Ling Lan knew that the security at the headquarters was tight but she didn"t know that it would be this tight. There was a guard with every three steps in the underground pa.s.sageway leading deep into the headquarters. It would not be easy to get past these people.

"Troublesome." Ling Lan knew that the longer she waited, the greater the chances of her being found so she needed to act now.

Ling Lan"s body started melting into a liquid form, disappearing from the guards" sight. She couldn"t evade all these pairs of eyes so she had no choice but to enter her domain mode, allowing her body to merge with her domain element.

Ling Lan"s domain element was ice, and ice was a form of water. A year ago, Ling Lan was already able to control the three states of water, but Ling Lan knew that she must have some hidden cards so she didn"t tell anyone about this, even when she fought with other people, she only used her ice attacks. She had never revealed the two other states besides the time when she merged with the rainwater during the princess escorting mission in order to fight with the domain realm master.

In that fight, the domain realm master died so her secret didn"t leak out.

That meant that this was her second time using another state of water. This time, she used both the liquid form and the gaseous form of the water element.

The water flowed down the walls. Before the water went into the vision lines of the guards, it changed into a gaseous form. Ling Lan was afraid that a mist would form if she evaporated too fast so she controlled the speed of her evaporating. A minute later, the water disappeared from the wall.

"Ah Lian, don"t you think that the air in the headquarters is fresher today?" One of the guards sniffed the air and said to the guard near him. They had been working together at this job for quite a while now so they were familiar with the environment of the headquarters.

"Isn"t it the same?" But not everyone was sensitive to the change in the quality of air. The man called Ah Lian didn"t sense any changes

"It isn"t dry anymore." The person who spoke first expressed his thoughts. Underground places were normally cold and humid. High humidity would affect the integrity of the headquarters so the mainframe kept the environment dry.

"Maybe the mainframe adjusted the humidity of this place," Ah Lian replied indifferently. To him, this was nothing strange.

"That makes sense. I hope that the mainframe would continue to maintain this level of humidity," The guard couldn"t help but comment. He preferred a more humid environment.

"That might be possible. The researchers probably needed to conduct their experiments in a humid environment. Let"s hope that they will prolong their experiments." Ah Lian consoled the other guard.

While they were talking to each other, Ling Lan sneaked pa.s.sed the two guards nervously. She didn"t expect there to be a guard who was so sensitive to the quant.i.ty of water particles in the air. She was fortunate that they didn"t think otherwise. If not, she might have been exposed.

Ling Lan pa.s.sed the guards safely and finally entered the inside of the headquarters. She looked at the bird"s-eye view of the headquarters Little Four showed her. She commended the faction which built this extravagant headquarters, to build such a huge headquarters secretly without alerting the government, this faction must be powerful. No wonder the Federation placed such high importance on this mission and sent a talent from the Flying Dragon Special Forces.

With the help of Little Four, Ling Lan didn"t waste any time finding her way around the headquarters. She went directly to the places with the highest security and surveyed every one of them. As she continued on her stroll around the headquarters, she got more and more furious the more she saw.

"We must destroy this headquarters, the foundation of this faction," Ling Lan told Little Four as she walked out of a human experiment laboratory.

Little Four was shocked by what he saw too. Those cruel human experiments that appeared in history books was actually conducted in this headquarters. The experiments carried out in this headquarters might be even more vicious than what was written in the books. They actually used underage youths for their experiments.

"Now I know where all those domain realm masters come from…" At first, Ling Lan was afraid of the people in this headquarters. It was because all the guards in the inner parts of the headquarters appeared to be domain realm masters, shocking her greatly. When did the domain realm masters become so common? With those cruel experiments in mind, she finally got her answer. These domain realm masters were created through countless of those experiments.

She remembered the domain realm master who chased after Xiao Yiqiu. She hid her force of presence purposely so when she attacked him, she didn"t use much of her power, as she just wanted to injure the skinny man and continue attacking from there. Yet, what had happened was out of her expectation. She managed to destroy the skinny man"s domain easily, striking him square in his chest.

At that time, she could already feel that something was amiss with those domain realm masters, but time was tight then so she couldn"t think deeply about it. Thinking back, these domain realm masters who were created do have their domains but there was major flaw about them, and the major flaw was their defense. Of course, the skinny man she met might just be an outlier of their successful line of domain realm masters. To affirm her thoughts, she needed to look for more domain realm masters created using this experiment.

For some reason, she thought of Qiao Ting. At Soldier City, her forceful attacks forced Qiao Ting to release all his energy and achieved a breakthrough to the domain. However, that domain was later proven to be just a pseudo domain. It was not stable. To stabilize a pseudo domain, the person had to achieve the domain stage which required many years of hard work and experience. The person needed to understand how a domain worked and how to use it properly.

This kind of domain was not as stable and powerful as the true domain as there were no weaknesses in a true domain. When compared to true domain realm masters, their domain realm masters were a joke. Their domains are fake!

Fake!

"Little Four, have you collected all the evidence?" Ling Lan had already searched through most of the places, but she felt a sense of danger at some locations so she didn"t go close to those locations.

"Don"t worry, Boss. I have recorded all of them. There are pictures and videos." If this place had surveillance cameras, his Boss would not have to come here personally. It seems like the people who built this headquarter were afraid that their experiments would leak out so they didn"t leave any form of pictorial evidence behind. They didn"t even dare to install surveillance cameras.

