Chapter 1 The Vast Universe

The universe was extremely vast. Even with extraordinary power, without a sufficiently large force, it was difficult to make a name for oneself in interstellar society, and many things were difficult to handle.

Now, the Black Star Army was already one of the top warlord organizations in the galaxy, with people, money, cannons, and ships. Once Han Xiao issued his supreme order, the Black Star Army personnel remaining in the Shattered Star Ring immediately obeyed, searching star systems on a large scale, blocking traffic hubs, and searching for Izo's trail. The Dragon Tanchen floating island troops also came out almost in full force.

Such a large movement naturally couldn't be hidden from others, and quickly attracted the attention of interstellar society. A little investigation revealed that it was because the Dragon Seat's elder had gone missing. To search for him alone, the Black Star Army's movements indirectly affected twenty or thirty star systems, a truly impressive display of influence.

Such a large search effort affected the operation of some public facilities, and some interstellar citizens complained, but the Black Star Army's reputation was here, and the local civilization didn't care, so naturally no ordinary citizens dared to argue.

In addition to dispatching troops to search everywhere, the Black Star Army also issued a reward for Izo, spreading it through local media channels to mobilize the public.

Anyone who could provide accurate clues about Izo would receive a generous reward, such as sighting reports, transit records, etc. And if they could capture Izo alive and hand him over to the army, they would receive a huge sum of 135 million Enas, which ordinary interstellar citizens couldn't spend in several lifetimes, and even for some small and medium-sized armed organizations, it was an astronomical figure.

As the saying goes, a great reward brings forth brave men. Some small and medium-sized organizations spontaneously joined the search, and a large number of idle mercenaries also acted excitedly. Even some space pirates and scavengers were secretly searching, hoping to get the reward and wash their hands, and the interstellar citizens in the Shattered Star Ring also kept an eye out.

For a time, Izo became a coveted prize in the eyes of countless forces in the Shattered Star Ring, targeted by countless people.

Han Xiao was alone and weak when he first captured Izo, mainly relying on Fu Ding's luck. Now, decades later, his army had grown into a behemoth, and he no longer had to play hide-and-seek with Izo like before. As long as he spread out his forces, he could make it difficult for the other party to move.

Even if Izo possessed powerful prophetic abilities, he could only seize every opportunity in the face of this situation of being an enemy of all, acting secretly like a rat in a ditch, not daring to expose himself to ordinary people.

Of course, these arrangements were just the basics. Han Xiao's core search method was Loodi's prediction, plus Emersy's, Fu Ding's, Niro's, and Harrison's luck, as well as his own virtual technology, constantly determining the coordinates where Izo might arrive on the star map and conducting targeted searches.

...

A dark red sandstorm obscured the sky, endless, like a red curtain covering the entire planet.

Through the sandstorm with extremely low visibility, on the desolate red desert, a figure wearing heavy protective clothing walked alone, and the raging wind stirred up the dust, like a heavy hammer hitting him, making a dull thumping sound.

After walking for several hours, suddenly, a meteor-like light pierced through the sandstorm and fell rapidly towards the figure. The figure stopped and looked up, and a small spaceship reflected on the alloy mask of the protective suit.

Whoosh—

The spaceship slowly landed in front of the figure, releasing a 50-meter diameter air force field, isolating the surrounding sandstorm and creating a clean area.

The hatch opened with a whoosh. The figure didn't hesitate, stepping onto the spaceship, shaking off the sand, and removing the heavy helmet, revealing an old face, it was Izo.

"Are you the people here to pick me up?" Izo patted his helmet and asked, looking up.

"Yes, we are now responsible for sending you out of the Shattered Star Ring." The captain greeted him and replied, "Don't worry, we are professional and absolutely reliable."

Izo hummed and said, "The single-person space capsule that brought me here hasn't been destroyed yet, blow it up while you're at it, otherwise, if it falls into Black Star's hands, it will be a prediction medium, don't leave that kind of clue."

Because of the Black Star Army's blockade of the Shattered Star Ring, he was now struggling to move. He had finally found a space capsule to land on this barren planet, and waited here for a long time before the responding spaceship arrived.

"No problem," the captain nodded.

The spaceship took off and came to a desert not far away, where it found a metal space capsule half-buried in the desert.

Bang bang!

The ship's guns fired two plasma beams, shattering the space capsule. The flames only burned for a moment before being extinguished by the wind, leaving only scorched and broken metal fragments all over the ground, gradually buried by the wind and sand.

After completing this task, the spaceship turned its head and climbed into the starry sky, leaving behind a trail of fading light.

