Office of the Deputy Director.

Lu Kang, who had climbed his way up from Chen Ming's deputy to the position of deputy director of the Extraordinary Research Institute, was doing his daily work when he suddenly heard a knock on the door.

"Come in."

The office door was pushed open, and Lu Kang stood up immediately when he saw the person coming: "Minister Luo, why are you here?"

The Minister of Psychic Power pushed open the door, looked around, and said, "I came to ask where your director has gone."

"Director?"

Lu Kang said, as if he didn't know much about it, "The director often disappears for a few days. I'm used to it. If you can't get in touch with him, then it's even less likely that I can get in touch with him."

The Minister of Psychic Power said a little anxiously: "I have something urgent to discuss with him."

He was not in a position to tell others the specific details, and he wanted to contact Chen Ming in person.

But he couldn't contact Chen Ming at all now, so he could only come here in person to ask the person who was most likely to know where Chen Ming had gone.

In fact, Lu Kang discovered that Chen Ming was missing when he went to work today.

Because he is the one who actually manages the normal operation of the institute.

Chen Ming doesn't have the time to manage tens of thousands of people in the research institute. He is not even sure whether there are tens of thousands or hundreds of thousands of people.

Even with the assistance of the Afterglow core, it still takes a lot of energy.

Of course, this kind of matter should be handled by the deputy director.

Lu Kang was also happy with this.

So he could see Chen Ming's schedule.

Although Chen Ming may not necessarily follow the schedule, we can still roughly know what Chen Ming does every day.

When Chen Ming was intermittently out of contact, Lu Kang would usually check Chen Ming's schedule, roughly guess where Chen Ming was doing, and adjust the time for some work that required Chen Ming to contact some external people.

Therefore, when he learned that Chen Ming was missing at work today, he went to check and found out that the last place Chen Ming had been to was a giant dock.

He also specifically asked the director of the ship and learned that Chen Ming had temporarily left because of the Scarlet issue.

He didn't pay too much attention to matters involving psychic power.

But since the Imperial Minister of Psychic Powers came personally to ask about it, he couldn't just not tell them about these things.

Chen Ming never said that his whereabouts must be kept absolutely confidential. The Minister of Psychic Power often came here and Lu Kang had seen him more than once.

So Lu Kang directly relayed the news he learned today to the minister.

Although this cannot change the situation where Chen Ming cannot be contacted, at least we can ask him where he is going.

Lu Kang took the minister to the giant dock, then went back to the Gaia Space Station and ran to Tian Zhan's office.

After learning the coordinates of the planet infected by Scarlet from Tian Zhan, and what Chen Ming said, "It might be related to the brainwashed psychic."

The Minister of Psychic Power left Chen Ming's territory alone.

Contacted the president.

"Do me a favor."

Ten minutes later.

The minister and the president boarded a shuttle and used the president's space power to reach the target galaxy directly.

Out of caution for Scarlet, the shuttle first stopped at the edge of the galaxy.

Just by stopping here, the two of them had already discovered the planet in the habitable zone of the galaxy that was completely infected by scarlet and surrounded by scarlet cracks.

The crack that grew here like a tumor was constantly emitting a scarlet aura of power.

However, this aura of power does not have the nature of the Scarlet Dimension that devours and assimilates everything.

The president said according to his understanding of the scarlet dimension and the scarlet power: "This space has been transformed by the scarlet dimension, but Chen Ming's scarlet power is locked outside this area."

"He must have been here, and there's a good chance he's behind this."

The Minister of Psychic Power was a little eager to make a move, but he restrained his thoughts and said, "But we can't go in."

"Did you feel it too?"

"Well, there's something rather troubling behind this."

Both the minister and the president felt the trembling of the spiritual nerves in their brains, suppressing the sense of danger brought about by the danger perception that every psychic has to a certain extent.

"This is more than just a simple matter of trouble."

The minister could clearly feel that there was something extremely terrifying in the crack that was blocked by Chen Ming's power.

The president agreed with the minister's idea and said, "It must be that thing that held Chen Ming back and prevented him from getting away, but he should be fine for now."

