Chapter 417: Punishment and Suspension |
No one expected Peter from the Suroma Team to suddenly launch a fatal sneak attack, and the target of that attack was actually his own team captain, Adam.
Only Amanda, who happened to be standing beside Adam, caught a glimpse of Peter gathering lightning in her peripheral vision. She detected it in time and blocked this thunderous strike for Adam in the first moment.
The price paid was her own life.
Adam stared at Amanda, who had lost all signs of life, his mind a complete blank.
He half-knelt, grasping Amanda's hand. "How could this happen..."
"Although I don't know why you all teleported into the church, it seems he's the one who leaked the main force's teleportation location and time to the Fire Thief Worship Cult."
Guan Tong's voice sounded beside him. Adam's heart jolted, and he looked up ahead.
Earlier, when Adam and Guan Tong's group were comparing accounts, Peter knew he would inevitably be exposed once things were laid out clearly. He chose to strike first, to eliminate Adam, the biggest threat, with a sneak attack.
But he never expected Amanda would actually block the attack for him. His sudden assault failed to achieve its goal. When he tried to flee, he found Silver Fox already blocking his escape route.
"So you're the traitor who sold us out!"
"This beast, kill him!"
Everyone was furious. Peter, realizing he couldn't escape now, couldn't help but curse viciously. "Those two useless fools, Bake and Hess! I gave them the time and location in advance, and they still failed, letting you heretics live!"
Hearing this, everyone immediately understood he was also a member of the Fire Thief Worship Cult.
Furthermore, judging by his use of "useless fools" to describe the two bishops, his status within the cult must be quite high.
Someone exclaimed in shock, "Could you be Your Holiness?!"
"Your Holiness could never be someone like me, hmph."
As he spoke, Peter tore off the combat uniform he was wearing, revealing the red-belted black robe underneath.
Many people instantly drew sharp breaths.
"So you're also a bishop!"
Within the Fire Thief Worship Cult, beneath Your Holiness are four bishops.
The identities of these four, along with Your Holiness, are secret, unknown to the outside world. It was only after Hess voluntarily stepped forward to claim responsibility for the bombing attacks that people learned the name and appearance of one of the four.
Earlier, during the trap with the formation set by the Action Team, besides Hess, another bishop with invisibility ability and a youthful physique appeared, named Bake.
But none of them expected that besides these two bishops, there was another one hidden within their own ranks, concealed within the Suroma Team!
Yang Ran wore an expression of disbelief. "How did the Suroma Team select its members? Why would they let a cultist into the team?!"
His question echoed the thoughts of everyone else.
Did Suroma not conduct detailed security background checks on their team members?
You have to understand, the other countries sent Ascendants with the highest level of official trust. There's no reason Suroma wouldn't do the same.
"Your Excellency Bishop! Your Excellency Bishop!"
"Your Excellency Bishop, save us!"
"Kill all these heretics, Your Excellency Bishop!"
The cultists in the cathedral ruins who hadn't been crushed to death and had crawled out, seeing Peter reveal his identity, pleaded and begged desperately.
Hearing this, Peter's face showed disdain. "I don't have time to care about..."
Before he could finish speaking, he suddenly felt the air around his body rapidly compress. His expression changed drastically.
It was Adam's invisible force field!
"Thunderous Ten-Thousand Jun Spear!"
Extremely dazzling lightning erupted from his body, rapidly coalescing into a spear of lightning.
He thrust the spear upward. For a moment, lightning flashed and thunder roared, an incredibly spectacular sight!
This was his most powerful move. The lightning spear could release ultra-high voltage electricity in an instant, enough to shatter any obstruction or attack from others.
He didn't test the waters; he went straight for his ultimate move because he knew probing was meaningless against an enemy like Adam.
Use the ultimate move to destroy the force field first, then use the teleportation-type item... Huh?!
Peter was shocked to discover his lightning spear was actually blocked by that invisible force field, unable to advance an inch.
"This is impossible!" Peter roared in fury and shock, looking at Adam. "You killed so many priests and acolytes inside the church, and you expanded your force field on a large scale to protect several people when the building collapsed! You can't possibly have that much Mind Power left!"
Hearing this, everyone also felt a chill.
