Seized by the System

Cang Gongzi took the office with the help of Dragon Carp. His demonic form had no physical advantage, unlike Brett who could carry the fish tank on its back, so he carrying the fish tank around in his human form…

It was a sight to behold.

After Fang Ning bid farewell to Cang Gongzi, there were a few days of peace and quietness.

He was happy with this turn of event, so he took the opportunity to procrastinate for a few days, playing games in the System Space.

The System continued its daily chores, catching thieves and petty criminals, as well as vanquishing malevolent spirits with the help of Xue Ba’s remote positioning.

Sometimes, it would go to the sea and visit the game book, showing its care as its System daddy.

The return of the game book motivated the twelve-limbed octopus so much, it had been hyper for days.

A mysterious confidence filled it as it brought Xie Dong—the human lie-detector—everywhere on the seas.

They acted as an intermediary for different aquatic creatures that were clashing with each other while advocated for Xie Dong’s slogan that ‘every salted fish share the common responsibility for the fate of the world…’ ¹

It prepared to congregate the strength of the ocean and withstand the lunar cataclysm with the human in the coming year.

The slogan was not wrong, as fish in the ocean were saltwater fish. Furthermore, ‘salty’ also meant ‘all’ ² , so the slogan was pretty accurate.

To humans, the sentence was ‘every regular man share the common responsibility for the fate of the world.’ When used on aquatic creatures, they had to change it.

Xie Dong explained that to Twelve Arms, who fully trusted the explanation.

After suggesting the edited slogan, Xie Dong was relieved.

He rode on the two dolphins alternatively. Sometimes, he would help Twelve Arms to determine if a sea creature was telling the truth while attending some ocean lords’ banquets.

After all, Twelve Arms was also a strong sea creature. Coupled with the powerful divine book, it was regarded pretty highly among the sea creatures. After its fame grew stronger, plenty of other powerful sea creatures wanted to befriend it.

Twelve Arms was clear of its intentions. Even while it was attending a banquet, it was still persuading the sea lords to join it in its quest to save the ocean.

However, few sea creatures actually committed themselves to the cause.

Most of them were still pretty hospitable to it, but as soon as it began talking about its cause, their enthusiasm died down.

They always responded with an impassive attitude, saying ‘Humans can take the responsibility for us’ or ‘Humans finally got their karma, that’s such a good news.’

Twelve Arms did not understand.

‘If the moon fell onto Earth, the first people to suffer had to be the ones in the sea, isn’t it?

‘After all, the sea was so much larger than the land.

‘At this point, shouldn’t the sea creatures be more worried than the humans?’

Xie Dong explained to it afterward that the sea lords were lying.

The catastrophe would definitely affect them. However, the sea creatures were a selfish and cold-blooded bunch.

They believed that they were strong and would be able to survive even if the moon crashed onto Earth. As for other weaker creatures, they could not care less.

In a situation like this, they could not be depended on to sacrifice their own time for cultivation—or even sacrifice their cultivation base—to help solve the crisis. That was why they came up with all sorts of excuses to decline joining forces.

‘It doesn’t concern them, humans are enough… all lies.’

The truth cuts like a knife. It was the first time Twelve Arms understood the difficulty to foster an honest underwater world.

It asked Xie Dong what it can do.

Xie Dong answered with conviction, “The true strength lays in the regular fish.”

That was true. A sizable portion of creatures in the ocean was not fish.

However, the powerful were the ones who set the standard. According to human traditions, creatures like whales and squids were not fish, but they were still named as fish. ³

Twelve Arms immediately changed its targets and contacted the less powerful clans. The effect was instantaneous.

Sapient fish that could think for themselves immediately knew what Twelve Arms said was the truth.

After all, they saw the changes happening within the sea every day. They promptly began to panic and saw Twelve Arms as their savior.

No other underwater powerhouses would have cared if they perished.

Now that someone actually offered help, they would latch onto it for as long as they can…

Xie Dong was really pleased and sent a periodic report to Ren Ruofeng.