Chen Ming's spiritual power protects the rift, and the afterglow he controls is still functioning normally.

This basically proves that Chen Mingren is absolutely fine.

Otherwise...the situation might not be ideal.

Of course, even if a situation that no one wants to see occurs, Yu Hui still has the possibility of following Chen Ming's idea.

Therefore, both the president and the psychic minister actually have a reason that can confirm that Chen Ming is not dead but they did not say it out loud.

That is the existence of the Queen of Worms.

The two had long been suspicious of the relationship between Chen Ming and An Wuping.

The president had heard some hints from Wu An, and the psychic minister had also heard the words "Chen Ming is An Wuping" from the brainwashed psychic.

Previously, the minister treated the words of the brainwashed psychic as pure nonsense, but hearing such words would still make people subconsciously pay attention.

And the minister also went to ask about An Wuping's situation today.

An Wuping, who could occasionally be seen in Fan Chao's biological laboratory, also disappeared after Chen Ming lost contact.

So the minister probably had a guess about this matter, but he would not tell anyone.

As long as the Zerg are not in chaos, Chen Ming is definitely not dead.

But where exactly is he? Is he in the sealed-off space of this infected normal universe, or somewhere in the scarlet? The psychic minister suddenly said, "The psychic effect of Tian Zhan, whom we just met..."

"no."

The president immediately asked the director to hold back his thoughts and said, "Chen Ming specifically told me about this matter, saying that Tian Zhan has not yet grown to the point where he can come into contact with the Scarlet Dimension."

"He also said that he can hold on to Scarlet now, but in the future, he will have to rely on Tian Zhan to completely deal with Scarlet. He must not be allowed to be exposed to excessive danger too early."

Don't think of Tian Zhan as Chen Ming. He has only awakened his spiritual power for a few months, so his growth rate is not that fast."

"It looks like Chen Ming has really held on. At least the scarlet here is not out of his control."

"We must not let Tian Zhan come into direct contact with these things."

The Minister of Psychic Energy still didn't want to give up: "We really need Chen Ming now."

“Some things can’t just depend on him.”

"If we don't have him, will we just have to wait for death?"

"Go back, we should be very busy later."

The president's tone was a little tough at this time.

After all, Tian Zhan was a member brought into the Psychic Society by Chen Ming. He knew that Tian Zhan was the hope to completely deal with Scarlet, and no mistakes could be made.

Even if they had the ability to pass through this strange scarlet rift, there was no way they could solve the trouble in the rift and bring Chen Ming back.

The minister stood beside the president, feeling the spatial force about to take effect.

He sighed and said, "I will go to my high-level representative meeting later and ask all border star regions to jointly issue a notice, announcing a full transition to a wartime state."

"Evacuate the population of the border star systems and gather them in the star region capital to prepare for emergency migration to the star regions deep within the territory. The preparations made previously can be put to use now."

"Is Wu An still on that pirate space station? Let him evacuate as well."

"We can't expect to win right from the start. Instead, we need to use space and time to gain intelligence and figure out the gap between the size of the mechanical race and our combat power."

"With Chen Ming around, we can be bolder, but without him, everything we do will have to be more conservative."

If Chen Ming is here, it will indeed make things much easier for the empire and allow the empire to be more flexible when facing the mechanical race.

But it is impossible to expect only one person to do everything.

"You may have some bad voices in that meeting."

The minister's expression darkened.

He could already imagine that some people would say at the meeting that Chen Ming was deliberately losing contact at this time.

"I'll take care of it."

"I hope so. I also hope Chen Ming can come back soon."

One month later.

April 13, 5605 AD.

Galo star field, Galo-2 star sector.

Pirate Space Station.

The pirate space station that was once quite lively is now deserted.

After the war with the Imperial Mechanical Clan officially began, along with the Empire's wave of evacuating the population from the border star fields, many people with questionable identities who had been stationed in the pirate space for a long time also took the opportunity to leave.

The interior of the space arm, which originally contained various industrial facilities, has been completely dismantled. Only a small amount of equipment that maintains the space station's life support system has not been removed, ensuring the survival of the few hundred people left on the space station.

