152: Chapter 152 Learns About the Detention Location

Hoffman's psychological defenses completely collapsed. He begged for mercy in a hoarse, wheezing voice, his eyes filled with nothing but endless fear.

"Where is Ivy?" Shen Xingyue asked coldly.

"She... she's been locked up!" Hoffman gasped for air, terrified that if he spoke a second too slowly, he would suffer again. "She's in the bottom hold of the 'Qingfeng Battleship' next door... She refused to sign the Subordinate Contract, so she's being held in strict confinement..."

"What about the severely wounded soldiers who retreated from the front lines? Where did they go?"

At the mention of this, a flash of despair crossed Hoffman's eyes, but he gritted his teeth and confessed the truth: "They were all taken by my father... the Great Elder... to be traded. He treated the wounded who had lost their combat effectiveness as cargo and sold them to other merchants in exchange for supplies and defense blueprints..."

Hearing this cruel truth with her own ears, a look of disgust flashed in Shen Xingyue's eyes. She ignored the pile of trash on the ground, raised her hand, and tapped the miniature communicator hidden in her ear. "It's done."

Outside the door, Zhou An and Li Muzi were waiting in the corridor with that Tier 5 guard.

Zhou An had his hands in his pockets, glancing at the guard beside him seemingly at random, but his peripheral vision keenly swept over the several miniature surveillance cameras on the corridor ceiling and corners.

'There is a surveillance network in the corridor. Starting a fight here would easily trigger the flagship's highest-level alarm. I need to get this guy into the room before taking him out.' Zhou An made the judgment instantly.

Just then, Shen Xingyue's words, "It's done," came through the earpiece.

He looked up, a gentle, harmless smile tugging at the corners of his mouth. He turned to the guard and said, "Dr. Shen just informed me that the treatment has been successfully completed. Young Master Hoffman has recovered very well and is resting inside. We can go in now."

"Really? That's great!" Hearing that his young master had not only been cured of his injuries but was also resting, the guard was overjoyed and didn't have the slightest suspicion toward these humans. He turned around impatiently and pressed the button to open the door.

"Hiss—" The heavy dark purple door slowly slid open to both sides.

The guard stepped into the room with a beaming smile. However, before the smile could fully bloom on his face, it instantly froze into extreme terror.

He saw that Young Master Hoffman, who was supposed to be "resting," was currently sprawled on the floor like a pile of rotting meat, his whole body spasming and convulsing uncontrollably. Meanwhile, that seemingly cool and refined Dr. Shen was standing over him, playing with a chilling syringe in her hand.

"Young Master! There are assa—" The guard's eyes widened, and he had just opened his mouth to shout a warning.

In that split second, Zhou An, who had been following right behind him, moved in like a ghost.

"Bang!" Zhou An used one hand to push the door shut with a heavy backhand, completely cutting off the view from the corridor's surveillance.

At the same time, his other hand, fingers formed into a blade, struck with the terrifying physical strength of a Tier 5 Peak, precisely hitting the junction of the guard's carotid artery and nerve plexus at the back of his neck!

"Snap!" Without even a muffled grunt, this dignified Tier 5 Winged race elite guard rolled his eyes back and instantly lost all consciousness.

Zhou An grabbed his limp collar with one hand and tossed him beside Hoffman as if he were garbage.

Looking at the two people sprawled on the floor like dead pigs, Zhou An casually clapped his hands.

"Truly, 'all the searching was in vain, only to find it effortlessly.' I originally wanted to slowly figure out their internal structure to avoid looking everywhere, but I didn't expect that a casual probe would lead me straight to the Great Elder's precious young master."

Shen Xingyue walked forward with a calm expression and took out another syringe filled with glowing blue liquid from her medical kit. She deftly jabbed it into the guard's neck and injected the medicine.

"A high-concentration nerve suppressant. It's enough to keep him sleeping here for three whole days and nights. Conventional medical methods won't be able to wake him up."

Shen Xingyue replied while putting away the empty syringe.

