Chapter 119: The Immense Potential Threat of High-IQ Criminals

Half an hour later, following intensive and comprehensive preparations, a medium-sized hunting party of 42 people, led by eight professional captains, quietly cast their net.

A massive hunt centered on a Level 5 Void Beast, the Mud Cave Leech, was about to begin.

The leech was no longer at its original location; it had moved several hundred meters away and, having ceased its wandering, was now lazily coiled within a chamber it had recently excavated.

The battle was imminent.

Lin Wang stared at the message from Yu Junren at the top of the giant screen, his brow furrowed and his face ashen.

"The ghost particle communicator is damaged, but as long as the damage isn't severe, there is still a chance for repair. You must recover the lost Luoyan excavator within three hours, or all five of you will be executed."

Using Ren Zhong as bait to save the lives of Pan Fenglian and Song Qianlian seemed like a fair trade.

However, this still deeply troubled Lin Wang.

It didn't matter if Ren Zhong died, but the excavator could not be lost.

He hadn't expected Ren Zhong to be so incompetent in the face of a Level 5 Void Beast.

Surveillance footage from before the loss of contact showed that Ren Zhong had made no effective evasive maneuvers. He had simply screamed in a panic, flailed about, and mashed the SOS emergency button—five presses per second.

Shortly thereafter, the output power of the ghost particle communicator suddenly spiked. Lin Wang heard only a piercing, ear-splitting shriek through the team channel, followed by a violent impact. In the video, Ren Zhong appeared even more frantic.

Not long after, the Luoyan excavator suddenly vanished from the 3D map, and team communications were completely cut off.

Without a doubt, Ren Zhong's excavator had been heavily damaged, the communicator had malfunctioned, and the entire machine had been swallowed by the Mud Cave Leech.

Given the structural integrity and protective performance of the Luoyan excavator, its core compartments—the cockpit and the analysis chamber—could withstand the internal environment of a leech for nearly three hours before melting.

Furthermore, the drill bit was unlikely to be damaged. As long as the components within the core compartments were not severely compromised, the excavator could still be repaired on Source Star. That was why Yu Junren had imposed the three-hour limit.

At the same time, Lin Wang felt a stroke of luck that this was a "one-for-two" trade. If both Pan Fenglian and Song Qianlian’s excavators had been swallowed, not only would the team's strength be crippled, but Yu Junren’s patience would have evaporated instantly.

He wouldn't even have had the chance to atone for his mistakes.

Lin Wang took a deep breath and connected to the team channel. "Colleagues, my team member is still inside, his fate unknown. As long as we kill the leech in time, he has a chance of survival. My squad is willing to give up half of the reward for this excavation operation and contribute 500,000 points. I implore you all not to hold back, to cooperate sincerely with me, complete the hunt as quickly as possible, and rescue my man."

"Captain Lin is righteous!"

"Agreed. We are all colleagues. Captain Lin's man is our man."

In the team channel, the other captains showered him with praise.

Driven by the heavy reward, courage was found. Thirty minutes later, the other seven captains and Lin Wang finalized the tactical plan and completed the necessary pre-battle preparations.

The energy intensity index of a Level 5 Void Beast ranges from 10,000 to 50,000. The initial reading for this leech was over 30,000 and was still slowly climbing.

Moreover, as an extraordinary Level 5 Void Beast, it possessed certain special abilities. Level 4 professionals would never dare to act rashly just because they had the numbers.

That would be suicide.

At the command of Lin Wang, who had purchased the right to lead with his money, 42 excavators began to converge from all directions toward the Mud Cave Leech’s hideout.

Upon reaching the general vicinity, the 42 Level 4 professionals split into eight groups. Led by the mecha warriors of their respective teams, they began to use the mechanical devices on their exoskeleton armor to rapidly dig and advance, heading straight for the leech.

Then, the fierce battle erupted.

The underground vibrations spread out with a rumble, like a small-scale mantle movement.

Under the cover of these seismic ripples, further below, Ren Zhong’s Luoyan excavator was crawling forward at a speed of 20 kilometers per hour.

Ren Zhong switched the propulsion mode to purely manual, using hand pressure to constantly fine-tune the thrust, mimicking the vibration frequency of a Level 3 Void Beast—a burrowing sand worm.

