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A tall and slender figure was curled up in the darkness, red blood constantly flowing from it.

It was only now that Xia Fan and Traveling Buddha got a good look at Sramana’s appearance. This psychologically deranged person had empty eyes and a cold face.

Sramana stuck out his tongue and licked at the blood around his lips.

Even though Xia Fan had left him covered with wounds, Sramana remained emotionless. There existed no emotion in his heart, so his face naturally had nothing to show.

Traveling Buddha grabbed Sramana by the neck and raised him into the air like one would a dying snake. He them slammed Sramana into the ground with a bang.

!!

“Kill him,” Traveling Buddha said.

Xia Fan shook his head. Now wasn’t the time, for while the criminal had been captured, the truth had yet to be revealed. Xia Fan’s personality was such that he couldn’t rest until he got to the bottom of the truth.

Xia Fan squatted down and looked into Sramana’s eyes.

“Did you kill the previous emperor?” Xia Fan asked.

Sramana nodded emotionlessly.

“Did the old Chief Steward give you the order?”

“It was his son.”

“What was the price? How much money did they give you?”

“Not money. I don’t need money. They promised and gave me two hundred slaves.”

Sramana didn’t think he had done anything bad, so he replied very frankly. It was like killing people and taking their heads was the most natural thing in the world.

Generally speaking, that was how people with antisocial personality disorder were. In Sramana’s eyes, people were not people, simply creatures with two legs that could move. He didn’t understand human emotions and cared little about the emotions of others.

Xia Fan and Traveling Buddha were stunned. That fat and genial old steward had actually commanded his own son to get the services of this cruel killer at the price of two hundred slaves!

It was easy to imagine the fate of those two hundred slaves. They would all be killed, turned into headless corpses, and thrown into the mining pit for the maggots to consume.

Xia Fan’s heart trembled in loathing.

The real world was incredibly cruel. Having grown up under the skydome, he had heard the Disasters talk about how Ashen Moon was very cruel and their many inhuman actions, but this was the first time he had truly seen an existence devoid of humanity.

Whether it was Chen Changsheng or Qin Yuwei, while they might have been murderers, they still had some humanity. Xia Fan was able to sense the injuries they had suffered and could understand why they took revenge against society.

But Sramana had no reason and did not need a reason to kill. He just did what he wanted, no different from those maggots crawling in the darkness.

Xia Fan didn’t want to keep looking at this utterly inhumane creature, but his mind had him keep asking questions.

“How can you control so many pieces of metal shrapnel? From what I know, long-range telekinesis can’t control so many things at once,” Xia Fan asked.

Sramana paused, and then he took out a filthy metal bottle. It was like a wine pot that one might carry around, though much smaller.

Xia Fan was stunned, for a pair of wings was carved into that bottle: the symbol of his clan, the symbol of the Skywings!

That carpet that he had been bundled in when he was young had the same symbol!

Xia Fan seized the bottle and stroked a finger across its surface. The symbol of the wings felt extremely authentic, and Xia Fan instantly felt like he had closed the distance between him and his family.

“What is this thing?” Xia Fan’s voice had suddenly gotten louder.

Sramana shook his head. “I don’t know, but once I eat it, my telekinesis is improved for a short period of time.

“But once the effect of the medicine passes, I will become like this, weak all over.”

Xia Fan understood. This was a medicine that could temporarily boost one’s mental power. By overdrawing the power in one’s body, one could forcefully boost a special ability user’s combat power for a very brief amount of time.

Everything had a price, and the price of the overdraw would last for a very long time after the battle. Anyone who used it would become listless and muddleheaded.

It was all clear now.

Sramana didn’t actually have the strength to contend against Xia Fan and Traveling Buddha. The medicine had helped him, granting him astonishing telekinetic powers and multiplying his lethality. If he did not activate the Battle Buddha’s Golden Light, even Traveling Buddha could be injured by him!

“Where did you get this?” Xia Fan demanded in a raspy voice.

Sramana’s eyes flashed in the darkness. He seemed to think of something and gave Xia Fan a weird look.

“The Char Star Region.”

“Where in the Char Star Region?”

Sramana shook his head. “I am just a bug crawling in the darkness. I was born in the darkness, lived in the darkness, and will die in the darkness.

“An Investigator of the Special Bureau like you will never go to that sort of place.”

Urgent footsteps came from outside. Xia Fan knew that the others were coming and that he didn’t have much time. He couldn’t let other people know that he was from the Skywing Clan. Almost everyone in the Ashen Moon universe deeply loathed the Skywings!

“Tell me, where did you get this!?” Xia Fan grabbed Sramana’s collar in panic.

Sramana’s lips moved as he said a few words, but his voice was so soft that Xia Fan didn’t hear it.

He brought Sramana closer to his ear so that he could say it again.

At this moment, Sramana’s eyes erupted with bloody light. He opened his mouth and tried to bite at Xia Fan’s face!

This insidious fellow, even on the verge of death, was still trying to hurt others!

*Bang!*

Alas, Sramana did not succeed. Xia Fan wasn’t just fast. He also had very fast reactions, and he instantly pushed Sramana away.

Soon after, the already furious Traveling Buddha immediately rushed up and punched Sramana in the face!

Boom!

The shining golden fist blasted Sramana’s head apart like it was a watermelon, blood and brains splattering everywhere!

Finally, this devil who liked to kill people and take their heads had become a headless corpse himself.

Xia Fan shook his head. Standing up, he grabbed that metal bottle with the Skywing symbol carved into it.

Traveling Buddha snorted, “Why were you wasting time chatting with this kind of person? You should have killed him long ago!”

