Fifteen minutes later, the remotely piloted Shadow Dragon Jet touched down smoothly on the deck. Its wingtip thrusters are fully adjustable, letting it take off and land vertically, and skim just above the waves to dodge aerial surveillance. Once its thruster software gets a proper upgrade, it’ll be able to hover and even reverse in midair.
As the jet descended in a rush of air, the piano-black aircraft looked like something straight out of a sci-fi flick. The special ops team watched with pride—this was proof of BUG Group’s insane tech chops.
The fighting on the HEAVEN’s deck was over. The diehards were all taken out, the panickers surrendered. The deck was piled high with shipping containers, and Liu Xiaoying was scanning and checking every one, making sure nothing sketchy was hidden inside. If one of those SD Syndicate grunts tried to blow up a crate full of explosives, we’d be toast.
"All set?" Yang Qi wandered across the deck. Chainsaw Girl and Li Yuncong instantly rushed to take credit: "Done!" "You can count on me!" Then, just as fast, they started squabbling: "Count on you? Please, I saw you almost get your head blown off!" "Like you’re any better, swinging that flashy chainsaw just to slice open tin boxes—so lame!" "What did you just say, you brat?!"
Yang Qi grabbed the two troublemakers and tossed them aside, then turned to Jonathan, who finally contributed something useful: "Deck’s clear, no enemies left. Most of the enemy troops are locked behind bulkheads in the cabins and corridors. Ethan Zhuo is hypnotizing them, and in about ten minutes we’ll open the doors and round them up. We’re scanning the whole ship so nobody slips through the cracks."
"Also, our tech team has cracked the ship’s data." Jonathan pointed at the big vessel, looking a bit serious: "This ship came from Jakarta, officially registered as an Indonesian ocean freighter. The captain is a retired Indonesian Navy officer, with the rank of colonel. According to international law, consulates, aircraft, and ships all count as sovereign territory, so..."
"So, what does that make us—pirates hijacking a freighter, or terrorists attacking foreign soil?" Yang Qi clicked her tongue and shook her head. "Whatever. If they’ve got the guts, let them come at me. Honestly, if a legit country lets a psycho group run its official cargo ships, that’s just embarrassing."
On the flip side, it really shows just how deep and wide the SD Syndicate’s reach into the international scene goes—scary stuff.
"Don’t worry, we wrecked their comms gear right away, and just shut down their GPS too." Jonathan thumped his chest. "At best, they’ll notice the signal’s gone, but they won’t know what happened yet. Any backup would take at least two or three hours to get here, so we’ve got plenty of time to finish up, wipe all traces, and get out. Neither SD nor Indonesia will have a clue that this was Eternal Night Holdings Group’s doing."
Whatever, we could just sail this ship away if we felt like it—no big deal." Yang Qi yawned, her eyelids drooping as she looked around the scene, bored out of her mind. "I was hoping to rack up some Heavenly Ranking points, but with opponents like these, I just can’t be bothered."
The enemy who once seemed like a giant—now, while not exactly harmless, doesn’t scare her anymore. That’s the thing about Chosen Ones: their growth is so wild and fast, it catches everyone off guard.
This world isn’t what it used to be.
Forget it, I’ll find a real challenge next time. By the way, have we found our intel agent yet?
Not yet," Jonathan reported. "All our intel agents have a tracker in their tailbone; we’re getting the signal, but some weird force field is messing with it, so we can’t pin down the location. But with Xiaoying on the case, it’s only a matter of time."
"Really? Well then—hmm?!" Yang Qi was about to say something when she suddenly tensed up and snapped her head around. Her lazy, casual air vanished, replaced by sharp focus. Her eyes flashed as she scanned every corner, and everyone she looked at felt a chill, though nobody knew why.
Yang Qi’s move was subtle; only Jonathan, who was close by, noticed. Her cousin instantly tensed up, ready for action, but as he was about to call for an alert, Yang Qi raised her hand to stop him.
