Chapter 418: "Arrested"?

Chapter 418: Chapter 418: "Arrested"?

With that, Lily Hart strolled off, hands clasped behind her back. She looked for all the world like a village elder on a leisurely walk, popping into every shop she passed to see if they were catching any big geese.

And so she made her way back to the lottery shop.

Back at the lottery shop, she nestled on the sofa and turned on her Light Brain. She saw several messages from Elder Shaw, sent ten minutes ago, asking her to return to Central Command.

Confused, she quickly placed a call. It rang for a long time, but no one answered. A knot of anxiety formed in Lily Hart’s stomach, and she called several more times in quick succession.

But still, no one answered.

’Strange. This is too strange.’ Normally, Elder Shaw replied to messages and answered calls almost instantly. Something must have happened.

She quickly called Logan Holland next. That call also rang for a long time before finally connecting.

"Hello? Logan Holland? What happened to Elder Shaw? What’s going on at Central Command?" The questions tumbled out of Lily Hart’s mouth like machine-gun fire.

The other end was silent. Lily Hart couldn’t resist asking again, "Hello?"

"Is... is that Lily?" a little girl’s voice came through the Light Brain.

Lily Hart’s breath hitched. She quickly replied, "This is Lily. Are you Tanya?"

’Tanya is Logan Holland’s daughter. A Light Brain is a crucial piece of equipment, something you always keep with you. Unless something happened...’

She didn’t want to assume the worst, but right now... she didn’t have much of a choice.

The voice came again from the other end, choked with anxious sobs. "Lily, please come back quickly! Dad and Grandpa Shaw have been locked up!"

"What?" Lily Hart reeled in shock.

’What in the world happened? There was no warning at all.’

Tanya’s choked sobs in her ear made her frantic with worry. She wanted nothing more than to rush back right that second.

After hanging up, she had a rough idea of the predicament Elder Shaw and the others were in.

When all was said and done, it was the work of The Mysterious Clan. The squad of superpower users they’d secretly cultivated had infiltrated every corner of Central Command.

Today, they had finally seized an opportunity, capturing Elder Shaw and three others in one fell swoop, along with the heads of various important departments.

Furthermore, the troops under Elder Shaw’s command were all away on missions, with only about a hundred remaining at Central Command.

In short, most of Elder Shaw’s people had been "arrested."

As lunchtime approached, Lily Hart grabbed a megaphone and announced the bad news to her customers.

They would be leaving Cloud-Drift Base at two o’clock.

Upon hearing this, the customers were all stunned. Then, after the initial shock, a wave of realization washed over them, and they began furiously scratching their lottery tickets.

They scattered in all directions, rushing to the other shops to start spending like mad and playing like there was no tomorrow.

There was no time to ask Boss Hart why. All they knew was that they had to make every second count.

’She’s not gone yet! We have to make the most of it!’

At lunchtime, Lily Hart wore a grim expression. Everyone else, now aware of the situation, sped up, wolfing down their meals.

The moment they finished, they cleared their plates in a flash and scattered again, each rushing back to their own shop.

Desperate times call for desperate measures.

Lily Hart posted another notice in the main shopkeepers’ group chat: [We depart for Central Command at 2 PM.]

No one had any objections. After all, from the moment they’d won their shops, they knew they would be "wandering far and wide" with Boss Hart.

At two o’clock sharp, Lily Hart set the destination, selected the fastest speed setting, and set off towards Central Command.

Cloud-Drift Base was about eight to nine hundred kilometers from Central Command. At their usual leisurely pace, the journey would probably take six hours.

But now, Lily Hart gathered all the shopkeepers inside the lottery shop, then shrank all the shops except for the bathhouse and the hotel.

This would allow for a significant speed boost. During the journey, the RV would automatically avoid obstacles and navigate around buildings.

All to reach Central Command as quickly as possible.

At four in the afternoon, Lily Hart once again saw the familiar, magnificent walls. They were just as she remembered.

’A strange sense of unreality washed over her. She hadn’t even been gone a full month, for heaven’s sake!’

With no time to dwell on it, Lily Hart waved her hand, ordering the System to restore the shops to their normal size.

She then dismissed the other unsuspecting shopkeepers, keeping Frost Shaw, Roman Rowe, and the others behind to discuss a solution.

"What did Tanya say on the phone?" Leo Colby asked.

"Just that Elder Shaw and the others were locked up by people from The Mysterious Clan. No one knows the specific location," Lily Hart said, sounding slightly frustrated.

’That Mysterious Clan really loves... to stir up trouble for no reason!’

’I thought they weren’t allowed to kill people. Don’t they get punished for that?’

Owen Warren suggested with reckless abandon, "Why don’t we just storm their gates and rescue Elder Shaw and the others?"

"Great idea." Roman Rowe was on the exact same wavelength, thinking it was a brilliant plan.

’Their group’s combat strength was nothing to scoff at. And with Lily Hart’s superpower, which made her invincible within a certain range? They’d be unstoppable!’

Lily Hart slammed her hand on the table and shot to her feet, startling everyone.

Roman Rowe, thinking she was unhappy with Owen Warren’s proposal, quickly shrank back, afraid of getting caught in the crossfire.

"I’ve wanted to do that for a long time!" Lily Hart declared, her voice full of aggression and her eyes glinting fiercely.

After a moment of stunned silence, everyone burst into applause and cheers. "Alright! Let’s do it! Are we going now?"

Lily Hart gave a firm nod. "We go now!"

Frost Shaw added, "Lily and I have been there before. I know the way. I’m just not sure if they’ve moved their headquarters."

That reminded Lily Hart of the cameras she’d installed at the Mysterious Clan’s headquarters—the ones she hadn’t checked on in a long time.

’Life had been too comfortable lately. She had naturally pushed all the dirty, tedious, and loathsome business to the back of her mind.’

The thought spurred her to action. Lily Hart opened her Light Brain to check, only to discover all the cameras had been removed.

’She had no idea how they’d done it.’

Lily Hart interrogated the System. [Why didn’t you tell me about something this major?]

The System replied meekly: [I did send a notification~]

So Lily Hart scrolled through her notifications. It took her a good few dozen seconds to finally find it.

[80% of cameras have been forcefully removed. Please address this ASAP, Host!]

It was even repeated three times and highlighted in red. But her notifications were always overflowing, and she usually cleared them without a second glance.

Seeing it only made Lily Hart angrier. [Then why didn’t you just tell me directly?]

The System was about to explain when Lily Hart cut it off. [Never mind. Just pull up the footage from right before they were removed.]

So, the group gathered around to watch the footage.

The video feed was empty. All they could hear was the WHOOSH of a strong wind, and then the screen went black.

They watched the footage from several other cameras just before they were taken down. It was all pretty much the same: an empty scene, and then the feed would abruptly cut to black.

Roman Rowe offered his expert opinion, "Definitely ghosts!"

Frost Shaw said, "It looks like the work of a Wind Ability User."

Cynthia Whittaker, a Wind Ability User herself, made her assessment. "It’s not just the Wind Element. There’s some Electric System mixed in. You’d need both combined to get that effect."

Lily Hart mused, rubbing her chin. "So the Mysterious Clan has quite a few masters up its sleeve, huh?"

"That’s right. They’ve been cultivating their own squad of superpower users for a long time. Their numbers and power levels are not to be underestimated," Frost Shaw confirmed.