Abilities Revealed

Min Tao stood and swept his gaze across the first-floor lobby. Yao Bei and Li Wenchuan were together subduing an alien creature. With two senior Pioneers on the job, the creature couldn't keep up its arrogance for even ten minutes before being pressed into submission. It was already in the cleanup phase now.

The Research Institute staff in their white lab coats stood off to the side, waiting for the Pioneers to finish dealing with the creature before they could collect its corpse and haul it back to the institute.

The Executive Department guards were bustling about, searching every room in the temple for the traitor Tu Ran.

Min Tao withdrew his gaze and let out a faint sigh.

Xiao Di couldn't help but speak up. "All this... was really Tu... Tu Ran's doing alone? Why would she..." He didn't dare finish the rest.

The head of the Pang Family, one of the three major conglomerates; the future heir of the Xie Family, first among the three great families; the two sons of the Mu Family, one of the top ten conglomerates; the eldest daughter of the Song Family, another of the top ten...

Every one of them stood at the very apex of the pyramid. Every one of them had been protected by layers of security—people ordinary citizens could never even hope to approach. And now they were all dead, killed by alien creatures, killed at the hands of a renegade Pioneer.

Their deaths were so brutal they were almost impossible to look at.

Min Tao raised his eyes to glance at Ding Naiqing across the way. The man stood there as if his soul had left his body, looking like he didn't know anything either. Min Tao shook his head. "The higher-ups will give us an explanation. We'll just wait."

Meng Fanchen, who had been eavesdropping, had hoped to pick up some tidbit from these Pioneers that he didn't already know. Unfortunately, they were just as clueless as he was.

"In the footage Zero provided, this person was killed by Tu Ran... Tu Ran," Xiao Di said. He'd instinctively called her "Sis" before quickly correcting himself, then glanced around in a panic. Fortunately, everyone's attention was still on Zeng Jing, so no one noticed his slip-up.

He slapped his own mouth a few times, silently vowing not to make that mistake again.

Zero had released a portion of the on-site surveillance footage.

One segment showed Tu Ran straddling Zeng Jing, working a knife around in the back of her neck.

"What's she doing?" Min Tao asked, puzzled.

Meng Fanchen craned his neck to look at the projection on Min Tao's communicator, then glanced at the back of Zeng Jing's neck where she lay on the ground.

"She's looking for something," Meng Fanchen said.

Min Tao turned his head to give him a look, then shut off his communicator's projection.

Meng Fanchen shrank back, lowered his head, and busied himself with his own work, helping his partner lift Zeng Jing onto the stretcher.

Ding Naiqing heard their entire exchange.

He watched the stretcher carrying Zeng Jing head downstairs, and fragments of memory flashed through his mind. He quickly pulled up the other surveillance clips Zero had released.

These clips had all been approved for release by the Federal Government. They were sent to the Pioneers and guards first, and would later be handed to the media for full public disclosure—evidence of Tu Ran's crimes.

One clip showed Tu Ran grabbing the Pang Family head by his tie and yanking him out from behind his bodyguards' protection. She said something to him, but gunfire drowned out her voice. She didn't wait for his response before snapping his neck.

Another clip, probably from a stairwell, showed Tu Ran kicking a guard so hard that the massive impact sent him and the guards behind him flying, after which she opened fire and gunned them all down.

Ding Naiqing rewound the video to the instant Tu Ran kicked the first guard.

It wasn't right. It wasn't normal at all. Why did Ran Jie have that much force in a single kick?

Even a fit, strong man couldn't manage that kind of power.

And snapping an adult male's neck with one hand wasn't something you could do casually either.

Since the clips Zero released were limited, and none of them clearly showed Tu Ran using an ability, Ding Naiqing could only speculate from the details.

His mind drifted, unbidden, to the hook snake on the Regaken State farm.

Why had Tu Ran shot it unconscious back then? And after it was out cold, what had it said to her?

When he'd woken up, he'd taken a look at the hook snake's corpse—there was a knife lodged in the back of its neck.

Both had injuries to the back of the neck. Coincidence?

Ding Naiqing recalled asking Ran Jie why Zhao Yan had killed General Xie Hong. She'd hemmed and hawed, and finally said, "The Federation will make an announcement soon. You'll know soon enough."

An announcement? Everyone already knew Zhao Yan killed General Xie Hong. What was there to announce?

Fragments of long-overlooked memories flickered through Ding Naiqing's mind, and a vague shape began to form. But he still couldn't grasp the answer that was right on the tip of his tongue.

...

...

[ABILITIES BURST ONTO THE SCENE! GENE-MODIFIED HUMANS NO LONGER THE ONLY PATH TO GODHOOD]

[ABILITIES! INNER CORES! GENE-MODIFIED HUMANS! WHERE WILL HUMANITY GO?]

[THE FIRST MULTI-ABILITY HOLDER IS ACTUALLY THE RENEGADE TU RAN!]

[SHOCKING! PIONEER TU RAN KNEW ABOUT ABILITIES ALL ALONG! USED HER POSITION TO HOARD INNER CORES!]

[EXCLUSIVE REPORT: A BREAKDOWN OF PIONEER TU RAN'S SEVERAL ABILITIES]

[THE PIONEER TEAM CAUGHT IN A STORM OF PUBLIC OPINION—HOW MANY PIONEERS ACTUALLY POSSESS ABILITIES?]

News about abilities flooded the entire Federation, generating as much heat as when the Threshold first descended all those years ago.

The Pioneer Team, in particular, found itself at the center of the storm. Countless media outlets swarmed in, lying in wait outside wherever Pioneers were on assignment.

The Pioneers were scattered across all forty-two states of the Federation, and every single location had been besieged by local media. Their work was severely disrupted. The Pioneer Team temporarily suspended all field missions and recalled every Pioneer.

At this moment, all the recalled Pioneers were seated in Meeting Room 721.

"Like hell! If I had abilities, would I have let some alien creature bite off my arm?" A man sat in his chair, knocking on his stiff, hard prosthetic left arm, his voice rough with anger. "These media bastards can only come after us! If they've got the guts, they should go interview Tu Ran themselves!"

The man beside him clenched his jaw and spat hatefully, "Who knows how long Tu Ran's known about inner cores on those creatures? She's been into the Threshold so many times—she must have stockpiled a ton of them."

"She caused all that chaos, and the Executive Department still hasn't found hide nor hair of her. She's definitely packing plenty of abilities," a woman stated calmly.

"Hah, I always thought it was strange how she was so strong in training but fell off after graduation—stuck at the low rank all this time. Little did we know she'd already left us in the dust. We climb to mid-rank, even high-rank, and still can't hold our heads up against her. Hell, in her eyes, we're probably all just a bunch of jokes!" Someone said sourly, casting a glance at Yao Bei sitting up front.

The mockery was unmistakable.

Yao Bei sat with her back straight, eyes lowered to the tabletop, calmly waiting for Xie Zhao to arrive, as if she hadn't heard the insult at all.

Receiving no response, the man snorted and fell silent.

Meanwhile, the subject of all their heated discussion—Tu Ran—was strolling leisurely down the crowded streets of the Black Market.