Lying beside Aurora lazily, Bear Cub suddenly stood up and growled at Kerlodd as a warning. Han Xiao had made Aurora raise Bear Cub for a long time, and this bear had already grown to the height of half a human. It was reaching its youth stage and had developed a strange mutation with characteristics that it should not normally have—its hair glowed lightly, and its attributes seemed to be gradually growing toward an elite level.

Aurora’s power seemed to have a catalytic effect on life forms; young beings could receive special growth by being staying near to her. Some time ago, Han Xiao had come to know that Aurora’s Esper power was called [Dawn of Life]. Its potential grade was also S, just like Hila. That had been an exciting discovery.

The source of this discovery came from combat information. Of course, it was not from him attacking Aurora. He had realized that he had misunderstood how it worked—he could just let Aurora attack him. However, even after a lot of persuading, Aurora had still kept shaking her head, unwilling to attack Han Xiao. She had even been incredibly distraught, thinking that Han Xiao might have been unhappy with her for some reason.

To Aurora, there were only two people in the entire world whom she was close to—one was her older sister Hila, and the other was the person who had torn open the darkness and brought her light when she was at her lowest point, Han Xiao. Other than Hila, Han Xiao was the only one that treated her very well. She only had these two to rely on, so she cared for Han Xiao like an older brother.

After Han Xiao finally convinced her to shoot him with the excuse of testing the performance of his mechanical suit, Han Xiao got the combat information. His initial target was only Hila, and to his very pleasant surprise, Aurora had the same level of potential. To him, it was like a ‘buy one get one free’.

In the original storyline, Aurora had turned into jam, so her future achievements were unknown. This time, she had the chance to grow. Furthermore, with how much she relied on Han Xiao, she was much more dependable than her older sister.

Han Xiao gave Hila a look, signaling that they needed to talk privately, then walked to the side.

Not long after, Hila walked over, stood beside him, and frowned. “What?”

“Do you want to leave this planet with me?”

“Why are you inviting me?” Hila’s expression in her eyes changed a little, and she looked at Han Xiao’s profile.

“Not just you, your sister as well. I know that you two will never separate.”

Hila looked down to consider, and after a long silence, she said slowly, “No.”

Han Xiao raised his brows. “I asked Bennett the same thing. It’s understandable that he’s not coming, but why did you reject?”

“Dangerous,” Hila said. “I need to take care of my sister.”

“It’s dangerous to stay too.”

Hila’s expression turned serious and said, “what did you foresee again?”

Han Xiao roughly described the Mutation Disaster and said, “The disaster will come to you sooner or later even if you stay on this planet. You and Aurora both have very high potential, so your future will definitely be in the galaxy. Even so, do you still not want to come with me?”

Hila’s closed her eyes and fell into contemplation.

The silence continued, like the lonely moon hanging high up in the sky.

After a long time, Hila turned to Han Xiao and said softly, “No.”

Han Xiao looked at her meaningfully, lit a cigarette, and exhaled some smoke. “Okay then.”

His tone was very casual and did not show any signs of wanting to know more, which made Hila doubtful. She frowned and said, “Do you not want to know why?”

Han Xiao laughed and said, “Don’t think of yourself too highly, I just asked. Whether you come or not doesn’t affect me much—you won’t be much of a help with the strength you have now.”

Hila’s eyes turned cold a little. Although she had rejected Han Xiao, feeling the man’s careless attitude, she felt like she was not important to him, and it was embarrassing.

This time, Han Xiao added, “This is your own choice; I won’t force you to do anything under the guise of ‘for your own good’.”

As he was speaking, he took out a string of keys, threw them to Hila, and said coldly, “If the darkness devours the sanctuary one day, these keys lead to my secret base. It can provide a place to hide for you. I’ve left the location information in my office, the laminated back side of the third drawer on the left; I’m leaving it there for you.”

Hila played with the keys. Suddenly, she said, “Are you not coming back?”

Han Xiao put on a half-smile and said, “Do you care about that a lot?”

Hila snorted coldly, raised the keys, signaling that she would remember what he had said, and left.

