Chapter 987: Where to Find the Most Confidential Intelligence? Look for the Mechanical Nation in the Old Star River

Chapter 987: Who Holds the Most Classified Intelligence? Seek the Mechanic Nation in the Ancient Galaxy

On the tranquil corridors of the Administrative Palace on the Three Kings Planet, two figures walked side by side.

One was Mardie, a senior intelligence officer, and the other was a high-ranking official of the Modo Civilization, holding a position of immense power and authority, and Mardie's direct superior.

As they strolled along, they engaged in casual conversation.

"You are in charge of the project exploiting the natives, reporting directly to the Three Kings. This is a rare opportunity." The high official walked with his hands clasped behind his back, speaking slowly, "Mardie, I have always believed in your abilities. But can you truly guarantee that the Empire will never uncover the truth? If something goes wrong, the Three Kings will remember you, and your future will end right here."

"Heh, I've said it many times, it's impossible for the Empire to discover it was us."

Mardie shook his head with a cold sneer:

"I cleared all traces years ago. The production serial number of that deployed ship has been completely erased, and it was refined with magic multiple times to interfere with prophetic abilities. The Empire won't find a single shred of information on that ship. What other clues could they possibly have?"

"Even if we assume the worst and the Empire actually discovers the ship's origin, I had my agents wipe all production and transaction records from the manufacturer long ago; the Empire won't find a thing. That agent was disguised, with an unblemished resume. Outsiders would only assume he's dead. His personal classified file was temporarily deleted from the database by me, and he himself was transferred away. No one can find him."

"Moreover, it wasn't us who bought this ship, but a civilian consortium. It changed hands multiple times, was once seized by space pirates, crashed accidentally with no survivors, and became a missing vessel. We secretly captured it over a decade ago without leaving any records. So if the Empire traces the transaction line, they won't be able to link it back to us at all."

"Several years is plenty of time. I've also set up additional measures. If the Empire pursues the investigation step by step, they will only be led to suspect another super star cluster civilization. No matter what, the Empire cannot produce any evidence that it was us."

Mardie's tone was confident, brimming with absolute certainty.

After all, deploying the ship to the Kunde Race was an event from years ago. He had started erasing traces years ago, fully confident that the Empire would find no clues.

Hearing this, the high official nodded slowly:

"With you saying that, I can rest easy."

...

The silver-blue planet rotated slowly in the cosmic space before them, like a gem rolling on black velvet. Starlight reflected off the smooth silver outer armor of the Sovereign Avatar, while a line of pitch-black mechanical soldiers followed silently behind, blending into the darkness as if invisible.

This was a comprehensive industrial planet in the Ancient Galaxy, where numerous consortiums had built their factories.

[Bold Explorer] revealed it to be a branch factory under a shipbuilding enterprise, located on this very planet, which was the exact origin of the crashed ship.

This shipbuilding enterprise was the most ordinary kind of shipyard, mass-producing only various basic models of low-tier ships, engaging in no research or improvement, earning nothing but mere production fees.

Shipyards like this still held a certain market in the universe, primarily accepting civilian orders. After all, basic ships were cheap and in high demand, whereas other advanced shipyards would not invest massive resources into producing such basic ships lacking core competitiveness.

Before dispatching his mechanical forces, Han Xiao had already investigated the background of this shipyard in the database. It was simply a small civilian enterprise with no backing.

"The mastermind chose a shipyard like this. If I'm not mistaken, they've already wiped the traces."

Han Xiao murmured in thought.

Although he had a clear idea in his mind, he still needed to investigate and confirm it to verify the results.

Entering the quantum network vision, the world before him once again transformed into a virtual web-like realm. The outline of the planet faded, leaving only countless glowing quantum network nodes, forming a mottled and brilliant sea of light.

Locking onto the shipyard's quantum network node, Han Xiao plunged directly in. The data firewall of a small civilian enterprise was practically like air, offering him no resistance whatsoever. He glided smoothly all the way to the deepest core, releasing a massive data stream.

In a mere instant, Han Xiao had breached the shipyard's database, and all information was laid bare in his hands.

He opened the production logs and transaction records, glancing through them, only to find that the earliest records went back a mere three years, whereas the shipyard's history stretched far beyond that.

"As expected, the mastermind behind the scenes tampered with the data," Han Xiao mused silently.

He checked other records, which stated that the shipyard had suffered an accidental explosion three years ago.

During ship production, the energy supply suddenly malfunctioned, blowing up the entire shipyard. The mainframe was incinerated, all past data was lost, and the paper archives were destroyed, nearly affecting the surrounding enterprises as well.

The post-incident investigation concluded it was an extremely low-probability natural failure. Han Xiao naturally didn't believe it; this was undoubtedly a man-made disaster, orchestrated to destroy evidence.

If he were the mastermind, he wouldn't just clear the records of the origin; he would also have it change hands multiple times in between, turning the ship into a ghost ship with no records for a long period, thus cleaning the trail even more thoroughly.

"No records at all, and we don't even know the ship's factory serial number. This clue is mostly severed..."

The eyes of Han Xiao's Sovereign Avatar flickered with electric light.

"But it is not entirely without its rewards."

At the very least, this clue revealed that the origin was in the Ancient Galaxy.