At the same time, Mannison in the Old Star River received a synchronous transmission and opened a monitoring screen, which showed Izo in the spaceship.

"Finally got someone..."

Mannison looked at the screen, and his eyes fluctuated slightly.

In order to maintain secrecy, the spaceship that went to pick up Izo concealed its force's logo. It actually belonged to an organization called the "Mild Armed Transportation Group," one of the secret forces Mannison had planted in the Shattered Star Ring.

Not long ago, the Modo Civilization officially pulled him into the plan and revealed some information, asking him for help.

The Modo Civilization was also helpless. The Black Star Army's blockade was too strong, and it was inconvenient for them to act in the Shattered Star Ring, and they couldn't secretly transport Izo out at all. They were almost discovered several times, so they decided to use the Mechanical Country's men to take over the "delivery."

"Presumably, Modo used the Soul Transfer Device to influence Izo, making him take the initiative to escape, wanting to send him to his death."

Mannison stroked his beard and pondered.

The Modo Civilization naturally concealed the existence of the Soul Transfer Device in the information it provided, only saying that it had used some kind of mental manipulation to control Izo, without explaining it in detail. However, they didn't know that Mannison had already grasped the information about the Soul Transfer Device, and he understood what tricks Izo had fallen for with a comparison.

Mannison had no intention of hindering Modo's plan, and even planned to cooperate to the end.

Izo was once a member of the Ancient Ones, but he had already withdrawn from the organization. The Ancient Ones were mainly composed of long-lived species, and Super-A Grades were only the leaders, not all members were Super-A Grades. There were many strange people with special skills but weak combat power like Izo inside.

Although Mannison knew Izo, he didn't have much friendship with him, and he didn't mind sending Izo to his death.

In this regard, he and Modo had the same interests. Using Izo's death to plot against Black Star had a chance to force him to violate the peace treaty of the advanced civilizations. In this way, he could greatly damage Black Star's reputation and collapse the great image that the three major civilizations had created for him. This was exactly what Mannison wanted to see, so he was willing to cooperate.

However, this was just icing on the cake. Mannison's main goal was the Soul Transfer Device.

"Izo is currently in my hands. He must have been in contact with the Soul Transfer Device within a certain range. By checking his whereabouts, I can roughly delineate the search area and find the Modo Civilization's secret fleet transporting the Soul Transfer Device by comparing records... The one dominating Izo's body now should be someone from the Modo Civilization, perhaps I can use hypnosis to ask."

Mannison's thoughts turned quickly.

He didn't know that the Soul Transfer Twins had already run away. In his mind, the Soul Transfer Device should be being transported back by the Modo Civilization's troops, and the direction of the search had already deviated.

...

Not long after the spaceship transporting Izo left, another fleet visited this dark red barren planet, with the Black Star badge engraved on its outer armor.

In the main ship's command room, Han Xiao, Emersy, Fu Ding, and others gathered. This fleet was the force personally led by Han Xiao.

"Well, this is the planet, just like the prediction, and it's also one of the locations where Fu Ding, Harrison, and others' chosen ranges overlap."

Han Xiao looked down at the planet's surface.

Loodi's predictions were sometimes accurate and sometimes not, but they basically provided key information. And the European Emperors with high-level lucky halos, such as Fu Ding, randomly selected some coordinates in each search area at Han Xiao's request, and Han Xiao focused on investigating the overlapping parts.

Although he hadn't obtained any clues yet, Han Xiao still had confidence in this method.

What he didn't know was that he had almost blocked Izo several times, just a little bit off. This method was indeed very effective. In a sense, luck was the real unsolvable factor.

"Scan this planet for me, and report any abnormal reactions."

Han Xiao waved his hand, and spaceships immediately broke away from the formation and flew around the planet, scanning it without any blind spots using various detection devices.

Normal detection results were fed back to the screen in front of Han Xiao, and everything seemed normal. However, after a while, a spaceship suddenly sent back information that made people excited.

"Reporting, Army Commander, we have detected extremely faint high-energy radiation in a desert. The source is quite scattered and buried a few meters underground. Should we dig?"

"Dig!"

The monitoring screen quickly switched to the perspective of the warship, and the traction device on the ship's belly stirred the sand and soil, sucking out pieces of charred metal fragments, which looked like destroyed mechanical parts.

"Reporting, the radiation source has been found, and data analysis is in progress... Analysis complete, this should be the wreckage of a space capsule, destroyed by plasma ship guns. The molecules have been affected by energy and have residual high-energy radiation, which is gradually weakening. In a few days, the residual high-energy radiation will disappear completely."

