"Goodbye!" Ling Lan only saw Ling Xiao's lips move, leaving behind this one final word, and then she was chased out by a great force by Ling Xiao once more ...
Ling Lan's mind had yet to settle when Little Four's expression became frantic. "Not good, Dad's legacy space is disappearing!"
Hearing this, Ling Lan was horrified. She tried to enter the legacy space again, but was barred. Even Little Four, this practically omnipotent god of the virtual world, had also been forcefully ejected by this powerful force of the legacy space, unable to find any way to get close ...
At this time, Ling Xiao's voice rang out in Ling Lan's mind, "Stop, my child. Please forgive this irresponsible father of yours. Please take on my responsibility, take good care of your mother, Lan Luofeng!"
As this voice faded, Ling Xiao's legacy space also vanished from the virtual world of the scout academy, leaving no trace behind. It was as if Ling Xiao's legacy space had never existed."Boss, Dad ... really disappeared ..." Little Four abruptly appeared beside Ling Lan. In virtual space, Little Four could freely control his manifestation. And so, a little boy of about 5 to 6 years old clung to Ling Lan's sleeve, sad tears streaming endlessly from his eyes.
Little Four was so sad because he had not even had the chance to introduce himself to Ling Xiao, or call Ling Xiao 'daddy' to his face ...
Ling Lan suppressed the urge to cry, patting Little Four gently on the head as she tried to comfort him, "Daddy didn't disappear. He will always be in our hearts, isn't that so?"
Ling Lan's words caused Little Four to become thoughtful. He held back his gushing tears, but just when he was about to say something, he noticed a notification from the virtual space. His expression turned grim and he said, "Boss, we need to leave quickly. There are hackers and spectres approaching ..."
Little Four quickly whisked Ling Lan away with him. In several flash steps, they were back in the recovery pod. As they ran, Little Four did not forget to wipe clean all traces of their presence within that virtual space. Little Four believed that, with the work of an intelligence-entity of his level, a normal person would not be able to find anything suspicious. However, Little Four was still very cautious. After sending Ling Lan back, he returned to the scene once again. He had considered it —if anyone found anything by accident, he would utterly destroy the scout academy's virtual world, deleting all data within it. He would not allow any danger to come to his Boss.
Just a few seconds after Little Four had run away with Ling Lan, five people suddenly appeared where they had been standing. Four of them were dressed in uniforms, while the last was wearing a black robe which cloaked his entire body, hiding his appearance. This was the standard outfit for spectres.
One of the men dressed in uniform, obviously somewhat higher in rank, said to the others, "It should be here. Go investigate and see if there are any abnormalities."Receiving their orders, the other four began to move. Not long after, they reported their findings to the head.
"Colonel, there is no trace of the existence of a legacy space, and there is also no sign of one being moved by human measures ..." said one of the uniformed members obscurely. He knew very well whose legacy space they were looking for. If it were lost, it would be an immeasurable loss for the entire Federation.
"Colonel, I have already successfully noted down all students who were in the area within these three hours. Here is the name list ..." said another uniformed member as he handed a sheet of white paper over to the colonel. On it was a tightly packed list of student names.
The colonel accepted the name list but did not look at it. Instead, he turned to look at the black-robed man on the other side. "Lieutenant Colonel J, did you find anything?"
Lieutenant Colonel J was specially transferred by the military from another specials team to assist them. With regards to the other's details, the colonel did not know much, and even the other's face was unknown to the colonel. However, the colonel was not annoyed by this. He knew that no one had the right to know the true identity of a spectre other than the spectre's direct supervisor. These were all necessary measures set in place to protect spectres.
Every country maintained comprehensive monitoring on spectres. In particular, if an enemy nation's spectre was discovered, all attempts would be made to kill them off. The moment the spectre's real identity was exposed, as long as there was any chance of killing the other, a nation would choose to make a move even if it had to pay a steep price.
This was because there was no way at present for human society to be separated from the virtual world completely — and spectres were existences equal to death gods in the virtual world. No matter how strong a person was in real life, the moment they entered the virtual world, if they were targeted by a spectre, they pretty much had no chance of escape. It should be said that spectres were a type of balance-disrupting existence to the virtual world. Their death-god-like ability was feared and distrusted by all the people in power, regardless of their nationality ...
Lieutenant Colonel J indicated for the colonel to wait patiently, and then he spread out his spectre ability, beginning to sense the chaotic energy in the surroundings.
Meanwhile, the colonel took the opportunity to scan quickly through the name list in his hands. Seeing no one clearly suspicious on the list, he handed the document over to the uniformed member standing beside him all this while, saying, "Let the monitoring room dig out the information on all the people on this list. Investigate it thoroughly, don't let anything at all suspicious slip through."
"Yes, Colonel!" The uniformed member left swiftly after accepting the document.
