He just broke up with his girlfriend and is already living with the devilish rich girl.

The temporary command center is located on the third basement level of the Special Administration Bureau.

There are no windows here; twelve holographic screens are embedded in the four walls, each displaying different dimensions of battlefield data in real time.

Operator vital signs, barrier energy fluctuations, enemy personnel heat source distribution, and factory internal structure scan.

The only sounds in the air were the low-frequency hum of the equipment and the soft tapping of the keyboard.

Everyone spoke in hushed tones, as if afraid of being overheard by the person on the other side of the wall.

Zheng Ningyuan sat in the center of the command platform.

With his hands crossed on the table, he stared at the real-time movements of the Conviction Team on the main screen, his brow furrowed ever since the operation began.

He had a headache.

It's not because the convicts' team is incompetent.

On the contrary, these eight people were handpicked by him from headquarters, and each of them was an elite A-rank capable of handling things independently.

What's giving him a headache is his opponent this time.

The source of the intelligence was Luo Yao.

Luo Yao's identity is self-evident, and the information she provides is virtually impossible to be wrong.

But the Special Administration Bureau is an official agency, not a gang or underworld organization.

You can't just kick down the door to find an insider based on a simple "my friend told me."

Present evidence and follow procedures; missing even one step can lead to being attacked in return.

Procedural justice is essential.

Therefore, the core objective of this operation is not to fight, but to take.

First, we must do everything possible to obtain irrefutable evidence that the factory is illegally producing artificial alien cores and processing beast breath.

Only with evidence can he take action legitimately; otherwise, if questioned by his superiors, he wouldn't even be able to write an action report.

But this factory is definitely not a small company.

I had just expressed my doubts about that factory at an internal meeting a few days ago, and my wording was very clear. I must not alert them.

Before the meeting was even over, a formal notice was issued from above, ordering the factory to cooperate with the investigation.

This is hardly a cooperation investigation.

This is clearly tipping someone off.

What's more troublesome is that the organization that issued this notice of assistance doesn't even have the authority to view it.

Then there are only two possibilities.

High-ranking officials in the Control Yuan or the General Headquarters.

Regardless of which one it is, it has higher authority than him, one of the four commanders.

Therefore, what he brought from headquarters this time was the most valuable card he had.

The rapid response special operations team "Conviction".

Everyone is at Rank A, and each person's file is filled with successful records of high-risk missions.

This team has fought tough battles and overcome difficult challenges; they have never failed.

Then, the operation failed as soon as it reached the first phase.

On the right side of the main screen, the green waveforms representing the vital signs of the two operators in Group A simultaneously stretched into two straight lines.

On the communication channel, the voices of the other groups fell silent for a full three seconds.

Then the voice of the group leader of Group D rang out first, extremely low and steady.

"Commander, two operators in Team A... have lost vital signs. Repeat, all vital signs in Team A have disappeared; we were unable to break the barrier."

Zheng Ningyuan's fingers tightened suddenly on his knee.

The holographic projection on the screen was still running, and the three-dimensional structure diagram of the factory was still rotating.

But the two green dots in Group A have turned gray.

He took a deep breath, his voice completely still.

"All teams must immediately cease operations and withdraw according to the contingency plan, prioritizing the evacuation of the wounded."

The screen went out.

The meeting room was so quiet that you could hear the hissing of the air conditioner vents.

Zheng Ningyuan took off his headset and placed it on the table, then rubbed his temples.

After a long pause, he spoke.

"The remaining operators have also sustained injuries of varying degrees. It can be said that this operation has been a complete failure."

Two operators from Group A were killed on the spot, and one member of Group B was ambushed and lost during the retreat.

The other party did not pursue, nor did they react at all.

There was no reinforcement of defenses, no dispatch of reinforcements, and no warnings or provocations of any kind.

They just stayed quietly in that factory, as if they knew you couldn't do anything about them.

This silence is more chilling than any clamor.

"Commander Zheng."

At the end of the long table, a bespectacled staff officer spoke, his words carefully chosen.

"Should we ask for instructions from higher authorities? The current situation has exceeded the scope of routine operations. If we can obtain authorization from the Board of Audit and Inspection—"

"If even I don't have the authority to find out who issued that investigation order, what's the point of asking higher-ups?"

Zheng Ningyuan raised his hand to interrupt him. His tone wasn't harsh, but it was enough to silence the entire conference room.

"What about deploying S-rank operators?" another advisor chimed in.

"I remember there's an S-rank operator stationed in Ninghai City. If we could get him to come—"

Zheng Ningyuan frowned.

He naturally knew that Ninghai City had S-rank operators.

But so what?

S-rank operators have a certain degree of freedom of action, which is a formal clause written into the Bureau's charter, not an unspoken rule.

Just like those mythical beasts in China, their rank is too high for you to restrain.

Therefore, the management bureau simply chose to coexist peacefully with them and not infringe upon each other's rights.

If we can talk, we will talk; if we can't, we will draw a line and leave each other alone.

If you really go too far and try to harm humanity, then I'm sorry, we can't deal with you, but there are other mythical beasts that can.

It's perfectly legitimate, and it can even devour your core to increase your own cultivation level, so why not?

If even mythical beasts are like this, then S-rank ability users will be even more troublesome.

They are not aliens; they are essentially human beings with emotions, desires, and personal likes and dislikes.

Their immense power also grants them a voice far exceeding that of ordinary operators.

You can't stop an S-rank operator from doing what they want.

You can't persuade him to do something he doesn't want to do.

According to the regulations of the Administration, cities with different administrative levels have different numbers of S-level garrison positions.

Ninghai City is a sub-provincial city, and according to regulations, it can be equipped with one S-rank operator.

But there was only one.

The threshold for deploying S-rank operators is ridiculously high.

It must be a major emergency that threatens the safety of the entire city, or a mandatory mobilization order directly issued by the General Headquarters.

The current situation, where the factory is suspected, is far from reaching that level.

Zheng Ningyuan leaned back in his chair and rubbed his temples. "Where is he now?"

No one speaks.

These people present are high-ranking officials of the Ninghai City Special Administration Bureau, in charge of the management of superhumans and the control of other supernatural beings throughout the city.

No one was able to track down the S-rank operator.

He hadn't even registered his real-time communication method in the Ninghai Special Administration Bureau's regular contact network.

Zheng Ningyuan sighed and took off his glasses, placing them on the table.

"Let's issue a Buster Call to him first, and then—organize a second attack as soon as possible."

An officer at the long table looked up and asked, "Commander, is this operation still a decapitation strike?"

Zheng Ningyuan did not answer immediately.

He stared at the black screen in front of him and tapped his fingers lightly twice on the table.

He recalled the warrant for assistance that he didn't even have permission to view, and the person sitting in a higher position than him who was secretly protecting that factory.

Zheng Ningyuan clenched his fist, his knuckles cracking.

"Annihilation operations".

Those four words landed on the table, and no one asked a second question.