Enforcer Manual
Chapter 583: I Will Never Betray My Leader_1

Chapter 583: Chapter 583: I Will Never Betray My Leader_1

The Third Legion commander’s words immediately made Song Lan think of Father Aige, who had fled in the dead of night, and now Antigon’s fate seemed to foreshadow the future of the Bug Swarm as well.

The Barrosa Group seemed to be particularly adept at using such methods to plunge their enemies into infighting and reap the rewards as the bystander, and for the deputy leader, who was second only to the leader of the Bug Swarm, they would likely offer a deal too good to refuse. But who did they think Song Lan was?

"Impossible!"

He was resolute. "Even if I, Song Lan, were to die, I’d die outside, jump from here, but I would never betray my leader!"

He stiffened his neck, looking very much like a man who would rather die than be humiliated.

This scene reminded him of what some of those sages had gone through. He decided to follow in the footsteps of those martyrs. Murder shouldn’t go beyond justice, Song Lan was prepared for negotiation to break down and to bravely... eliminate all of Antigon’s Barrosa Group elites.

Antigon was a good place.

Whatever inexplicable problems happened here, they could always be blamed on the Moon God in the end.

"But, this is the first floor."

The Third Legion commander was stunned by Song Lan’s vehement reaction and it took a while before responding, "We don’t intend to make you betray the Bug Swarm; it’s just that according to the intelligence we got from the Neutral Country, Lu Xiang is a cruel, bloodthirsty tyrant who is also extremely stubborn and almost impossible to negotiate with."

"Hold on a second."

At this point, Song Lan had to ask the other party to pause because he felt that Lu Xiang’s reputation "abroad" seemed to be getting more and more preposterous. A few months ago, she was just labeled as cruel and bloodthirsty, but now "cold-hearted" and "stubborn" had come out of nowhere as additional buffs.

At this rate, it was quite possible that in a short while, when people talked about Lu Xiang, they wouldn’t even dare to call her by her name, and would instead refer to her as "The Mysterious One" or something similar.

Therefore, before proceeding to the next step of negotiations, he needed to know which little schemers had been spreading rumors behind their backs.

"Where did you hear these pieces of information?"

"We have our means of obtaining intelligence."

"I see. Tell me his name, and I’ll seriously consider the content of your negotiations."

"A cadre from the Esinvig Army known as ’The Rat’, he has clashed with you many times and survived, the intelligence he provides should be credible."

...

Song Lan hadn’t expected to hear this old acquaintance’s name under such circumstances.

Since the incident involving Military Intelligence Section Seven last time, "the Rat" had fled to the "outside world" and since then his whereabouts had become unknown. However, due to a series of reasons caused by the Void and Shadow, the bounty on the "financial products" they heavily invested in hadn’t increased much, and the flustered United Government seemed to have lost the idea of capturing "the Rat" for the time being.

"Then, as per our agreement, let’s proceed to the negotiation process," she said.

Seeing that Song Lan didn’t object, the Third Legion’s commander took it as an acknowledgment of the information "the Rat" had provided them. The latter had strongly advised them not to get involved with Lu Xiang.

"Firstly, Mr. Song Lan, what are your thoughts on the ’Father God’ as depicted in the doctrines of the Lunar Eclipse Sect? From Kansariel to Antigon, you have witnessed the Moon God’s miracles twice, an opportunity that even the most devout believers of the Lunar Eclipse Sect have not had."

"Are you trying to tell us that gods may in fact not exist, and this could be a trick orchestrated by Archbishop Helifis?"

Song Lan followed up on her statement.

In truth, he didn’t know if the "Father God" described by the followers of the Lunar Eclipse Sect existed. As an atheist, he should have been firmly against such unfounded beliefs, but given the complexity of this world, along with the interpretations of folklore by the former principal of Purple Wisteria Academy, he thought it was possible that the "Father God" the Lunar Eclipse Sect worshipped could be an entity that had achieved "Ascension."

Nevertheless, the Barrosa Group was unequivocally atheistic, and for that reason, they had waged the most brutal civil war in the history of the Neutral Country against the Lunar Eclipse Sect.

"I happen to have read the history of the ’Commerce-Sect War’. Regardless of whether the Moon God exists, they used it as a mean to revoke your legal status in the Neutral Country."

"That was a long time ago,"

the commander of the Third Legion shook her head, "After that, we briefly cooperated with the Lunar Eclipse Sect and even provided them with our genetic technology. The ’Angel of Death’ was the first successful gene-created being to survive, and our birth benefited from the valuable data they provided. However... that was not the real purpose of our collaboration with the Lunar Eclipse Sect. After setting aside past prejudices, we tried to objectively view the Moon God and used the technology at our disposal to investigate whether it had truly existed."

Song Lan listened very intently, feeling that the wealth of information itself was enough to demonstrate the Barrosa Group’s sincerity.

But then again, after hearing so much insider information, if they still gave a negative response, it was destined that one side would not be able to leave Antigon alive.

"In exchange for genetic technology, the Lunar Eclipse Sect provided us with dozens of failed candidates from the selection of saints for research... Aren’t you curious? Nearly one-third of the believers in the Lunar Eclipse Sect became psychics, a figure that should be vastly different from the statistics of the United Government."

The commander of the Third Legion didn’t beat around the bush on this matter and continued, "This was also the reason for our curiosity, to the point where for a long time we suspected the Moon God they described was real. But during an unexpected research mishap, we discovered a horrifying fact — due to a machine malfunction, a finger was severed from a candidate saint during sampling. We immediately ceased the research and sent him for gene remedy...

"However, when the researchers returned to the sampling room, they discovered the severed finger was missing. They immediately reviewed the surveillance and found that the finger of the candidate saint had ’come to life’ and had crawled out of the sample container and jumped into the ventilation duct. When we followed the blood trail in the duct, we found the finger attacking the guards."

After the commander of the Third Legion finished speaking, the interrogation room fell into a long silence.

Song Lan imagined the severed finger disappearing from the scene and his vivid imagination made him feel a chill.

And just in time, the commander of the Third Legion revealed the ultimate result of their research.

— "It wasn’t psychic abilities, but rather, a form of parasitism so subtle it mimicked spiritual energy. The researchers were convinced that some parasitic consciousness entities were inhabiting these candidate saints, making them appear as powerful as psychics... And this consciousness entity was slowly turning them into some form of life unknown to us."