Chapter 103: Three Years

As for whether there was a possibility of exposure?

What a joke! If someone reported seeing the Beast God Di Tian here, it would be enough to make people laugh their heads off.

The Golden-Eyed Black Dragon King mural, which had been placed in this location for nearly ten thousand years, was the perfect camouflage.

Moreover, this was a grand masterpiece painted by a Shrek Academy predecessor—wasn't it only natural for it to be "vivid and lifelike"?

For three years, the Golden-Eyed Black Dragon King mural tirelessly worked for Shrek Academy, witnessing the passage of time, selecting batch after batch of prodigies and young heroes.

Three years passed in the blink of an eye.

A world-shaking event was now unfolding.

Mingdu, District 13.

This was the most secure area in the capital of the Sun-Moon Federation, said to be so tightly guarded that even a fly wouldn't be able to get in or out without authorization.

At the heart of District 13 stood the Federal Building, also known as the Pentagon, the largest single administrative building in the world, towering high into the sky.

Its history stretched back thousands of years, to the era when the Sun-Moon Empire was overthrown and the Federation was established.

Back then, a federal general with unmatched architectural talents proposed the design for a defensive administrative building capable of accommodating forty thousand personnel and integrating full-scale war command functions.

With the unanimous approval of the Federal Parliament, this strict and demanding general—who also happened to be a construction foreman—completed the fortress-like building in an astonishingly short time.

Now, the most secure district of Mingdu, District 13, was welcoming an unprecedented number of uninvited guests—an operation even larger than the Mingdu Explosion orchestrated by Huo Yuhao over ten thousand years ago.

Two inconspicuously colored soul-guided buses, each towing an oversized container, slowly passed through checkpoint after checkpoint, moving past one heavily armed soldier after another.

At last, they arrived at a pitch-black underground entrance, where the driver finally stepped on the brakes. The vehicles came to a halt, and a faint "pfft" sound escaped from the exhaust pipes.

The tinted windows rolled down, revealing a man in an administrative jacket and sunglasses. He pulled out a small red booklet from his pocket and handed it to the soldier blocking the way.

To be precise, the person blocking the vehicle was not an ordinary soldier but a mid-ranking officer.

He took the red booklet and flipped it open. On the first page, two bold characters stood out—"Pass"—a standard-issue permit.

However, the officer's deep eyes were not fixated on those words. Instead, they locked onto the folded corner of a double-layered page.

A flash of sharp light flickered through his gaze.

With practiced efficiency, he snapped the permit shut, returned it to the passenger, and subtly gestured left—signaling the vehicle to proceed.

The security surrounding the Sun-Moon Federation's ultimate weapon—12th-rank fixed-installed soul-guided artillery shells was formidable, guarded by various factions within the Federation, including but not limited to hawks, doves, and neutrals.

Each security checkpoint was manned by randomly selected officers, drawn daily by randomly chosen parliament members.

Furthermore, the storage locations of the 12th-rank fixed-installed soul-guided artillery shells constantly changed—decoys mixed with real locations, making it nearly impossible to distinguish the true sites.

All of this made stealing a 12th-rank fixed-installed soul-guided artillery shell an astronomically difficult task.

It required bribing as many randomly assigned personnel as possible.It required tracking the shifting locations of the shells.It required distinguishing between real and fake storage sites.

Today was the perfect day.

The stationed guards had all been bought off.By a rare stroke of luck, two of the shells had been randomly placed in the same location.

Stealing three shells at once would be almost impossible, and those orchestrating the operation could no longer afford to wait.

Far beyond Mingdu, deep in a towering mountain range, a man in black, with a skeletal frame, held the most advanced soul-guided telescope and fixed his gaze toward the Pentagon.

Through the lens, he watched as the two soul-guided buses and their oversized containers disappeared into the dark underground entrance.

Beyond that point, not even his peak-level power, combined with the highest-quality soul-guided telescope, could penetrate and observe what was happening inside.

But still, he did not lower the telescope.

For something to command his attention, it had to be of utmost importance.

It wasn't until he saw the two soul-guided buses reemerge from the underground entrance, their windows rolling down and back up three times—the prearranged success signal—that he finally put the telescope down.

He raised his right hand and made a slight waving gesture.

The shadows behind him flickered as figures moved in response, heading out to intercept the vehicles.

As for the skeletal man himself, he retrieved a soul-guided communicator and dialed a number.

"Beep... beep..."

The tone barely had time to sound before the urgent voice of Qiangu Dongfeng came through.

"Ghost Emperor! How did it go?"

A sinister, eerie voice responded: "Everything went smoothly."

Then, the Ghost Emperor asked,"Has the path to Shrek Academy been cleared?""Your old rival Yun Ming better not mess things up at the last minute."

Perhaps elated by the success of stealing the 12th-rank shells, Qiangu Dongfeng was in an unusually good mood. Even talking to the Ghost Emperor, whom he regarded as a mere "disposable glove", didn't irritate him.

He chuckled darkly.

"Heh... don't worry. Everything in Shrek is proceeding smoothly. We've placed all the necessary pieces in place."

"Yun Ming, that fool, I have no idea what he's been doing all these years."

The two, both defeated by Yun Ming in the past, seemed to share a moment of mutual frustration, freely mocking him without restraint.

They continued their conversation until a knocking sound came through Qiangu Dongfeng's communicator, prompting him to end their discussion with final instructions.

"Once you leave Mingdu's East Gate, you'll be met with support along the entire route to Shrek City."

"By the time you arrive, it should be right in the middle of Shrek Academy's annual Sea God's Fate matchmaking event."

"Hahaha!"

"When that time comes, let's give them a BIG fireworks show!"

"Alright, that's all for now."

"Beep... beep... beep..."

As the communicator call ended, both men—who had just been talking like allies—had their eyes flash with eerie, ominous light.

They had already started regarding each other as the next prey.

At that very moment, in Shrek Academy, the annual Sea God's Fate matchmaking event was about to begin.

This year, the new generation of Shrek's Seven Monsters had just turned eighteen.

The last Sea God's Fate event felt as if it had just happened yesterday.

By the shore of Sea God's Lake.

Two figures stood side by side, gazing at the water.

Silver Dragon King Fragment No.1: Gu Yue.Silver Dragon King Fragment No.2: Na'er.

Although Na'er was far more beautiful than Gu Yue—almost incomparable—the strange thing was that standing together, Na'er could not suppress Gu Yue in the slightest.

Together, they formed an unparalleled scene of beauty.

Na'er sighed uneasily.

"Time passes so quickly."

(End of Chapter)