Journey Of The Immortal Through The Multiverse

Feng Jun arrived late to the party with his team of fully-equipped field agents. When he saw the blood on John Smith's mask, his first reaction was to feel John Smith's chin for any wounds.

"Are you hurt?"

"Are you blind?" snapped John Smith, pointing to the graze on his cheek.

"That's good…" Feng Jun heaved a sigh of relief before looking at John Smith apologetically. They had failed in their duty to keep him safe.

"It's not your fault," consoled John Smith.

"This man is the Germinal Organization's executor," he explained, pointing toward Norsa's corpse. "He's an assassin who has never failed."

"Norsa Connor‽"

Norsa was widely feared even among the Six Nations. Once, he had gunned down a high-ranking Stardragon official in broad daylight despite tight security. Upon confirming the identity of the corpse, Feng Jun's shock turned into amazement.

"Hold on, he came to assassinate you… but you killed him instead‽ Are you really that strong‽"

"You only realized that now?"

John Smith glared at him as he checked the interface for the quest reward.

_____________________

Character Summoning Card: You are able to use this character's ability once.

Character: Norsa Connor

Ability: Illusory Power (E) – Only targets with more than 50 INT can resist this ability.

Usage Count: 0/1

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Character Summoning Cards were quite uncommon in Galaxy. They only dropped from special quests, and their function was to allow the player to use the ability of the NPC character stated on the card. In Galaxy, people farmed and sold these for money, but it was only the rich players, who could afford to indiscriminately use them, who bought them. Although not John Smith's style, it was always better to have more tools at one's disposal. Fortunately, John Smith had assigned all his stat points to INT beforehand, otherwise, things would have played out very differently.

'Germinal Organization, thanks for the gift!'

_____________________

Do you wish to accept your reward now?

Y/N

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'Yes.'

It was a 'use' item that could be stored within the interface, allowing John Smith to pull it out whenever he needed it. Meanwhile, Frenzied Sword was still trying to comprehend the situation. When he used the examine function to learn that these mysterious men in black were aligned with the 'Stardragon Strategic Defense Initiative', he couldn't help but look toward John Smith in wonderment.

"You know this guy?" Feng Jun asked John Smith curiously as he pointed at Frenzied Sword.

"Just ignore him."

As John Smith wiped the blood of his face with a handkerchief that Feng Jun passed to him, he frowned.

"If Norsa has found me, then it means the Germinal Organization must know exactly where I am."

"Not necessarily," replied Feng Jun. "The intelligence department has the network locked down. Any mention of you is blocked from being transmitted out."

John Smith's spirits immediately lifted.

"Are you sure?"

Feng Jun nodded.

"But… Norsa definitely wasn't operating alone. He must have passed the intel on to Germinal spies hiding within the capital. It'll probably be a matter of time before they relay the information."

John Smith abruptly started to run out of the alley.

"Hey, where are you going?" called out Feng Jun hastily. "I still have to take you back to HQ for debriefing!"

"No time to explain! Quickly request for permission to seal all of the city's exits!"

It was possible that Norsa had learned of his whereabouts from the spies in the city, and that he had come straight for him right after. In that case, it was not too late to take action! John Smith knew exactly who the head honcho of the spy network was. The reason he had not taken action against him so far was that the Germinal would simply send a replacement to take over. On the contrary, leaving him alive had its advantages.

Norsa's death would confirm John Smith's presence in the Western Capital, but if he could stop the intel from getting out, the Germinal would not be able to pinpoint his location. Of course, all of this was simply guesswork; it was possible that a spy had already left the city to deliver the intel. Nevertheless, it was worth a shot.

"Li Ya Lin, tell the others to meet up with me at District 8. These are the coordinates… Remember to drive a car!"

"Of all places, the slums‽ I was expecting at least a fancy restaurant!"

"There's no time, just do as I asked!"

After hanging up, John Smith smashed the window of the nearest car by the roadside and jumped in. The owner was making a phone call right beside his car when the sudden sound of shattering glass gave him a fright. He immediately ran over to the driver side and grabbed Han Xiao by the collar.

"You! Get out now!"

The next second, he found himself yanked halfway into the car with his head pinned against the steering wheel, causing the car horn to bellow noisily.

"Nice timing!"

John Smith immediately began to search for the poor car owner's body for the car keys. Upon finding them, he ungraciously shoved him out of the window and sped off into the distance.

As the car owner sat dazed on the floor with a big bruise on his face, he wondered aloud, "Damn, since when were car thieves this brazen?"

…

As John Smith weaved through traffic at high speed, he soon noticed the wail of a police siren.

"The car in front, stop right now!" yelled the traffic police officer on his motorbike.

John Smith tossed the car owner's driving license out of the window and yelled back, "Deduct as many points as you like!"

