After sending the ssage, the man known as Cobra ordered his team to press on, but they failed to find any trace of the Three Major rcenary Corps.
After all, the Zombie horde outbreak had completely erased their tracks. The other side only needed to change direction once, and trying to track them again would be like searching for a needle in a haystack.
"Alright, let’s fall back!" Cobra ordered decisively after a fruitless search.
"But... if we go back this hastily, it’ll be hard to answer for our performance!" his second-in-command couldn’t help but point out.
Their entire operation was being recorded. If they perford poorly and angered the Morgan Conglorate, no one would be able to protect them.
"I don’t tolerate dissent in my squad, even a temporary one. Understand?" As he spoke, Cobra’s eyes suddenly narrowed into vertical slits. The skin on his body seed to shimr with faint, snake-like scales, and a powerful, sinister aura emanated from him.
Large beads of sweat began to trickle down the forehead of his second-in-command. He quickly stamred, "Under... understood."
"Good." Cobra nodded. "Go and give the order. And returning doesn’t an we’re abandoning the mission. Those rcenary Corps have to return to a Shelter eventually. We just need to wait patiently for our prey to walk right into our hands."
...
Star Shield Shelter. The atmosphere here had grown increasingly tense. Although it seed as if nothing had happened, everyone knew this was rely the calm before the storm.
At the Morgan Conglorate’s base of operations, the ordinary office workers were gone, replaced by heavily ard rcenaries. They guarded every important corridor, especially the one leading to Gibson’s office. Not even a fly could have gotten in.
The number of people permitted to enter that office was minuscule, and Winter, in his capacity as butler, was one of them.
He walked in now, carrying the latest intelligence report, and handed it to Gibson.
"Worthless trash. They lost them, just like that," Gibson said, his expression grim.
Of all the rcenary Corps sent out by Star Shield Shelter, the only one he cared about was the Heaven-Sundering rcenary Corps. The reason was simple: he couldn’t stomach the humiliation they’d dealt him.
"Take three elite squads from the interception force and send them over," Gibson ordered Winter, his face dark after his outburst.
"Young Master, if you transfer them, the main front..." Winter said, his expression troubled.
"I don’t care if this plan succeeds or not, but the Heaven-Sundering rcenary Corps must be wiped out," Gibson said, his tone leaving no room for negotiation.
After a brief silence, Winter spoke. "Very well. But Young Master, once the fighting starts, you must listen to and be the first to evacuate."
"Fine. You arrange it." Gibson didn’t argue. He wasn’t truly fearless, and as a direct mber of the Morgan family, he would have plenty of opportunities to recover even if this operation failed. There was no need to take such a personal risk.
...
Lin Xinghai and the others, of course, had no idea that a single piece of intelligence had just upgraded their mission’s difficulty from Hard to Nightmare.
But for the ti being, having shaken off their pursuers, the rest of their journey was relatively safe.
Ordinary Zombies posed no threat to them whatsoever. After leaving Changping City, they headed straight for East Ring City.
They encountered no difficulties along the way and smoothly entered the outskirts of East Ring City.
"Thank goodness we made it in ti." Song Yao heaved a sigh of relief.
The mission tiline had been tight from the start, and the Zombie horde had cost them a significant amount of ti. Fortunately, the rest of the journey to East Ring City was uneventful; otherwise, they might have actually failed the mission.
He wasn’t the only one; the others felt the sa way.
After entering East Ring City, the group followed the address from their mission briefing toward the tallest building on the north side of the city.
Donghua Mansion was the tallest and only intact building in this part of the city. The Zombies in the area had already been cleared out, and hundreds of heavily ard soldiers were hidden in positions around the building, waiting quietly.
Only when their convoy was seen approaching in the distance did a military officer in a jeep drive out to et them.
"Are you the team from Star Shield Shelter?" the officer inquired.
"We are!" Song Yao’s cha stepped forward, and he answered on behalf of the Three Major rcenary Corps.
At the sa ti, he observed the insignia on their equipnt. If he wasn’t mistaken, they were from the East Sea Shelter.
"Enter the passkey, then," the officer continued.
Everything was quickly completed. Once their identities were confird, the officer waved over an Armored Vehicle that had been waiting in the rear. Soldiers disembarked and began unloading a series of tal cases.
"The handover is complete. I wish you a safe journey back." After speaking, the officer left with his team without any delay.
"Sothing about this feels off," Qin Wenbo couldn’t help but say, piloting his cha over after the other team had departed.
"I agree. I thought we were just decoys and that we’d be transporting sothing unimportant. But why would the East Sea Shelter dispatch so many soldiers to guard it?" Song Yao said with a frown.
They had their counter-surveillance systems active, making it impossible to get an exact count, but a visual estimate put their numbers at no less than 500.
If this was all just for show, why go to such lengths?
"Let’s open one and see for ourselves," Lin Xinghai said.
"Is... is that a good idea?" Both Song Yao and Qin Wenbo were hesitant.
"What’s the harm? Elder Wei even told us to just ditch this stuff if we ran into danger," Lin Xinghai said.
Song Yao and Qin Wenbo exchanged a look and stopped objecting. Instead, they had the maintenance crew bring over tools to open the sealed tal cases.
If they hadn’t seen the sheer number of soldiers from the East Sea Shelter, they never would have considered doing this.
But now that they had, the uncertainty of the situation was making them uneasy.
Soon, the sealed tal cases were pried open one by one, revealing their contents.
Song Yao and the others only needed a single glance inside for their expressions to change.
Even to their untrained eyes, they could tell the cases were filled with high-end, precision instrunts.
After an inspection, the maintenance crew ca to a conclusion: the instrunts were real and fully functional.
"Don’t tell these are... actual, critical components for the Geothermal Energy Extractor," Song Yao managed to say, swallowing hard.
The gravity of the situation instantly dawned on everyone else.
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