In the Royal Capital of An Zhu, Cassius was accurately searching for the Caged Girl who was currently fleeing.
Since she could be sold, Cassius naturally wasn’t worried that the Caged Girl would leak any important secrets, but if she were sold to enemy country spies, that would be another matter.
This incident forced Cassius to personally apologize to Alberto, as he had recently devoted all his energy to research work and had become increasingly neglectful of the intelligence division.
Alberto was also taking things lightly, having recently become too concerned with the situation of the domestic nobles, and had relaxed his focus.
Of course, Herbert was a candidate recommended by Caron, so Caron also faced punishment.
To be honest, Alberto had not failed to conduct a detailed investigation into Herbert, as the situation he described—his family property being abandoned by the troops of the Northern Border Governor—was indeed true and had brought many advanced cannon weapons to An Zhu and Avar, which was why Alberto had not put too much effort into this smuggler.
After all, the weapons Herbert smuggled in, although old, were still very useful, and some of them were even the main weapons used by Alberto’s imprint, Cape.
A simple undercover operation—would the Northern Border Governor really be so generous as to part with such crucial weaponry to let this undercover take them for smuggling? Or had the speed of weapon smuggling from the North reached a point that Alberto was completely unable to comprehend?
Even Alberto was left stunned, let alone Caron, because, in Caron’s eyes, Herbert was not only a god of wealth but also brought weapons so advanced that Avar could hardly believe it; how could such a person be a spy?
Now, it was too late to say all this, as they had already allowed the Caged Girl to escape.
Over the years, aside from assisting Alberto in intelligence gathering, Cassius had also conducted in-depth research on the techniques of the bards from the Old Empire, at least Cassius’s thoughts were quite advanced among his companions.
At this moment, Cassius had constructed a special frequency band, which was a prototype of a “large area network.” Centered around the record-keeper bards like Cassius, it connected all the Gene Warriors of An Zhu, while excluding other bards like Lucanus.
Cassius referred to this grand project as the “Mental Network,” as this mental frequency was akin to a densely woven net, connecting all those who had undergone surgery.
This was even a step further than the technology of the Old Empire; Cassius felt immensely proud of the network he had created, and he had a premonition that the initial network he was crafting would be capable of changing the world.
If Lind were to know about Cassius’s plan, he would surely be amazed that Cassius not only created the network but had already formed a prototype of network security concepts. Cassius had even established something akin to gateways between the consciousness networks of the bards and An Zhu’s Gene Warriors to ensure that the two sides would not confuse each other, and that problems on one side would not affect the other.
The firewall was another point of focus for Cassius since he did not appreciate those epics-style companions and was more worried that those companions might “trace him through the network” and intrude on the new consciousness network of Gene Warriors that An Zhu had painstakingly built.
Locating the Caged Girl was merely a basic function of the network Cassius had woven; theoretically, Cassius could even know what the wealthy merchants buying the Caged Girl were discussing with her. This was also one of Cassius’s goals for selling the Caged Girl.
For Cassius, this Caged Girl was a conspicuous signal transmitter, moving around within An Zhu, making it easy to understand her location.
It could be said that Cassius truly embodied the more pragmatic record-keeping style, working meticulously and considering all aspects.
However, the more people he sent to pursue and encircle, the more something felt off to Cassius.
Why did it feel like the other side also had a way to know about his movements?
Was it the Caged Girl who was directing it? No, that couldn’t be! The Caged Girl should be nothing more than a mindless human toy.
Although the other side couldn’t escape Cassius’s arrangements every time, coincidences could explain some occurrences, but this suspicion lingered in Cassius’s chest for a long time.
It seemed he would need to rewrite this consciousness frequency band to ensure that the other party would not be able to trace back.
In any case, this was over; Cassius transmitted orders to the Gene Warriors on the front lines through this frequency network, and Herbert was left with nowhere to escape.
If there was anyone to blame, it was Herbert for being foolish enough to bring a human toy along for the ride.
Just as Cassius was about to pinpoint the location of the Caged Girl accurately, a very “noisy” message suddenly came to his mind.
“Hi! Old buddy, how are you! I heard you’re catching mice within An Zhu? Sorry, but these little mice belong to us. My king has personally ordered their return, so sorry about that!”
Cassius, who was engaging in a precise search, nearly spat out a mouthful of blood in rage, gritting his teeth and cursing, “Lucanus!!!”
“You’re angry? Oh, you weren’t up to anything bad just now, were you? I’m sorry, but you won’t forget, although our purposes are different, we are both products of the Old Empire and can talk on the same frequency, right?”
“Ah, if it weren’t for my king mentioning it, I would have forgotten about this function.”
This kind of long-distance information transmission was very energy-consuming, but Lucanus was disturbingly relentless, clearly trying to disturb Cassius.
“Shut up! I should have blocked you! How did you forcibly establish contact with me?”
“I was going to tell you, but since you told me to shut up, forget it.”
Hearing this, Cassius clutched his head and spat out a mouthful of blood.
Meanwhile, on the other side, Herbert and the others, who didn’t know why the An Zhu army had suddenly turned into headless flies, finally got a breather, and were getting closer to the Southern Border.
However, getting closer to the border meant there would be more soldiers around, and now that the border was in a state of readiness, it was not something Herbert and his team could easily pass through.
Moreover, although the Caged Girl could predict some special soldiers’ locations, it was not only very energy-consuming but also couldn’t predict the movements of regular soldiers. Therefore, Herbert had just experienced an ambush battle.
“Take her, take her back.”
After the recent battle, Herbert had already exhausted all his strength and was starting to feel dazed.
There were still An Zhu soldiers drawn in by the movement of the previous battle; if An Zhu could really pinpoint the location of the Caged Girl, Herbert’s group would likely be found immediately.
So Herbert planned to use himself as bait to ensure that the Caged Girl could safely finish the last segment of the journey.
The Caged Girl seemed to have truly gained awareness, holding onto Herbert’s hand and refusing to let go.
“You shouldn’t have become like this; the world shouldn’t be like this.”
Herbert pushed the Caged Girl toward the guards and walked toward the increasingly nearer searching soldiers.
At that moment, a loud shout came from the direction of the searching soldiers: “Not good! The Cape people are coming!”
The surrounding soldiers quickly dispersed, and when the armored forces rolled in, Herbert relaxed and plopped down onto the ground.
Those armored forces were clearing the soldiers from the path while driving toward Herbert.
Judith, leading them, jumped directly out of a tank and urgently shouted, “Get in the car!”