On the cylindrical section at the rear of his excavator, there was a deformed, deep dent.

This was where he had intentionally acted as if he had lost control while "fleeing for his life," positioning himself between the leech and a mineral source stone, baiting the creature to strike that spot with its thick tail.

The leech’s strike had been precise, and he had made no attempt to dodge.

An excavator can withstand the onslaught of a Level 4 Void Beast, but since the leech was Level 5, a single blow was enough to deform the cylindrical hull.

Amidst the violent shaking, Ren Zhong had done one thing.

He had mashed the SOS button, triggered the ghost communicator’s overload distress signal, and sent out a 5-second precise location transmission.

This was a "normal operation" for someone in a dying state, though it seemed a bit foolish.

After all, everyone was working in the same mining area; most people already knew his general location. It wasn't as if dozens of people were scattered across the globe on planetary development; there was no need to use the overload signal.

Crucially, once the ghost communicator’s overload signal was activated, the device would require at least ten minutes of cooling and recovery time, operating only at low power during that period.

This was the reason for Ren Zhong’s gradual "loss of contact."

But then again, it was only natural for a person to act foolishly in a state of extreme panic.

Even "worse," the spot hit by the leech happened to be the intelligent cabin, which housed the black box, the AI central processor, and other core computing functions.

The intelligent cabin itself possessed reliable alien-tech-level defenses, but the main lines connecting it to other sections had to be exposed outside the modules, making them prone to impact and requiring occasional repairs. These lines used materials produced by Source Star, which were significantly weaker.

These lines had been snapped by the deforming metal structure.

From that moment on, all intelligent equipment requiring high computing power failed. Ren Zhong’s Luoyan excavator became an "ancient tractor," with only basic equipment—such as geomagnetic sensors, planetary gravity difference meters, and gyroscopes—using their own low-power chips, remaining operational.

Coincidentally, the monitoring scanners covering the inside and outside of the cabin had also been severed by the impact.

The scanned modeling monitoring video had turned into static.

Furthermore, just after the leech’s strike and before the monitors stopped working, Ren Zhong had done one more thing while the cabin was shaking violently.

On camera, he had pretended to stumble backward, his hands waving wildly over the control console, while his armored right foot had quietly poked around underneath.

Very coincidentally, his fingers had hit the communication system maintenance switch.

The box containing the ghost communicator had clicked open on its own.

His right foot had then poked in precisely, and just as "coincidentally," knocked the link cable loose.

Now, basic communication was gone as well.

From that point on, he had become a completely disconnected "ghost" underground.

...

Two and a half hours later, in the underground cylindrical hall, Lin Wang stood with an ashen face, looking at the carcass of the Mud Cave Leech piled up like a mound of mud.

Yu Junren, standing to the side with his arms crossed, also looked grim.

The other professional teams had gone back down to the mines after happily collecting their rewards from Lin Wang.

In the hall, there were only Yu Junren, the Dawn Corporation’s bodyguard team, and the five men including Lin Wang, who were being interrogated like prisoners.

All five of them looked disheveled, covered in dust, and bearing various injuries.

Lin Wang had spent the money, the Level 5 Void Beast had been killed, the chips had been dismantled, and the carcass had been dissected, but the Luoyan excavator was nowhere to be found.

"Lin Wang, tell me, where is the machine?" Yu Junren asked.

Lin Wang turned back stiffly. "I... I don't know."

Yu Junren backhanded Lin Wang across the face. "Your team member—you were the closest to him when the incident happened, and now you’re telling me you don't know? There’s nothing on the command system, communication is completely lost, and before communication was lost, there was a final prompt that the intelligent central control system was completely offline. That means the core equipment inside had issues too! And look at the performance of your idiot team member—what is this flailing about? Putting on a play?"

The man was not a professional fighter, so the slap wasn't heavy, and Lin Wang didn't feel physical pain, but his face still burned.

Just then, a thumping sound came from the alloy wall of the No. 3 maintenance bay, as if something was lightly tapping from the outside.

That was the maintenance bay belonging to the dismantler of the top-ranked professional team.

Everyone was shocked.

Yu Junren hurriedly ordered the logistics department to open the alloy door in front of the No. 3 maintenance bay.

A mud-covered drill bit spun and bored its way in until more than half of it was inside the cylindrical hall, then the rotation slowly stopped.

