Chapter 158 The Intelligence Source

Having stayed in the deep sub-dimensional world for a few days, Han Xiao returned to the explored universe and immediately visited the Covenant Organization to ask the Son of Destiny about the World Tree Civilization's movements.

He teleported to the Son of Destiny's laboratory with practiced ease. The surrounding staff glanced at him, then lowered their heads to continue their work, already accustomed to his visits.

"You've come to see me..."

The Son of Destiny sensed his presence, turned to face Han Xiao, and pressed his hands against the inner wall of the container, emitting a happy mental fluctuation.

Han Xiao smiled and tapped the container as a greeting.

The Son of Destiny noticed that the mark on Han Xiao's body had not yet faded and tilted his head. "You didn't… demarcate an area?"

"There was an accident, and I didn't get the chance to do that," Han Xiao shook his head and said, "I need you to tell me what their movements are right now."

"Okay..."

The Son of Destiny didn't refuse and shared information through the mental link. Streams of intelligence flooded into Han Xiao's mind.

Han Xiao quickly browsed through these images, gaining a nearly complete view of the World Tree Civilization's real-time dynamics.

He quickly saw that in the few days he had been lingering in the deep sub-dimensional world, the World Tree Civilization had been stimulated by him. They were frantically searching for clues related to him and had increased the frequency with which their seers activated their abilities, indirectly increasing the intensity of the Son of Destiny's monitoring.

His trip had left a deep impression on them. The World Tree Civilization's reactions were all being monitored by the Son of Destiny and entered his eyes, so he wouldn't be completely in the dark about their movements.

The Son of Destiny was currently the most important intelligence channel. By observing the other side's real-time dynamics, he could make targeted arrangements in advance, like two players in a real-time strategy game, one with the fog of war removed and the other still fumbling around trying to find the opponent's location. The difference was obvious.

Seeing the World Tree Civilization's headless-fly-like movements, Han Xiao breathed a slight sigh of relief.

Just then, black flames surged, and Oathkeeper arrived.

"Black Star, why didn't you tell me you were coming before?"

As he spoke, Oathkeeper's gaze swept back and forth between Han Xiao and the Son of Destiny, his expression giving off a "you're having a secret rendezvous behind my back" kind of feeling.

"I'm just here to ask about the monitoring situation. I'll be coming here frequently in the future. It would be too troublesome to tell you every time. Just get used to it," Han Xiao waved his hand.

Do you think you're a leader, inspecting whenever you want... Oathkeeper grumbled inwardly.

"Alright, I've asked what I needed to ask. I have other things to do, so I'll leave first."

Han Xiao nodded, and without waiting for Oathkeeper to speak, he changed into another set of Emperor's Suit and disappeared in the blink of an eye.

Oathkeeper helplessly retracted his gaze and turned to look at the Son of Destiny.

The Son of Destiny ignored him. Seeing that Han Xiao had left, he went back to sleep on his own, without the initiative he had shown when facing Han Xiao. It was as if he regarded Oathkeeper as air, a clear case of differential treatment.

Seeing that the Son of Destiny was so cold to him, Oathkeeper's mouth twitched. He took a deep breath, suppressed the sourness in his heart, and turned away in frustration.

...

The meeting room of the three great civilizations' leaders.

"Black Star, you're finally back. What took you so long?"

M ব্রablus sized up Han Xiao's remote projection, his tone puzzled.

Louis and the head of the Arcane Church next to him also looked curious.

After sending Han Xiao away, they had assumed that Han Xiao's first exploration wouldn't take too long, but they didn't expect that more than half a month had passed in the blink of an eye, and there was still no news. If they hadn't received Han Xiao's proactive contact just now, they wouldn't have known that Han Xiao had returned.

For the past half month, the three of them had been living in torment, unable to contact Han Xiao, who was far away in the World Tree Civilization's territory. They were paranoid and fearful every day, wondering if Black Star had had an accident over there.

Now that they saw Han Xiao actively visiting, the three of them breathed a sigh of relief, and then they became curious about what Han Xiao had been doing in the World Tree Civilization's territory for so long.

"Something unexpected happened along the way, which caused a delay. Let's not talk about that. I've obtained some intelligence on this trip, so take a look," Han Xiao waved his hand, not wanting to exchange pleasantries with the three of them. He went straight to the point and sent the World Tree secrets that Babani had told him to the three of them.

A virtual screen appeared on the table. The three of them only glanced at it before they were unable to take their eyes off it, stunned.

"This… this is all the intelligence you obtained on this trip?!"

M 브ablus widened his eyes, his heart filled with disbelief, almost dumbfounded.

The three of them had originally had limited expectations for this intelligence, feeling that Han Xiao had gone to the enemy's base camp after all, where every step would be difficult. Even if he gained something, it wouldn't be too amazing... But what was this intelligence all about? They were all unheard-of secrets!

Information State Warning Network, Information State Profiler… a large amount of important strategic intelligence. It was clear at a glance that they weren't things that could be obtained casually. Could it be that Black Star had raided the World Tree's secret database on this trip?!

The three of them couldn't help but feel a little dazed.

How many times had they explored the World Tree Civilization? At best, they had only stolen some common knowledge from the network, which were all just superficial things. But Black Star had only gone there once and obtained explosive gains. Whether it was the quality or quantity of the intelligence, it was many times greater than theirs!