In the report, he stressed the fact that he had managed to lead the destined octopus into uniting the bottom-tier fish after his unyielding effort.

Next, the octopus would launch a bottom-up revolution in the sea to approach the humans to learn human’s systems, and it should be within the foreseeable future.

Ren Ruofeng replied, “Lies.”

Xie Dong was shocked, he felt as if his intelligence was insulted.

As the saying goes, battles won on battlefields depend on strategies devised in a tent. No wonder Ren Ruofeng was revered as the Truth Department’s wisest man…

He apologized and sent a new report.

In the new report, he mentioned that the octopus was naive without a hint of wariness toward him.

In addition, its combat abilities were decent, and it had a divine book protecting it.

The book kept protecting it as well as helping with battles. It would defend them from most of the dangers, so Xie Dong had never been faced with serious dangerous situations.

His daily routine would be riding the two dolphins, enjoying the scenic ocean view, visiting different seafolks, attending underwater banquets, and tasting all kinds of seafood.

As a result, he was lax in his self-development, and he had made a serious review on his own responsibilities.

…

In the Truth Department’s headquarters in China.

Ren Ruofeng read Xie Dong’s report with immense jealousy. ‘This twerp actually treated this supposedly dangerous assignment as a holiday. Fortunately, I caught him. I should’ve done this myself…

‘If I didn’t get to know Vigilante A deep enough and found this out through messages, I would’ve been tricked…’

Even in jealousy, Ren Ruofeng managed to keep his rationality. Since Xie Dong finished his mission, there was nothing about Xie Dong that he could reprimand. It could only be attributed to his luck as he met the octopus with good intention and some ‘divine book’ that lowered his mission difficulty.

He continued reading the report in detail and making suggestions along the way. Guiding the seafolks is a huge project, so they need to build a strong foundation for the relationship to work.

Only with a solid base can they build a stable long-term cooperative relationship without being taken advantage of that would eventually lead to the clash between the humans and the seafolks, which would definitely be a huge disaster.

Ren Ruofeng had set his eyes globally, so he slowly began to think of China as the leader of Earth, as well as using that to set a standard for himself.

When he was busy, a highly-encrypted phone call dialed in from a certain branch of the Special Affairs Department.

Picking it up, he listened to the information and immediately stood up, showing the importance of the incoming information.

“What? A mysterious monument surfaced? Could it be the next step from the Heavenly Axiom?”

He immediately thought of many things, so he began making arrangements and dialed a director’s number.

…

Northwest China, somewhere along the Kunlun mountain range. It was summertime in China, but the place was still covered in snow.

A huge crater had appeared in some snow-capped valley, where snow and mud mixed haphazardly.

A black monument stood in the center of the crater. The monument was ten meters in height, and a bizarre aura exuded from the smooth, rustic monument and its mostly-buried foundation.

Brett bared its sharp fangs and glared at its rival, a man in a robe.

“Kiddo, this monument was discovered by your uncle Brett first, so keep your hands off!”

Gu Buwei smiled. “Heh, Brother Brett, this monument came out of Kunlun, China. It doesn’t belong to me, and of course, it doesn’t belong to you too.”

Brett was livid.

“You bastard, why does it not belong to me? Dragon Carp told me there’s a treasure here, so I came here in search of it. Half a month, I searched for it for half a month before I found it and dug it out. I’m going to carry this back to my master, don’t you dare stop me.”

Gu Buwei shook his head. “You won’t. Its discovery is destined. If the heavens forbade its removal, no one would be able to move it anywhere.”

Brett shook its head furiously, indicating its skepticism.

It walked around the monument for a while and found it a challenge. The monument was too large to fit into its interspatial bangle.

‘It would be nice if Xue Ba were here,’ it thought. It pulled a cell phone from within its bangle and called Xue Ba.

It felt a little guilty as it could feel its rival’s power. However, it was not the time to call its master. It decided to call Xue Ba, at least it could carry the monument while also backing it up.

