It's okay for me to bully my wife for the sake of the young master's dignity, right?

Chapter 712 [130] The Holy Empire

The exterior wall of the eco-tower is patched upon patched.

The three holes created by Qin Jiandan's self-destruction were temporarily welded shut with steel plates, and the welds still showed signs of freshly burned bluish-purple oxidation.

The broken planting racks of the vertical farm are faintly visible through the gaps.

After the floating police car landed on the outer wall helipad, Qin Jiandan, Mu Yue, and Feng Jian quickly entered the elevator and arrived at the backup server room on the third basement floor.

The server racks were arranged in two rows, with coolant bubbling in the transparent pipes. In the corner were several old servers that had been moved from headquarters, with "Intelligence Department Assets" labels still attached to their casings by Linlin.

The iPhone 18 was placed on a stainless steel platform at the top of the central cabinet, with shielded cables connecting the device to three data converters.

The cracked lines on the screen are still visible, and a text message with an empty sender field is displayed on the screen.

"Bono, Earth requests to speak with you. You have only one chance. Reply to us."

Qin Jiandan stopped in front of the platform. He looked down at the line of words on the screen, his heart filled with trepidation, like any child who had not seen their parents for a long time.

Mu Yue and Feng Jian stood on either side, waiting for Qin Jiandan's move.

He reached out, tapped the screen with his fingertip, and replied to the voice message without a sender with a single line of text:

"This is Bono. I'm ready to speak."

The only sound in the server room was the gurgling of coolant in the transparent pipes. One minute, two minutes, three minutes…

There was no response for a full 5 minutes.

Kazama glanced down at the timer on the recorder and said, "Time flows at only 1/10th the speed of time in Ringstone City. Only 30 seconds have passed over there. They probably haven't seen it yet."

Qin Jiandan waited anxiously, and another 5 minutes passed.

Just when my patience was about to run out, my phone suddenly rang. In the middle of a black background, a green answer icon lit up.

Qin Jiandan reached out to tap, but her fingertip pressed too hard, adding a new crack to the already shattered screen.

A burst of static came from the speaker; the signal quality was very poor, and the sound was mixed with periodic crackling sounds, but it eventually stabilized.

"Bono? Time is limited, so I'll give you a brief overview of the situation here."

Qin Jiandan was greatly disappointed.

When they first discovered the hibernation pod, he and Linlin found a Walkman inside and listened to their parents' messages.

The male voice coming from the phone didn't sound like his father; it sounded more like an actor who specialized in gangsters.

Although I think I'm more like a gangster than the young master of the Night Dragon Society... I don't know why, but that's how I feel.

"Um... I'm Bono, who are you?"

Finally, a response was heard. The other party seemed excited, but also a little nervous.

"Calm down and listen to me. I'm your father."

Qin Jiandan roared in fury: "I'm your father!"

The other person seemed to have moved the microphone a little further away, and their voice drifted back awkwardly:

"Don't get angry. You probably don't know you were conceived through IVF. To be precise, I'm your biological father... I only recently found out about you. Anyway, let's have our chief bald scientist tell you."

“Alopecia areata doesn’t count as baldness!” Another man’s voice chimed in. He took the phone and spoke much faster than the first man.

Qin Jiandan realized that the fact that they could communicate normally despite the different timelines in the two locations was proof of the other party's technology. During this cross-time-space conversation, the scientist's syllables occasionally became extremely fast, but fortunately, he enunciated clearly.

"I went to great lengths to slip this phone into the portal. Everything else was intercepted and destroyed by the company. Luckily, this phone escaped unscathed."

“Bono, I’ve seen you when you were a child. You were Frey and Number 5’s adopted son, back then you were just their younger brother…”

Qin Jiandan desperately tried to recall his experiences on Earth, vaguely reacting to the words "Frey" and "No. 5".

Are these the parents' code names? Is the other person a friend of the parents?
Did my parents successfully return to Earth? Are they safe?

"Don't worry, they're safe." The scientist's speech didn't slow down; in fact, it quickened. "But Ringstone City won't be safe for long."

Alas, when has Huanshicheng ever been safe?

"The US military will soon launch a major offensive against Rock City, estimated to be about a month from the Rock City timeline. Please be prepared."

"Huh?" Qin Jiandan exclaimed in disbelief, "Didn't they say that the teleportation portal is one-way, and that living beings can only travel from Ringstone City to Earth, and Earthlings can't travel in the opposite direction? Does this mean the US military has adopted unmanned mechanical troops?"

Mu Yue asked from the side, "The US military you're talking about, is it the force of the 'United States of America'? Why are they attacking Huanshi City?"

"Because their own oil reserves are almost gone," the scientist replied. "The other end of the portal is in Mexico, which was 10 years ago... or 100 years ago for you, the launch site of the manned spacecraft. The United States has been researching the portal to Earth. They contacted the company and learned that Ringstone City possesses phlogiston crystals even more potent than oil, and even amethyst elixir capable of granting wishes..."

He took a breath, and his speech finally slowed down a little.

"Furthermore, it can no longer be called the United States of America; it's now the 'Holy American Empire.' A lot has happened on Earth in the past ten years..."

Kazama stood quietly by the platform, his two little hands gripping the edge of the glass.

"So, the US military and the company are in cahoots? What are the characteristics of the US military forces about to attack Ringstone?"

Upon hearing a little girl's voice, the person on the other end seemed a bit surprised.

"The U.S. military controlled the area surrounding the portal, captured thirteen Mexicans who had returned from Ringstone, and extracted trace amounts of amethyst liquid from their bodies using a live-squeezing method. The portal does not allow Earth creatures to pass through in the opposite direction, but the U.S. military smeared the amethyst liquid on their soldiers, forming a special force that could deceive the portal."

Qin Jiandan quickly made a calculation.

"Only ten years have passed over your side. Since the US military is still struggling with oil, its military technology shouldn't have made much progress. Even if a limited special forces unit were to attack, how much of a threat could they pose?"

The scientists became impatient.

“Bono, you must not underestimate them! All Earthlings are the ‘First People’ just like you. This American army has come to Ringstone City coated with the Amethyst Elixir and may very well awaken their superpowers on the spot!”

"According to my intelligence, the US military has urgently recruited a lot of nerdy guys into the army, the more obsessed they are with superheroes, the better! If these comic book nerds were to time-travel, they might end up as 6 Homelanders, 7 Hulks, 8 Invincible Young Heroes, and 9 Thanos!"

Qin Jiandan's heart skipped a beat.

No wonder the company bans the circulation of comics and publicly executes comic artists every month.

It turns out that comics can be so harmful—if someone truly believes they will become the Hulk, they could actually become the Hulk!
The noise on the phone started again, and the scientist's voice became intermittent.

"The call has been jammed... We'll be causing trouble for the US military here... You must be prepared... One month from now..."

Communication was completely cut off. The green icon disappeared. The screen returned to shattered black glass, reflecting Qin Jiandan's own face.

Mu Yue reached out from beside him and gently pressed his wrist. Kazama pushed up his glasses, his silver pupils reflecting the flashing blue light of the server rack.

A special U.S. military unit, a six-person council within the central tower, and the Squid King.

The Night Dragon Society only has one month to prepare...

(End of this chapter)