137: If hard tactics don't work, try soft tactics? Ace Assassins, the Phantom Squad!

The Chaotic Starfield.

Inside the Leviathan Guild's headquarters, a colossal space fortress codenamed “Abyssal Maw”.

This was the heart of power, and also a cold tomb built from ambition and bones.

The dome was carved from a single, flawless black crystal, simulating a deep cosmic star map with magnificent light bands slowly flowing within it, yet it couldn't cast even a hint of warmth.

The ground, on the other hand, was seamlessly paved with the pure white bones of some unknown giant beast, emanating a chilling coldness from beneath one's feet, as if it could freeze the soul.

This command hall, large enough to accommodate an entire frigate, was Vice President Jie’s throne room.

At this moment, the man known for his elegance and ruthlessness in the Chaotic Starfield, was gently kneading his furrowed brows with two slender fingers.

On the gigantic holographic sand table in front of him, hundreds of light dots representing the Fifth and Ninth Fleets had, just minutes ago, collectively extinguished in a manner even more abrupt and thorough than the Seventh Fleet.

They weren't destroyed one by one bygunfire.

It was more like they were casually erased from the canvas of reality by an invisible hand wearing a white glove.

Throughout the entire process, not a single ship transmitted even half a byte of a distress signal.

The hall was deathly silent, even the air seemed to have solidified into heavy ice, making it difficult to breathe.

Below the throne, an adjutant in a crisp uniform and wearing a monocle, stood with a back as rigid as an iron rod, cold sweat seeping from his temples and sliding down his stiff cheeks, dripping onto the mirror-smooth bone floor.

“Tap.”

This almost inaudible sound, in the midst of this deathly silence, was like a thunderclap.

“Trash...”

Jie’s voice was soft, yet it was like a poisoned blade, scraping against the taut nerves of every subordinate.

“A bunch of trash who don't even know how they died.”

His handsome face, which always carried a hint of playful amusement, was now as grim as the core of the Wall of Storms.

Three elite fleets.

His three most capable arms, severed cleanly and decisively by the same unknown target, in the same incomprehensible way, in less than twenty-four hours.

This wasn't a provocation.

This was a god's dispassionate… cleansing of mortals.

“Image.” He slowly lowered his hand, his usually amorous peach blossom eyes now only filled with a cold, chilling killing intent.

“Reporting, Vice President!” The adjutant’s body trembled violently, his voice completely distorted by fear, “The last images transmitted by both fleets were interfered with by an unresolvable spatial field, with a data packet corruption rate exceeding ninety-nine percent! The technical department… is working tirelessly to restore them, but… but currently, we can only see some fragmented, almost bizarre clips.”

He trembled as he made a gesture in the air, issuing a command.

A holographic image, processed with extreme noise reduction, appeared in the center of the hall.

The picture was blurry, filled with glaring static and distorted color blocks, as if from the depths of a nightmare.

First image.

A translucent, perfectly unearthly water droplet was drifting towards the Iron Hammer at a speed so leisurely it was almost insulting.

It ignored the proud crimson energy shield, passing through it like a phantom.

The next second, the screen was completely wiped out in an absolute, silent “nothingness”.

The second image was even more bizarre.

A fist-sized black sphere, like a dead pixel burned through the screen, quietly hovered in the center of the fleet.

Immediately after, the entire world began to twist, stretch, and disintegrate wildly, like a canvas thrown into a washing machine!

Finally, everything was completely swallowed by that deep darkness.

The image ended.

The temperature in the hall seemed to drop by dozens of degrees again.

Even with Jie’s vast experience, he had never seen such an unreasonable attack method.

That wasn't a weapon.

That was a “formatting” at the law level, performed by some higher-dimensional existence on lower-dimensional beings.

“The President warned me before he left…” Jie murmured to himself, a flicker of imperceptible regret flashing in his eyes, along with a deeper, more profound trepidation.

The President, who was always elusive and revered as a god by the entire Guild, had told him before leaving that an interesting “variable” had been introduced into the Initial Sea, and that he should pay close attention.

At the time, he just thought the President had found some new amusement, and sending Black Shark to “greet” it was merely to gauge the quality of this “variable”, so he could decide how to package this “gift” and present it to the President.

Who would have thought.

This “gift” was actually an ancient evil god capable of devouring three fleets!

“Vice President, now what… what should we do?” The adjutant’s voice was tinged with a sob, “If the President finds out that three fleets were annihilated due to our unauthorized actions, we…”

“Shut up!”

Jie sharply cut him off, a ruthless glint of being pushed into a corner flashing in his eyes.

At this point, there was no turning back.

Before the President returned, he had to mend the fence!

He had to use the most thunderous, most ruthless methods, regardless of the cost, to completely crush this fellow who dared to challenge the Leviathan’s authority, ship and all!

“Deliver my order.”

His voice was so cold it lacked any human emotion.

“Assemble the Phantom Squad.”

As the words “Phantom Squad” left his lips, the adjutant's pupils suddenly constricted to pinpricks, his face filled with incredulous horror.

That wasn't a fleet.

That was the Leviathan Guild’s sharpest, and darkest, scalpel.

They were the true ghosts, specifically used to handle the “dirty work” that even fleets couldn't resolve.

They never appeared on the front lines, because their battlefield was in the target's mind, in the target's dreams, on the target's most vulnerable soft spot.

Their prey were only those targets whose value was high enough for the Guild to pay any price—the living pilot.

“But… Vice President, the Phantom Squad is the President’s direct subordinate unit. Without his personal order, we…”

Jie suddenly turned his head, his peach blossom eyes gleaming with the light of someone looking at a dead man.

“Are you telling me how to do my job?”

“No… I wouldn’t dare!” The adjutant was scared out of his wits, almost collapsing to his knees on the spot.

Jie redirected his gaze to the now empty starfield, a cruel and insane arc forming on the corner of his mouth.

He had lost three battles.

But he couldn't lose the entire war.

Head-on confrontation was foolish; that ship was a creation of gods, but the person piloting it was, after all, a mortal.

As long as he was a mortal, he had weaknesses.

“Tell ‘Ghost’ that I don’t care what method he uses—infiltration, assassination, hijacking… even seduction.”

“I want control of that ship, and all survivors on board.”

“I want to personally see what kind of desperate expression this interesting ‘variable’ will reveal when all its claws are pulled out, and it watches its companions being tortured.”