The night enveloped the sky, stars shining on the earth. The dim lights illuminated the bumpy roads, and sparse crowds ca and went on the streets.
Coming out of the clothing store, He Ao, dressed in simple casual wear, lowered his head and glanced at the mail displayed on his wristband.
[You are wanted, old handso guy. I’m afraid several big financial groups will trouble you next, but for the ti being, the Board of the nshu Group won’t bother you. /smiley face]
The sender was anonymous, with no na in the signature, only a fiery red lip print. If you look closely, there were so tiny cracks on the lip print, suggesting that soone had actually kissed it before it was scanned into an electronic signature.
He Ao exited the mail interface; the mail self-destructed without leaving any traces.
But he clearly knew who the sender was: dala.
A board mber of the nshu Group, head of the human resources departnt, from the ancient Ains family.
According to her own words, her mother ca from the Julia Family, and her father from the Ellison Family, a product of alliance.
She has two older brothers above her, originally intended for a similar alliance, but she defeated her two brothers with her competence, gaining control over this branch and becoming a board mber of the nshu Group.
When she said these words, she was trying to remove Hawke’s clothes.
Of course, she didn’t succeed in the end; Hawke himself wasn’t fond of this type.
Nevertheless, dala always had a good relationship with Hawke. As the leader of the First rcenary Corps, the actual controller of ard forces, Hawke also held a seat on the board, and being a solitary board mber made him the best target for alliances.
Leveraging his father’s and brother’s power, Hawke once had a small group within the nshu Group’s board, naturally reciprocating by using the group’s power to assist his brother.
However, those forr ’friends’ within the nshu Group likely now stand against him.
dala still being willing to ’inform’ Hawke now was slightly surprising to He Ao.
According to Hawke’s mory of dala’s character, her sending this mail indicated that the current ’result’ was sothing she fought for and was satisfied with, hence she sent the mail to He Ao to ’claim credit’.
However, based on Hawke’s understanding of dala, while she spoke of ’liking’, this woman was purely driven by interests. Her first bucket of gold ca from the inheritance of her mysteriously deceased first husband.
Her willingness to help ’Hawke’ was most likely an ’investnt’ rather than stemming from any emotion.
By pulling the nshu Group out of this situation and engaging other financial groups, she exploited ’Hawke’ to cause losses to those groups, which aligned with her character.
If the situation was controlled, she might even use Hawke to strategically remove so of her ’interest opponents’.
So of her ’opponents’ might be brought before He Ao in a couple of days.
However, what this woman seeks might not be confined to the nshu Group.
And for her ’plan’ to pass, it likely gained the nshu Group’s chairman’s permission.
The current chairman of the nshu Group is older than Hawke, having wielded control over the group for decades. He is also Hawke’s longti ’old friend’.
Based on what Hawke knows about this chairman, he is a ’steady’ and ’conservative’ person.
Most of the ti, he prefers expanding the group’s territory bit by bit.
He would only take risky actions outside his plans if there were enormous benefits; otherwise, he wouldn’t act easily.
This was why Hawke believed the nshu Group wouldn’t act against him earlier.
Because from the group’s standpoint, forcing out a well-respected B-level captain within the rcenary Corps would inevitably create substantial losses, particularly if an assassination attempt fails, inviting retaliation from this B-level figure.
Even successfully killing Hawke would damage the group’s reputation within the rcenary Corps, causing future captains to be more wary of the board.
Regardless, this operation entails losses far exceeding gains.
The board opting for this ’operation’ could only an one thing:
Soone offered an astoundingly high price, not only covering current losses but also providing a substantial profit.
For the board, nothing is unsellable, including forr board mbers.
As for who offered this ’price’...
He Ao raised his head as a vaguely visible badge, with edges lined with slight cracks, fell from his sleeve into his palm.
The badge was simple in structure, appearing mostly round with a delicately engraved closed eye in the center.
Since coming into his possession, the badge had entirely restrained its divine essence, becoming illusory like a holographic item, yet it existed tangibly, able to be touched.
The badge was not a possession of the nshu Group.