The paper doc.u.ments they found were weird too. It was written using strange characters that didn"t exist in the world. It was probably a language invented by the people in the headquarters. That way, only their own people knew what was written on it, even if it was stolen, no one would know about their doings.

Little Four recorded all of these doc.u.ments too. He looked at a few pages and couldn"t understand anything, none at all. But, this was not an unsolvable problem for him. With his powerful calculating ability, he would be able to find a pattern in the words and decipher its content.

Ling Lan quickly retreated from the headquarters. She found a safe spot in the forest and sent the evidence she found to the number that gave her the mission.

Somewhere far away, a major who had been taking note of this number finally saw a message sent to it. He got excited. "There"s news."

His colleague, who was a major too, reminded him. "Take a look at its content first. It might be some normal information."

"That makes sense." The major opened the file. When he saw the gruesome photos flashing before his eyes, his expression changed. Every consecutive photo was gorier than the last. After looking through all the photos, the major rushed to the rubbish bin and vomited in it.

"What happened?" His colleague asked out of concern.

The major took a while to control his urge to vomit. He raised his pale face with eyes full of grief and anger. He said to the major beside him, "Major Liu, inform Major General Wu. We got evidence from Planet Azure." He closed his eyes after he finished speaking to hide his tears and anger. He clenched his fist tightly. Those people should die a thousand times for what they have done!

Major Liu saw the furious expression on his colleague"s face and was surprised. He glanced at his optical supercomputer. His expression changed. He quickly contacted Major General Wu and reported the situation to him.

After some time, Major General Wu came over hurriedly with some officers who looked around 60 years old. Everyone had one or more stars on their shoulders. It meant that they were either major generals or lieutenant generals.

All the majors on duty were shocked to see so many generals in the room.

Major General Wu asked the moment he came, "Where is the evidence?"

The major who received the evidence had recovered by now. He pointed to his optical supercomputer. "Over here."

Major General Wu rushed over and took control of the optical supercomputer. He flipped through the evidence. The photos were shown one by one, and all the officers looking were shocked by what they saw.

"b.a.s.t.a.r.ds! This bunch of b.a.s.t.a.r.ds…" One of the lieutenant generals slammed his clenched fist on the table beside him, shattering it into pieces.

"Hurry up and inform the people on Planet Azure to control the Central Scout Academy." The major general gave his order decisively.

His deputy quickly replied, "Yes, major general." They had waited for this day for a long time. All they lacked was evidence. Hence, they waited patiently for that evidence to come.

"Wait!" One of the lieutenant generals stopped him immediately. "The other line sent us some information too. There are many domain realm masters over there. Without an overwhelming number of domain realm masters on our side, we would be unable to control the Central Scout Academy. Furthermore, there are many scouts in the academy. If the enemy uses them as hostages, we will be at a disadvantage."

"We must gather enough domain realm masters!" The person who seemed to be in command gave an order. "Ask all the division, ground units, starship units, special forces, and any free domain realm masters to gather at the ground headquarters on Planet Azure within 24 hours. The time of action will be…" He looked at the communicator on his wrist. It was 1.23 pm now. He continued, " 1400 tomorrow."

Their opponents were already in an alert state by the numerous attempts to investigate the school. They didn"t have much time left. If their opponents escaped, no matter how much preparations they tried to make, it"ll be all in vain.

As the orders were given, everyone in the room started acting. They gave out orders to the various units near Planet Azure for them to gather on Planet Azure within 24 hours.

Major General Wu asked the major who received this doc.u.ment, "Were these evidence sent by the lieutenant colonel from Flying Dragon Special Forces?"

The major was stunned for a moment. "No, it was from the other lieutenant colonel." To ensure the safety of the person taking the mission, the mainframe didn"t provide detailed information about him. However, one of the requirements for this mission was to have the rank of lieutenant colonel or above. Hence, the major addressed him as a lieutenant colonel.

"He is not…" Major General Wu was surprised and curious about the lieutenant colonel who had done what they couldn"t for so long. Who was this person that managed to get this information before the person from Flying Dragon Special Forces?

Around Planet Azure, all the domain realm masters from various divisions and units received the order. Those that were free or didn"t have any important task rushed to Planet Azure. However, domain realm masters were not common, even after sending out the order, the generals were still worried. This mission affected the lives of many youths. There must be no mistakes. If not, they would be unable to answer to the people from the Federation. It might also affect the political world, as many important figures would get implicated by this.

No one could bear these consequences, especially the generals who were in charge of the mission. These 24 hours were like torture to them.

After Leng Hanfeng left Gu Zhengrong, he quickly arrived at the main gate of the headquarters. When he saw the numerous guards and the high-tech door, he immediately understood why the spies before him failed.

"Boss, look at what I found." Ling Lan was still sending out the evidence from a tree nearby when Little Four shouted at her.

"Your roommate!" Little Four said excitedly when Ling Lan turned to look at him.

"Leng Hanfeng or Gu Zhengrong?" Ling Lan asked indifferently.

Little Four was dispirited. "Why didn"t you guess Meng Shaoran?"

"He should be on the way too but he is not free now." When Ling Lan noticed Meng Shaoran following after Su Pei, she had already guessed his reasoning for choosing Su Pei.

It had to be said that he made a good decision. Su Pei was calm and knew when to give up certain things. He knew what he should do to gain the most leverage out of the situation. Compared to Xiao Yiqiu who was straightforward, Su Pei would give Meng Shaoran what he wanted more easily. Ling Lan agreed with his decision. If she was in the same situation, she would choose Su Pei too.