"It seems we're not too late." Han Xiao's eyes lit up.

If they had been a few days late, the energy radiation would have dissipated, and they wouldn't have been able to detect this wreckage.

Now that they had this thing, it could not only serve as a medium for Loodi's predictions, but also serve as a trigger for 【The Bold Explorer】, one to see into the future, and the other to look back into the past, using both methods.

Soon, the pile of space capsule fragments was sent to Han Xiao and his party.

Han Xiao picked up a fragment, looked at the burn marks on it, and pondered:

"It doesn't look like it was attacked, but more like it was deliberately destroyed, probably not wanting to leave us any clues... What a pity, he failed, our luck is strong enough."

Squeezing his fingers, he held the fragment in his palm and resolutely activated 【The Bold Explorer】.

Ripples appeared in his vision, and the scene in front of him instantly changed.

He saw a space capsule falling from the sky and smashing into the surface of the planet. The hatch opened, and a figure wearing a full-coverage protective suit walked out of it and slowly walked away.

Although he couldn't see his face, he thought that this person was probably Izo.

Time seemed to be shortened. Not long after, a spaceship suddenly appeared above the space capsule, shooting out two plasma beams, shattering the space capsule. The picture ended there. Han Xiao shivered slightly and returned to normal vision.

This video was very short, but it revealed a lot of clues.

"This is indeed the space capsule left by Izo. Later, a spaceship suddenly appeared to destroy the clues, which means it was here to pick him up..."

Han Xiao recalled the appearance of the spaceship in the video. It wasn't a common model, but a high-speed spaceship known for its warp speed. It was expensive and not everyone could afford it.

"Phillip!"

"Coming, buzz, master, what are your orders?"

"Search for all the people and organizations in the Shattered Star Ring who own a Light-Class Shuttle, don't let any of them go, and focus on marking the organizations that have strongholds near this area."

"Ah?" Phillip blinked his big eyes, with a pitiful expression on his face, "That's a huge amount of data, buzz, it will take up a lot of computing power, buzz."

Han Xiao glared, "Then why aren't you hurrying up?"

Phillip twitched his nose, aggrievedly took out a progress bar from his pants and stood it up next to him, then conjured a large box full of paper, jumped in and rummaged through it, and the progress bar started moving at the same time.

After a while, the progress bar finally reached the top. Phillip's head stretched out of the box, spitting out a mouthful of paper scraps, holding a glowing piece of paper in his hand, puffed up his bun face, and said angrily, "Hmph! Found it, buzz! Take it away, take it away!"

"You're just showing off."

Han Xiao rolled his eyes, switched to the quantum network vision, and accepted the search results.

A huge data stream instantly poured into his brain, surging like a tsunami. But Han Xiao's brain domain capacity and brain computing power formed a dam, easily blocking the impact of the data stream without any discomfort, and he quickly browsed through it.

"A total of thirty-seven million and thirty-one matching cases... Well, let me see who they are."

Han Xiao quickly screened in his brain, read it all in less than two seconds, and memorized it all. Only a virtual mechanic could use this "stupid method" to lock down suspicious targets... As long as you have the ability to filter the entire ocean, then finding a needle in a haystack is not difficult.

Most of them were worthless data, but one heavily marked organization caught Han Xiao's attention.

"Mild Armed Transportation Group... This name seems a bit familiar."

Han Xiao narrowed his eyes, searched in the memory palace of his brain for a while, and the relevant memories suddenly flooded into his mind.

"...I remember! This organization seems to be one of the Mechanical Country's affiliated forces that were exposed in my previous life."

Han Xiao's face became serious.

Although it hadn't been finally confirmed yet, his intuition told him that the force that took Izo away should be this organization.

Doesn't that mean that old fox Mannison has also intervened in this matter?

Han Xiao didn't intend to question the Mechanical Country. It would be useless to ask, and they would definitely not admit it.

Various thoughts flashed through his mind. Han Xiao turned his head to look at everyone and said in a deep voice:

"Have people keep an eye on the Mild Armed Transportation Group... No, monitor all the organizations I'm going to mention later, I want to know their recent movements, but don't disturb them, follow them closely, and don't close the net without my order!"

He had always known what parts of the Mechanical Country's secret forces were planted in the Shattered Star Ring. He didn't want to startle the snake, but now that the Mechanical Country was suspected of intervening in this matter, Han Xiao decided to take measures and put all the Mechanical Country's affiliated forces in the Shattered Star Ring under full surveillance!