I, the leader of the esoteric sect, am doing great things in the infinite world!

Talking about deals while Li Lin is making jokes and banter always tends to veer off-topic without you realizing it, which is really agonizing.

"Roar!"

Hedley frowned. "If you don't want to... um?"

Why did he suddenly agree so readily...?

However, once Li Lin opens this door, the arrival of the Reunification Movement army will leave him with no choice.

A smile appeared on Hedley's face as he lightly tapped his fingers on the table: "So, you support our temporary stay? You won't secretly leak our situation to the Ursus authorities, will you?"

"Everything must be done according to the rules we have set here, and according to the reasonable application of the law. You just asked me, and I could have answered 'no comment,' but then you would have been unhappy. What could I do?"

Li Lin pulled out a pair of glasses from somewhere and put them on his nose.

It's a pity they're not black-rimmed glasses.

Hedley opened his mouth, vaguely sensing that the conversation was about to be steered off course by Li Lin again.

"I don't mean to betray the infected. You asked me if I support you, and I said yes. I'm telling you that clearly. I feel that you Sarkaz still need to learn; you're still too young, you understand? Let me tell you, I'm a veteran, I've seen it all. Which country in the world haven't I investigated?"

Li Lin slammed his hand on the table: "You all need to understand, Duke Kosichä of Ursus is far superior to you. I chatted with him effortlessly. So, even mercenaries need to improve their knowledge, understand? I feel sorry for you..."

"You guys have one good point: no matter where you go, you Sarkaz run faster than Lungmen reporters, but the questions you ask are always too simple, sometimes naive! Do you understand?"

Duke Koschei, the Black Serpent, is inside Talulah's body; in other words, he's chatting and laughing with Koschei.

Suddenly, Hedley understood why Ines had become the way she was.

The Sarkaz man explained weakly, "No, I just wanted to ask if our safety could be guaranteed..."

Li Lin raised his middle finger and pushed up his glasses: "I'm sorry, I'm speaking to you today as an elder—"

There's nothing wrong with the statement itself, but considering Li Lin's appearance, it sounds really ridiculous when he says it.

Here, the man turned his head towards the stove and laughed until he was convulsing.

"I'm not a Sarkaz mercenary, but I've seen too much. I need to share some life lessons with you... There's a saying in Yan: 'Make a fortune in silence.' So I'll keep quiet; that's the best approach."

Hedley thought to himself that it would be best if he didn't say a word.

"But seeing your enthusiasm, I felt it wouldn't be right to remain silent. If your reports are inaccurate in the future, you will be held responsible. I didn't say I wanted to betray those infected, I had no such intention, but you insist on asking me if I support you. We are now business partners, how can I not support you?"

Li Lin adjusted his belt and recited the last quote as a summary of the conversation.

"Don't always try to make a big news story, saying that I've already betrayed the infected, and then criticize me. You guys are so naive! I'm angry! This won't do! I've offended you today."

22 Talulah has really grown into a mature woman, oh ho ho ho!

A pure white snowfield was divided in two by a long, gray-black road. The strangely shaped trees along the roadside pierced the sky. The windows of a small off-road vehicle were covered with fog. W reached out and drew a smiley face on the glass.

"Sooner or later I'll strap a bomb to him, tie him to a flagpole, hang him up, and blow him to pieces."

W had a maniacal smile on his face, and all he could say was that he wanted to take revenge on someone.

In that brief, mutually beneficial meeting, Li Lin's overwhelming aura made the Sarkaz trio, accustomed to the iron-blooded nature of the group, feel extremely uncomfortable.

However, compared to Ines, who recklessly pried into Li Lin's thoughts and was subsequently driven to nausea, and Hedley, who positively accepted Li Lin's life experiences, W being given the nickname "Cockroach Girl" seems harmless...

Harmless my foot!

Terra also has cockroaches, and these abominable creatures grow larger, fly higher, and climb faster after being infected with Originium, making them the best of the Originium bugs.

Moreover, after following Princess Theresa of the Sarkaz for some time, the freedom and glory of the Sarkaz had been deeply rooted in W's heart. The thought that the iconic sharp horns of the Sarkaz were actually cockroach antennae in Li Lin's eyes made W want to rush back to the cabin right now and blow that corrupt official and his two women to smithereens.

She subconsciously felt that Li Lin was just a corrupt official who talked nonsense and relied on his noble status, while the woman codenamed "King Killer" gave W, who was also a mercenary, a sense of crisis, but there were too many people like that on battlefields big and small.

As for Miss Nian, who had been idling along, she was automatically ignored by W. In her eyes, Nian, who had been doing nothing, was just a tool for Li Lin to vent his lust.

A cold wind blew past the window, and a clump of snowflakes was blown down and landed on the roadside. Ines rolled down the car window and gagged, but nothing came out.

A moment later, she closed the car window and spoke in a hoarse voice:

I advise you not to do that.

Ines clutched her chest and sighed, "That woman called the Kingslayer seems to be from Syracuse; she smells like a wolf."

Hedley gripped the steering wheel with a slight pressure, his knuckles clearly visible on the back of his hand, and he stared straight ahead.

"Syracusa wouldn't care about a lone wolf, but what about the other woman?"

He was referring to the year.

Neither Hedley nor W could see anything special about Nian; it was as if she were just an ordinary person.

But how is that possible?

Ines frowned slightly: "That woman... I can't find her anywhere."

The absence of shadows means there will be no opportunity for similar Originium Arts to exploit.

