The Missing Queen

Gu Ding was slightly surprised to see that the number displayed on the communicator belonged to Elizabeth, but he quickly pressed the answer button.

"Gu Ding, the latest Wanted Order for you has been issued. You should have seen it by now, right?" Elizabeth asked.

"Yes, I just saw it. Is there something you need?" Gu Ding felt that she probably didn't contact him just for this reason.

"I submitted the application to have the death penalty order revoked on the day you left, and I explained the truth to them. Less than ten minutes after submitting the application, the relevant staff of the Federal Government responded with a rejection. Their reasons for rejection were quite valid, saying that it would seriously affect the credibility of the Federal Government. But strangely, they suddenly contacted me early this morning, asking me to resend the application, saying that some important person had taken notice of this matter and had them revoke the death penalty order against you. Gu Ding, do you know some important person at the Federal Government headquarters?"

Elizabeth's words puzzled Gu Ding. After thinking about it carefully, he shook his head. "No, I grew up on Deep Sea Star. You know that. How could I possibly know anyone at the Federal Government Headquarters?"

"That makes sense," Elizabeth said, realizing she was overthinking it. "It's also possible they conducted a surprise internal investigation, and a higher-up saw my application and knew what happened. They felt it was unnecessary to issue a death sentence for such a misunderstanding, so they had them handle it. I could tell from their tone that they were very nervous. In this situation, they are most efficient. I estimate the news of the death sentence being revoked will be released tomorrow."

"That's for the best. We've been floating in the air for three days, and we definitely need to find a place to land and resupply." Elizabeth's words were finally good news, which relieved Gu Ding. It wasn't that he was afraid of the consequences of the death penalty; he just didn't like being looked at with disgust wherever he went.

"There's one more thing I'd like to ask you..." As Elizabeth said this, Liliath and the others all perked up their ears to listen.

"Could she be confessing her feelings to Gu Ding?" Liliath whispered with a smile in Elsa's ear.

"Really?" Elsa immediately pressed her hand against Gu Ding's wrist.

Seeing how tired everyone was from eavesdropping, Sea Emperor switched to speakerphone. Elizabeth hesitated for a moment before continuing, "Before you left, did the Will Projection of Queen's will say anything to you?"

"Queen?" Gu Ding seemed slightly puzzled by the question, but still gave an answer. "We divided up the Energy Knot of the Bloodthirsty Demonic Vine in the Giant Wood Forest. Then she said she would leave first. Later, I went to collect Beast Blood, and Uncle went to reinforce the restriction. She didn't appear until the ten hours were up and we left Forget-Worry Star. Didn't she return to Dragon Dock Star?"

"Senior Queen's Will Projection returned to Dragon Dock Star that day and went directly to her main body's secluded cultivation location. However, that night, Senior Queen's main body's aura suddenly disappeared from Dragon Dock Star. At the time, I thought she had some temporary business to attend to and didn't pay much attention. But she still didn't appear the next day, so I went to her secluded cultivation location to look for her and found that she was gone, and there were no signs of battle at the scene. She herself doesn't have spatial abilities, which many people know, but her disappearance was very sudden, as if she left through spatial teleportation."

"I asked Congress again. They said there was no record of them leaving. Guardians are not allowed to leave their territories without registering with Congress." Elizabeth still brought up the matter, even though it was inconvenient to disclose the disappearance of a guardian to the outside world. But Elizabeth hoped to get more information from Gu Ding.

"Have you tried calling her communicator?" Sea Emperor asked, mimicking Gu Ding's voice. Gu Ding, who had been about to say something, immediately shut his mouth.

"I tried calling, but the first time she hung up, and I haven't been able to get through since. It seems like she turned off her communication function." Elizabeth didn't know what had happened either.

"If we can't get through, it means the Smart Watch's host is still alive. If she were dead, the communication number would be automatically canceled, and the voice prompt would show 'number not in service.' But since the other party isn't answering, we can't determine their location, which is indeed troublesome. Judging from the current situation, there's a high possibility she's been kidnapped. You should report this to the Federal Government as soon as possible." The Sea Emperor, still mimicking Gu Ding's voice, offered the best solution.