Within a minute after the call was picked up, a yellow dog drilled out of the snowy ground.

The yellow dog shook off the snow on its torso, and its eyes glowed brightly as it laid its gaze on the monument.

“Hey, this is such a fateful encounter with this monument. Our master’s mansion lacked a monument to mark its territory.”

Xue Ba immediately declared ownership as soon as it saw the monument.

Gu Buwei looked at them without trying to stop them.

The yellow dog did not care about the man. It took a breath and enlarged itself into a giant and attempted to take the ten-meter monument with its paw.

Compared to its current size, the monument was about the length of a chopstick.

However, when it tried to lift the monument, it almost tripped, but the monument did not move at all.

Its strength could lift items of at least a thousand tons.

The monument was, indeed, extraordinary.

It inhaled deeply, causing a whirlwind to form in the valley. Snow and icicles fell bit by bit, almost like a snow storm was brewing.

After that, it tugged at the monument with both its paws, its muscular hindlegs clutched at the ground, and lifted with all its might.

The black dog cheered for it, “Bossman, keep it up, come on, I believe in you!”

Still, the monument still stayed immobile.

Brett was stunned to see that, while Gu Buwei smirked slightly.

Xue Ba frowned and turned back to its original size. It retrieved its own phone from the interspatial bangle on its leg.

Gu Buwei saw that and his smirk disappeared, only shaking his head.

Why did he shake his head? That was because both the interspatial bangles belonged to Qi Mei.

‘If only one of the bangles was given to a dog, it was still acceptable, but he gave both the dogs one bangle each! What a turn of events. That’s why one shouldn’t be so arrogant, or their fate might be worse than a dog’s.’

The staff of the local Special Affairs Department who arrived earlier was hiding behind the peak of the hills around it looking down.

Seeing the scene, they inhaled involuntarily. ‘Celestial Hound Xue Ba was one of the Venerable Dragon God’s faithful followers, they were so powerful, they managed to breakthrough to Lake-level!

‘And even with its original form as massive as that could not move the monument?

‘It must be a present from the heavens!’

They had already sent the news to the Truth Department, the only thing to do now was to keep an eye on where the monument had gone.

They would not mind if the monument was taken by the yellow celestial hound. The hero, Vigilante A, would never take the item for his own.

As long as both parties communicate, the monument would not be gone.

However, if it was taken by Gu Buwei of the Azure Mountain, it would be problematic.

An artifact like that was understandably powerful, it should be like those vestiges in mythology. Most likely, it was powerful enough to be used as a tactical weapon.

Not long after, many powerhouses who had gotten hold of the news arrived.

To most of them, it was their second time seeing the celestial hound’s true form, but they were still scared after their first witness at the Celestial Dragon Summoning Ritual.

Even a Lake-level powerhouse could not move this unremarkable-looking black monument. Evidently, it was not any regular monument.

At the thought, many of them could not suppress their avarice. They knew, however, that they had no chance to obtain the monument, so they began chattering among themselves.

Someone said, “Maybe Celestial Hound Xue Ba’s strength is not enough. It’s a canine, after all. If it were the Russian Spirit Bear, I’m guessing it would have enough power to achieve that.”

As soon as the person finished speaking, a gargantuan bear about a thousand meters tall appeared from the sky, startling everyone.

The spirit bear, Misha, scratched its head and flashed a bright smile toward the people who were present.

“Don’t worry, my presence here is authorized by your higher-ups, I didn’t come here illegally.”

It descended from the sky and landed beside the yellow dog.

“Hey Sunshine, your master called me to help, so you can take a rest.”

Xue Ba nodded. It had only just informed its master, saying it could not lift the monument.

‘The bear must be here under Master’s order. Master is so cool.’

The crowd’s gaze focused on the spirit bear.

Famed for its strength and being the totem of Russia, can it lift the heavenly gift in the form of a monument?