“Well, Mr. Ai,” Chen Xiao sighed. “Originally, you were my predecessor, and I would have felt obliged to accept any requests you might have made. But now…” He looked around and said seriously, “Our friend here has gone missing, and everyone is very worried. Under these circumstances, I really don’t have the mind to do any work that could be commissioned…”
As he spoke, he gave Edward a troubled look.
Edward remained calm and smiled gently, "What if the matter I'm requesting is related to the whereabouts of Mr. Lin and the others?"
Chapter 284 of the main text [The Third Organization]
Upon hearing this, Chen Xiao's expression changed, and he asked, "You know where they went? Did your service agency arrest them?"
Edward shook his head: "Since I dared to stay here alone to face you, it was naturally not us who did it."
"So...it's a club?" Chen Xiao frowned.
During the battle atop Mount Fuji, he had entered a berserk state, single-handedly fighting five S-class powerhouses. All five were defeated and severely injured. The Sea Goddess, badly wounded, fled far away; Chen Xiao guessed that her injuries likely triggered hidden commands within her memories, sending her back to the prehistoric ruins in the deep sea. Peacock fared the worst; all her extraordinary abilities had been purified, leaving her no different from an ordinary person. Then there were Old Tian and Prince, both suffering considerable injuries, but ultimately, even the most severe injuries heal slowly.
Lin San's fate was also quite tragic. He unleashed his strongest move, "Shocking Nine Heavens Sword," blasting himself directly into the volcano. However, although the move was incredibly powerful, it couldn't truly defeat him. Instead, it triggered a volcanic eruption during the fierce battle.
Even so, that earth-shattering sword strike had already exceeded Lin San's limit. Using that ultimate move once had caused permanent damage to Lin San's body. After the battle, while other wounded individuals could slowly heal their injuries, Lin San's strength had been greatly weakened.
Lin San's current strength has only recovered to between C and B levels at most. It's likely that he has little hope of recovering to S level in this lifetime.
After much thought, I realized that I couldn't shirk my responsibility for bringing such a dignified master to such a miserable state.
If Lin San were in full strength, who could possibly capture him? Besides, there are Champagne and the others.
Therefore, Chen Xiao was naturally very concerned.
"Why would you guess it was the club? Couldn't it have been someone else?" Edward smiled faintly.
Everyone in the room paled slightly. At this moment, Phoenix finally spoke. She hesitated for a moment, glanced at Chen Xiao, and finally fixed her gaze on Edward. Her tone was solemn and serious: "You mean... the Third Organization?"
“It’s the Third Organization!” Edward looked at Phoenix with a smile. “You probably know much more about this than I do.”
Phoenix's expression changed, and as she looked into Edward's eyes, her gaze quickly turned cold: "I can't trust you!"
Chen Xiao asked curiously, "Phoenix, what did you say?"
Edward smiled slightly, his eyes fixed on Phoenix: "Yes, you can't trust me. As members of the Third Organization, the identities of every high-ranking member are kept secret! It's understandable that you don't trust me."
"What exactly is the Third Organization?" Chen Xiao, who knew the least, looked at Phoenix and pressed for an answer.
Lao Tian, Zhu Rong, and Gong Gong all fell silent.
Finally, Shi Gaofei sighed and patted Chen Xiao on the shoulder: "Kid, let me explain. The Third Organization, huh... hehe..."
He slowly reached into his pocket and pulled out a pack of cigarettes. Old Tian was stunned. He recognized the pack as his own, but didn't know when this guy had stolen it.
Shi Gaofei lit a cigarette and looked at Edward with a smile: "Hey, old man Edward, I should have a lot to say about this Third Organization, right? I, the chief leader of the Service Society's research institution, have fallen to the point of becoming a wanted traitor, all thanks to this Third Organization!"
