Chapter 99

If Vivian is right, then Lily would indeed be in no danger—though her personal freedom wouldn’t be guaranteed, of course.

The werewolves were actually a race that preferred to act alone. Most werewolves would not stay with their pack after reaching adulthood, which led to the werewolves becoming one of the fastest declining and most scattered supernatural races after the end of the Mythic Era on this planet. However, the Eiben family was an exception among werewolves: they were a group of werewolves with a family concept, and they maintained close clan ties for a long time even after the end of the Mythic Era and the dominance of the human church and demon hunters. To this day, they have become one of the few large families left among the werewolves.

No one knew how the upper echelons of the Eiben family were organized. Vivian’s knowledge of them was limited to their external actions. This clan had always been dedicated to reuniting the scattered members of their family. Their original base was in Europe and Latin America, and they did not leave this region until a hundred years ago.

"They’re a bunch of strange guys, a bit smarter than ordinary werewolves, but not by much," Vivian commented casually while introducing the Eiben family. "They know that unity is strength, but they’re stupid enough to think they can rebuild the Mythic Era with the little power they have. Tsk, even Fenrir was stewed by the demon hunters, and they still don’t know when to back off."

"What will happen to Lily if they take her?" This was the most pressing concern for Hao Ren.

"Force her to join, of course," Vivian said with a pout. "Werewolves aren’t known for their subtlety. They’re used to using strong-arm tactics, even with their own kind. The Eiben family probably sees all scattered werewolves as potential recruits. They have numbers and strength, so they’ll use force. The big dog won’t have any problems for now because she’s still considered ‘one of them’ by those two werewolves, but once things come to a head, they’ll definitely fight. With her half-baked skills as a newly adult werewolf… she’ll probably be beaten so badly her mother won’t recognize her."

Hao Ren broke out in a cold sweat at this and quickly lowered his head to continue searching the city map for clues.

Based on her experience, Vivian deduced that the werewolf who used the black mist had taken Lily using the Eiben family’s innate power. The range of the black mist’s teleportation wasn’t very far, so Lily should still be within the city limits. Hao Ren’s search area was thus limited to this region. He opened the data terminal and had it project the city map, then searched for over a hundred targets using "Haoyun" as the keyword. Among these, there were more than a dozen targets related to warehouses, factories, and other large facilities.

What a common name… Hao Ren was just glad Lily wasn’t locked up in some Bright Light Factory, which would have been even more common.

"By the way, don’t you have a signal tracking function?" Hao Ren asked, tapping the data terminal’s casing in frustration as he checked each suspected location. "You could have just tracked the signal when Lily called."

The data terminal replied matter-of-factly, "I was sleeping just now. You didn’t think of it, so why blame me? I’m a tool, and you’re the user. It’s like blaming the alarm clock for not ringing when you didn’t set it. How embarrassing."

Hao Ren was speechless and had no choice but to continue working. He had considered sending a distress signal to Raven 12345, as this was an unexpected situation at work, but the thought quickly faded. This was his responsibility, and he needed to take it seriously. No matter what, he was now Lily’s guardian, and it would be embarrassing to seek help from his superiors for a minor emergency.

"There are a few places in the city and surrounding counties with ‘Haoyun’ in their names: an electrical factory, two logistics companies, two warehouses, and six or seven other places that don’t seem very reliable. The place Lily mentioned sounds like an abandoned warehouse, or it could be a factory’s own storage facility, or even an empty factory… Hmm, we can rule out the electrical factory, as it’s still in operation. Similarly, we can rule out one of the logistics companies. That leaves us with three targets."

Three targets, all abandoned for years, with no information available online. Fortunately, the data terminal could gather information from obscure sources. All three places matched the description of an abandoned warehouse, so there was no way to narrow it down further.

"Let’s check them all," Vivian said, looking at the map. She noticed that the three places were quite far apart: one in a relatively remote old district of the city, one in the northern suburbs, and another in a town dozens of kilometers away. All were areas that had been forgotten by urban development and had been abandoned for years without anyone taking them over. "It’s quite fitting for a movie. Hiding someone in such a place makes it hard to find them."

"This is quite a distance," Hao Ren said, looking at the map with concern. "I should have bought a car first… Working for God, and I have to provide my own transportation."

"I’ll send bats to check," Vivian waved her hand, summoning three small bats. She then looked at the sun outside, her expression not very good. "Tsk, bright sun, the weather forecast is completely off. The bats will probably be half-dead by the time they get there. That big dog owes me a big favor."

The three small bats circled around Vivian and then flew toward the window with a heroic air, ready to face the bright sunlight. Hao Ren, hearing Vivian’s words, suddenly remembered something and called out, "Wait, I have an idea!" He then ran to Lily’s room and came back with a bottle, which turned out to be sunscreen.

"The girl bought this on a whim a few days ago, but she never used it. It’s perfect for your bats." Hao Ren smiled and unscrewed the cap of the sunscreen, gesturing for Vivian’s bats to land on the table. The vampire girl was immediately stunned. "You have quite a broad mind… Ah, it’s so cool!"

The bats shared their senses with Vivian, and when Hao Ren applied the sunscreen to the bats, Vivian immediately felt it. Her soft exclamation was so pleasant that Hao Ren almost spilled the whole bottle on the table. "Don’t overreact…"

"I’ve never used anything this expensive in my life," Vivian said with a grudge. "The first time I use sunscreen is for my bats… Hey, use less, too much and they won’t be able to fly!"

A moment later, Hao Ren finished the job, and the three small bats, now coated with sunscreen, flew out the window with great enthusiasm, heading in three different directions at a speed far exceeding that of normal bats. The slowest was still going at about 80-90 miles per hour. Hao Ren watched the three small black dots quickly disappear and sighed, "I do have quite a broad mind."

Vivian didn’t respond; she was already immersed in the sensory sharing with the three bats, fully focused on perceiving everything within their range. The city expanded rapidly in her mental world as a three-dimensional model. Soon, the first bat reached the nearest target, an abandoned logistics company warehouse in the city.

The warehouse was deserted, and the first location was ruled out.

The remaining two bats flew to a satellite town dozens of kilometers away and the northern suburbs on the other side of the city.

"Huh…" Vivian suddenly snapped out of her focused state and let out a soft exclamation. Hao Ren immediately leaned in. "Did you find her?"

"One of the bats died," Vivian was puzzled. "I didn’t even realize what happened. One of the bats suddenly went silent. It was the one flying to the northern suburbs, and it disappeared while passing through the city center."

"Could it have been the werewolves?"

"No, werewolves can’t fly, and they generally can’t harm my bats," Vivian frowned. "It might have hit a transformer and been electrocuted. Accidents like this can happen when flying too fast… Humans have been making more and more trouble these days. I’ve hit them myself a few times. Do you have more sunscreen? I’ll send another one."

Hao Ren handed her the sunscreen. "You do it. It feels weird watching you react while I apply sunscreen to a bat."

Vivian rolled her eyes at Hao Ren and began applying sunscreen to the bat. The fourth "scout" soon took off.

"Finally, in the northern suburbs!" Vivian finally found a clue. "I can smell that big dog!"

(The backend was a bit laggy, took a few minutes to sort out…)

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