412: Chapter 412 The interrogation deepens, and the forces behind it emerge.

The candlelight flickered gently in the corner of the side hall, reflecting off three jade slips on the stone table and giving them a dark red luster.

Chen Wuwang's finger was still resting on the first confession booklet; his fingertip felt hot, as if it had just been pulled from a furnace.

He didn't turn to the next page, nor did he look up. He simply stared at the seized encrypted jade slips, his gaze heavy enough to crush an entire mountain.

"Bring him in," he spoke. His voice wasn't loud, yet it vibrated through the iron chains in the corner, causing them to rattle softly.

Two members of the Law Enforcement Team escorted the first captive inside. He was a deacon of the Zhao Clan of Xiling, his face still bearing the blue-purple marks left by a Nerve-Blocking Needle.

The man was unable to stand steadily, relying entirely on being propped up by both sides to keep from collapsing.

"Speak." Chen Wuwang still didn't look at him, merely placing a dagger gently on the edge of the table, its tip pointing outward.

The man opened his mouth, his throat bobbing twice. "I... I don't know anything about a power behind the scenes. We were just... just following orders."

Before he could finish, Chen Wuwang raised his left eye. A blue light flashed from the Mechanical Prosthetic Eye, and a low-frequency spiritual wave stabbed directly into the other's Sea of Consciousness.

"Ugh—!" The man twitched violently, his eyeballs bulging as if a bucket of ice water had been poured into his skull from the back.

"At 3:17 AM last night, you entered the secret passage on the east side of Black Wind Canyon using a forged passage seal."

Chen Wuwang's tone was calm. "You stayed inside for forty-two minutes. During that time, you masked your aura three times and activated hidden nodes twice. And you say you don't know?"

"That was... that was a routine patrol..." the man was still struggling.

"Patrol?" Chen Wuwang let out a cold laugh. "What you were checking was a Signal Repeater buried by someone else, wasn't it? It forwarded the instructions you received, exactly as they were, to four other people."

With a flick of his finger, a waveform diagram appeared on the jade wall. "This frequency doesn't belong to any communication code of any team in the Alliance. It's encrypted, frequency-hopping, and—it uses a Demon Race spirit-rune base."

The man's face turned deathly pale instantly.

"I don't understand anything about the Demon Race... I really don't..." his voice trembled.

"You do." Chen Wuwang stood up and walked over to him. The three claw marks on the right side of his face appeared exceptionally ferocious under the candlelight. "You're just afraid that if you speak, you'll die."

He suddenly raised his hand, pressing his palm against the man's forehead as the blue light from his Mechanical Prosthetic Eye surged. "Then let me see exactly who it is you're afraid of."

Spiritual wave resonance scanning initiated.

One second, two seconds—

"Shadow... Shadow Council..." The captive's pupils shrank abruptly as several words tumbled uncontrollably from his mouth. "They said... as long as I completed the mission, I could escape my subordinate status... and obtain the qualification to cultivate in the main lineage..."

"Who issued the mission?" Chen Wuwang pressed.

"I don't... don't know the name... I only know it was someone in a black robe... they started contacting us three years ago... sending instructions periodically... transmitted through the Earth Vein nodes..."

"How many of you are there?"

"People from sev... seven families... but I've only seen five... the others are all code names... 'Northern Eagle', 'Southern Snake', 'Eastern Rat'... I am 'Western Hound'..."

After saying the last word, he suddenly went limp, white foam overflowing from the corners of his mouth as his consciousness completely dissipated.

A Law Enforcement member immediately stepped forward to check. "Family Head, his Divine Sense is damaged; he is temporarily aphasiac."

"Throw him into the deep-level cells," Chen Wuwang waved his hand. "Next."

The second one was an Artifact Refining Workshop manager from the Nangu Lin Family. He was in his thirties, his face covered in oily sweat. As soon as he entered, he knelt and kowtowed.

"Family Head, have mercy! I was just following orders! Someone shoved a jade slip into my hand and told me to install a fake code module into the mecha's energy core! I didn't know it was a rebellion signal!"

"Who gave it to you?"

"A masked person! We made the hand-off at the ruins of the East Gate of Qiming Plain! I didn't see their face clearly!"

Chen Wuwang narrowed his eyes. "You're lying."

"I really didn't see it clearly!"

"Then why did you take a detour to the East Gate yesterday afternoon on purpose?"

Chen Wuwang tapped the jade wall. "You usually take the southern route back to the workshop, yet that day you traveled an extra eight li just to detour there. You even stood behind the third ruined pillar of the ruins for a full fifteen minutes."

The man's entire body stiffened.

"You weren't waiting for someone." Chen Wuwang took a step closer. "You were there to receive a signal. You were the one who actively downloaded the data in that jade slip."

"I... I..."

"You think you can escape by erasing your memory?" Chen Wuwang said coldly. "But you forgot that the cracking technique you used was too crude. The System recorded the operational traces of you performing three reverse-analyses on the jade slip."

