Chapter 473 Interstellar Rebellion 12

The moment the communication was connected, Suli-Ya's holographic projection appeared in the room.

She stood with the Blood Falcon, with the base's command center in the background.

"How about it?"

Su Liya's voice was a little tight; she hadn't expected Zhou Jue to contact her so quickly.

She anticipated that Zhou Jue's reconnaissance would take a long time, and might even yield nothing, or alert the guards.

Zhou Jue only needed one night.

"We've obtained the intelligence."

Sulia and Blood Falcon exchanged a glance, both seeing the surprise in each other's eyes.

"Go ahead," Sulia said, suppressing the turmoil in her heart.

"The Sky Eye Tower has an external energy shield. Any physical contact will trigger an alarm and directly decompose the intruder."

"Inside the tower, from the first to the thirtieth floor, there are ordinary guards and conventional technological defenses, including thermal imaging and gene sequence scanning, but they are useless against me."

Zhou Jue paused for a moment, then continued.

“Starting from the fifteenth floor, mental guardians will appear.”

“From the fifteenth to the thirtieth floor, there is one A-level guardian on each floor.”

“Starting from the thirty-first floor, the guards will be replaced by ‘arbiters’, with twelve guards per floor, working in three shifts, with a shift change time of fifteen minutes. The password will be changed every hour.”

"At the same time, starting from the thirty-first floor, the guardians become S-rank."

Blood Falcon stopped breathing.

An S-rank mental power user is a powerful figure who holds sway over any region in the Federation.

At the FAST telescope, he was just a gatekeeper.

“From the thirty-first to the fiftieth floor, there is one S-rank guardian on each floor.”

“From the 51st to the 60th floor, there is one SS-level guardian on each floor.”

"Impossible!" Blood Falcon exclaimed, his proud S-rank mental strength was simply not enough here.

Sulia didn't speak; she just looked at Zhou Jue, signaling her to continue.

"On the sixty-first floor, at the core area at the top of the tower, I saw the main system's host."

“However, there’s something strange.” Zhou Jue slowed his speech.

"What's wrong?" Sulia leaned forward slightly.

"There is no one in the core area at the top of the tower."

"There is no 'arbiter' or any mental guardian. It's empty except for the main unit that's running."

The command room fell silent, and the shock on Blood Falcon's face slowly turned into confusion.

"No one is guarding them? How is that possible? The defenses get stronger the higher you go, yet the most important places are left undefended?"

Sulia frowned as well, tapping her fingers lightly on the table.

"This doesn't make sense."

"The defense levels increase in layers, making it impossible for a vacuum to appear in the core area."

Zhou Jue looked at her and stated his judgment directly.

"I suspect this isn't a vacuum; it's a trap."

“A trap?” Blood Falcon repeated.

“Yes.” Zhou Jue nodded: “I don’t believe that the pro-defense faction can’t find an SSS-level guardian or doesn’t have stronger defensive measures.”

"They left the most crucial part empty; there are only two possibilities."

Zhou Jue held up one finger.

"First, the main system itself possesses defensive capabilities equal to or even surpassing those of an SSS-level guardian. Any intruder will be directly annihilated by it."

She then extended a second finger.

"Second, they deliberately showed us an 'empty' core to lure us in."

Su Liya's face darkened completely. She had considered the possibility Zhou Jue had raised, but it had never been as clear as it was today.

"And that restart button."

Zhou Jue continued, her gaze sharp.

"At the bottom of the main unit, there is a very conspicuous red button, ridiculously large, as if afraid that others will not see it."

"This doesn't seem like a top secret; it's more like an Easter egg at a welcoming ceremony."

Blood Falcon's forehead was covered in cold sweat. After Zhou Jue's analysis, the red button that originally represented hope now looked more like a doorbell leading to hell.

"Zhou Jue, you're right."

Sulia let out a long breath.

"An opportunity that is too obvious is itself the greatest risk."

She looked up and stared directly at Zhou Jue: "What's your opinion on the news about the physical reset button?"

Zhou Jue did not answer directly, but instead asked, "Where did you get this information?"

Is the source reliable?

