He had expected her to ask about the resources—what they were, where they ca from.
He hadn’t anticipated this question at all.
"If you don’t want to talk, how about we try the sa torture again? This ti, let’s extend it to a full hour."
Kenny Lin twirled his fingers, and a wisp of sword energy spun at his fingertips.
Mo Qingjie instantly recalled the excruciating pain that had made him want to end his own life.
He never wanted to experience that again.
It hadn’t just affected his soul—it had torn through his ridians as well.
"I’ll talk. We use those resources to exchange information with Lal Hiran. He controls a significant portion of the underground city’s network, with informants spread across all walks of life, from rchants to criminals. They can gather a lot of intelligence..."
"For example," Amalia interrupted, "if a family possesses a powerful heirloom, you people would massacre them and steal it, wouldn’t you?"
Mo Qingjie glanced at Amalia, then nodded. "Yes."
Amalia pulled out a photograph of a certain servant. "Have you seen this person before?"
Mo Qingjie took a look and shook his head. "No, I haven’t."
"Thirty years ago, he had dealings with your Holy Gate of the Heaven and the Earth. He sold intelligence to you, and the location of that intel was in the Erythar Star System." Amalia revealed a few details, trying to jog his mory.
"If it happened thirty years ago, I wouldn’t know. I wasn’t part of the Holy Gate of the Heaven and the Earth back then—I joined fifteen years ago."
Amalia then produced another photo, this ti of a man with a tiger tattooed on his face. "What about this man? Do you recognize him?"
A flicker of surprise crossed Mo Qingjie’s eyes. "Are you looking for him? He’s a Heaven-ranked mber, codena ’Storm Claw Overlord.’ He’s incredibly strong and holds a much higher position than I do. Heaven-ranked mbers are elusive, even for us—it’s rare for anyone to find them."
"Hard to find doesn’t an impossible," Amalia said flatly. "I heard from a source that he was on Planet Nexus recently for a mission. Is that true?"
Mo Qingjie’s eyes flickered for a brief mont. "A mber was indeed sent to Planet Nexus for a mission, but it wasn’t him."
Amalia and Kenny Lin exchanged glances, confirming their suspicion—Lagan had been lying through his teeth.
Lucky for him, he was already dead.
Amalia pressed on. "How do you contact the Heaven-ranked mbers? And don’t bother saying you don’t know—we have no reason to keep you alive if you’re useless."
Under threat, Mo Qingjie’s neck tensed as if he were struggling to breathe.
With no other choice, he finally admitted, "Each of us has a contact code, but the hierarchy is strict. Typically, higher-ranked mbers contact lower-ranked ones. Unless we have urgent intelligence, we aren’t allowed to initiate contact with our superiors."
"What kind of intelligence qualifies as urgent? And what rank is your direct superior?"
"Anything related to the ’Pleiadian Ascendancy’ is considered urgent matter."
Amalia’s gaze sharpened. "Has the Holy Gate of the Heaven and the Earth been colluding with the aliens?"
"I don’t know," Mo Qingjie admitted. "Yellow-ranked mbers like have the least access to information."
"How do you contact your superior?" Amalia glanced at his communication terminal and took it from him.
Upon opening the interface, she noticed it was slightly different from their own devices.
"Our terminals are different from those of the Crimson Moon Dynasty. Once switched, they connect to an internal network, allowing us to communicate through it."
The Holy Gate of the Heaven and the Earth had created this private network because the Crimson Moon Dynasty’s OPDS (Omicron Planetary Defense System) monitored all terminals within the Pleiades Star System, filtering unnecessary content and extracting key information.
If their communications were ever detected, the OPDS could instantly pinpoint their identities and locations.
To avoid this, the organization had developed an internal network that blocked the OPDS’s surveillance, escaping its grasp entirely.
"What is your superior’s na?"
Mo Qingjie slumped his head in defeat. "I don’t know his real na, but his codena is ’Owl.’"
Amalia searched through his terminal’s contact list and quickly found a contact nad ’Owl.’
She moved closer to Mo Qingjie, placed one hand on his head, and, under his terrified gaze, said coldly, "To prove you’re not lying, I will conduct a Soul Search on you. Don’t resist, or you’ll beco a fool for the rest of your life."
"Wait!" Mo Qingjie’s throat burned as he let out a hoarse, desperate shout. "Don’t search my soul! I lied—I admit I lied!"
Amalia showed no surprise.
She had expected this outco.
Her words had been more than a test; she had genuinely considered extracting his mories.
Soul Searching was a crude thod, but if done carefully, it was effective.
Unfortunately, Mo Qingjie had failed this test.
Between having his mind pried open and voluntarily confessing, the latter was the lesser evil.
At least he could avoid enraging her to the point of destroying his mind.
"Where exactly did you lie?" Amalia’s piercing gaze locked onto him.
"My superior isn’t ’Owl.’ Owl is just my partner. The real one is ’Iron Howler Overlord.’"
Mo Qingjie swallowed his saliva hard before continuing, "Iron Howler Overlord is the only Heaven-ranked mber who contacts us. The other Heaven-ranked mbers only communicate through him. Any mission orders we receive co from Iron Howler Overlord. But there isn’t just one Iron Howler Overlord—there are multiple. The one who contacts us is ’Iron Howler Overlord No. 5.’"
Amalia scrolled through the terminal and found ’Iron Howler Overlord No. 5.’
As expected, the first four Iron Howler Overlord were missing from the contact list.
The structure beca clear—Iron Howler Overlord No. 2 through No. 5 acted as interdiaries between ordinary mbers and the real Iron Howler Overlord, who was in direct contact with the Heaven-ranked mbers.
This ensured secrecy within the organization.
Many mbers didn’t even know each other unless they had frequent dealings.
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