The explorations of our three great civilizations are not as fruitful as Black Star's one trip...

The three of them looked at each other, their hearts filled with mixed feelings.

Black Star was a headache when he was an opponent, but extremely reliable when he was a teammate. It was simply a pleasure. If it weren't for Black Star's continuous provision of secret intelligence, they wouldn't know how passive the three great civilizations' current situation would be.

Suppressing the shock in their hearts, the three of them calmed down and focused on browsing the World Tree secrets that Han Xiao had shared. Their expressions constantly changed, sometimes grave, sometimes surprised, and sometimes frustrated.

Soon, the three of them had read the intelligence once, their expressions complex.

"So that's how we were exposed..."

Louis sighed. Seeing the Information State Warning Network, they finally understood how the World Tree Civilization had discovered them.

"This kind of technology is unavoidable. The World Tree Civilization's research level in the field of information state is much higher than ours," the head of the Arcane Church also frowned and spoke, his tone worried.

"It seems Black Star is right. We'd better stop conventional exploration..."

The three of them looked at the intelligence, feeling a lot of pressure, but at the same time, they were somewhat relieved.

Thanks to Black Star for stealing these secrets, otherwise they would have continued exploring according to the original method without knowing the situation, and they might have suffered a heavy blow one day. But now that they knew the World Tree's detection methods, they could make certain countermeasures.

"...Black Star, how exactly did you get this intelligence?"

M 브ablus couldn't help but ask, and the other two also perked up their ears.

"It's nothing, I just had a fight with them and interrogated some people... Oh, right, I recorded the ability performance of all the World Tree advanced combatants I fought, and I'll send it to you as well."

Han Xiao concealed his own ability factors and gave a simple explanation. After thinking about it, he shared the World Tree powerhouse intelligence he had collected with the three of them. The information recorded on it was not as detailed as the panel's combat information, but it could roughly understand the abilities and combat power level of hundreds of World Tree powerhouses.

Collecting this intelligence was not for his own use, but also to allow the Super As of the explored universe to have a basic understanding of the enemy, so that they would not be caught off guard. There was no need to hide it.

Seeing the information of hundreds of World Tree powerhouses, the three of them were immediately stunned.

Good lord, did you go to sneak in or start a war?

You fought hundreds of advanced combatants in someone else's base camp. You're not paddling a boat with oars, you're relying entirely on the waves!

"Isn't this too radical..."

Louis couldn't help but say.

Han Xiao glanced at him and spread his hands. "If I didn't make contact like this, do you think those secrets would fall from the sky? Don't worry, although I fought with the enemy, I've cleared all the traces. My intelligence channels are monitoring the World Tree Civilization's real-time movements, and they haven't discovered anything."

Hearing this, M 브ablus was speechless for a moment, somewhat moved.

"Black Star, everyone will remember your contribution for taking such a big risk to collect intelligence..."

In his opinion, if it wasn't to collect strategic intelligence, Black Star wouldn't have risked dealing with the World Tree powerhouses, which led to being chased. All of this was for the big picture.

The other two realized this and nodded, quite touched.

Han Xiao raised his eyebrows slightly.

Seeing that the three of them had misunderstood his motives, he didn't want to explain. He couldn't wait for the three of them to think that way, as there was no harm in it anyway.

"In any case, the intelligence you obtained is of extremely high strategic significance and can provide important reference for our strategic direction."

The three of them were moved for a while, and soon they cheered up.

In any case, the intelligence that Black Star had obtained solved their urgent need. It was almost like sending charcoal in the snow, enough to change their strategic deployment.

The three of them began to discuss the next plan intensely, occasionally asking for Han Xiao's opinion.

Listening to the three of them finally adopting his suggestion and deciding to stop conventional exploration, Han Xiao let out a breath, secretly thinking that he had finally persuaded the three great civilizations not to do superfluous things, and his credibility had increased.

...

Unexplored universe, somewhere.

Two spindle-shaped dark green spaceships were traveling rapidly in the boundless and desolate universe, their built-in cloaking devices concealing the trajectory of the warp streams.

Inside the cockpit, a dozen operators sat at their respective stations, heads buried in their work. No one spoke, and the only sounds in the room were the sounds of operation. It was completely quiet.

The cabin looked clean and tidy, but in some subtle places, traces of time could still be found.

The World Tree Civilization would send out deep-space exploration teams in different directions every so often, trying to discover other civilizations in the vast sea of stars. These two spaceships were among them. The crew didn't remember how many years they had been traveling, as if they were silently wandering in the cold universe.

Suddenly, the radar, which had been silent for many years, made a sound.

"Unknown metal object detected, direction is..."

The dozen or so people in the room were stunned for a moment, but they quickly reacted and immediately maneuvered the spaceship in the direction indicated by the radar.

The two spaceships dragged streams of light and turned for a while. Soon, the object locked by the radar entered visual range.

Not far away, an egg-shaped metal pod was slowly traveling through the universe, dragging a low-power tail flame. The outer shell was mottled and showed traces of cosmic radiation erosion, as if it had been traveling for a long time.

The dozen or so people present looked at the metal pod in the observation screen, and the same thought floated in their minds.

"This looks... like a lifepod?"

The group turned on the life detection instrument, and its extremely high technical level directly penetrated the lifepod's outer shell and detected the life signals inside.

The screen quickly displayed the appearance of the lifeforms inside the lifepod, resembling upright little lobsters.