"It was reported yesterday, and the inspector is on his way. He should arrive first thing tomorrow morning. I called you to ask if you have any leads." Elizabeth hadn't gotten any leads from Gu Ding, which was expected. "Oh, and there's something else I think you might be interested in. In about forty days, a large near-ancient ruin will open in the Fei Me Universe Country. The ruin is called Or. You can find the details online, so I won't go into too much detail. There will be a large Auction House there because of the ruin's opening; you can go check it out. I have other things to attend to, so I'll hang up now."

After Elizabeth hung up the call, the Sea Emperor spoke up, "I've actually been aware of the Oul Ruins for a while now, and our current voyage is heading in that direction."

As he spoke, he projected information about the Oul Ruins.

"This ruin is a one-star level ruin, which can only accommodate Low-rank God at most. Higher-level Sea Emperor finished speaking, he turned to the Auction House.

"That Auction House is officially organized by the Fei Me Universe Country, and it always starts in the same year as the Oul Ruins. The Auction House will be open for two whole months, with small Auction House every day. The real large-scale Auction House starts ten days after everyone returns from the Oul Ruins. Because during that time, everyone will sell the things they obtained from the Oul Ruins that are not very useful to them. We can also take this opportunity to get rid of some things that we don't want."

"Sounds pretty good. Let's go check it out and see if we can get anything good." Gu Ding always liked lively places like this.

"I need to replace my guns too. I can go to the Auction House and see if there are any Divine Object Gun. If not, semi- Divine Object Gun will do." Liliath's current guns are indeed useless, but she still wants to go back to being a gunsmith.

"I also want to collect more throwing knives," Dokter wasn't very satisfied with his own strength. He was a battle maniac, but his Combat Strength was currently among the lowest in the team. In the past three days, he had only just used Beast Blood to upgrade to the Thirteenth-Order Gene Body, but he still lost miserably in his challenge against Bigge.

"Give me enough materials, and I can forge the weapons you want," Robert offered his opinion from the side.

"We'll see then. We have over a hundred million Universe Crystal now, which should be enough to buy quite a lot of things." Gu Ding felt that his group was quite wealthy.

"Even the most ordinary divine artifact costs at least tens of millions of Universe Crystal. Some special divine artifacts are even more expensive. One hundred million Universe Crystal may seem like a lot, but at your level, your purchasing power is actually quite limited." The Sea Emperor's merciless rebuke finally made Gu Ding and his group realize the harsh reality.

"I'll continue to go to Medicine King Valley to improve my apothecary level..." Disheartened, Gu Ding changed the subject and walked towards his room.

The others dispersed and began to quietly improve their strength. They were quite eager for the opening of the ruins, since they had only heard of them before and had never been inside.

Back in his room, Gu Ding thought of Queen again. "Sea Emperor, do you think Queen's disappearance could be related to the fruit of the Sacred Giant Tree? There shouldn't be anything else on her that would attract the covetous eyes of any god or High-rank God, right? Otherwise, someone would have already made a move. Why would they wait until she got the fruit of the Sacred Giant Tree before taking action?"

"This matter is indeed somewhat strange. She has served as the guardian for so many years, she should know very well the consequences of leaving without saying goodbye. Moreover, according to Elizabeth, she doesn't have any spatial abilities, yet her aura suddenly disappeared. Therefore, it's highly unlikely that she left on her own; the chances of her being kidnapped are much higher. Although we can't conclude from this that her disappearance is related to the fruit of the Sacred Giant Tree, you must never tell anyone that you possess the fruit of the Sacred Giant Tree." Given this incomplete information, the Sea Emperor's deductions didn't yield a definitive conclusion.

"I feel it's really unsafe to keep these things in my hands. I want to find an opportunity to sell them as soon as possible." The fruits of those two Sacred Giant Tree contain far too much energy; only High-rank God could consume them. And it's unlikely that anyone in Gu Ding's group will reach the High-rank God in the short term.

"You think Auction House? That's not a good deal. Auction House most, only Five-Star Low-rank God will participate. Even higher-level gods are unlikely to be there, so it'll be hard to get a good price." The Sea Emperor felt it wasn't worth it, and he suddenly thought of another way to sell it. "I've thought of a better idea. There's also an auction house in the Monster Paradise. The network there has no regional restrictions. All the demon members in the entire Universe Sea can see it, including those High-rank Gods."