would need to do was to translate the information and memorize everything I could. Once the heist began, there would be no time to consult a strategy guide. I would have to make split second decisions and control the flow of combat.

Before I had been on the fence about the entire thing, even thinking about calling it off. The risk was too high and the Divine Empress too dangerous. Now that I knew she was missing for a long time, her evil empire was collapsing, and I would have top level inside information, it was very possible to pull off the greatest heist ever.

Even back on Earth, the greatest heists had only been in the millions of dollars. This would be billions of points. It would be very tight on the airboat, but even if we flew out of the city very slow or low to the ground it was fine. We could just fly over a level 3 zone and lose most of the people to fighting monsters.

Also, I was more than happy to engage in a battle of attrition. My Regeneration stat was my second highest stat after Spirit. It would be annoying and frustrating, but we just needed to get to another city so I could cash in the crystals.

The strength of the regular soldiers and Lords was nothing compared to me. I could easily wipe out anyone who got in my way.

I crested the hill and froze. My heat plummeted. The airboat was there, but it was smashed apart. WHY?! Who would do something so horrible and evil? I made sure to check with my Sense stat, but I didn’t see anyone wandering around or hiding.

I approached with Bao Wang pulling the cart. There were some low level monsters that I easily killed and reached the ruined airboat. It was partially burnt, and the wooden bottom had been smashed open on the ground. The blimp part at the top was a burnt-out husk.

I leapt up onto the deck. I found the Chief Diviner and winced. His hands and feet were smashed. His balls were shoved into his eye sockets and his entrails pulled out in front of him.

Taking a deep breath, I looked around again and made sure not to disturb anything. “Bao Wang, wait a bit,” I called out. He gave an affirmative. I put on my headlamp to better see.

The first rule of a crime scene was observe everything and just take in the information. There were no footprints or markings from the blood and entrails. The blood was about a day old. I had seen enough to make an estimate.

Dammit! A day late. This was a disaster. The Chief Diviner was resting with his back against the single mast from the main deck up to the wire frame that the blimp portion was held in. So he was facing the front of the boat.

He wasn’t naked, but his clothes had been cut open. Behind the mast, there were various rods. I didn’t touch them for now. There was a small cabin behind the controls at the rear of the airboat. I paused before opening the door and moved my hand back.

Why would someone leave the Chief Diviner like this? It felt like a trap. Some idiot from the Empire comes along and checks the cabin, bomb goes off, takes the idiot who was investigating. I went to the side of the door and very carefully pushed my finger through the wood paneling.

It was tough, but it slowly gave way. No explosion. I looked inside the hole. There were two beds, one on either side of the small cabin, and the engine behind a partially destroyed folding panel at the back of the room.

I put my finger back in the hole and slowly moved my finger in a circle, making the hole bigger. There was wire attached to the door knob and a box on the floor in the middle of the cabin. I knew it. I quickly made the hole much bigger.

Once the hole was big enough, I entered the cabin. I looked at the box. There were screws on top and a small hole for the wire. It was the size of a shoebox and all metal. I did not have any confidence in disarming the bomb. But it would be amazing if I could take it apart and learn how it was made. I couldn’t sense anything from it either which was very concerning.

The beds were wrecked along with the chests underneath them. Any supplies had been removed. I went to the engine. It was a large metal block with a short pillar stick out sideways. I touched the pillar.

Engine 251,528/10,000,000

I could deposit points into the engine to fuel it. But no taking points out unfortunately. There was a small hatch on the floor under the bomb. I shook my head at that and left the cabin. I broken open the side to check underneath the airboat there was nothing in the hull.

That was everything and I did another check on every single aspect of the airboat. I went back on the airboat and inspected the Chief Diviner and very carefully began to remove his clothing. There were no traps. My heart soared.

There was my book hidden inside his robes. I carefully removed the book, and my heart began to plummet. It was soaked in blood. Lots and lots of blood. I set it on the deck and opened it up. The pages stuck together. It was impossible to make out any of the writing on the inside.

What a tease. I checked every page, but it was completely ruined. There weren’t even enough markings to indicate what the writing had been. I let out a sigh of frustration. I looked over the wounds on the Chief Diviner.

They were cuts from a blade and he was clearly posed and the bomb set up. That bomb wasn’t something Clarissa had developed as far as I knew, but technology could have progressed as part of the war effort.

I got off the airboat and went over to the cart to get some water to drink and think. I drank slowly from one of my flasks and thought over the situation.

“He is dead?” Bao Wang asked me.

“Yes.” I had an important question I realized I had never asked him. I had always just assumed there were only two nations fighting. Purgatory and the evil empire. But the Astrologer had mentioned Normandy to the North.

“Are there any other nations besides the Dragon Empire and the East?” I asked Bao Wang. He thought about that for a bit.

“I am not sure. There might be. But I didn’t get a briefing on anything besides the East and told to manage the city I was put in charge of. There could be,” Bao Wang said. Just great. Other people were now involved in this conflict.

The simple fact was that this was not the work of the Envoy. The Chief Diviner would have just been taken away or killed. It didn’t make sense to leave him as a statement. Unless he was tortured and gave up that he was revealing information.

But the book hadn’t been shown and it appeared he didn’t struggle much, the lack of blood splatter around his corpse and the airboat was the clue.

The airship had been brought down. He probably tried to escape. That would explain the wrecked hull. Then the Chief Diviner was quickly killed. Everything was removed from the airboat after he was killed and the trap was put in place.

Would the Envoy do this? It was hard to say. But it just didn’t feel like the evil empire. They were blunt and about just unrelenting brutality. Traps were for the people who were losing. Also, the Envoy would have to get back here, and the Chief Diviner thought he had time.

The bomb was the major clue. I would need to disarm it to get answers. This felt like a horrible idea. I had no idea on the principles it was working under, and my Sense stat was picking up nothing. But one did not have a mental box with a wire attached to a doorknob, if it wasn’t a bomb.

It would operate on principles of energy, which I was a novice. This was the kind of thing I needed the Astrologer for. I would need to disassemble it in place. Also I would need to separate the engine from the airship. I had no idea what would happen if the bomb’s explosion struck the engine, but I didn’t imagine it was anything good.

I would need to think really carefully if I wanted to risk the bomb. But it might be possible to salvage or even repair the airboat. I hadn’t messed with the controls at all. If it could be salvaged, then I would lean more towards making the disarming attempt.

Getting back up on the airboat I went over to the control panel. There were three rods sticking out in a row. I touched the one on the left. I only needed one hand unlike the store and engine pillars to get information.

Lift: Up/Down

Warning: Critical Damage To Lift Function

That wasn’t good. Probably the blimp part of the airboat. I checked the middle rod.

Engine Thrust: Center/Right/Left/Up/Down

That was the primary control mechanism. It was easy to understand. I could adjust the nozzle at the back of the engine block that was built into the back of the cabin. I checked the far right rod.

Engine Power: 0/1/2/4

Engine: Powered

No idea what those numbers represented. But I could guess the bigger the number the faster the airboat went. Also, the faster it would burn through points most likely. I looked up at the burnt-out bag that used to be above the wooden hull.

It was something that I couldn’t just slap something there to repair the airboat. It was completely non-functional and the fact that whoever had killed the Chief Diviner hadn’t salvaged the airboat, even though they could make a bomb, clearly meant they thought it wasn’t worthwhile, or they wanted to lure someone in and kill them.

There were a lot of unknowns. But whoever had done this was going to die horribly. They had been put on the list of people who needed a good melting. I might not know who they are, but they were on it.