After she walked a few steps away, Han Xiao’s voice came from behind with a light tone.

“Don’t die.”

Hila’s footsteps paused.

“You too.”

After Hila left, Han Xiao’s smile disappeared. He threw the cigarette butt on the floor and extinguished it with his foot.

From what he estimated, there was more than a fifty percent chance that Hila will leave with him, but Hila had made the other choice unexpectedly. Even after he explained the pros and cons, Hila had still chosen to stay. Other than her sister being the reason, she might have other considerations. The personality of Hila before she turned evil was not easy to guess.

However, Han Xiao’s need for Hila at the current stage was indeed not high. The amount of help that Hila would be to him was not much before her power matured, and she would not even be as effective as those highly skilled players.

Furthermore, bringing Hila along meant that he had to bring Aurora, and the current Aurora was even weaker and could be hurt easily. The galaxy was full of known and unknown dangers. Even though Han Xiao was familiar with Galaxy, he had to be cautious.

Players, on the other hand, were an extremely great help since they could revive, and Han Xiao could enjoy the freedom of acting alone without constraints. There were benefits to not bringing anyone too.

Therefore, letting Hila and Aurora stay on Planet Aquamarine might even be a good choice. There were still two to three years before the Mutation Disaster would arrive, and these two would be able to grow in a safe environment before that. If they followed him, they would face danger very soon.

Letting them grow and coming back to fetch them after the Mutation Disaster was not a bad thing from how Han Xiao looked at it.

Even so, after being rejected twice on the bounce, Han Xiao was still rather hurt in his heart. He mumbled to himself, “Could it be that I’m not charming? It can’t be.”

A sound came from beside him; Emerald Grass walked out from the shadow in the corner. Han Xiao had known all along that she was hiding there. He looked at her and asked, “How much did you hear?”

“Everything,” Emerald Grass said surprisingly. “Was everything you said true? Aren’t you afraid that I’ll leave after you leave as well? You exchanged me and now have no use for me, huh?”

“You’re free, but it’s best for you to stay in the sanctuary. I wasn’t joking about the disaster.”

Emerald Grass nodded with a complicated expression, turned around, and left. Han Xiao looked at her back with narrowed eyes and shook his head.

The prisoners from the Bell of Death Island were new characters in Version 2.0, Emerald Green being one of them, and he had gotten her out in advance. Emerald Grass was valuable given that she would invent important drugs against the Mutation Disaster in the future.

The heart of a human was difficult to control, but he felt there was quite a high chance that Emerald Grass would stay. She valued her life and was fanatic about pharmaceutical research. With so many players in the sanctuary, it was the best place for experiments—it was attractive to Emerald Grass.

…

Bringing fifty highly-skilled players was a very important part of the plan. When the Pro League finished and the players were still unsatisfied, it would be time to carry out the plan.

It was already the finals and would end in just a few days. Han Xiao was perfecting his plan to bring the players away.

On this day, Raylen skipped Bennett and contacted Han Xiao directly, giving him the final warning with a very aggressive and tough tone.

“Black Phantom, we know you captured Godora’s investigator. You have made a big mistake. We respect the contributions that you made during the war with the Germinal Organization, but we won’t allow you to use that contribution to do whatever you want. Give the Godoran to us; this is the last warning, or we will take the necessary measures. You won’t want that to happen. Although you’re very strong, you will not be able to match up to our nation.”

“‘Kay, bye.”

Ka-chin.

Han Xiao ended the communication and rubbed the bridge of his nose, speechless.

Raylen refused to give up and wanted to pressure him, but Han Xiao did not want to waste his time with them now.

Han Xiao was sitting in his office at this time, and Kerlodd was right beside him. This Godoran was standing next to the window and looking out at the players on the square. He suddenly said, “So, is this the special phenomenon on your planet?”

Kerlodd still remembered his investigation mission. During this time, he had noticed the so-called ‘Inhuman Phenomenon’ as well and seen many of the characteristics of the players.

“This is your investigation mission, right? So, have you reached a conclusion?” Han Xiao asked.