He paused, took a deep drag on his cigarette, and began to explain in a slow, deliberate tone:
"Just recently, the Service Society encountered a major incident. Its branch in Africa was attacked and completely captured, resulting in heavy losses. You must understand that with the Service Society's formidable strength, even a single branch has a force that cannot be underestimated, and I even participated in the development of the defense system! According to the intelligence obtained from the investigation of that attack, the perpetrators of the attack on the Club's African branch were a group of mysterious superhumans, most of whom are untraceable... In fact, in today's world, with the improvement of the Superhuman Alliance, various organizations have branches all over the world. Each of the larger organizations has dedicated personnel responsible for traveling around the world to search for undiscovered new superhumans. In other words, almost all superhumans in the world have been discovered. Many superhumans, even if they haven't joined any superhuman organization, are at least registered by some organization and placed on their watchlist."
Finding undiscovered 'new faces' not on the International Superpower Alliance's population list is already difficult enough! Let alone a large number of powerful new faces suddenly appearing without any information to be found?
The ability to destroy a branch of the service company in one fell swoop was already quite remarkable. At the time, the service company's investigation focused on the club as the prime suspect.
Because in the traditional view, apart from clubs, probably no other organization has the power to challenge service agencies.
But that time, I participated in the investigation and obtained some very strange information.
Indeed, among those mysterious superhumans suspected of involvement in the attack, we found several suspects based on some traces and information left during the battle. However, not all of those suspected belonged to the club! Some were former members who later left, while others were lone wolves.
Finally, I began to suspect that this might not have been the club's doing, but someone else's! The most important discovery was that I found the defense system of the African branch had been tampered with! In other words, I suspected at the time that there was a mole within the service agency! Otherwise, the African branch wouldn't have been so easily breached and destroyed!
I suspect it was an internal schism within the service, a factional struggle, using this infighting to attack rival factions and weaken their power.
Unfortunately, my investigation was incomplete before I ran into trouble. I was framed as a traitor, imprisoned, and then escaped with the help of some people.
After I escaped, I didn't give up investigating the matter, but I changed my approach!
I think the previous investigation may have gone in the wrong direction.
To put it simply, based on the previous attack, in our investigation of those mysterious superhumans who attacked us, we investigated the personnel information of the hostile organization club, as well as the personnel information of some other organizations in the International Alliance, and many unorganized superhumans who were on the watch list... Unfortunately, we did not find any trace of the enemy.
But then, a thought suddenly crossed my mind and I started to think about it from the other side... Since I suspect there is an inside traitor, then... could those guys who attacked the African branch of the service company be people from the service company itself?
So I started to pull up the service center's own personnel information to investigate!
Hehe, don't look at me like that. I was in charge of developing the internal computer database of the service. People like me are used to leaving a backdoor for myself when doing any research! Even now that I've left the service, I can connect directly to the service's mainframe from anywhere in the world, from any computer, and then access the service's database via satellite signal to retrieve the service's most confidential files without alerting anyone!
And guess what I found? The service organization now has a total of over 14,000 members, and I actually found those suspicious individuals who attacked the African branch in the service organization's member list!
There were over forty people involved in the attack. Based on the analysis of the combat traces left during the attack, my analysis shows that ten of them could actually be found in the service agency's own personnel records! Moreover, according to the system's analysis, the combat methods, energy levels, and other traces show a similarity of over 70%!
What an amazing result!
We've been trying to find the attackers from the enemy's list of allies, but haven't made any valuable discoveries. However, when we checked our own people, we found ten individuals with a suspicion level exceeding 70%!
I also gathered information on the whereabouts of the dozen or so people suspected of being involved in the attack on the day of the attack.
These dozen or so people belong to several branches of the service company around the world.
Quite 'coincidentally,' on the day of the attack, all of these people were on business trips, visiting relatives and friends, or on field missions, etc. In short... their whereabouts were very suspicious! And right after the attack, these people returned to their respective branches to report, and came back into the public eye!
With this discovery, I began to confirm my guess: it seemed that the attack was actually the result of a factional struggle within the service organization.
But then I suddenly realized I was wrong!