Published: February 11, 2025
Chapter
The news from Earth recorded an event that happened about four days ago, where someone spotted the long-missing spirit woman.
There was no way around it; the spirit woman and her black cat were too recognizable. Anyone who had seen them once would never mistake them again.
The report stated that the spirit woman and the black cat were seen fighting against a powerful mutated life form, and it seemed that they had been in battle for a long time, with both sides battered and bruised.
If it were just that, Ye Zhongming wouldn't find it strange. No matter how much the spirit woman resembled a human, she was not one, at least not at the moment.
Since that was the case, she belonged to the mutated life forms, and her evolution was destined to draw energy from and plunder other lives.
Despite appearing to be heavily injured, it was possible that if she emerged victorious, she could directly level up!
If it were only about discovering the spirit woman, Ye Zhongming wouldn't be surprised. Even her injuries wouldn't be considered a bad thing for him.
This high-level mutated life form, which closely resembled a human, was not a part of Cloud Summit; she was completely different from Red Hair.
What made Ye Zhongming furrow his brow was that this news came from a merchant convoy. After spotting the spirit woman, they relayed the message back to Cloud Summit and indicated that they would follow up to investigate further.
However, after the message reached Cloud Summit, Xia Lei did not receive the usual communication from the convoy within the designated time. She felt something was wrong, so she discussed countermeasures with Ye Zhongming.
After the Battle of the Secret Realm, the merchant convoy set out again to open trade routes for Cloud Summit. They had expanded significantly due to the continuous resources obtained from the Secret Realm, forming a second convoy. This new group was relatively small and was responsible for maintaining and conducting business within a certain range around Ying City.
The original convoy, now referred to as the first convoy, was still led by Lu Yi and remained large in scale.
The one that went missing this time was this convoy.
“Regular contact every three days is necessary; it doesn’t need to include any content, just position information. It’s merely a way to confirm safety. Once they fail to contact us on time, we will know something has happened,” Xia Lei said, sitting next to Ye Zhongming, her fair hands pressed against his leg.
“Has this ever happened before?” Ye Zhongming asked with his eyes closed.
“It has happened, but only with delays of a few hours. This time, however, they have been uncontactable for over a day,” Xia Lei replied, somewhat unhappy. These days had already been filled with trivial matters that vexed her, and now the disappearance of Lu Yi’s first convoy only added to her feelings of hurt and anger.
In the apocalypse, missing persons basically meant death, and Xia Lei understood this very well. If the first convoy's members had died, not to mention the lost goods, just considering the personnel, Cloud Summit would suffer a massive blow.
Lu Yi was a seven-star evolver, and within his team, there were over ten six-star evolvers, more than two hundred five-star evolvers, and over a thousand four-star evolvers… So many people! Even if they couldn’t match the main battle team, they still represented one-third of Cloud Summit’s strength. Losing them all would mean crippling a battle team.
How many battle teams did Cloud Summit even have!
Ye Zhongming was also troubled by this issue. He didn’t care much about wealth and goods; what mattered to him were the people. The first convoy was composed of loyal old-timers from Cloud Summit, every one of whom had lived there for over two years. If they all faced trouble together, it would undoubtedly be a great loss.
“Do you think it could be the spirit woman…” Xia Lei had to suspect.
Although the spirit woman had previously cooperated with Cloud Summit, she was ultimately a mutated life form, and having lost contact for such a long time, it was difficult to ensure she wouldn’t turn on Cloud Summit.