The first rays of dawn pierced through the clouds above Donghai City and shone on the floor-to-ceiling windows on the third floor of the Eternal Night Guild base.

Zhou Huai sat in the leather sofa, blending into the surrounding air.

He remained in the same position as last night, deep in thought, his brow furrowed, his fingers tracing the armrest of the sofa.

"One hundred days..."

Zhou Huai opened and closed his lips, uttering these three words.

The challenge given by the system has a time limit of one hundred days.

What troubled him most was that he had no clue where Mr. Duan had hidden his mother.

"In other words, in these hundred days, I not only need to improve my strength, but also find a way to locate my mother's exact location," Zhou Huai thought to himself.

Theoretically speaking, the Dawn Guild's reach has long been secretly spread across the globe, making it extremely easy to hide a living person without anyone noticing for five years.

But given how much Mr. Duan values ​​his mother, the other party would definitely not just put her anywhere.

The most likely thing is to keep it by your side.

"If there really is a headquarters for the Dawn Guild in this world..." A world map appeared in Zhou Huai's mind, "...then it should be in the Free Federation, thousands of miles away!"

That behemoth that claims to be the world's strongest nation and has an SSS-level powerhouse at its helm.

In other words, the mother's location is very likely in a top-secret location within the Free Federation.

As he pondered this clue further...

"bite!"

The system's electronic voice rang in his mind, interrupting his thoughts.

【System notification: Your follower, Shinichiro Nakamura, requests an audience. Would you like to transfer your consciousness to the clone Insect Emperor Caesar?】

"Nakamura?" Zhou Huai looked ahead.

In the past few days, after suffering a devastating blow from the Great Xia, the Sakura Kingdom has been in a chaotic period of rebuilding and power reshuffling. For Shinichiro Nakamura, the head of the puppet regime he supported, the Divine Dynasty, to request an audience at this time must mean that something difficult has happened.

"Transfer." Zhou Huai simply put aside his thoughts about the Free Federation and silently recited the order in his mind.

Buzz—

A familiar feeling of weightlessness washed over me, and the scene before my eyes distorted and rearranged.

When Zhou Huai opened his eyes, his gaze had already shifted from the Donghai City base to the conference room of the newly constructed headquarters of the Divine Dynasty on the ruins of Tokyo.

Shinichiro Nakamura knelt on the marble floor, his forehead pressed against the ground, not daring to even breathe.

"Get up." Zhou Huai, controlling Caesar, spoke in a deep voice, "Speak, what do you want with me?"

Upon hearing the Lord's voice, Shinichiro Nakamura finally raised his upper body.

He held a sandalwood box inlaid with defensive formations in both hands, crawled two steps on his knees, and raised it high.

"Your Majesty, while we were ordered to thoroughly investigate and plunder the resources of the nine families, we discovered this item in a top-secret basement that was heavily sealed!"

Nakamura said excitedly, "I don't know whether to give this priceless treasure to the Great Xia military as spoils of war, or to hand it over directly to you, my lord... I can't make up my mind, please decide for me personally!"

"Oh? What could make you so nervous?"

Zhou Huai became interested. He raised his hand, and several flying insects dragged the box down into his palm.

"Clatter".

With a gentle flick of his finger, the array lock on the box unlocked.

The moment the lid was lifted, pure, ancient energy waves permeated the entire throne.

On the bright yellow silk lining, there was an antique magatama, no bigger than a baby's fist, with a dark green color all over.

Zhou Huai was stunned after taking a look.

He recognized the item.

No system authentication is needed; the unique aura of the ancient artifact's laws cannot be faked.

"The Eight-Foot Magatama?"

This is the ancient artifact that was once held by the Omiya family of the Sakura Kingdom for generations and was regarded as a national treasure!

A series of information about this divine artifact flashed through Zhou Huai's mind.

It is said that Souma Kosuke of the Omiya family almost killed three SS-rank powerhouses of the same level by relying on this Yasakani no Magatama.

But it is precisely this incredibly powerful artifact that has such a terrifying backlash.

It not only prematurely exhausted Souma Kosuke's originally long lifespan, but it is also said that the Omiya family sacrificed the blood and lives of nearly a hundred direct descendants for this!

"The power of divine artifacts is not something mortals should covet; the backlash would be too great..."

Looking at the eight-foot-long magatama lying in the box, Zhou Huai suddenly realized the key.

He recalled his experience of personally using the divine artifacts, the Heaven-Suppressing Seal and the Pendulum of Life; he recalled Mr. Duan's contemptuous mockery when facing the Heaven-Suppressing Seal; and he recalled Kujo Hiroji's insane act of sacrificing the entire city of Tokyo to power the Pendulum of Life.

If the pendulum of life is a giant device for collecting life energy, then why are the other magical artifacts just simple weapons?

Perhaps... their functions are all essentially the same!

The so-called backlash from the divine artifact is not a punishment from the rules of heaven, but a rogue process that directly extracts the user's life energy!

You think you've borrowed the power of the divine artifact, but in reality, it's the artifact that's draining your lifespan and essence to replenish its internal energy pool! The death of Soma Kosuke and the sacrifice of the Omiya family were all ways of charging this thing!

From this perspective, these so-called ancient artifacts are nothing more than a fancy facade from beginning to end!

They were all tools used by Mr. Duan, who was hiding behind the scenes, to accumulate life energy in every corner of the world.

Mr. Duan distributed these artifacts, allowing those greedy high-level professionals to compete for and use ❖ Nоvеl𝚒ght ❖ (Exclusive on Nоvеl𝚒ght) them.

Those users are nothing more than pathetic wage earners, risking their lives to work for Mr. Duan's grand plan!

Not only that.

After that desperate encounter with Mr. Duan, he came to an even more fatal conclusion:

In Mr. Duan's eyes, these amazing gadgets all have high-dimensional positioning capabilities! 𝑓𝓇𝘦ℯ𝘸𝘦𝑏𝓃𝑜𝘷ℯ𝑙.𝑐𝑜𝓂

No matter where this thing is hidden, Mr. Duan can sense it if he wants to find it. His ability to locate the Pendulum of Life is the best example of that!

Thinking of this, Zhou Huai even felt the exquisite box in his hand getting hot.

"Nakamura." Zhou Huai closed the box lid, making a series of sounds.

"Your subordinate is here!" Shinichiro Nakamura trembled and kowtowed even lower.

Zhou Huai looked down at him, his tone indifferent: "This item doesn't need to be handed over to the Great Xia military."

Nakamura was overjoyed, thinking to himself that his master was also coveting the power of the divine artifact and was planning to keep it for himself.

But Zhou Huai's next words were beyond his expectations.

"And don't leave it in our Divine Dynasty." Zhou Huai casually tossed the box containing the Eight-Foot Magatama back to Nakamura's feet. "Immediately send someone to secretly leak the news and find a black market or auction house... to sell this divine artifact for me."