"Queen?" Jonathan asked for confirmation, still on edge, ready to draw his gun at a moment’s notice.
But Yang Qi shook her head, looking relaxed again—though her eyelids stayed up, and she seemed a lot more awake. "It’s nothing, just a weird feeling. No enemies. Come on, let’s go find our intel agent."
A feeling? Jonathan frowned, not fully convinced. He knew Yang Qi’s animal instincts were usually spot on.
Meanwhile, far above the cargo ship, out in lonely outer space, a satellite spun quietly. Official records listed it as a "GeoSurvey Satellite," supposedly scanning the earth’s crust for minerals. But right now, it was picking up a mysterious signal, processing it, then relaying it at light speed.
The signal was sent out on a frequency that didn’t match any known satellite band, all the way to the other side of the world. There, in a mysterious room, a giant screen was showing everything happening on the HEAVEN cargo ship. If you rewind a bit, ever since Lone Wolf smashed the radio antenna, this secret signal had been bouncing off the satellite, activating all sorts of hidden devices on command.
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From the moment the special ops team landed on deck and the battle began, every second and every scene was displayed clearly on that screen.
In the bottom right corner of the screen was a 3D wireframe of the cargo ship, with red and green dots marking the positions and numbers of both sides. The tagging method was almost identical to what Donald used back on that Pacific island.
Three people sat in front of the screen.
They watched the screen in silence: one looked furious, one was relaxed with a crazed glint in his eye, and the last was stone-faced and calm. Aside from these three, there was a chaotic black shadow—no features, no identity. Technically, there were four beings present, but since you couldn’t even tell if that creepy shadow was human, it didn’t really count.
"Folks, the team running the escort mission on the HEAVEN is the Seventh Combat Unit. They were the best—at least, they used to be. Their fight records stood unbeaten for five years." The furious young man, who looked under thirty, was handsome with piercing blue eyes—could charm any girl, but right now he was slamming the table and yelling, his face twisted: "But now, look! Ten minutes! In just ten minutes, they were totally crushed! They used to be the best, now they’re nothing but trash! The world really has changed!"
Take it easy, take it easy. What’s so strange about the strongest turning into junk? Three years ago, I spent two months’ salary on a King 590 graphics card, and now it’s just ‘standard kit’ for the bargain hunters. So chill, don’t get all worked up.
The guy with the eyepatch over his left eye—yep, that’s Cobra. He glanced around, oozing that cold, venomous vibe like a snake flicking its tongue: "If you ask me, nothing’s really changed. Past, present, future—the basic rules stay the same. Some things just drop in value faster when they can’t keep up. So, what about you guys—are you planning to hold your value, or crash and burn? More to the point—"
He leaned in close to the angry young man, his narrowed eyes giving everyone the creeps, and his voice had a special edge: "You—got what it takes to keep yourself from tanking in value?"
"You—!" The angry guy clenched his fists, ready to throw down. But after a quick glance at the shadow, he held back and said nothing.
"Cut the pointless chatter," the last one spoke up, cold and tough. With red hair and red eyes, it was Parthes Zade: "We’re not here to argue. We’ve got unfinished business."
"That’s right, there’s a second half. Whether you can hold your value—you’ll see soon enough." The young man shot Cobra a cold snort, then lifted his chin and said to Parthes, "Sixteen, you run Tiberia Lab, so you’re in charge of what comes next."
When the young man called Parthes "Sixteen," there was a hint of disdain in his voice. But Parthes didn’t seem to notice; her red eyes showed nothing but resolve. "Alright, I’ll take over from here."
Nobody knew what she did, but with a swipe, the display split off a new section showing a control panel. The panel was covered in diagrams of a dozen or so different-sized cabins. Each one was marked "Locked" in green, but suddenly, the green "Locked" labels cracked and turned red—"Unlocked."
With the shrill beep of red alarms, signs of life started popping up in some of the cabins.