Authority Takeover

After making arrangements for Qiao Mingyuan, Su Yuan turned his attention back to South Sea Island.

At this moment, dozens of Truth Society assassins were being forced into a patch of woods.

Outside, the elite forces of the Xia Kingdom Security Bureau stood ready.

The Security Bureau was an agency similar to the police, but with a higher clearance level, specifically tasked with dealing with cultivators.

Long before this squad of assassins had even entered the station, they had already caught the attention of the Xia Kingdom authorities.

However, because the station was crowded with people, the authorities feared triggering a violent reaction from the targets.

The security forces did not move to arrest them immediately.

Instead, they kept them under close surveillance.

It was only an hour later, when the assassin squad began to retreat and leave the densely populated station, that the Security Bureau agents moved quickly to force them into this patch of woods.

Outside the woods, Chen Hai, the captain of the Security Bureau's tactical team, stared at the trees nearby with a grave expression and whispered, "Have you figured out the origins of this group, and what their purpose is in coming to South Sea Island?"

"Their origins are unclear." A capable-looking middle-aged woman beside him looked at her laptop and shook her head. "However, their purpose here should be to find someone, or rather, to hunt someone down."

This conclusion was drawn by reviewing the station's surveillance footage and combining it with the search patterns of these men in sunglasses.

The capable middle-aged woman was a member of the Security Bureau's Electronic Information Security Division, specializing in network issues; she was essentially the Bureau's white-hat hacker.

So-called white-hats were the counterpart to black-hat hackers, essentially the same type of people.

The difference was that black-hats hid beneath the vastness of the internet, their identities unknown, while white-hats worked for the state to maintain national information security.

"Find who?"

Chen Hai asked.

"I don't know..." The woman frowned. "There is no sign of such a person in the surveillance footage."

She had already pulled up all the footage from the station and had not found a single clue.

"Captain, let me take my men in to take them down. We'll know everything after an interrogation," a burly man said with a grin.

"Do not underestimate them." Chen Hai glanced at the burly man.

Although the strength of these men in black was at most at the Dark Energy level, they were rich in combat experience. Otherwise, they wouldn't have been able to retain the ability to resist after a surprise attack and ultimately retreat into these woods.

"Wait for the support teams to arrive before we push in." Chen Hai chose the safest method.

Their people had already surrounded the small woods; those assassin-like men were like meat on a chopping block, ready to be taken at any time, so there was no need to rush in now.

Just then.

The capable middle-aged woman, who had been typing on her laptop keyboard, suddenly changed expression.

"This?"

She stared intently at her laptop screen. The device had already slipped out of her control and was "actively" opening a blank document, where characters were being typed out one by one.

"Director Lu, what's wrong?" Chen Hai noticed the change in her and looked toward her, his gaze shifting to the laptop screen.

He saw characters being rapidly typed into the blank document.

"They are preparing to break out."

"What does that mean?" Chen Hai looked at her again and noticed her hands were stiff; she wasn't typing on the keyboard at all.

"Captain Chen Hai, my computer has been hacked," she said immediately, suppressing the shock in her heart.

"Your computer was hacked?" Chen Hai found it equally unbelievable. "Isn't the Bureau's firewall supposed to be world-class? There are only a handful of hackers in the world capable of breaching it..."

"I don't know." The woman looked somewhat dazed.

As a white-hat for the Security Bureau, she often practiced hacking with her colleagues, but even the most powerful intrusion required time. After all, the Bureau's firewall was there; no matter who it was, it was impossible to break through it in such a short time.

Yet just now, her computer had been instantly compromised and taken over, without the firewall offering any resistance. In a silent, instantaneous moment, her computer had been breached.

This sent a chill down her spine.

The more she understood information network technology, the more she realized how unrealistic this scene was.

"Could it be that the Bureau's firewall has a massive vulnerability we don't even know about?" She couldn't believe it.

Magic City, Villa 66.

Su Yuan looked at the computer in front of him. The screen displayed the exact view of the laptop screen belonging to the woman on South Sea Island.

"The national-level firewall is indeed very strong."

Su Yuan nodded slightly. Compared to the network firewalls of departments like the Ministry of Education, the Security Bureau's firewall was directly connected to the national firewall.

Want to hack it? Even the world's number one hacker likely couldn't do it.

Su Yuan's hacking skills were not currently the best in the world, even though the information network knowledge he had learned was generations ahead of Blue Star.

But the time he had spent learning was limited; it had only been a little over ten days since he started.

Therefore, the method Su Yuan was using to control the capable middle-aged woman's laptop at this moment was not a hacker intrusion.

It was an administrative takeover.

Simply put, Su Yuan had logged directly into the South Sea Island Security Bureau's information network using a root-access account, taking over the woman's computer with the highest level of authority.

That was why it hadn't triggered any reaction from the firewall.

After all, according to the firewall's programmed logic, Su Yuan's current actions were classified as internal operations, not an external hostile intrusion.

As for how he knew the credentials for the South Sea Island Security Bureau's root-access account? Naturally, the Grey Mirror had told him.

"Truth Society assassins..."

Su Yuan narrowed his eyes slightly. Since the Truth Society dared to reach their hands into the Xia Kingdom, then they could all just stay here permanently.

This was also the reason Su Yuan had taken over the capable middle-aged woman's computer.

Although the Truth Society assassins were at an absolute disadvantage right now, if things continued to develop without his interference, a few of them would still manage to escape.

South Sea Island, outside the woods.

Captain Chen Hai glanced at the laptop screen, at the words: "They are about to rush out."

Then, he looked toward the woods not far away.

From the moment the capable middle-aged woman said her computer had been "hacked" until now, only twenty seconds had passed.

In the blink of an eye, Captain Chen Hai made his decision.

"Everyone, stand guard! The enemy is about to rush out."

Captain Chen Hai immediately notified everyone.

"Captain..." The capable middle-aged woman hesitated, wanting to say more.

"Being on guard is never a bad thing," Captain Chen Hai explained in a low voice.

Up until now, they didn't know who had "hacked" the computer, what their purpose was, or why they were warning them.

But Captain Chen Hai knew clearly that regardless of whether the news of the enemy rushing out was true or false, there was no harm in ordering everyone to stand guard.

If the message was false and the enemy didn't rush out, they wouldn't suffer any losses; being on guard was just being on guard.

But if the message was true and the enemy really did make a desperate attempt to break out, being prepared in advance would allow them to turn a passive situation into an active one.