South Heaven Gate city tower.
Clutching the Jade Tablet, General Lee was already drenched in cold sweat.
"How could you be so reckless? Didn't I warn you long ago that Monkey was in the Dharma-Quest Kingdom? Why did you still lead your troops in pursuit?"
On the other end of the Jade Tablet, Nathan Young stammered, "Father, I... I lost my head too. King Macaque kept running, and he was so fast. We chased him all the way, not thinking much... and before I knew it, we'd chased him right into the Dharma-Quest Kingdom... and ran smack into that demon Monkey..."
Gripping the Jade Tablet tightly, General Lee forced down his anger and spoke in a low voice, "So what now? Is everyone unharmed?"
"No one's hurt... but we can't keep following. Both the King Macaque and Monkey lines have been cut off. What do we do next?"
"Just come back for now."
Setting down the Jade Tablet, General Lee leaned back in his marshal's chair and squeezed his eyes shut, feeling dizzy and drained.
He never dreamed that King Macaque would actually run straight into Monkey. Losing one of the three lines wasn’t fatal to the whole plan—especially if it was the Monkey line that broke.
As long as the other two lines continued smoothly, any sign of trouble would reach him. Even in the worst case, he could still use process of elimination to uncover the truth.
But if two lines were cut off, things would be different.
If both lines were lost, unless the person they were searching for happened to be the only one they could still track—King Gloomape—it meant all the risks they'd taken so far would have been for nothing.
Worst of all, King Gloomape was in Lionback Kingdom, surrounded by demons. Even his whereabouts there weren’t completely certain... the whole plan was already a failure.
After a long silence, King Broadgaze, standing nearby and looking at the map spread across the desk, sighed, "If only the killer would strike again while we were still monitoring all three targets so closely. Just once—then we could figure everything out."
"There's no 'if' anymore." General Lee opened his eyes slightly and said helplessly, "Now, unless the killer shows up again and we happen to run into him directly, both King Macaque and Monkey are already on guard. There's no way we can keep watching them."
......
At this moment, on Kunlun Mountain in the Southern Jambu Continent.
Six-Eared Macaque stood atop the mountain, gazing into the distance, watching wisps of smoke rise from the Daoist temples scattered among the peaks.
"So many people, but none of them look very strong. Are they really as powerful as you say?"
Beside him, the goat demon shivered and whispered, "Great Sage, Kunlun Mountain is said to have a million Daoist followers, but they all practice the Sage's Path. Only a few are truly strong, but with a million of them... even just a handful is formidable."