On the deformed cylindrical tank body behind the drill, a number was painted: 12.

It was Ren Zhong’s No. 12 excavator!

The air froze for a second.

"The anti-gravity engine on this excavator is down. Quickly, pull it in!"

Five minutes later, a disheveled Ren Zhong climbed out of the cockpit.

"Stand there and don't move. I'll interrogate you later." Yu Junren waved a hand.

Ren Zhong, looking like a young student who had done something wrong, stood beside Lin Wang, hands folded, looking nervous.

Lin Wang’s mouth hung open, his eyes wide as he stared at him, momentarily speechless.

Heaven knows what he was thinking.

After all that, this guy had actually driven the Luoyan excavator away!

So we got nothing from dissecting the leech?

Then what was that 500,000 I spent for?

What was the point of it all?

Damn it!

Wait, why does Ren Zhong look like he’s trying to hold back a laugh?

Is surviving death that happy?

Lin Wang had ten thousand questions he wanted to ask, but it wasn't the right time.

On the other side, the maintenance team swarmed in.

"The cockpit core equipment is intact! The ghost communicator’s link cable was just pulled out by this idiot's flailing; it’s not broken!"

"The power cabin is intact!"

"The analysis cabin is intact!"

"The equipment inside the intelligent cabin is intact! Only the main link cable is severed!"

...

Good news followed good news.

Just over ten minutes later, the maintenance team leader gave his conclusion: "All core equipment is intact. It can be fully repaired by tomorrow evening, and it will be back to normal work by the day after."

Yu Junren let out a long breath, quietly wiped the cold sweat from his forehead, and returned to Lin Wang, Ren Zhong, and the others.

He stared at Ren Zhong.

"Speak. What exactly happened, and how did you get away?"

Ren Zhong swallowed, stretched out his hand, and opened it. Inside was a kangaroo Void Beast skin pouch. "Manager Yu, I found this."

Yu Junren snatched the pouch from Ren Zhong’s hand. "I asked how you got away. So what if you found a mineral source stone? Someone already did yesterday... Huh? Dr. Tang, come here."

Five minutes later, Dr. Tang gave his assessment: "This is a Level 2 mineral source stone. It is also the largest piece found in all the head office's mining operations in the last five years. It can be used to..."

Yu Junren waved his hand. "Alright, I know."

Having said that, he turned his attention back to Ren Zhong and smiled. "According to regulations, the company will purchase this Level 2 mineral source stone from you at a fair price of 500,000 points. Just like the female excavator from yesterday, the money has already been deposited into your account through the special channel."

Ren Zhong nodded; his watch had already received the notification.

450,000 points had arrived, with 50,000 points automatically deducted as the Spark Resources commission.

This money was private income belonging to him, the "lucky contestant," bypassing Lin Wang’s professional team account.

Next, Ren Zhong recounted everything "exactly as it happened."

"At the time, I just picked a random direction and fled for my life. I don't know what happened, but after that leech caught up to me, it just hit me once and then stayed there, not moving."

"Before the scanner failed, I vaguely saw it lunge toward a radiation point and curl up on top of it, not moving anymore. Then, many of my intelligent devices suddenly malfunctioned. I didn't know how to fix them, so I could only switch to manual mode and carefully slip away."

At this point, Yu Junren interjected.

He looked regretful. "There must have been another mineral source stone there, but it was swallowed by the leech. Bad luck."

Lin Wang added, "We did indeed see the leech’s energy index rising rapidly earlier; that was very abnormal."

Ren Zhong: "Uh..."

Yu Junren: "Continue."

"I was afraid of attracting its attention, so I didn't dare to push the engines to full power. Without the guidance of the ghost communicator, I just wandered around blindly based on feeling. After wandering for about an hour, the radiation detector gave a signal."

"I figured this signal was very similar to the mineral source stone radiation described in the operation manual, so I took the risk to go over and check. I didn't expect to actually find one. Then I wandered around blindly for a long time. Finally, I followed the prompts of the seismograph to get here. The tremors caused by the captain’s return earlier pointed me in the right direction. I actually found the right way, thank heavens."

Ren Zhong’s explanation was very reasonable and seamless.

Afterward, Yu Junren called in a psychological expert to conduct a polygraph test on Ren Zhong in the interrogation room.

