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"Where are we going now?"

Within Baiyun City, Jiang Xiaoling, who was grasped by the Scholar in white and moving swiftly, asked with confusion.

"First, we leave the city, then decide which path to take; we can’t let Chen Qing catch up to us, or you’ll be in great danger. He isn’t one of us, and your so-called shutdown code is useless against him!"

Upon hearing the words "shutdown code," Jiang Xiaoling’s pupils suddenly constricted...

Shutdown code... This guy, he indeed knows!!

Memories flooded back of his time in Digital City, where after one year of training, he was hastily sent into this world. Before he left, Wu Xiaoli, the project manager, explained an issue that had always puzzled him.

That was, with the considerable resources spent by Digital City to send him into that game, how was his loyalty ensured?

After all, he wasn’t born a soldier, and he had once been amongst the oppressed. If not for the genes left by his ancestors, he might have lived his life as a lowly miner, visiting the Red Light District of Digital City once a year without any chance of leaving descendants.

The answer... was the disintegration code!

Designing a timed explosive within the data was far too easy for Digital City’s technology. And it wasn’t just him; learning from the lessons of earlier soldiers, all those sent in afterward had specific programs embedded within their bodies.

In fact, if the officials were willing, they could kill the batch of Correctors who entered twenty years ago at any moment.

The reason they hadn’t done it was that it wasn’t clear whether those people had simply failed their missions and lost contact, or had betrayed the Federation!

One of his missions in coming here was to ascertain the situation of that batch of people from twenty years ago and report the truth back to the Federation internally.

"Jiang Xiaoling, you must remember, once you’ve entered, you can’t trust anyone.

Based on our previous experiences, those on a mission are highly likely to be seduced by things within, and to date, the betrayal rate is almost one hundred percent.

Those who went in twenty years ago weren’t even professional soldiers, so the betrayal rate is actually higher.

You must be careful and judge correctly whether they are lying! "

Jiang Xiaoling observed the other party covertly with great caution.

He possessed a means to contact the outside at any moment, yet the person in front of him had revealed his code number without hesitation, effectively exposing his back to him, and this person evidently knew about the code disintegration!

In the knowledge of this, to still reveal his own code, that sincerity... could be said to be tremendous!

"Number one, the higher-ups want you to report the situation!

" Jiang Xiaoling looked at the other person, "What happened twenty years ago?

Why are there no contacts with the upper echelons?

Even if everyone died once and experienced reincarnation, those lost memories should be random, right?

Surely not everyone has forgotten how to contact the higher-ups? "

"Because I wiped out their memories!" the King of Qin said in a low voice.

"What?" Jiang Xiaoling was startled, "What do you mean?"

"Exactly as it sounds!" the King of Qin took a breath, "In Digital City... a traitor appeared!"

Jiang Xiaoling: "!!"

"It sounds unbelievable, doesn’t it? But that is the truth.

.." The King of Qin looked into the distance, speaking indifferently, "Twenty years ago, we were nearly successful with our mission.

The Illusion Moon Plan had made the humans of the Central Plains forget the terror of the Demons.

With my prestige at that time, controlling the first edition of the Human-Demon realms, we were just one step away.

As long as we maintained control, the malice of the human world would diminish, the Earth Spirit would never revive, and no matter how strong those ancient gamers were, it would be futile.

Afterwards, I would have enough buffer time to strengthen the first edition of Demons and find a way to completely control the ancients. "

"But at that critical moment, I failed..."

"Ask him what the reason was..." Wu Xiaoli’s voice came from Jiang Xiaoling’s marking.

"I’m asking you the reason..." Jiang Xiaoling said tentatively.

"Betrayal!" the King of Qin said coldly, "Betrayal from a comrade, no... it’s more accurate to say they were never comrades to begin with!"

"What do you mean?" Jiang Xiaoling was taken aback.

"The numbers were off... That’s what I discovered later!