The officer ended up tailing John Smith all the way to District 8, where John Smith quickly got off and began to stride off in big steps. The persistent police officer ran up to him to block his path.

"You! Stop right now!"

John Smith rolled his eyes in exasperation. With a quick chop that the police officer could never have seen coming, he knocked him out cold. Through a series of twisting alleys—in the process, disposing of three muggers, John Smith soon arrived at a small, dilapidated church building. It was now used as a means of shelter by some homeless people.

In the warring period of the old era, religion had served as a means of mental support for many. At one point, this church, in particular, had managed to amass millions of believers. However, the 'savior' that they believed in never appeared, so eventually, people stopped believing.

There were a number of vagrants in the building, but when John Smith could not see the one that he was looking for, he abruptly grabbed the nearest one up and questioned, "Have you seen a tall, bearded man with the tattoo of a red wolf on the back of his hand?"

The vagrant shivered at the sight of the blood covering John Smith.

"You mean Lu Gao En?" he answered meekly. "We call him 'Tongueless' because he never seems to speak. I think he went somewhere in the afternoon."

Afternoon?

Even regular citizens needed to go through lengthy checks at one of the three-guard posts in order to leave the Western Capital. As it was currently only 2 PM, there was still a chance for John Smith to stop him. He could not count on Division 13 to pass a restriction order. Even if they were willing to, it would take some time for them to come to the decision. By then, Lu Gao En would most likely have left the capital. John Smith furrowed his brows. Which of the three exits was Lu Gao En at? Time was ticking.

Lu Gao En left less than two hours ago, meaning that he must have received Norsa's intel just then.

Since Norsa had come directly to assassinate him, he must have tasked Lu Gao En with reporting the information back to their organization. Lu Gao En would definitely not have expected John Smith to know of him, so he would not see a need to deliver the intel with haste. Under such circ.u.mstances, the city pass that he would use would most likely be the one nearest to him—the Northwest Pass.

However, it was still possible that he would choose to use either of the further passes.

There was no way to tell.

"Ay, John Smith, we're here. What did you call us here for?"

Li Ya Lin, Zhang Wei, and Lambert arrived. They had managed to come on time thanks to Li Ya Lin's ride, a yellow convertible sports car.

"An emergency mission. One of Germinal's spies here acquired some important information. There's a chance that he hasn't left the city yet, but he could be at any of the three passes."

Li Ya Lin wiped the playful smile off her face upon hearing the severity of the situation.

"Do you have a picture of him?" she asked.

Han Xiao picked up some scraps of newspaper around him and began to draw out a rough image of Lu Gao En from his faded memory. He then yanked the homeless guy from earlier on up and barked, "Look at this, does it look like Lu Gao En?"

"The eyes should be lower… his nose is a little crooked… hair is shorter…"

With the man's help, John Smith was able to produce sketches of Lu Gao En with a 70 or 80 percent resemblance. He then passed them to the trio and instructed, "Let's split up and get the security officers to keep an eye out for this person. Li Ya Lin and I will take her car to the furthest city entrance, while each of you will go to the other two."

Zhang Wei's face twitched as John Smith gave them the orders. 'Am I still the leader of this team?'

Nonetheless, he let it slide as it was an emergency.

As they set off, John Smith immediately hopped into the driver's seat of Li Ya Lin's car.

"Hey, it's my car!" grumbled Li Ya Lin immediately. "I'll drive."

"You drive too slow."

"You don't trust the driving skills of a top agent‽" Li Ya Lin was so outraged that her eyebrows were almost contorted upside-down. Unfortunately, she knew that there was no time to argue, so she grudgingly got into the passenger's seat.

"Tighten your seatbelt," reminded Han Xiao.

Li Ya Lin rolled her eyes at him, replying, "You must be joking. I'm a pugilist; I'll be fine no matter how fast you go."

"Suit yourself," replied John Smith with a plain nod as he stamped on the accelerator.

…

Half an hour later, a yellow sports car appeared at the South Entrance. Spinning almost full-circle, the car left four sizzling, black tire marks on the road as it came to an abrupt stop.

"Bleargh—"

"Hey, hey, I thought you were a pugilist?"

"You… don't talk to me n— bleeaarrgh—"

Li Ya Lin puked non-stop as she leaned on the car door.

"Half an hour, and 27 car accidents… or was it 28? My head's spinning so much that I can't even count.

"Who taught you to drive?"

John Smith raised an eyebrow.

"Does driving have to be taught?"

"D-doesn't it?"

"The first driver didn't have anyone to teach him, did he?"

Li Ya Lin gaped in the face of John Smith's perfect logic. She was about to shoot back at him when, suddenly, the urge to vomit kicked in again, causing her to throw her head back to the side.

"Really? I only drove a little fast, that's all."

"A little fast? I doubt the word 'brake' even exists in your vocabulary!"

