Ethereal Ascendance: A Journey of Transformation

"What's going on? What happened inside the base?"

The farewell ceremony suddenly turned chaotic. Wayne Peng was in charge of the event. He ordered someone to quickly escort the big bosses away, while calling around on his phone to find out what was happening.

"How did you guys mess up so badly? Even with such tight security, you let them secretly plot and form a rebel group!"

Wayne Peng soon got some news. He angrily scolded the person on the phone. But then he seemed to hear some good news. His tense face relaxed a bit. He gave several orders:

"Oh, that's good! Find those people quick. This has already alarmed the higher-ups. We can deal with punishments later. But now you must make up for your mistake. Search harder and guard every exit. Don't let any criminals escape!"

"Rebels?"

I don't know how others reacted, but I was really surprised Wayne Peng used that word. What could make the H-country military have a mutiny? And in the Shine Metropolitan! It made no sense at all!

Unless...

"Sorry, this is so sudden. Can you stay a bit after the farewell? I might need to borrow the angels' power after we finish the send-off!"

Wayne Peng put down his phone. He told someone to calm the crowd, then walked straight over to me and Cyra.

"Vampires, right?"

I nodded and got straight to the point. Of course we'd help. It was an easy way to earn goodwill, so why not?

"This is really embarrassing!"

Since I figured it out right away, Wayne Peng couldn't hide it anymore. He could only admit it with a bitter smile.

"Those two criminals we brought in yesterday somehow infected a bunch of soldiers guarding them! They not only secretly freed the criminals, but also tried to gather forces and break out of the base! Luckily, the troops stationed outside stopped and suppressed them. Now the base is working hard to count everyone involved. Also, those two escaped vampires haven't been caught yet. We don't know where they're hiding. We still don't really understand this light element, dark element stuff you talked about. To solve this quickly, I guess we can only ask you angels for help!"

"How could you be so careless? You knew about vampire powers but didn't pay more attention!"

Cyra couldn't help scolding them after hearing this. It was a bit harsh, but I agreed with her this time.

The H-country military had dealt with vampires before. Vampires are much stronger than normal people. If you're not careful, they can easily take advantage!

These two criminals were the ones who kidnapped Irene yesterday. I think since they knew how dangerous they were, they shouldn't have kept them alive in the first place. Why bother with interrogations?

"You're absolutely right. We'll definitely learn from this mistake!"

Since he needed our help, Wayne Peng was very flexible and polite. Seeing him so agreeable, Cyra felt bad about being lazy. She generously promised to help them find those two vampires!

"What exactly happened? Are we in danger? And is this farewell ceremony still going on? Your government officials left early, but what about us? We were supposed to go through the portal soon. How long do we have to wait?"

Katarina and her group couldn't wait anymore. They led the imperial delegation over to us.

As an imperial princess, and one who might rule in the future, she spoke a bit meekly to the Earth people. But for her own safety, she had to ask what was going on.

"Of course we're continuing! There was just an incident in the base, but it's perfectly solved now!"

After the bigwigs left, Wayne Peng was probably the highest-ranking person left. He couldn't avoid it, so he quickly turned to reassure the imperial princess.

In this situation, anyone would have a hard time dealing with it. Wayne Peng made several calls to his superiors. Finally, he gave the imperial delegation a clear promise:

"Trust me, you're very safe. Our H-country will send you back according to the original plan!"

"Fine, since you have the angels' help now, you probably won't lie to us about this!"

Clearly Katarina knew something about the vampire problem on Earth. She gave us angels a meaningful look, then did a royal curtsy to Wayne Peng before leading her people away.

Of course, even though the ceremony continued, there wouldn't be any more long speeches from leaders to waste time.

The cheerful farewell music started again. Finally, the big iron door hiding the portal opened, revealing the strange, colorful sphere entrance inside.

To avoid more accidents, Wayne Peng simply skipped to the final part of the ceremony to be safe.

Naturally, Katarina and her trusted aides went into the portal first. Of course, people on the other side would be there to meet them.

Our group stood at the back, watching the delegation line up and enter the space portal one by one. Suddenly Adrian couldn't hold back his doubts:

"Something still feels off! Humans infected by vampires should keep all their memories and abilities. Probably the only change is who they're loyal to. Those infected H-country soldiers should know that exposing themselves early is useless. Why attack so rashly? Is it because Earth people are different from people in our world?"

"Yeah! Why are they in such a hurry to escape? If they hadn't been discovered, wouldn't it be better to secretly grow their numbers?"

His words made me think of this too. But I didn't think Earth people were that different from normal humans in our world. According to various records, vampires usually hide for a long time. They only reveal themselves when they're sure they can fully control the whole base.

This was totally opposite to what Wayne Peng told us. Unless something forced them to take this risk and expose themselves! Or maybe they wanted to use this to hide something else?

"They chose this exact time to act. What do you think their goal is? Vampires have a very strict hierarchy. Those H-country soldiers infected later are just at the bottom. Of course they did this to cover for their superiors and distract attention!"

Reed also heard Adrian's doubts. Her mind worked faster than mine. She poked my back and quietly reminded me:

"In the second spot right after Irene, that imperial light mage wearing a cloak - did you notice? I accidentally found that the light element aura around him seems unstable. I'm afraid something's wrong!"

She wanted me to go check it out, just to be safe.

"But aren't we looking for vampires? Even if the light element aura is unstable, how could that connect to vampires?"

I couldn't understand right away, but since Reed said so, I naturally showed complete trust in her judgment.

"See you all on the other side soon!"

It was Irene's turn now. She finally put down the phone she'd been glued to. She turned back to wave goodbye to Reed and us.

"Bye bye!"

What's the point of saying goodbye for such a short time? I shook my head and talked to myself. But in that moment, a strange feeling suddenly popped into my mind. It felt like we might never see her again after this goodbye. But that was probably just silly thinking. I didn't pay much attention to it, and waved back to her with everyone else.

Just as Irene was about to enter the space portal, Adrian and I exchanged a look. We split up and approached the target from both sides.

"Excuse me, the Earth military asked us to check your identity. Can you cooperate?"

We each held a list of the delegation members that Wayne Peng gave us. Of course it had everyone's photos. Adrian looked at me, then very politely asked the person to take off his hat. But surprisingly, as soon as this cloaked mage heard the request, he turned and ran towards the exit without a word. He was incredibly fast, running tens of meters away in the blink of an eye.

"Stop him!"

Wayne Peng's voice rang out instantly. After Reed's warning earlier, he'd been closely watching everything over here. Unfortunately, the H-country soldiers' reactions were too slow. They couldn't keep up with the mage's escape speed at all. Just as the mage was about to rush out the door, someone grabbed him hard from behind!

Come on! Don't forget Adrian is a big shot who awakened his Battle Qi! Letting him get close to the door was already a careless mistake!

"Check his body! He must have used some trick to hide the dark element aura!"

I quickly ran over too. As the cloak hood was pulled back, a very obvious dark element aura revealed.

Looking at his face, sure enough, it was the criminal who kidnapped Irene earlier!