Ren Zhong passed with flying colors and met Lin Wang outside the interrogation room.

Honestly, Lin Wang’s feelings were very complicated right now.

To "save Ren Zhong," he had spent 500,000, which had gone down the drain.

He had thought it was over, that they were doomed this time.

In terms of equipment value, he believed his team’s entire fortune might be enough to buy one new Luoyan excavator.

But Yu Junren didn't care about the money; the matter behind this might have involved his own promotion.

That was why he wanted to execute everyone to make an example of them, to provide an answer to the higher-ups, and to sound an alarm for all the miners on Source Star.

Lin Wang was very unwilling, but he had no choice.

Yet, Ren Zhong had miraculously survived and even found a large mineral source stone, making a small fortune.

The true value of this large mineral source stone was definitely more than just 500,000; it might be worth as much as a Luoyan excavator.

Otherwise, Yu Junren’s attitude wouldn't have changed so quickly.

And the damage to the Luoyan excavator wasn't severe—it was almost perfect.

Thus, in the end, Lin Wang and the other four had been pulled back from the gates of hell.

This was indeed Ren Zhong’s credit.

"Um, Captain... did I perform alright?" Ren Zhong asked cheerfully.

Lin Wang looked at him deeply. "You did quite well. In a sense, you saved our lives."

"Sigh, it's just that I was too stupid. If I had been more careful on the way to scout, I wouldn't have fallen into the Mud Cave Leech's trap."

"It's fine. As long as you're alive, anything is possible. By the way, you’re not short on money now. You still owe me 235,000..."

Ren Zhong hesitated, then said in a pleading tone, "Captain, I... I want to save a little money. Manager Ju helped me modify the design a bit so that this armor I’m wearing better suits my personal characteristics. Once I adapt, it won't be long before I can try to hunt Level 3, or even weaker Level 4, Void Beasts alone. Can you let me pay you back slowly?"

Lin Wang hesitated. "Alright."

"Thank you for understanding, Captain."

"We’re our own people, aren't we? What are you thanking me for?" Lin Wang waved his hand. "Manager Yu gave you a day off. You can get a good rest today and tomorrow. Actually, some people from the entertainment industry came to the command center a couple of days ago, and their quality is very high. The woman from yesterday wasn't very generous—she only took care of food, not entertainment—but you can go and have a good time yourself. It’s rare to make a fortune, you should enjoy yourself."

Ren Zhong seemed to grit his teeth. "I can't just think of myself. I'll go arrange it now. When everyone gets off work tonight, I'll treat everyone to a meal and some fun. I’ll do it in your name, Captain, how about that?"

Lin Wang raised an eyebrow. "43 people—eating and entertainment won't be cheap. It’ll cost ten thousand points."

Ren Zhong gritted his teeth again. "Ten thousand points to show my gratitude should be appropriate. Even though I survived by my own luck, you all took risks to save me."

"Fine, that’s settled. Alright, we’re going back down to the mines. You go back to the dormitory and rest."

Ren Zhong returned to the dormitory.

He did not walk through the high-sensitivity full-body scanner.

After Yu Junren collected the mineral source stone, he stopped paying attention to him.

This was a psychological deception.

He was a lucky man who had escaped death.

He was also the weakest Level 2 professional in the entire mining team.

He couldn't possibly have the guts or the ability to be a thief.

He had had a stroke of sky-high luck, finding a valuable Level 2 mineral source stone while fleeing for his life.

The ecstasy and anticipation on his face when he pulled out the Level 2 mineral source stone couldn't have been faked.

He had even found two mineral source stones in one day, but the other one had been swallowed and quickly digested by the Mud Cave Leech.

He couldn't possibly be lucky enough to find a third one.

He had also passed all the polygraph tests from the psychological expert.

In short, he couldn't possibly have any larger mineral source stones.

But he truly did.

And it was the only one in the entire Dawn mining area, a Level 1 mineral source stone located at one of the two central magnetic nodes of the entire mining area.

Coiled around the other Level 1 node was another Level 5 Void Beast.

Ren Zhong had almost stumbled upon it too, but with his calculated mind, he had discovered the abnormal radiation index there and quietly slipped away in advance.

Everything was under his control.

The danger posed by a top-tier high-IQ criminal is truly immense.