Chapter 550 Undercurrent (1)
As expected, after Lido withdrew the barrier, the entire South Outer City was shaken. Forces from all sides took action upon hearing the news, and all kinds of news were quickly transmitted openly and covertly, and soon spread to the other three outer city districts and the inner city.
Why is it South Outer City instead of West Outer City? Of course it is because the underground arena and several other underground forces of the Lei family are all located in South Outer City. The manager Lei Ka who previously recruited the Star Mercenary Group is only one of the deputy managers of the Lei family's office in West Outer City.
In fact, the Lei family has offices in the four outer city districts, and most of them are only responsible for managing the obvious industries, while there are other people who manage the underground industries.
This is also because the Star Mercenary Group and the underground arena are not in the same outer city area. Even the Lei family themselves would not point the finger at Liduo and the Star Mercenary Group after something happened.
This is also one of the reasons why Liduo must lead the team to act and retreat, because they have to act across regions. Without Liduo leading the team to plan the route, it would be difficult for Lei Qianjun and others to truly hide their tracks on their own.
Not to mention when they went there, even when they retreated, even if Liduo did not show up, she was actually following secretly all the way, and used the method of gathering sound into lines to secretly guide Lei Qianjun to avoid all secret sentries that might discover his tracks.
Otherwise, it would be impossible to completely wipe out all traces after passing through so many forces along the way. But with the assistance of Lido's mental detection, this team of Star Mercenaries was able to truly come and go without a trace.
It should be said that it is fortunate that the underground arena is located in the South Outer City and not in the East Outer City which is the farthest away from the West Outer City and completely unconnected. The most important thing is that they do not have to cross the Hanxue River. Otherwise, the people of the Star Mercenary Group would have to cross the river on a guarded bridge, and there would be no way to hide the information that they had been in the South Outer City on the night of the incident.
After escorting the mercenaries back, Lido put down the spoils and immediately rushed to the accident scene in the South Outer City. She hid in a big tree in the next block and kept an eye on the situation here.
The first to react were naturally the residents around the scene of the incident.
The brothel and restaurant were undoubtedly located on the two most prosperous main streets in Nanwai City, and the large warehouse was hidden in the residential area behind the restaurant.
Previously, when Lido had covered him with a barrier and attacked him from deep underground, the noise was not obvious, at least not to the extent of alarming the surrounding residents.
And when Lido withdrew the barrier and broke through the large warehouse and the underground arena, that was when the outside world really felt the movement.
The loud noise, the sudden burst of fire, and the violent fluctuations of magical elements woke up everyone around, whether they were summoners with elves' more sensitive perception of magical elements or ordinary people.
Those who are powerful will naturally come to investigate, while those who are not powerful enough will immediately judge whether it will affect themselves, and then wait for the development of the situation in fear.
As for the residents living closest to the fire, they had no choice but to flee first and then turn back to organize people to rescue resources and control the spread of the fire.
When Liduo rushed back, the area outside the scene was already crowded with people who came to rescue, spies from various forces, and onlookers.
Such a big commotion naturally alarmed the city guards on the south city wall. Although it was the outer city area, it was also within their garrison range, so soon a team of city guards came down from the south city wall.
According to regulations, the city walls must be closed at night, and it is even more impossible to open them if something happens, so these city guards also came down from the city walls in a basket just like Liduo and others did when they were in the Qingyan City Legion.
When the city guards arrived, the gladiators just happened to be escaping from the underground arena, so they immediately controlled the group of insiders.
The gladiators had managed to escape and were naturally powerless to resist. However, a few clever ones among them recognized that it was the city guards who had captured them, but they were also worried that some of them were in cahoots with the underground arena, so they shouted for help to the crowd around them and revealed the news of the underground arena.
There was an uproar in the crowd. This was something that was expressly prohibited by the Imperial Code, and the gladiators looked extremely miserable. The enthusiasm of those present to watch the show immediately increased, and some people even shouted loudly to denounce it.
The gladiators achieved their goal and the news had spread. Even if there was collusion between the underground arena and the city guards, it could not be covered up.
The gladiators themselves knew very little about the underground arena and could not leak much information. Since they had fallen into the hands of the city guards, there was no need for the Lei family to go to great lengths and risk attacking official agencies to silence them. Their chances of survival were still quite high.
The fire was quickly brought under control. Apart from initially affecting some surrounding buildings, it did not spread further. The flames that spread out were quickly extinguished, leaving only the large warehouse and the underground arena still burning.
Even the brothel and restaurant that served as entrances and exits only burned the room covering the entrance and exit. Because these two places were open all night and had guards, they reacted immediately when the incident happened and prevented the situation from escalating. Except for the people guarding the entrance and exit who were trapped in the barrier by Lido from the beginning and had nowhere to escape and were burned to death, there were no other casualties.
After seeing this situation, the city guards realized that they did not need to go down to help, and the source of the accident - the underground arena was impossible to enter, so they announced to the onlookers that it was strictly forbidden to enter the scene without permission. Only half of them stayed behind to summon water elves to find a way to put out the fire.
The other half escorted the escaped gladiators back to the city guard’s base. They must have interrogated them before entering the underground arena to investigate and get more information.
The spectators were still in high spirits, discussing enthusiastically with people they knew, and from time to time denouncing the underground arena, a place whose very existence was a sin, and speculating about who was behind the scenes.
At this time, the expressions of the people who were watching the show were completely different from those of the onlookers. The spies from the Lei family and various forces whose children died in the underground arena had gloomy faces as they mixed in the crowd, watching the city guards put out the fire while listening to the discussions of the people around them and collecting information, but they did not collect anything that was really useful.
Others came here more to watch the fun, and their attention was also shifted to the underground arena by the gladiators. Only they were always focusing on finding the person who did all this, and they really wished that the other person would die without a burial place.
It is easy to understand why the Lei family is like this. The losses are huge. Those forces think this way not because of how huge the losses are. It is nothing more than the deaths of one or two playboys. Even if they are elite young men, they are just that bad. It is just that they are used to being high and mighty and feel that they have been provoked.
It doesn’t matter what the spies from other forces are like. Liduo has been secretly keeping an eye on the spies of the Lei family. After monitoring the Lei family for so long, Liduo can recognize who the spies of the Lei family are at a glance.
The Lei family's spies did not act rashly and just pretended to be watching the fun. Even when the gladiators fell into the hands of the city guards, they did not make any inappropriate moves. Only their gloomy faces betrayed them.
Soon after the city guards took the gladiators away, they also left, leaving only two people behind to continue to monitor the development of the situation.
Li Duo had an idea and was ready to follow the Lei family's spy away, but she found that she was not the only one doing so.
……