"How do you know it was a group attack?" Jill Young sent Li Yuncong to guard the door, then sized up Jasper Xiao with a playful look. "Not bad, your Holy Light's gotten a lot stronger in no time, huh? Got a new feature or something? Did you see the death flashback? I heard the last thing people see before dying gets burned onto their retinas—can you see that now?"
"I'm not that magical. At most, I can sense the emotions left behind at the final moment. In cases like this—unnatural death—the emotions are super intense. Let's just call it an obsession. Normal people's obsessions fade fast; I just caught it before it disappeared." Jasper Xiao looked at Skell. "His last thoughts were scattered with terror, definitely not focused on just one or two targets. That means more than one or two people attacked him. You're way better at fighting than I am. What do you think of his injuries?"
"My take? At least five people did it." Jill Young pointed at Skell's corpse, sounding sure. "The wounds look weird, but honestly, the only strange thing is his skin stayed intact. The rest isn't that special. If you're twice as strong as a normal person, you could do this. Look at his bones—cracked, broken, shattered. Each injury's different. It's not just about strength, it's about technique and habit. Check this out..."
You could tell a pro from a rookie the moment they started talking. Jill Young pointed out the details bit by bit, and Jasper Xiao nodded along. They weren't professional forensic experts, but circling the body and pooling their knowledge, they figured things out pretty quickly. Meanwhile, Li Yuncong was so freaked out he kept imagining how painful it would be if those injuries happened to him. Standing in the chilly morgue, he was sweating buckets.
"Bottom line, Skell was beaten to death by a mob, and he suffered like hell before dying." Jill Young remembered that infamous groin kick and snorted. "Well, at least I didn't have to do it myself."
"So, there was a hidden gang involved, and one of them spoke really bad English, right?" Jasper Xiao finally relaxed. "Don't worry, these injuries look scary, but they don't hold up under scrutiny. Once the police investigate and the coroner checks the body, they'll see it wasn't the Teacher. This whole mess will blow over soon, and the Teacher's name will be cleared."
"If only it were that simple. It's been hours since this happened—have you seen a single cop show up?" Jill Young mused. "Mecha Hunter pilots get special privileges; they're kind of in a legal gray area. So far, only one so-called 'special agent' has shown up. So odds are, this is going to take an unofficial route instead of the legal one."
"But even the unofficial route shouldn't frame good people, right? What's the point of those killers setting up someone else?" Jasper Xiao was totally baffled. This clumsy trick wouldn't hurt Jill Young at all, so what were they even trying to do? "Yuncong, what do you think? What kind of impact could this have?"
"Me?" Li Yuncong clearly didn't expect Jasper Xiao to ask him. He got nervous and mumbled, "Uh... I don't know, probably not much. Worst case, you get locked up for a few days, but once the truth comes out, it's all good, right?"
"Locked up for a few days..." Jill Young's eyes flickered at that. She thought for a moment, then headed out first. "Anyway, let's go find Dr. Jacob and get the surveillance footage. I want to see what really happened."
"So, um..." Li Yuncong trailed after them, nervously whispering to Jill Young, "Boss, about that 'obsession' you mentioned—normal people just let it go with the wind, but what about people who aren't normal? Like, super strong people? Would they, uh..." He took a deep breath, then blurted out, "Would they turn into ghosts or something?"
Up ahead, Jill Young smirked at the question. Not only could it happen, but she’d actually seen it herself. In fact, her whole Dragon Elephant Wisdom Art was passed down to her by one of those obsessed types. She thought about scaring the kid a little, but didn’t have the heart, so she let it go for now.
Getting Dr. Jacob to help was a piece of cake—he practically pounded his chest and promised to dig up the truth. "The surveillance footage was taken away by that special agent, but," Dr. Jacob grinned, clearly proud of himself, "I was ready for this, so I secretly kept a copy. Here you go. Besides, you’re off duty during this window anyway, so just focus on investigating."
