Chapter 343: Use!
Translator: ryuxenji Editor: H2dH2mr
Perhaps Little Four was very happy with the day's harvest, or perhaps Little Four wanted to rush back to help his boss earlier ... in any case, he did not check the scene properly before hurriedly leaving the scene. He did not discover a hidden secret command being successfully transmitted.
Right then, Ling Lan had already rushed to the warehouse doors. Along the way, she had moved according to the route that a clone of Little Four had plotted out for her, making her way unimpeded to her destination.
"After this, there are still several traps, but the Federation investigation team has already destroyed them. We can just move ahead at full speed. One more thing. One of the enemy spectres is already close to the investigation team." Little Four's clone, who had initially been reporting coordinates and real-time situations suddenly became talkative.
Ling Lan calmly raised a brow. "Little Four, you're back?"
In the mindspace, Little Four's initially robotic expression collapsed and he said sullenly, "Boss, how did you know?"
Little Four had deliberately kept quiet when he had returned, wanting to see when Boss would notice he had come back. He did not expect to be caught out the moment he opened his mouth. This made Little Four feel very hurt.
"Your clone doesn't say any nonsense," Ling Lan responded evenly. Although Little Four had many clones, his clones were all very mechanical. They were like programmes with specific settings, meticulously carrying out their tasks. Only Little Four's true body would possess strong emotions which were very obviously reflected in his tone of speech.
Ling Lan's words dealt a double blow to Little Four. So it turned out his clones were that lame — from tomorrow onwards, he must improve his clones' intelligence ...
"Finished off all those people?" Ling Lan asked Little Four as she continued to move forwards at high speed.
At this question, Little Four was instantly revived in full spirits. He lifted a victory 'V' sign up high and said excitedly, "Of course, with me, Little Four, in charge, success is naturally guaranteed."
"Found nothing unusual?" Little Four was often careless, so Ling Lan could not help but check with him again.
Little Four thought of that spiritual entity he had put in a secret room in preparation for research and wondered whether that was considered something unusual. However, since Boss had asked him to erase everyone, that spiritual self he had extracted should be his spoils of victory ... it should be fine not to tell Boss about it. Little Four hesitated for a moment but eventually decided that he would report to Boss after his research bore some fruit. Besides, he had already defied his boss in secret so many times already — one more time wouldn't hurt.
Thus, Little Four decisively shook his head and said, "Nothing unusual."
Ling Lan trusted Little Four very much. Thus, hearing Little Four say so, she did not inquire further. Ling Lan knew that time was tight — since Little Four was already back, she immediately headed deeper into the warehouse at her greatest speed. In other words, she was charging towards the troubled investigation team.
All the way, not a single NPC soldier showed up to intercept her. There were countless corpses lying beside each checkpoint — it looked like the investigation team was very thorough, making sure not to leave any loose ends, which saved Ling Lan quite a bit of trouble.
When they had two checkpoints left to go, Little Four suddenly reminded, "Boss, the spectre has already met up with the team. It looks like he is about to begin attacking them. Do you want me to immediately go over and kill the enemy?"
Ling Lan's footsteps paused abruptly but instantly resumed again. Maintaining her original speed, she continued moving towards the two parties. She was silent for about 20 seconds before responding, "No need. Wait for me to arrive at the destination, then we'll see."
Indeed. If Little Four took action, they could indeed easily rescue all these people, but how would they explain things after rescuing them? Little Four's actions would undoubtedly tell the investigation team that there was still an unidentified third party at work in the Swift Dragon base. They would definitely report this to military headquarters when they returned, and even if they knew that the third party were allies and not enemies, the Federation military would still want to investigate things thoroughly.
Ling Lan did not have the confidence to keep everything under wraps in the face of a full-force investigation by the military. Moreover, she also did not trust the mainframe of Mecha World. If the Federation military tried to obtain information from it, the mainframe might just hand over their mission details to the military ...
Well, even if the Federation military discovered anything, it would not be a big deal. Ling Lan believed that her father Ling Xiao would definitely suppress the matter — he would never allow the military to disrupt their regular military academy life. Still, Ling Lan was afraid that the traitor lurking within the higher levels of the military administration would leak their information to the Caesar Empire. The set-up which had trapped Ling Xiao those many years ago had let Ling Xiao confirm that there was a traitor within military headquarters. On this, Ling Lan agreed whole-heartedly.
If Caesar really learned of their involvement, she and her companions would definitely be swept into an endless chain of threats and attempts on their lives. Caesar would definitely never let them go for destroying the perfect set-up they had painstakingly arranged over the span of a whole 16 years. Just imagine. If it had not been for Ling Lan's group, Caesar would have already obtained the fruits of success.
Ling Lan had indeed rushed over with the intent of rescuing these Federation soldiers, because Ling Lan had been using them from the start.
The moment Ling Lan had arrived at the Swift Dragon base, she had already asked Little Four to comprehend the full situation at the base. They had discovered that there was a bunch of people from a powerful but unidentified faction within the base, who had successfully replaced the mainframe in taking control of the highest clearance command rights of the Swift Dragon base. In other words, the Swift Dragon base was an NPC base controlled by the mainframe in name only. In fact, these NPCs were now already subordinates of the opponent; the mainframe's authority had been superseded.