In the Space Arm No. 2 of the Space Station, the industrial facilities that once spread across the entire space arm are now only left with some difficult-to-dismantle building ruins.

But the hardware store is still open here.

The factory manager was in the hardware store at the moment, and he said to Wu An behind the counter, "The company's people have basically all left, and we are the last batch. When will we leave?"

Wu An raised his head and asked, "Have you packed everything?"

"I've finished packing. I've also packed up all the things Xiao Ming left behind. Nothing is left out."

"Today, then."

"Um."

The factory manager responded and then asked, "Still no news from him?"

"No."

The factory manager's expression was full of regret, but he was also relieved.

For a missing person, no news is the second best news.

"Why on earth would this happen?"

“No one knows.”

The hardware store fell silent.

Wu An has also been paying attention to Chen Ming's affairs over the past month.

He knew that Chen Ming was probably trapped in the crack on the planet.

Many people sent equipment to that area in order to investigate the situation inside from the outside.

But the results were not ideal.

"Factory Director."

The silence in the hardware store was suddenly interrupted.

The factory manager turned his head and looked towards the door of the hardware store following the voice and saw a shiny bald head.

"Why are you here? How is your wife?"

"Fortunately, the injury has stabilized and he won't die."

"That's good."

The bald man glanced at the TV on the wall next to him in the hardware store that was barely still having a signal.

At this time, the news was being broadcast that the evacuation fleet of the Galo star field was attacked by the mechanical race.

"It's a good thing I sold my house and bought a spaceship when I saw the news that the Empire was going to evacuate its people from the border. Otherwise, I'm afraid I would be dead outside now."

The factory manager also saw the news and asked, "So what happened over there? Didn't you move next door? You're not in Galo anymore."

"You don't know yet?"

"The news hasn't come out yet, and I don't have any inside information to respond to."

"Oh, of course I came here because the people next door are also restless."

The bald man sighed and said, "I had heard that the battle line was still being dragged to Garo, but who would have thought that a fleet of the Mechanical Clan would directly pass through the defense line and run to my side."

"We had just started to implement our evacuation plan, but who would have thought that the mechanical tribe would be here right now."

"I heard that there is a spaceship that is even bigger than the colossus of the mechanical race. It can't even be considered a spaceship, it has to be considered a mobile space station. Our army can't defeat it at all."

"There were riots at several evacuation points. Everyone wanted to get on the evacuation ship as soon as possible."

"If I didn't have my spaceship, I might have died in the riot, but my wife was still beaten by some crazy people in the riot."

"Just be alive."

The bald man nodded: "It's good to be alive."

“Is it the same in other places?”

“No.” The factory manager denied, “Only our side was attacked the most severely.”

"But I heard that other places have already started to evacuate people from the outer second ring star region. The situation in those places should be even worse."

The factory manager explained: "That's because we have Baiquan holding us here. He bought Galo a lot of time to retreat. Other places have already started to retreat from the outer second ring. We haven't been penetrated by the mechanical tribe before."

"In the end, there was a loophole and the mechanical tribe still found a chance to pass through."

"Galo is doomed. No one can save him."

"Even the Fourteenth Legion is not capable of this?"

"No." The factory manager responded decisively: "Their hometown was also invaded. I was surprised that Baiquan stayed in Jialuo."

"But now, Galo has been directly penetrated by a fleet that came from nowhere. There is no point in protecting Galo anymore. They will definitely withdraw soon. I just don't know how much they have lost."

"It's definitely not too few. No matter how good the Fourteenth Legion is, they are still human beings..."

The bald man had already witnessed the harm that internal riots caused to people, and he knew very well that the harm and pain that the mechanical race would bring to people would only be more severe.

"After that, we..."

"Go to Chen Ming." Wu An suddenly spoke.

"Communications here will be completely cut off soon. We need to go to a safe place."

"Even if there is no news from him now, his place is definitely the safest place."

The factory manager said: "It's ready. The only thing left is the space station."

"As for the space station..."

"Let it explode."

"Don't leave anything for the mechanical race."

(End of this chapter)