After sensing for a moment, Lieutenant Colonel J said, "I don't sense the remnant energy of any other spectre." A spectre's energy signature can only be sensed by another spectre. "The disappearance of the legacy space should have nothing to do with spectres."
Hearing what Lieutenant Colonel J had to say, the colonel let out a breath of relief. If this incident had truly been caused by the infiltration of an enemy nation's spectre, he would probably have been court-martialled and inevitably charged with dereliction of duty.
"However ..." Lieutenant Colonel J's voice carried a slight tone of confusion, "The remnant energy here makes me feel a little uncomfortable."
"Ah?" said the colonel excitedly, "have you sensed something strange?"
Lieutenant Colonel J shook his head and said, "That's not it. Perhaps the self-destruction of the legacy space produced some energy that affects my spectre abilities." He could not explain it. This was just a gut feeling of his, not a sense of danger. That energy he sensed just made him feel extremely uncomfortable, as if somewhat repulsive to his spectre abilities.
The colonel instantly understood what Lieutenant Colonel J was trying to say. A legacy space left by a god-class operator would most certainly carry some of the god-class operator's spiritual energy. These energies were extremely powerful — if spectres could be said to have a counter, these god-class masters would be their only rivals in the virtual world. Their spiritual power was formidable enough that even these death gods could do nothing against them.
After figuring it out, the colonel cast Lieutenant Colonel J's words into the back of his mind. Instead, he began to worry over how he could account for the disappearance of Ling Xiao's legacy space to his superiors. Even though he had escaped the fate of being court-martialled, he still needed to find a reasonable explanation for this freak phenomenon! So, with a woebegone expression, he asked, "Then, Lieutenant Colonel J, can you guess the reason for the legacy space's disappearance?"
Lieutenant Colonel J contemplated the issue in silence for a moment, then said unhurriedly, "Actually, there are many reasons why a legacy space would disappear. One, would be due to outside interference, which would mostly be due to spectre abilities. Another, would be that the legacy of the legacy space has already been passed on. Once an inheritor completely masters everything the legacy space has to offer, to ensure the exclusivity of the inheritor's legacy, the legacy space would choose to self-destruct ..."
The colonel's eyes lighted up. "Are you saying that, it is possible for that legacy space to have been successfully inherited by someone?"
Lieutenant Colonel J nodded lightly. "Yes, that is one of the possibilities. Of course, another possibility is that, the legacy space's creator had set a final deadline. Once that deadline is exceeded, regardless of whether the legacy space was inherited or not, it would still begin its self-destruct sequence."
The colonel had initially been thrilled by hearing of the possibility of the legacy being inherited, but what Lieutenant Colonel J had to say next about a self-destruct deadline caused his face to fall. He truly did not wish for Ling Xiao's legacy space to have disappeared because of the latter reason — this would be such a heavy loss for the Federation.
Right now, he could only hope that it was the second of the three possibilities listed. As long as they could find Ling Xiao's inheritor, then they would be able to obtain all of the secrets to Ling Xiao's ascension to god-class operator status from the inheritor. At that time, even if they could not use those secrets to ascend to god-class, the Federation would probably be able to produce mass numbers of top-notch mecha operators and dominate the entire human world. The Federation's dream of being at the top of the world would be realised!
Having received an investigative report, the colonel had no mind to continue staying here in this virtual space. He immediately led his team of five away from the scene.
They had not left for long when Little Four's figure appeared where they had been standing. His little face was extremely grim, and he muttered to himself, "Spectres, eh? Rather impressive, as expected ..." That said, he disappeared once more.
Meanwhile, at this time, both in the virtual space and in reality, the news of the disappearance of Ling Xiao's legacy space had already gone viral 1 . Because there had never been confirmed news that Ling Xiao's legacy space had chosen an inheritor, all the students had remained extremely passionate in trying to crack this mysterious legacy space. There was attention on it at all times, so when the legacy space disappeared, the news immediately spread like wildfire among the students. The military, which had wanted to keep the matter under wraps, had been completely caught off-guard.
The only relief was that, aside from some of the upper ranks of the military and the academy's dean, no one else knew who had been the creator of the legacy space.
The military's investigation continued on in secret. The upper ranks of the military were leaning towards the explanation that the legacy had been inherited successfully. Therefore, they ordered strict monitoring and investigation on those people who had engaged with the legacy space over the past month before its disappearance. The moment anything strange was discovered, these students would be apprehended and brought in for covert questioning.
For this purpose, they even transferred in some hypnotists from particular special ops teams to hypnotise the children to try and find out the truth. However, all these seemingly suspicious students turned out not to be Ling Xiao's inheritor. This outcome disappointed them, and also made them anxious — their movements began to intensify, no longer being as covert as before.