Meanwhile, Little Four had also discovered five spectres lurking within the base. Among them, one was part of the investigation team sent by military headquarters, while there were as many as four from the unidentified faction. This situation as reported by Little Four had made Ling Lan's heart heavy with worry. The presence of spectres meant that their mission this time had become extremely dangerous — any unfortunate slip might result in them losing their lives. Even though she had Little Four, this nature-defying protective talisman, around, she still could not dare to guarantee she would be able to protect all her team members flawlessly.
Spectres were known as 'death gods' in the virtual world. Their abilities indeed defied nature and were terrifying. Any bit of negligence and you would be caught — they could instantly destroy a player's brain region. Those who were turned into idiots but kept their lives could still be considered lucky; many more would be directly reduced to brain-dead vegetables with no hope of waking up again for the rest of their lives.
So, despite having located their secret base on the first day, Ling Lan had not dared to act impetuously. Four spectres and close to thirty top-class hackers. Even though Little Four had assured her that it was no problem, Ling Lan still did not dare to take risks with the lives of her team members.
Even if Ling Lan had no other strengths, patience was her most prominent character strength. Without full confidence to ensure safety, Ling Lan would strongly suppress the urge to act and pretend she knew nothing. Thus, she had calmly waited at the Swift Dragon base for several days.
Until tonight, when the opportunity finally came. The investigation team the Federation military had sent finally could not restrain themselves any longer and had prepared a night-time excursion to investigate. At first, Ling Lan thought the investigative team would be choosing to enter the secret base her team had found. But unexpectedly, the other team had been successfully lured away by the enemy to a different location, which was the warehouse base that Little Four had long discovered was a trap.
Ling Lan knew that if these people fell for the trap, it would be hard to say what the outcome would be. Over there, there had been more than ten top-class hackers monitoring the area comprehensively, and three strong and powerful mecha warriors and two spectres waiting on full alert. The moment the unwitting investigation team was ambushed, they would have been likely to be completely wiped out. Back then, Ling Lan had had the impulse to go inform the other, but in the end, Ling Lan calmed herself down. She chose the cold-blooded option of observing from the side-lines, because she needed to take responsibility for the safety of her companions.
Despite her rational decision, Ling Lan still felt a little guilty with regards to these soldiers. Thus, once she had finished her own mission, she decided to rush over to rescue them out. Of course, another main reason for this was that she still needed the team to be her team's shields.
Still, rescuing these people needed to be done under the precondition that her team would not be exposed. If rescuing the other team would increase the danger to her own team, Ling Lan would absolutely choose to continue observing from the side-lines. This was why when Little Four suggested she go ahead first to kill the enemy and save the team, Ling Lan had coldly rejected the proposal.
Ling Lan pushed her speed to the limit. It had to be said that the virtual world of this world had been simulated to be as realistic as possible, faithfully reflecting real-world physiques inside the virtual world. Ling Lan's strength at a half step to Domain let her move through the virtual world like the wind. Leaving behind but a fleeting shadow, she had disappeared from sight.
About 40 seconds later, Ling Lan silently arrived at the ambush point. Although the opponent had a number of hackers comprehensively monitoring each corner, with Little Four's cover, Ling Lan naturally would not be discovered.
Ling Lan was very surprised; only the three guarding the door were dead. The other people were all still alive and accounted for, but their situation was bad. Every one of them had been isolated and surrounded by enemies. Ling Lan quickly understood the enemies' intent. They had not chosen to kill the team because they were waiting for their spectre to come erase the men directly. The people from the Caesar Empire were similarly afraid that when these people died in the virtual world and reappeared at a resurrection point, they would report to the Huaxia Federation and give the Federation time to prepare.
When the investigation team of the Federation saw the enemy's spectre appear, they understood what the enemy was planning. Several warriors tried to kill themselves but were stopped by the enemies surrounding them. They had no chance to commit suicide even if they wanted to now.
Seeing this, the commanding officer grimaced. "We've been tricked. Still, I cannot understand, Whether or not we get resurrected, it will still expose the fact that something has gone wrong at the Swift Dragon base. At most, you all can only delay things for several days." The moment they died, it would prove that the Swift Dragon base had been invaded by some unidentified faction with spectres in tow. This was because only spectres could obliterate a player's brain. The military would definitely dispatch countless spectres over at first notice to hunt and kill these invaders, unless the enemy managed to completely retreat from the base over the next few days.
"Just a delay of a few days will be enough. One more thing — preventing your suicides is not because we're afraid of you all going back to report. All your resurrection points have already been set to the Swift Dragon base anyway. We just don't want to bother with the time and effort needed to go erase you all at the resurrection point." Reiter laughed when he heard what the commander had to say, following up with an explanation as to why they had prevented the other from killing themselves.
The commanding officer's expression changed at these words and he quickly looked up the relevant details. Sure enough, a few days ago, when they had first landed at the Swift Dragon base, the system had sent a notification telling them that their resurrection point had automatically been changed to the Swift Dragon base. In other words, even if they had committed suicide, they would still be unable to return to Mecha World's central district. They would still be resurrected here in the Swift Dragon base.