"Fine, fine, let's stop wasting time."

As Li Ya Lin tried to get back on her feet, she lost balance and almost tripped into her own pile of vomit. Fortunately, John Smith was able to provide support in time. Shaking his head, he began to drag her along with him toward the sentry post.

As they neared the post, the stationed troop yelled out, "Stop! Show your ID!"

As John Smith reached into his pockets to take out his ID card, his expression froze as he realized that he had forgotten to bring them along. Without asking, he directly reached into Li Ya Lin's pockets to find hers.

Top pockets… none.

Bottom pockets… none.

"Where's your pass?" he asked.

As Li Ya Lin still seemed too dizzy to think straight, Han Xiao continued feeling around that dynamite body of hers for it.

'I— I'm being taken advantage of‽'

"Ah! I found it," rejoiced John Smith. He then held the pass up toward the guard, who had been gulping at the show.

"Oh, you guys are agents. Come on in."

As John Smith took a few steps forward, he discovered that Li Ya Lin was still rooted to the spot, giving him a deathly stare.

"What's wrong? Hurry up."

Li Ya Lin took a deep breath to compose herself.

"Give me my ID back," she said stiffly.

"Why so fussy?" replied John Smith impatiently. He then casually walked back toward her and slotted the pass back into her rear pocket.

Li Ya Lin's eyes widened.

'I— I'm being taken advantage of again‽'

John Smith then strode toward the sentry post to give the military officer in charge of security the sketch of Lu Gao En.

"Please wait a moment as the system performs a footage scan."

Li Ya Lin entered the sentry post still biting her lips. The way that Han Xiao had felt her up did not seem to contain any ill-intentions at all. As such, she was having a hard time even getting angry at him. She was just very unhappy, for some reason, and she continued glaring at him.

…

Lu Gao En worked for an intelligence organization known as Storm Eye, one of the many sub-groups that were secretly under the wing of the Germinal Organization.

In most cities, Storm Eye had one 'head contact' in charge of relaying information back to the Germinal Organization, as well as a few covert agents who gathered intel and only reported back to the head contact.

One of Lu Gao En's agents had reported seeing someone matching Zero's description in District 7. While at first unclear of John Smith's location, Lu Gao En had discovered, after repeated investigations, that there was an area in District 7 that seemed to be cordoned off and watched closely by Division 13. It was most likely where Zero was hiding.

Upon finding out that transmissions leaving the city were being blocked, he realized that Division 13 must have gotten wind of him somehow. Hence, he decided to go offline and take his computer apart in order to prevent being traced before heading toward the city entrance to leave.

At present, Lu Gao En was blended in with a crowd of people approaching one of the city's entrances.

'Norsa must have completed the assassination by now.'

Suddenly, the great metal-fenced gate before him closed up.

"What happened?"

"Why are we being stopped?"

"We have orders to temporarily seal the exits," announced a soldier, starting a commotion among the crowd.

'Why would they close the gates‽' Lu Gao En was shocked. 'Did Norsa fail?'

Still, as he had been extremely careful for the past two to three years, he was not worried of being discovered.

"He's the one!"

The sudden shout from behind caused Lu Gao En to turn around. There was a bunch of troops walking menacingly in his direction. They were obviously after him.

'Impossible!'

Lu Gao En immediately looked around him to find an escape path, but it was too late. Not only was he surrounded by the crowd, but there were also simply way too many troops in the vicinity. As despair filled him, he allowed a soldier to pin him onto the ground without resistance. As John Smith appeared at the scene, he sighed a breath of relief.

"We made it in time."

"You really did!" Li Ya Lin was amazed.

"How did you guys know it was me?" asked Lu Gao En as he raised his head to look up at John Smith.

John Smith looked back at him plainly. In Galaxy, Lu Gao En was the primary contact for all Germinal-allied players in the Western Capital.

As Lu Gao En resigned to his fate, he decided to activate the poison sac stored in his tooth. He would rather die than divulge any information regarding the organization that he had dedicated his whole life to.

Suddenly, John Smith pulled out his handgun to fire a shot at Lu Gao En's head, sending a trail of blood and brain matter spurting out.

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You have killed Lu Gao En (Lv.12), gaining 3,500 experience.

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Han Xiao raised his gun up to blow off the smoke from its barrel.

'If you want to die, at least give me the experience.'

"Why did you kill him?"

Li Ya Lin was stunned by John Smith's sudden action. Division 13 could obviously have extracted a lot of vital information from him.

"There's poison stored in his teeth, his nails, and he even has some needles concealed in his clothes. We wouldn't have been able to stop him from killing himself."

John Smith shook his head.

In any case, Lu Gao En's death was truly insignificant to him; he already possessed all the information that he needed. Nonetheless, things were getting a bit dicey.

'Looks like I'd better speed things up,' he thought.