Xia Fan said nothing. He couldn’t explain to Traveling Buddha how important the word Skywing was to him.

Traveling Buddha had a home, as did everyone else, but Xia Fan did not.

Once, the Disasters under the skydome had been his family, but they were all dead now.

It was said that if he found that Skywing Token, his family would appear. This was the source of Xia Fan’s hope.

But this was a matter from forty thousand years ago. Xia Fan had no idea where the Skywing Token had ended up, so he would not let go of any clue connected to the Skywings.

“What’s up?”

“Did you catch the criminal?”

“Are you guys okay!?”

Their colleagues and the people from Sacred Federation’s Special Bureau arrived and began to ask questions anxiously.

Traveling Buddha explained what had happened.

Everyone sighed in shock. To think that the long-range telekinesis user who had killed the previous emperor was this sort of perverted madman! The sight of the headless corpses in the pit below made all of them shiver.

“Look around and if see there any other victims. I don’t want to stay a second longer in this creepy place,” Traveling Buddha said to his colleagues impatiently.

Everyone had Xia Fan and Traveling Buddha rest while they entered the depths of the mines to search for clues and any surviving victims.

Xia Fan and Traveling Buddha didn’t stay in the darkness, instead heading back through the tunnels.

“What’s up with you today?” Traveling Buddha asked. “You’re normally not this impulsive. You almost let that guy bite half your face off. Where did your usual vigilance go?”

Xia Fan shook his head. “This case was just too gruesome. I got a little worked up.”

Traveling Buddha knew exactly what he meant, and he clenched his fists in anger. “The Outer Frontier is truly an irredeemable place! If I hadn’t seen it with my own eyes, I wouldn’t have believed it! I’m guessing that there are many more monsters like Sramana in the Outer Frontier, and that’s not even considering the fugitives from the three federations!

“I didn’t take the Outer Frontier seriously enough. The Chaos Eagle Empire is so close to the Inner Territories, but a case this gruesome still took place! It’s difficult to imagine what might be happening in areas even farther away...”

Xia Fan shrugged. “I’m planning to take a vacation and travel around the Outer Frontier.”

Traveling Buddha’s eyes flew open. “Are you really planning to head to the Char Star Region that devil mentioned? I recall that the largest black market in the area is there, so it’s home to all sorts of people.”

Xia Fan replied, “It will also have many things we’ve never seen before. Take this bottle of pills, as an example. After Sramana took one, he was able to wound you. It might have boosted his combat power at least tenfold!”

“That’s true,” Traveling Buddha nodded. “I’ve never suffered such a loss in my life. The Outer Frontier isn’t just dangerous, it’s also a very mystical place.

“When do you plan to go?”

“As soon as possible.”

“Alright. I’ll go with you.”

Xia Fan was startled and glanced at Traveling Buddha. ‘Did this guy come down with something?’, he wondered to himself.

...

Not only had Traveling Buddha not come down with something, he was more normal than usual.

When Xia Fan asked him why he wanted to go with him to the Char Star Region, Traveling Buddha listed off many reasons.

This young master didn’t actually care about nothing. Rather, because of his background, he had basically seen everything while growing up, and so the vast majority of things couldn’t draw his interest.

Traveling Buddha didn’t care about money, reputation, or women, or anything that any other person would like or care about.

But when it came to the Outer Frontier, Traveling Buddha was now bursting with interest. The Char Star Region was one of the largest black markets of the Outer Frontier, and Traveling Buddha yearned to experience the mysterious black market.

Since Xia Fan had no way of persuading him otherwise, Xia Fan decided to let Traveling Buddha come with him. There was no harm in having a partner on the road.

It wasn’t long before Dylan and the others brought out the imprisoned slaves.

After being rescued, these people prostrated before the Investigators. Their faces were pale and bloodless, and it was easy to see from the look in their eyes that the most painful torture had been mental rather than physical. Hearing Sramana torture people to death every day had inflicted immense psychological damage on them.

Alas, the Special Bureau was part of the law enforcement system, not the charity system. Xia Fan couldn’t do too much for these pitiful people from the Outer Frontier. He decided to take them back to the Chaos Eagle Empire and then give each person some start-up money so that they could restart their lives.

——

The fleet quickly returned to Chaos Eagle City, where it was warmly welcomed by Eastsea Eagle. He immediately agreed to take care of the survivors. When the people were informed, they immediately prostrated before the emperor.

During that evening’s feast, Eastsea Eagle personally agreed to give the monopoly in mining rights in the Chaos Eagle Empire to the Starcloud Union. Dylan sent back the good news, and the Union’s Department of Commerce immediately dispatched a delegation of business leaders to sign the contracts with the Chaos Eagle Empire.

An order came from the Special Bureau for the investigators to remain where they were. They would serve as guards for the trade delegation when it arrived, and once the contract was signed, they would escort the delegates back.

This plan worked perfectly for Xia Fan. He had Dylan stay there while he took his ship the Disaster and left Chaos Eagle City for the Char Star Region.

When Eastsea Eagle learned that Xia Fan wanted to take a trip around the Outer Frontier, he had someone give Xia Fan a generous gift of one thousand grade 3 energy crystals.

These stones were the common currency of the Outer Zone. One could use gold, but gold was much less valuable than energy crystals. A single grade 3 energy crystal could be traded for ten kilograms of gold.

As Xia Fan looked at that chest of glowing translucent crystals, he didn’t know whether to laugh or cry.

Eastsea Eagle was just a small emperor in the Outer Zone, so he treated these Tier 3 energy crystals like treasure.

He had no idea that Xia Fan had eaten Tier 9 energy crystals while growing up. The amount he had eaten was enough to buy several hundred Chaos Eagle Empires!