"Well done. Did you get any useful clues?" Zhou An looked at her.

"I did." Shen Xingyue pushed up her glasses and concisely recounted the results of the interrogation.

"Ivy is currently being held in the bottom hold of the battleship next door, called the 'Qingfeng Battleship.' As for the severely wounded soldiers who retreated from the White Feather Guild, Cormac has already treated them as cargo and sold them all to merchants in exchange for supplies and blueprints."

Hearing about this shady business, a flash of pity and anger flickered in Li Muzi's eyes, while Zhou An's gaze turned completely cold.

"Since we have the intelligence, there's no need to waste time here." Zhou An glanced at the time on his system panel.

"More than half an hour has passed. That old fox Cormac is suspicious by nature. If he doesn't get a reply from his son soon, he'll realize something is wrong. We need to act immediately."

He looked at Li Muzi and Shen Xingyue and quickly finalized the plan: "The commotion might be a bit loud later, so I'll send you two back to the spaceship first. Muzi, once you get back, start the engine preheating immediately and be ready to provide support at any time."

"Boss, you're staying here alone?" A look of worry appeared on Li Muzi's refined face. "After all, this is an LV6 flagship, and there are their people everywhere outside..."

"Don't worry." Zhou An smiled indifferently. "With just this bunch of birdmen, there's nothing that can keep me here. Once I send you away, I can let loose and go smash up the 'Qingfeng Battleship'."

Seeing Zhou An so confident, Li Muzi stopped being overly cautious and nodded.

"Then what about these two?" Li Muzi looked at Hoffman and the guard on the floor.

Shen Xingyue's gaze fell on Hoffman, who could barely open his eyes as the drug's effects began to wear off. Recalling the disgusting, sticky look in this guy's eyes earlier, a flash of undisguised, piercing killing intent flickered in the depths of Shen Xingyue's cool eyes.

"Dispose of them cleanly."

"Understood." Zhou An didn't waste a single word. He flipped his wrist, and an energy pistol instantly appeared in his palm. He aimed the muzzle directly at the center of Hoffman's forehead.

Hoffman's pupils contracted, and his eyes erupted with desperate pleading, but he couldn't make a sound.

"Pfft!" The barrel, equipped with a silencer module, emitted a dull, soft sound. A violent beam of energy instantly pierced through Hoffman's brain, completely blowing his head apart like a ripe watermelon. Red and white matter splattered onto the cold metal floor. The Great Elder's only son didn't even have time to experience the fear of death before he was completely reduced to a headless corpse.

Zhou An put away the pistol, his movements as fluid as if he had just stepped on a bug.

"Come here, hold onto me." Zhou An turned around and reached out his hands to the two women. Li Muzi and Shen Xingyue grabbed Zhou An's arms tightly, one on each side.

Zhou An closed his eyes, his powerful mental energy spreading instantly, piercing through the flagship's thick armor, and precisely locking onto the spatial coordinates of the LV5 spaceship docked at the third hangar.

"space warp." With a low shout, the starlight on Zhou An's right arm suddenly flared brilliantly. The surrounding space seemed to be violently torn apart by a pair of invisible hands, and the figures of the three vanished into thin air amidst a violent distortion of space!

"Hum—" Inside the quiet cockpit of the spaceship, the air suddenly rippled like water. The next second, Zhou An, Li Muzi, and Shen Xingyue appeared in the center of the cabin, completely unharmed.

With their feet back on the carpet, Li Muzi and Shen Xingyue were a bit dazed. They looked at the familiar spaceship furnishings around them, then at Zhou An's right arm, which was slowly dimming, their eyes filled with undisguisable surprise.

"This... is this the space warp that directly ignores physical defenses?" Even the usually rational Shen Xingyue couldn't help but gasp. Although she knew Zhou An possessed this ability, this was the first time they had seen and experienced such a god-like feat with their own eyes.

"Alright, stop staring." Zhou An let go and walked to the cabin door. "Start the engine preheating immediately. I'm going to the 'Qingfeng Battleship' to get Ivy out now."