Then, the ones with the greatest suspicion in the Ancient Galaxy would be those four ruling super star cluster civilizations. The scope had suddenly narrowed from the entire universe to a single star region.

Of course, it was also possible that a civilization from another star region deliberately purchased a ship produced elsewhere, harboring the intention to frame others. However, he would prioritize the more probable scenario for now.

Although there were no clues at the moment, in his past life, the Empire had also encountered similar incidents to the Kunde Race during subsequent explorations, where natives were enhanced and sent to their deaths. Having learned from the Kunde Race incident, the Empire was better prepared and had identified the suspects in some of those events.

And among the suspects in the Ancient Galaxy, the one named most frequently was the Modo Civilization, one of the four great super star clusters!

They were forever stirring up trouble. As the old adage goes, those who walk by the river often get their shoes wet, and the Empire was no pushover.

The mastermind could erase the clues of the past, but he couldn't change the clues of the "future" in Han Xiao's memory!

It was equivalent to saying, you haven't committed a crime yet, but I've already seen that you will commit one in the future.

He didn't know if the Modo Civilization was responsible for the Kunde Race incident, but since they had a "prior record," they were the prime suspects.

Because the clue was severed, Han Xiao temporarily had two ideas.

Since the shipyard accident was man-made, he could try to scour the entry and exit records and surveillance footage of this planet from three years ago, hoping to uncover who orchestrated the disaster and follow the trail.

It was simple for the mastermind to tamper with the data of a small civilian enterprise, but tampering with the planet's global surveillance was a difficulty level several notches higher. If the opponent had tampered with that, Han Xiao would just accept it and consider this path a dead end.

The second approach was a brute-force method, relying on the process of elimination. There were only a few civilizations in the Ancient Galaxy capable of causing trouble. He would investigate them one by one to find clues. If he did this, the first civilization Han Xiao would investigate would be the most suspicious one, the Modo Civilization.

He always preferred to attack on two fronts. He immediately filtered the entry and exit records from over three years ago, matching them with the satellite surveillance from the day of the accident.

The powerful computing power operated at high speed, quickly yielding a result—no suspicious individuals had approached the shipyard that day.

"Not an outside job? Hmm, two possibilities. First, the mastermind tampered with the entire planet's surveillance to hide the traces of an outsider. Second, it was an inside job by an employee."

The former was beyond his means to counter, leaving him to simply wash up and go to sleep. Han Xiao could only pursue the line of thought regarding an inside job.

If it wasn't an outsider, it could only be an insider.

"Assuming I am the perpetrator, ordered by a superior to infiltrate and act, then after creating a disaster to complete the mission, there would be no need to stay at the shipyard. Therefore, I would need an excuse to slip away. In that case..."

A thought struck Han Xiao. He opened the shipyard's obituary for deceased employees published three years ago, which listed the staff who perished in the accident.

After the accident three years ago, all surviving shipyard workers underwent strict interrogation. Many resigned, but based on Han Xiao's understanding of intelligence operatives, it was far more likely that the opponent used a faked death to vanish from the world, because it was far "cleaner"—an elite intelligence operative would undoubtedly prepare multiple identities for themselves. Death meant obliterating an identity, severing all ties, and drastically minimizing future liabilities.

Therefore, the perpetrator might just be on the list of the deceased.

The life history and resume of interstellar citizens could be queried through other channels. It wasn't hard for Han Xiao to find the resumes of these people; their professional experiences and entry and exit records were clear as day, with no flaws to be found.

What he needed to confirm now was whether anyone's resume had the suspicion of being forged.

Tampering with data was easy, and verifying it wasn't hard either, just rather tedious. It meant conducting field visits, going to the past enterprises and relatives listed in the resumes, and asking if such a person existed.

If he found someone with a forged resume, they could be listed as a suspect. The next step would be the process of elimination he had just thought of... comparing the suspect's data with the classified personnel files of the Modo Civilization and other super star cluster civilizations, to determine if they were the perpetrator and which faction they belonged to.

If the perpetrator had infiltrated the shipyard, they must have used a forged identity, and their appearance might have been disguised as well, but this was not unsolvable.

The shipyard's data was gone, but the planet's satellite surveillance remained, storing satellite footage of their usual activities. With Han Xiao's virtual technology, he could set up model parameters, import these footage and the classified personnel files of those factions, and conduct ultra-large-scale comprehensive analysis to determine the degree of similarity, which could expose the disguise to a certain extent.

Through this, the comparison with the civilization's classified personnel files could be completed.

Then the question arose... how could he obtain the classified personnel files of these super star cluster civilizations?

The Black Star Army had no influence whatsoever in the Ancient Galaxy.

Han Xiao patted his metallic head.

He didn't know about others, but a control freak like Manison definitely had a massive amount of classified information from these super star cluster civilizations in his hands.

Even the Radiant Federation must guard against the Mechanical Nation's virtual incursions, suggesting he likely has a history of such transgressions; how, then, could these super-star-cluster-level civilizations hope to escape his reach? To wield the supreme virtual technology in the cosmos and not play the sly neighbor would be a sheer tragedy.

"Very well, it seems I truly must seek out the Mechanical Nation."