He wasted no more words and directly initiated the scan.

This time, the other party collapsed in less than ten seconds. "It's... it's an organization called the 'Shadow Council'... they promised to help us break free from the Chen Family's control..."

"Let us rebuild an independent Sect... that guy in the black robe... is their executor..."

"He said... he said technology is a profanity... and must be purged..."

"Third one," Chen Wuwang interrupted.

One captive after another was brought in.

Some remained stubborn to the end, preferring to destroy their own Divine Sense rather than speak;

Some collapsed on the floor and begged for mercy with tears the moment they were glanced at;

And some didn't even know what they had done, being Puppets completely controlled from afar.

But in everyone's testimony, three terms appeared repeatedly:

"Shadow Council."

"Black-robed person."

"Three-year layout."

Chen Wuwang sat at the stone table, listening as pieces of information flowed into his mind. His fingers unconsciously tapped the tabletop, the rhythm growing faster and faster.

The ninth captive was an external infiltrator who had disguised himself as a servant and worked in the kitchen of the Beigu Lei Family for half a year.

He was the only one who attempted to commit suicide by biting a poison capsule, but unfortunately, he was subdued on the spot by the prepared Law Enforcement Team.

"Speak," Chen Wuwang looked at him.

The man grinned, his mouth full of bloody foam. "You will never know the truth... they are more powerful than you can imagine... when the 'Gate' opens... the entire Eastern Desolation will sink into darkness..."

"Gate?" Chen Wuwang arched an eyebrow.

"Hehe... you'll find out soon enough..."

Before he could finish, Chen Wuwang suddenly struck, a spiritual wave surging straight into the depths of his Sea of Consciousness.

The man screamed, his eyes rolling back as he murmured one last sentence: "Extreme North... Cold Abyss... the signal source comes from there... once every three days... synchronization frequency..."

Then he fainted completely.

The Law Enforcement members dragged him away.

The side hall returned to silence.

Chen Wuwang slowly closed his eyes, his consciousness sinking into the System interface to retrieve the data streams of the nine detention reports.

Images flickered rapidly:

- The Zhao Clan deacon's last signal reception: Three days ago, during the third quarter of the Zi hour, coordinates at the Extreme North edge of the Eastern Desolation.

- The Lin Family manager's jade slip cracking time: Midnight five days ago, signal source identical.

- Faint spiritual rune residues detected within the Beigu Lei Family infiltrator, perfectly consistent with the seized jade slips.

- All time points of abnormal behavior were concentrated within the past seventy-two hours and exhibited regular fluctuations—once every six hours.

He opened his eyes and looked at the three jade slips on the table.

"So it wasn't a spur-of-the-moment decision," he said in a low voice. "It's a layout that was prepared long ago."

He picked up a jade slip and tossed it into the Talisman Burning Furnace.

Flames flared up, the color turning from orange to purple, and finally emitting a trace of eerie black.

"Demon Race spiritual rune residue," he confirmed.

This wasn't an ordinary rebellion, nor was it some Family's private grudge.

This was an organized, planned, and long-term lurking hostile force.

They exploited the internal conflicts of various families, planting informants, bribing deacons, tampering with instructions, and leading the Alliance toward fragmentation step by step.

And that guy in the black robe was the Puppet master.

Chen Wuwang sat back at the stone table, his gaze falling upon the marks he had carved. Those lines of varying depths were the path he had fought his way through over the years.

"Shadow Council..." he murmured. "They certainly know how to pick a name."

He suddenly laughed.

The laughter wasn't loud, yet it caused the air in the entire side hall to stagnate for a moment.

"Started the layout three years ago?" His finger lightly traced the edge of the dagger. "Then you should know that I, as this Family Head, have never been afraid of someone playing a game of chess."

He stood up and walked to the window.

The night was as dark as ink, and the lights in the detention area in the distance were being extinguished one by one.

He knew that the real storm had yet to arrive.

These people were merely pawns sent to scout the way.

The person behind the scenes was hidden too deeply, and their methods were too steady; even the System hadn't given a warning in advance.

But he didn't care.

As long as a flaw was shown, he would certainly be able to trace it to its root.

He turned and walked back to the stone table, tossing the remaining two jade slips into the Talisman Burning Furnace as well.

The flames ignited again, and this time, the black gas was even thicker.

"Extreme North Cold Abyss..." he repeated in a low voice. "The signal synchronizes once every three days?"

A cold glint flashed in his eyes.

In the next second, he raised his right hand. The blue light of his Mechanical Prosthetic Eye flickered slightly as he began to retrieve past records from the border outposts.

It wasn't over yet.

He was going to dig deeper.

Outside the window, the last flicker of candlelight reflected on his face. His right eye was as cold as iron, while his left was as deep and blue as an abyss.

He stood there like a blade half-unsheathed—sharp and exposed, yet not yet struck down.