Before killing the man in the white suit, when he asked that question, He Ao had already used a bit of his super mory strength to read the other party’s mories.
The inquiry rely helped awaken more mories in the man, as with his current body, He Ao couldn’t endure much super mory strength, limiting the mories he could retrieve.
The man in the white suit wasn’t an employee of the nshu Group but part of an organization familiar to Hawke, the ’Church of the Grim Reaper’.
The Church of the Grim Reaper is one of the most enigmatic organizations in the entire Federation. Compared to the Church of Chaos and the Witch Church, which tend to stir up trouble, the Church of the Grim Reaper remains mostly quiet.
Hawke interacted relatively more with the Church of the Grim Reaper simply because they once actively contacted him.
So he reported the Church of the Grim Reaper, helping the Federal Bureau of Investigation raid several of its bases and exposing the C-level Makeup Mortician’s secret dicine formula.
After that, Hawke almost had no contact with the Church of the Grim Reaper.
When Hawke collected the ’Hell Manager’ formula, he had targeted the Church of the Grim Reaper but couldn’t find any trace for a long ti.
Eventually, it was in a Witch Church base that he found the related secret dicine formula.
His earlier encounter with the Church of the Grim Reaper followed a lead to Elijah, the councilman of Rock City, but Elijah seed to lack an obvious organizational structure, resembling more a solitary believer.
This suggests that the Church of the Grim Reaper is indeed quite mysterious.
Nonetheless, sothing even more mysterious than the Church of the Grim Reaper is the Church of Knowledge.
The last ti He Ao encountered a believer of knowledge was with Yezola.
Clearly, the constantly mysterious Church of the Grim Reaper suddenly making a scene must have a reason.
He Ao flipped the badge in his hand, faintly seeing intricate runes seemingly appear on its surface and then swiftly vanish.
In the white suit man’s mory, this badge is called the Illusion Badge, able to trigger ’Bone Arrow’ and create ’Sealing Net’.
The man was tasked to kill Hawke and then place this badge on Hawke’s body before reporting back.
Where exactly he received the task and where he needed to report back, he had no mory.
Regarding that part, his soul seed to have gaps.
But He Ao wasn’t surprised by this because the Church of the Grim Reaper clearly possessed high expertise in souls and death, making mory erasure to protect vital information easily achievable.
This only indicates that the Church of the Grim Reaper has Angels or Angel-tier items.
However, He Ao leaned more towards believing there was an Angel in the Church of the Grim Reaper.
Because the man in the white suit was recomnded to the nshu Group by the Rockville Energy Group, and the benefits provided to the nshu Group likely originated from Rockville Energy Group, or at least partly.
If the Church of the Grim Reaper made Rockville Energy Group offer benefits, it shows they can provide even greater advantages; if it involved a living Angel, that would make sense.
If it were solely Angel-tier items, Rockville Energy Group might not even reach the negotiation stage, and instead rally allies and begin snatching.
After all, ’eliminating’ a cult is seen as righteous.
Only when elimination isn’t possible do parties sit down for negotiations.
However, this is all speculative.
He Ao raised the badge in his hand, observing its faintly discernible structure and the cracks at the edges.
This thing is called the Illusion Badge, and this ti the Copy World task is ’unravel the conspiracy behind the Illusion Heart.’
Does this have any connection with the Illusion Heart?
Unfortunately, when it cos to He Ao, this thing doesn’t exhibit any divine qualities at all. He Ao tried to engrave a Control Array on it using his Divine Sense, but as soon as he started, it began to crack.
Not sure if it’s so kind of anti-control setup.
He Ao put away the badge, tucking it back into his pocket.
In any case, there’s likely to be so clues at the Church of the Grim Reaper.
Beep beep beep—
The urgent, agitated honking pulled He Ao out of his contemplation.
He lifted his head, looking forward.
At this mont, he had already reached an intersection, where a dense convoy of trucks was passing in front of him.
The urgent honking sounded like a whip urging pedestrians, echoing continuously in the street.
Every truck bore the Evis Spatial System’s double triangle emblem.