Since Peter was the mole, he must have been slacking off, conserving his Mind Power the whole time, waiting to erupt suddenly when he betrayed them.
And Adam, completely unaware of this, actually still had enough remaining Mind Power to overpower Peter...
Guan Tong didn't make a move at this moment. He looked at Adam, who was half-kneeling on the ground, holding Amanda's hand. An indescribable aura was emanating from the latter.
This familiar feeling... Guan Tong's heart stirred. He immediately understood the change happening within Adam.
He knew that at this moment, Adam's Mind Power upper limit had broken through one thousand points, entering the Second Stage of Ascension!
"I'm sorry, Amanda..."
Adam wasn't paying attention to Peter's roars at this moment. He spoke softly to his departed wife.
"It's my fault... I shouldn't have agreed to the king from the start, shouldn't have carried out his mission."
"Adam!!"
Peter was both furious and terrified now. He couldn't understand. Was the gap in their strength really that huge? He had preserved over ninety percent of his Mind Power and was going all out, yet he still couldn't match Adam who had been fighting intensely for so long?
The scene became eerily quiet for a moment. The reason others didn't act seemed to stem from an unspoken understanding.
They wanted Adam to personally deal with Peter, this traitor and the murderer of his wife.
At that moment, Adam took off the headset through which the Senator's voice was coming, crushed it underfoot, picked up Amanda, and looked at Peter, who was filled with terror and panic.
"The most unforgivable thing is betrayal. A traitor should suffer the most painful punishment."
"What are you going to do?!"
Thinking of Adam's ability, Peter's face instantly turned deathly pale.
Adam spoke word by word. "Fifty times. Gravity."
"AHHHHHHHHHHHHH!"
After the ability activated, an extremely horrifying scene unfolded.
With fifty times gravity applied to his body, amidst Peter's agonized screams, large clouds of blood mist erupted from his entire body. Mixed with blood, it cascaded down with a "splash." Even the sturdiest bones in his body snapped brittlely under the terrifying gravitational field, emitting bone-chilling "crack, crack" sounds.
In just a few seconds, Peter transformed from a tall young man over 1.8 meters tall into a mixture of bone fragments and blood water splattered across the church ruins.
The vast majority of those present felt their hearts tremble with fear. Even Bai Xuewu, who had fought alongside Adam several times, showed horror on her face—during the battles in the Black Flag Country, she had never seen Adam use such a cruel method to eliminate an enemy.
Guan Tong's eyes widened slightly. This was also the first time he had witnessed Adam's ability to manipulate force fields. It was indeed terrifyingly powerful.
With Peter dead, the other cultists were quickly exterminated by the Action Team.
But the only heavyweight members who died were the two bishops, Hess and Peter. The other bishop, Bake, used his invisibility ability to escape. As for the remaining bishop and Your Holiness, their whereabouts were unknown; they simply weren't inside the church at all.
On the Action Team's side, counting Amanda, two were dead, one was severely injured, and one was lightly injured. Looking at the results, the operation could be said to be a complete failure.
But this failure wasn't due to shortcomings in combat; it was because there were huge problems from the mission intelligence to the team members themselves.
In fact, this was already a stroke of luck amidst misfortune!
If Guan Tong hadn't broken the formation, the outcome of this mission would most likely have been the complete annihilation of the Action Team!
If the numerous high-potential elite Ascendants gathered from various countries had all died here, one could imagine how severe the consequences would be.
At that point, forget about presenting a united front against external threats. Once the Fire Thief Worship Cult publicized information about the mole and other intelligence, the Human Consortium might even reach a point where member nations no longer trusted each other internally. That would be the real crisis. Building trust in an international organization is difficult, but destroying it is easy!
Someone had to take responsibility for this failure.
Everything that happened on-site was already known in the operations room.
Li Meng's voice sounded in Guan Tong's earpiece. "Guan Tong, with the mission intelligence leaked, the enemy leader, Your Holiness, has probably already relocated. Continuing the search is futile. All team leaders have agreed to abort the mission. Bring everyone back."
"The intelligence leak and the mole issue need to be thoroughly investigated," Guan Tong said. "Everyone almost got killed. This can't be covered up as a simple mistake."
"Don't worry, this matter will definitely be investigated thoroughly. The Human Consortium will definitely demand an explanation from Suroma."