# 1964
Chapter 1951: Bait
Su Zhe stared at Zhao Zhengbin in a daze.
"Did you know? Maybe you're really suited to be a Night Watch." After a long while, he smiled helplessly. "Your courage, your determination, your sense of mission... all far stronger than mine. You're a natural-born Night Watch... whereas I'm just a coward who's both timid and insufferable!"
He, Su Zhe, possessed the identity of a Night Watch but lacked the corresponding spirit and bravery.
Zhao Zhengbin had no Night Watch cloak, yet possessed a heart that glittered like a precious gem... He and Zhao Zhengbin were like a joke played by fate, placing each other's souls into the wrong bodies.
"You're not a coward." Zhao Zhengbin glanced at the bulge around Su Zhe's waist.
"A true coward who surrendered to reality would desperately hide his past, pretend to forget everything, and start a new life... rather than keeping the Straight Blade that symbolizes his past tucked in his waistband at all times."
Su Zhe froze.
"I..." Su Zhe touched his waist. The rigid Straight Blade was pressed tightly against his body by the waistband, cold and uncomfortable.
He didn't know why he had kept this blade on him all along... In this shelter, there was absolutely no need for weapons. He carried this blade purely out of instinct.
He came back to his senses, shaking his head bitterly.
"You're overestimating me. I know exactly what kind of person I am..."
"Do you really?" Zhao Zhengbin said helplessly. "If you truly understood yourself, you wouldn't have been beaten black and blue these past two days... I told you, this place doesn't belong to you."
"If it doesn't belong to me, then what?"
Su Zhe's brow furrowed. His voice rose, and he didn't even know who he was angry at.
"With my pathetic level of strength, what good would it do even if I went out now? I can't help anyone! In the end, I'd just be like a deflated ball, left here with people looking at me with pity!!
Fine! Now I've stayed. I've desperately tried to fit in! And you're telling me this place doesn't belong to me?? What kind of joke is this?!"
Su Zhe's inexplicable fury made Zhao Zhengbin furrow his brows as well. He opened his mouth to say something, but the other man simply turned and walked away.
Watching his retreating figure, Zhao Zhengbin sighed helplessly...
...
"Has Su Yuan not arrived yet?"
By the helipad, Fang Mo glanced at the time and asked in a deep voice.
The rotors of several helicopters churned the air, producing muffled buzzing sounds. The gale wind billowed several purple cloaks, as if they were waiting at any moment to take flight.
"She just messaged saying she's almost here... There! Here she comes!" Li Zhenzhen gazed into the distance. Before her words finished, a plane was seen rapidly approaching.
The plane landed on the tarmac. Su Yuan quickly walked up to everyone. All six active members of the [Devil] Squad had arrived.
"Captain, what do you mean the enemy attack came early?" Su Yuan asked, confused. "Wasn't there still several hours until the scheduled time?"
Before Fang Mo could explain, a voice came from the distance.
"The [Key to the Gate] has awakened. All the futures we learned from Wang Mian were fundamentally wrong from the start." A figure in a mud-stained cassock walked over slowly.
Seeing the Fate Monk had come in person, surprise appeared in everyone's eyes. Lu Baoyou narrowed his gaze at him and asked in a low voice,
"You don't seem surprised?"
"From the moment Old Wang Mian returned, I anticipated this possibility."
"Then why didn't you warn the others?? Now all of Great Xia's arrangements have been rendered useless."
The Fate Monk glanced at him. "Do you know what's most important in fishing?"
"Fishing?" Lu Baoyou raised an eyebrow and shook his head.
"The bait." The Fate Monk said calmly. "Vishnu was the bait Cthulhu Faction offered to gain our trust. If we're to make Cthulhu Faction lower their guard, we naturally must offer sufficient bait as well...
The war on the front is nothing more than a war against the [Black Goat] offspring and those corrupted deities. Victory or defeat—none of that truly matters. Only by killing [Chaos] and [Black Goat] can we truly determine the outcome."
"But no one can stop Them. Many, many people will die, and it will cause tremendous panic..." Fang Mo frowned.
"How many people They kill and how much panic They cause doesn't matter. As long as the surviving population is enough to sustain human reproduction." The Fate Monk replied calmly. "Before the war began, I secretly relocated one thousand young couples outside of Great Xia. Even if every single person in Great Xia perished, humanity would still endure.
Those so-called 'Winter Plan,' evacuation plans, shelters—all things Lin Qiye wanted to establish. From the very beginning, I never agreed with his approach. It was a complete waste of time and effort."
The Fate Monk's words directly shocked the members of the [Devil] Squad. They looked at the Fate Monk as if viewing a madman!
It was acceptable if all the citizens within Great Xia perished??
Even Lu Baoyou, who considered himself cold-blooded, was shaken by the Fate Monk's statement...
Following this logic, in the Fate Monk's eyes, all citizens, Night Watch members, and human deities were merely expendable pieces... His goal was exceptionally clear and unwavering: to slay the Three Pillars!!
"Don't look at me like that... You don't need to认同 my thinking. You only need to complete your mission." The Fate Monk's gaze fell on Fang Mo. "Do you understand your mission now, Captain Fang Mo?"
"...Understood." Fang Mo nodded with a complicated expression.
The Fate Monk turned around, and eleven figures walked over from the distance—precisely the twelve Golden Immortal proxies who had crossed paths with the [Devil] Squad a few times!
"These are the targets you must escort... After you deliver them to the Ancestral God Temple, Captain Fang Mo will tell you what to do next." The Fate Monk checked his watch. "Time is running short. You need to move quickly."
Fang Mo's gaze met with the other eleven Golden Immortal proxies. Their expressions varied, but they still boarded two planes respectively, following the Fate Monk's guidance.
Under Captain Fang Mo's signal, the [Devil] Squad walked directly toward another plane.
"Lu Baoyou."
Just as Lu Baoyou, the last one, was about to board, the Fate Monk spoke.
Lu Baoyou stopped in his tracks and looked back.
"Sorry. There wasn't enough time. We still haven't found her." The Fate Monk said.
"..." A flash of disappointment flickered in Lu Baoyou's eyes, but quickly returned to normal. "I understand."
With that, he stepped into the cabin.
The helicopters rose rapidly amid the buzzing sounds, flying toward the horizon!