"Fufu is smiling at me, hehe."
"Hehe your head, stop being so narcissistic. Sigh, what a pity this time. If I had a gun, I definitely could have shared a lot more experience."
"That little bit of experience is nothing. Missions, man, missions are what's most important."
"What class do you guys think Lily is? Her combat power is just too fierce. It would be great if I could change classes to hers."
"Let's go, let's go, hurry to Lynn. Let's unlock our advanced classes first."
A group of players noisily squeezed back onto their vehicles... On the way back to Lynn, after hesitating for a long time, Shino couldn't help but ask: "There's a question I don't know if I should ask."
Lily said casually: "Ask away."
Shino said: "Why is there such a huge gap between the strength you showed at the Abandoned Cooling Plant and what you showed just now?"
"You suspect I've been hiding my strength?" Lily slowly turned her head.
Shino didn't reply, but from her expression, it was clear she thought so. If it were just a power awakening, the strength shouldn't fluctuate this much.
Lily nodded: "Are there any listening devices in the car?"
Shino's black pupils revealed her sincerity: "No."
"That's good."
Time to start making up a story!
As soon as she finished speaking, Lily closed the car windows, turning the entire vehicle into a sealed space.
No one spoke. For a moment, the only sound in the car was the ticking of the swaying ornament.
Shino's heart tightened for no reason. Based on her experience, when things suddenly turned like this, it meant Lily was about to make a move on her.
But it really shouldn't be the case. Lily didn't seem like that kind of person, and even if she really wanted to act, it was impossible to do it here. The Four Directions vehicles were nearby, unless Lily was confident she could take everyone out.
Shino stealthily turned her head, wanting to see Lily's expression. To her surprise, Lily was staring straight at her at that moment.
"!"
She quickly sat up straight, like a student slacking off in class who suddenly finds the teacher standing outside the window.
"Actually..." After deliberating for a long time, Lily suddenly smiled and shook her head, "It's not that I intentionally wanted to hide it from you. It's just that before today, I didn't know if you were in league with Inoue."
A huge secret!
Shino turned her head again. This time she saw Lily staring at the vast wilderness ahead, dotted with starlight through the windshield. Her eyes were deep, as if hiding an entire galaxy.
"The me you see now is not the complete me."
Shino: "Huh?"
"Anya and I come from a place so distant you can't even imagine it. That place was given the name Afterlife. We were once members of a mysterious organization there. But just like what you're experiencing now, a traitor appeared in our organization. For a bit of profit, they forgot all their past persistence and pushed the things they had guarded for most of their lives into the abyss."
Lily spoke slowly. Although she kept saying "we," her tone was so calm it was as if she wasn't talking about her own experiences.
A traitor like Inoue?
Thinking of how she felt when she learned Inoue was a traitor, and then considering that Inoue was at least caught while the organization Lily belonged to was likely completely destroyed, Shino could suddenly understand why Lily seemed so calm.
It was because a shot had been fired into her heart, forming a wound that couldn't be healed for a long time!
"After that great upheaval, I brought Anya and escaped here. We've been looking for a way back and a way to restore my strength. The reason you see my strength seemingly constantly growing isn't because we hid it, nor because I awakened twice, but because my injuries are slowly recovering. I've always been chasing the me of the past."
Lily stepped on the accelerator. Amidst the roar, the car rushed toward the distance at an even faster speed, as if racing against an invisible vehicle.
Shino's heart was touched: "Is there anything I can help you with? You're my savior, and I want to repay this debt of gratitude."
Lily shook her head: "No need. Didn't I just say? That place is very far, so far you can't even imagine it."
Shino didn't believe in giving up: "Gene Primordial is one of the five major powers after all. Although I can't command the Gene Primordial Intelligence Bureau, it's not hard to help you investigate that enemy and find their weaknesses."
Lily continued driving without saying a word.
Shino suddenly realized something. Her right hand moved up along with her gaze, finally landing on the infinite starry sky: "You mean... you're from there?"
Her voice trembled slightly, and her hand followed suit.
It was unbelievable, yet it had a certain logic to it. With Lily's strength, she couldn't possibly be some unknown person, but Four Directions had been secretly investigating these past few days and even requested aid from headquarters, yet they still couldn't find any useful information.
If Lily was an extraterrestrial visitor, then her unclear identity and rapid growth in strength—these anomalies could all be explained!
"How you interpret it is up to you, but can you keep this a secret for me, Miss Shino?"
A flat voice sounded. Shino nodded subconsciously. After a moment of silence, she realized a problem.
"Why tell me so much? You could have easily made up an excuse to brush me off. Aren't you afraid I'll expose your secret?"
Is it possible that this is exactly what I just made up?
Lily suppressed a laugh.
She went to all this trouble to spin a story just to boost Shino's favorability. The things Inoue had shouted at Shino made her realize that the missions associated with Shino were definitely not simple and likely contained huge rewards no less than those for destroying the Truth Society.
By giving Shino the impression that she was extremely reliable and completely trustworthy in advance, she would be able to intervene in missions earlier and obtain more rewards.
Of course, she wasn't afraid of Shino talking nonsense. On one hand, Shino's favorability toward her was currently at 62 points. On the other hand, she hadn't personally told Shino she was from the stars. Even if Shino blabbed everywhere, she could just say Shino was talking nonsense.
"I won't assume everyone is untrustworthy just because I was betrayed once. We've been through life and death together twice; at least for now, you seem trustworthy. And although you can't help me now, I might have to ask for your help in the future."
"Hmm?"
"I can see things that Ordinary people can't. Your future might be far grander than you imagine."
Shino hesitated to speak.
Her greatest dream was to destroy the Truth Society in her lifetime. What kind of future was grander than that?
She couldn't quite imagine it.
However, at this moment, she suddenly thought of a document she had inadvertently seen.
"I don't know how to help you restore your strength, but if it's about leaving this place, I do have a lead. Before I joined Four Directions, I found a file codenamed 001 in my father's laboratory. According to that file, Origin Star once had no spiritual energy. All the changes began on a certain day twenty years before the war. The file speculated that spiritual energy is a power brought by extraterrestrial life. If such an extraterrestrial life truly exists, then there must be a way to leave this place."
[You have triggered the plot mission: [Source of Spiritual Energy]]
The game prompt sounded, and Lily was delighted.
Good, good, good. Did the mission come this quickly?
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