Starforce Warriors-Chapter 523: Partner

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Urawa Base City. South District.

The South District was home to the renowned South Shore Mountain. The mountain was well-covered in vegetation and was home to rare, ancient springs with crystal-clear water that was safe for direct consumption. These springs were controlled by the Urawa Dojo, one of the three top factions in the base city. The spring water was supplied in limited quantities to the public.

The shaded side of South Shore Mountain boasted a treacherous and intricate stone forest. The stone forest was littered with medical and surgical waste. It also housed maze-like caves. Sunlight barely reached this area year-round. This place was a slave camp, where Jiepeng slaves who had lost all dignity and freedom lived.

Poison Wolf lay on a stone bed, his entire body drenched in sweat as he panted heavily. His expression was twisted with intense pain.

"Finally, it's all been removed," he muttered.

The surgeon, Itou Makoto, who had just completed the operation, was also soaked in sweat as he nearly collapsed on the floor beside his patient. He had finally extracted all the nanomachines from Poison Wolf’s body. Using a specialized magnetic device, they had all been collected in a metallic sphere about the size of a three-year-old child’s thumb.

"What a monster," Itou Makoto exclaimed as he panted. "To endure housing so many nanomachines in your body for such a long time."

Poison Wolf slowly sat up, pulling out the various tubes attached to his body.

"It's just about enduring," Poison Wolf replied.

He dressed quickly and wiped his face with a damp towel. The relentless battles and invasive surgery had pushed his body to the brink of exhaustion. Even with his Dao Union Realm cultivation, he could barely withstand such a grueling marathon.

The infamous Poison Wolf appeared to be no more than twenty-one or twenty-two years old. His face was as delicate and youthful as a typical college student, and he had a perfectly average build.

"Old Cheng, can the data inside the machine bugs still be extracted?" He asked, turning his head toward Itou Makoto.

Itou Makoto was the Jiepeng alias of the doctor. His name in Great Xia was Cheng Tengyi. He was one of the covert operatives of Great Xia's Dragon Group who had infiltrated the Jiepeng Empire.

Doctor was his codename. He was currently operating in Urawa Base City as a low-level doctor treating slaves in the camps. This was a common profession among the lower classes of the Jiepeng Empire. In truth, Cheng Tengyi's medical skills were exceptional. Otherwise, he would not have been able to remove all the nanomachines from Poison Wolf’s body, gather them, and complete the operation in under an hour.

But if someone like Poison Wolf had taken the risk to seek out Cheng Tengyi’s help, it was evident that he, too, was a member of Great Xia’s Dragon Group.

After tinkering with the medical instruments, Cheng Tengyi said, "The nanomachine disassembly requires at least two hours. Data extraction will take even longer; it’ll likely be tomorrow afternoon before all the information can be decoded. Old Wolf, were you executing this mission alone?"

Poison Wolf remained silent. Cheng Tengyi immediately sensed something was wrong.

His throat felt dry as he abruptly looked up and asked hoarsely, "Chong Chong... what about her?"

"She failed," Poison Wolf said softly.

Cheng Tengyi's heart trembled violently. Chong Chong was Poison Wolf’s partner and lover. Their mission to steal the secret of the Jiepeng Empire’s divine weapons for controlling star beasts had been overseen by Great Xia’s Dragon Group in Tokyo. The operation had not gone smoothly; Dragon Group had lost dozens of members as they sacrificed themselves to ensure the classified information was painstakingly smuggled out.

The ones tasked with delivering the intelligence were Poison Wolf and his partner. But they had failed. For members of the Dragon Group, that one word signified the worst possible outcome.

"Captured or killed?" Cheng Tengyi asked, his voice tight.

"Captured," Poison Wolf said with a bitter smile. "But does it make a difference? There’s no way for us to organize an effective rescue right now."

Cheng Tengyi remained silent. With diplomatic relations between the two nations severed and the Cave Beast passages sealed, the number of Dragon Group operatives within the Jiepeng Empire had dwindled rapidly.

The Star Council’s Realm of Traces had also joined the hunt in recent days, intensifying efforts to track and eliminate Dragon Group members within the Jiepeng Empire. Barely completing a mission had become nearly impossible. The idea of mounting a rescue operation to break someone out of the heavily guarded prisons of the Jiepeng Empire was out of the question. The organization’s strength could no longer withstand such losses.

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Cheng Tengyi patted Poison Wolf on the shoulder, but he offered no words of comfort. He understood all too well the anguish that Poison Wolf was feeling. He didn’t even dare to imagine the horrors Chong Chong might be enduring under Jiepeng’s brutal torture.

In the crude operating room, the only sound was the rhythmic ticking of the machines as they slowly extracted data from the nanobots.

Suddenly, a commotion erupted outside. Poison Wolf immediately tensed, his instincts on high alert. Cheng Tengyi glanced up as the surveillance feed abruptly went black.

“Damn it,” he muttered, his heart sinking. He instantly realized the gravity of the situation.

The Jiepeng trackers had found them.

“You stay here. No matter what happens, you must finish decoding the information from the nanomachines. I’ll go out and divert them,” Poison Wolf said decisively.

Cheng Tengyi shook his head. “It’s too late.”

As he spoke, the flimsy door to the operating room was blasted off its hinges with a deafening crash.