This question caused Sulia to fall silent.

Blood Falcon stood aside, not daring to breathe. He knew that this intelligence was obtained by Miss at a great cost, and it was the cornerstone of their entire "Dawn Operation".

If this foundation is fake...

"The source is a high-ranking member of the pro-suppression faction."

Sulia finally spoke, her voice very low.

“We turned him to the side. In order to obtain this information, we sacrificed the life of an SS-class comrade who had been undercover for ten years as a pledge of loyalty.”

"We have verified the authenticity of the intelligence through multiple channels."

"Therefore, we have always believed that it is reliable."

“But now it seems…” A cold glint flashed in Sulia’s eyes: “We may have been tricked from the very beginning.”

Information obtained at the cost of an SS-rank comrade's life may have turned out to be bait deliberately leaked by the enemy.

This possibility caused the temperature in the entire command room to drop.

"uncertain."

Zhou Jue shook his head.

"The intelligence may be true, and the button does indeed exist."

"But its function may not be a 'reboot'."

"It could be 'self-destruction,' it could be 'maximum alert,' or it could be... 'tracking,' tracking the rebel system."

Every word made Sulia and Blood Falcon's hearts sink a little deeper.

All their plans revolve around "the three-second system vacuum period after the reboot".

If pressing the button had resulted in any other outcome than a vacuum, all of their lurking agents would have been exposed instantly and crushed to dust by the federal machine of violence.

"I see."

Sulia regained her composure, but her eyes were more serious than ever before.

"The feint attack plan has been cancelled. We cannot act rashly before we have a clear understanding of the button's true function."

She looked at Zhou Jue, her voice filled with gratitude: "Zhou Jue, thank you."

"Your caution may have saved all of our lives."

Zhou Jue did not respond to the gratitude, after all, she didn't know if the button was real or not, maybe she was just overthinking it.

"I just didn't want to make a wasted trip."

"I need to reconfirm the intelligence source."

Su Liya looked at Zhou Jue: "What suggestions do you have?"

"Two directions."

Zhou Jue said, "First, we need to find a way to contact the high-ranking member of the pro-crime faction who leaked the information and find out what he's up to."

"Secondly, is there a way to test the button's functionality without physical contact?"

"The first option is very difficult."

Sulia shook her head: "That person is very vigilant. We cut off all contact after the transaction was completed. Forcing contact would only alert him."

"No! It's not difficult! Give me his information, as well as the information on the members of the pro-conquest faction, and I'll investigate them one by one."

Zhou Jue thought to himself, "She has the Fang of the Sea, which can hear people's thoughts. She can even use cultivation techniques to directly search souls, control people, and even turn them into puppets. Wouldn't that be simpler? If she could directly find the higher-ups, that would be even better, without shedding a drop of blood."

Su Liya was somewhat surprised, but then she thought that Zhou Jue could find out so much information in one night, so it might not be difficult for her.

“Okay, I’ll send you the information after I’ve organized it.” Sulia said without further hesitation.

"As for the second one you mentioned..."

Su Liya's gaze fell on Zhou Jue.

Do you have a solution?

"Use your... special ability."

“We can give it a try.” Zhou Jue didn’t give a definitive answer: “But I need more information about the main system, the more detailed the better. Its structure, energy circuits, and even its initial design drawings.”

"I need to understand it in order to find a way to deceive it."

“No problem,” Sulia readily agreed.

"I will sync all the top-secret information about the main system to you, as long as I have it."

She cut off the communication and turned to walk to the other side of the command center.

There is a separate, top-secret communication device there.

Blood Falcon followed behind her, watching her place her hand on the identifier.

“Connect the 'canary'.”

Sulia's voice rang out in the quiet command room.

"yes."

The communicator started working, emitting a low hum.

A moment later, a voice that had undergone multiple encryptions and voice-changing processing came from inside.

"This is the canary."

Without wasting any words, Sulia gave the order directly.

"Use the highest authority to re-examine the 'Phoenix' intelligence sources."

"I need to know every single detail of the deal from back then, not a single word can be missed."

"Operation Dawn is temporarily postponed."