" the King of Qin continued, "Back then, I also couldn’t understand why, when our mission was nearly accomplished, someone would betray me? Everyone involved in the plan knew that, once the mission was finished, we’d become rulers of this world.

Even if there were codes in our bodies, the officials would never cut us off after grinding the mill; we would eventually hold high status in this world. "

"And if we betrayed the officials, the hidden codes in our bodies would rapidly disintegrate us."

"Yet, they still betrayed me without hesitation. Over these years, I’ve been investigating the true events of that time. Through the secret inquiries of Tianji, we later discovered that the first batch of Correctors was infiltrated by a traitor."

"A mole?"

"Yes!"

"Impossible!" On the other end, Wu Xiaoli immediately objected, "The background and memories of everyone in your group have been rigorously vetted, with the most professional psychologists querying daily, a full five years of military training, and besides, the data on this mission is classified as S-level secret, accessible only when the five leaders come together to unlock it.

No power brokers on the outside could possibly intervene, so how could there be a mole? "

Jiang Xiaoling promptly relayed Wu Xiaoli’s words.

However, the King of Qin shook his head in response, "The problem isn’t with the people you chose, but with the additional ones who were brought in."

"Additional people?"

"Yes, if my guess is correct, you are still unaware that someone in Digital City secretly added another batch of people!"

Wu Xiaoli: "!!!"

"Originally, our group of correctors numbered seventy-six, everyone carrying their ancestors’ genes, waiting for the version to develop, using the genetic codes to unlock some hidden items to enhance themselves!"

Wu Xiaoli nodded; the number one mission had been accomplished quite well back then. According to the plan, they were to delay the revival of ancient times and then gradually search for the hidden levels of this world, using the genetic codes to find those hidden items.

This was also why the authorities trained the descendants of the developers to enter the game instead of professional soldiers.

Theoretically, once these developer descendants activated their genes and cycled through the memories of the original developers, sharing the intelligence, they’d be useless, and it would be more successful to have professional soldiers carry the intelligence into the game.

But the problem, according to the memories, was that the original developers each designed some incredibly powerful hidden items and instances, but no matter how hard they tried, these memory reports couldn’t be retrieved, as if they were encrypted.

Experts speculated that the original developers, having signed confidentiality agreements for the game, inherently believed that the game’s information could not be leaked.

Therefore, the genetically inherited memories had a strong resistance to external decoding.

Perhaps only by entering the game themselves could there be a chance to unlock it automatically.

This was the real reason why the officials didn’t use soldiers but directly activated these descendants as correctors....

"But in fact, there were more than seventy-six people who came in at the beginning!"

Wu Xiaoli, on the other end, felt a surge of shock and disbelief, initially wanting to object, but found herself stymied.

It made logical sense because number one had completed the mission to such a degree; it made no sense for there to be a last-minute betrayal, which was also why the higher-ups didn’t immediately activate the program to wipe out that batch of correctors.

Logically, it was more likely that something unforeseen happened.

So, if things were already 99% successful, what could have gone wrong?

Some had speculated early on whether there might have been a traitor....

Now it seemed inevitably true, but what no one expected was that the traitor wasn’t from that batch of correctors, but from Digital City!

Could it be possible that someone added a few more people to that plan at the time?

Actually, it was possible....

Wu Xiaoli recalled that back then, to keep the correctors’ passage hidden from the players of that world, they activated interference mode multiple times, consuming a tremendous amount of energy. But while this mode interfered with them, it also interfered with the supercomputers in Digital City.

At that time, if someone with high authority and influence could manage some connections, it really could be possible.

The prerequisite was having enough authority and sufficient energy.

Although there were very few people who could achieve this, it didn’t mean there were none. If what number one said was true....

Wu Xiaoli felt a chill in her heart.

For all these years, not a single demon from the Demonic World had invaded Digital City, and she had always thought it was because of tight security, but what if... actually... they had already invaded?