This wasn’t the convoy He Ao had followed into the city but another heading toward the North Gate.
The convoy entering the city had empty truck beds, carrying only so simple raw materials and parts, while this convoy’s tires were pressed flat, seemingly loaded with heavy cargo.
"Damn it, can’t these guys be quieter?"
Beside He Ao, a tattooed young man couldn’t help raising his hand, flipping off one of the trucks with his middle finger.
Bang—
In the next instant, amidst the honking, a gunshot sounded, hitting the ground in front of the young man, scattering loose stones.
The youth’s entire body froze at this mont, while the source of the gunshot, a rcenary partly hanging out of the truck window, sneered at the young man, raising his gun, aiming at the youth’s head.
"Don’t kill !" The young man quickly hugged his head, squatting down.
The rcenary, satisfied with the scene, withdrew his gun, sitting back in the vehicle.
He Ao watched the convoy.
Far worse discipline than the nshu Group.
Hawke’s First and Third rcenary Corps have much stricter military discipline.
Even with the sa weapons and numbers, even the less trained Third rcenary Corps under Hawke should be able to wipe out these rcenaries.
He Ao turned his head, looking toward the convoy’s origin.
That place was Seine City’s Industrial District, specifically Evis Spatial System’s facilities in the Industrial District.
This city in the south-central Federation was once visited by Suote in his youth, uncovering a Witch Sect conspiracy.
Back then, there were two or three conglorates here, but now only the Evis Spatial System remains, serving as a military support point in the east for the Evis Spatial System.
Also an important military production base for the Evis Spatial System.
It seems this military production base is now at full throttle, producing weapons and equipnt.
He Ao looked northward.
Further north in Seine City’s wilderness lies a large military base for Evis Spatial System, incorporating a large airport.
Supplied warplanes from that base can fly directly to Dawn City.
This convoy was very long; after quite a while, He Ao waited for it to leave.
At that mont, His Ao’s wristband lightly illuminated.
It was an anonymous email, tagged as ’Adjutant.’
This was the reason He Ao chose to enter Seine City.
It was toward Ains, the nearest city from the wilderness he had just left.
The reason for coming here was simple.
Hawke had once agreed with his subordinates on reporting on the follow-up intelligence about Erian this evening.
He requested his subordinates to try their best to locate Erian’s body; alive to see the person, dead to see the corpse.
Even with so ’minor accidents,’ He Ao still hoped for the first-hand information about his son.
This email was lengthy, with the old subordinate roughly introducing Ains’ current situation and Erian’s body investigation progress.
Firstly, a piece of bad news, which is that the old subordinate does not have Erian’s corpse.
After the mob took away the protest organizers’ bodies, there have been no updates.
On the surface, Ains quickly reacted to this ’massacre,’ stating it was capturing related ’perpetrators.’
However, according to the old subordinate’s investigations, those gang mbers left Ains on the night of the incident through various channels.
The old subordinate found information about a core gang mber, and following these, located the person in the small town of Konovi in southwest Ains.
From the gang mber’s account, he learned all the bodies were taken away by the gang leader, who headed southward, likely towards a small south-central town called Kest City, which is the gang leader’s hotown.
Judging by the ti, the gang leader might have arrived in Kest City these past two days.
This summarizes the email’s content.
He Ao pulled out the map for a glance; Kest City was in the northwest direction from the current Seine City, close to Seine City.
It seems he chose this direction correctly.
If he pilots the Hades over, considering the ti to exit the city, he should arrive in Kest City tomorrow morning.
He Ao raised his hand, quickly responding to the email.
He instructed the old subordinate to temporarily stop chasing the gang leader, to conceal himself and return to Ains, continuing to investigate the protest events.
"Hello, old man, be careful!" Just then, a sowhat young voice sounded near He Ao’s ear.
He looked up, glancing to his side; dense crowds unknowingly approached him.
They held high the banners, which read:
[No to Corporations]
[Reject Massacre]
[Skewis Step Down!]
Skewis is the current President’s na.
He Ao watched these young crowds.
He seed to have encountered a protest march.
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