Jill Young nodded and started playing the footage on her laptop. First, she found the clip where Blockhead left the room and the mysterious figure appeared at the corridor corner. But the more she watched, the more her brow furrowed—no matter how many times she replayed or reversed the video, there wasn’t a single suspicious shadow in that corridor. Even at the spot where the scent vanished, up until Yang Qi showed up, there was still nobody else. The whole corridor was empty—nothing at all.
"No way... Could it be... invisibility?" If that was true, then the perp had to be a Chosen One—this world’s science hasn’t cracked light-bending tech yet. And if it really was a Chosen One, then their goal had to be way deeper than just this frame job. The only problem was, nobody knew what that goal actually was.
"It can’t be any of the pilots—they’re all accounted for, and I know exactly which ones are Chosen Ones. After training together for a month, even if I wasn’t trying, I’ve got them all figured out. Besides myself, only Swallow and Jin Gang are Chosen Ones." Jill Young said, "So the culprit must be hiding among the new arrivals. That weird English? Definitely not from an English-speaking country. That narrows down the suspects..." With that, she turned to Dr. Jacob: "Give me the files on all the new people. I want to check them one by one."
There were a lot of newcomers, but after a bit of elimination, not many suspects were left.
"I don’t have access to those classified files. I’ll have to go find Cost for that."
(Chapter not finished yet~ Please click to the next page for more awesome content!)
The four of them hurried to Cost’s office. They’d barely pushed open the door when a blaring alarm went off: "Emergency! Emergency!"
Cost was at his desk, face as calm as ever, but you could tell he was instantly locked in. He didn’t say a word—just slammed a button on his desk. One wall of the office turned into a giant display, and a panicked face popped up on the screen, yelling: "Commander! This is Sri Lanka Sub-Base! We’re under monster attack—requesting backup!" As he spoke, the screen shook and a loud crash echoed through, the video jolting for a moment.
Cost’s voice was steady: "Don’t panic—report the situation!"
"Yes, sir!" The guy took a deep breath, tried to calm himself, then shouted, "Local time: 1:00 AM. Two Level 3 Kaiju—Raging Shark and Giant Elephant—are attacking the entire perimeter of Sri Lanka Sub-Base. We’ve deployed three Mecha Hunters to hold them off, but it’s not looking good. Our main fourth-gen Mecha Hunter is already damaged, and the battle lines have been pushed all the way into the city—we need reinforcements now!"
As soon as he finished, another crash came from the screen, with dust and debris raining down on his head. The guy looked around in terror, then yelled straight into the camera: "Say it again for the folks in the back—we need a fleet, we need jets, we need Berserker!"
Cost’s eyes flashed, but he shook his head: "Sorry, Berserker’s still in... repairs, can’t deploy. But I’ll send other Mecha Hunters for backup—they’ll arrive in two hours." With that, he shut off the call and glanced at Jill Young. Was this just bad luck, or was someone pulling strings behind the scenes?
He didn’t waste time worrying—action was needed now. The Hunter Academy’s own forces were tied up, so reinforcements had to come from elsewhere. "Get me Watanabe, the commander at the Singapore Base... Watanabe, this is Cost. You’ve heard about Sri Lanka, right? Send your fourth-gen Mecha Hunter over immediately—yeah, I know you’ve only got one, but I’ll send a fifth-gen to help out."
Then, without missing a beat, Cost made another call: "Patch me through to Shanghai Base—Commander Wang Yu... Wang Yu, this is Cost. Details will follow in your secure file, but for now, send the Gao Sisters to Singapore Base for joint defense."
Cost hung up and turned to Dr. Jacob: "Jacob, prep the monster monitoring network. Those two Kaiju have been running wild for too long. We need to catch their tails and grind them into dust. Jingzhe, Li Yuncong, you two suit up and be ready to respond at any moment."
"Yes, sir!"
Once everyone else had left, Cost’s face finally changed a little. He lowered his voice to Jill Young: "I’ve got a bad feeling about this..."