"Can't find it? It seems there really is something special about it." Hedley was even more reassured by this conclusion, letting out a long sigh as if his guess had been confirmed.

"And what's wrong with that man? How could he possibly make our Miss Ines like this?" A sarcastic voice came from the back row.

Ines ignored the sarcastic "w" behind her and instead tidied her messy hair in front of the car mirror.

“Hedley, that man named Li Lin is far more complex than you think. His mind is completely unguarded, and the process of me acquiring Originium Arts has never been so smooth.”

Hedley slowed down. The outline of the small town of Chernobog was already appearing on the horizon. The flags of the Sarkaz Mercenary Group and the Reunion Movement were planted in front of the town's road and fluttered in the wind.

“But once I entered his mind, it was like seeing a sun.” Ines’s expression turned grim again. “Only, what he radiated wasn’t light and heat, but rather…”

Hedley sighed in deep sympathy.

The Sarkaz trio returned to their base, feeling utterly humiliated. They parked their car and headed towards the church in the town center.

The not-so-large church walls bear charred black scars, and the stained glass windows are now just dark holes, hastily boarded up, yet a biting wind still blows through the gaps.

The Reunion Movement's occupation of this remote town did not result in many casualties. On the one hand, they came prepared, and on the other hand, the Sarkaz mercenary group, lacking any sense of martial ethics, cooperated from within and without to directly defeat the town's garrison.

The church doors were half-open and crooked, and half of the wooden pews had been split and chopped up to be used as kindling. In the empty space, there was a long table around which the leaders and cadres of the Integration Movement were discussing a certain topic.

The arrival of the three of them gradually quieted the discussion, and Drak, who was sitting in the middle, raised his hand to signal the Sarkaz mercenary leaders to sit down.

As the three leaders of the Sarkaz mercenary group, Hedley, W, and Ines naturally also had a place at the long table.

"I am so glad to see you all back safely, my Sarkaz compatriots."

Talulah placed her hands, fingers interlaced, on the table. The cup of coffee Alina had brewed beside her had cooled down after nearly half an hour of arguing. The dragon girl's gaze was clear and sharp.

W shifted her body uncomfortably, but Ines still instinctively turned her gaze to the ground.

Hedley's expression remained calm: "Our deal is complete."

Whether it refers to the deal between the Sarkaz Mercenaries and the Reunion Movement, or the deal between the Sarkaz Mercenaries and the Mutual Aid Society.

Talulah nodded: "I understand. So, has the time been set?"

“Early December,” Hedley replied, “but I myself may not be directly involved in this war. As for W and Ines, they will make their own decisions about whether to join the war.”

The dragon girl stared at him silently, then at one moment she tapped the table with her finger: "So what is the Regent's attitude?"

Talulah chose to get straight to the point.

She knew that Hedley's family had a long and distinguished history in Sarkaz, and she was also aware that the Sarkaz mercenary group in front of her had participated in the Sarkaz Civil War.

After Theresa's death, the only nominal king of the Sarkaz was Theresa, who lived in Victoria.

Hedley pursed his lips. "I don't know. But if you're going to set off, you need to do it as soon as possible. I don't know how long we can keep up this lie."

He changed the subject.

Fortunately, Talulah did not press the issue further. She smiled easily, and then the heated discussion resumed.

Now the Sarkaz trio finally understood what they were discussing—which area of ​​Chernobog to focus their attack on.

At this time, the Reunion Movement's forces were not as large as depicted in the story. Before Black Serpent seized Talulah's body and recruited a large number of rabble, the Reunion Movement maintained a relatively high level of organization.

This is a good thing and a bad thing.

The good thing is that they have maintained the purity of the organization, without being tainted by the filth and savagery of thugs, and have extremely high morale and fighting power; the bad thing is that they do not have enough cannon fodder, and they may not be able to gain an advantage in urban warfare.

“That’s easy,” W chuckled. “There are plenty of infected people in the mine.”

Seeing that everyone's eyes were on her, W sat up slightly and said, "Anyway, most of those infected people hate the Ursus Empire."

The implication is that they recruit infected miners, then fan the flames, using them as the vanguard.

Just like the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom used refugees from Jiangnan as a vanguard for attacking cities, they died without a second thought, showing no remorse whatsoever.

"That's absolutely right!" shouted a Reunification Movement cadre at the end of the long table, slamming his hand on the table. W turned his gaze toward the source of the voice and saw a little boy with white hair sitting in a chair, looking excited.

"So why can't we increase the intensity?" The boy clapped his hands excitedly, staring intently at W. "My Originium Arts can catalyze their Oripathy, turning them into my herd. They'll definitely be an asset to us!"

Even W felt a chill run down her spine when that boy stared at her.

If Li Lin is a star-like source of pollution, then this little bastard codenamed Mephisto is the kind of slimy, mollusc-like creature.

Of course, I'm not saying that Li Lin is much better than Mephistopheles. What's the point of comparing a radioactive source and a cesspool? (sad)

Fortunately, Mephisto's arrogance didn't last long. Alina, who was sitting next to Talulah, got up, quickly came behind Mephisto, and then dragged the problem child out for a lesson with a smile.

"I'm sorry to have made you all laugh. Ino's mind isn't always very stable, but Alina will keep an eye on him."

Talulah picked up her glass and took a sip. "Absorbing the infected from the mines is indeed a good move, especially since I noticed you mentioned the Mutual Aid Society earlier, right?"