Authority Takeover

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

At that moment, dozens of Truth Society assassins had been forced into a wooded area.

Outside, they were surrounded by experts from the Xia Kingdom Security Bureau.

The Security Bureau was an agency similar to the J Bureau.

It simply operated at a higher level, specializing in handling cultivators.

The Xia Kingdom authorities had noticed the team of assassins as soon as they entered the station.

However, the station had been crowded at the time, and they were worried that the assassins might react violently.

So the Security Bureau hadn't immediately moved in to arrest them.

Instead, they kept them under close surveillance.

An hour later, the team began to retreat, leaving the crowded station behind.

Only then did the Security Bureau agents move swiftly, driving them into the woods.

Outside the woods, Chen Hai, captain of the Security Bureau's action team, watched the nearby trees with a grave expression. In a low voice, he asked, "Have we figured out who these people are and why they came to South Sea Island?"

"We don't know who they are." The capable middle-aged woman beside him studied the laptop in front of her and shook her head. "But they're probably here to find someone—or, more likely, to hunt someone down."

That was the conclusion she had reached by reviewing the station's surveillance footage and examining how the black men in sunglasses had searched the area.

The capable middle-aged woman was a member of the Security Bureau's Electronic Information Security Division. She specialized in cybersecurity and was essentially the Bureau's white hat hacker.

White hat hackers were the counterpart to black hat hackers. In essence, they were the same kind of people.

The difference was that black hat hackers hid in the vastness of the internet, their identities unknown, while white hat hackers served the country and protected its information security.

"Who are they looking for?"

Chen Hai asked.

"I don't know..." The capable middle-aged woman frowned. "There's no sign of that person in the surveillance footage."

She had pulled up footage from every camera at the station but hadn't found a single clue.

"Captain, let me take a team in and capture them. We'll know everything after we interrogate them." A burly man grinned.

"We can't afford to underestimate them." Chen Hai glanced at the burly man.

The black men weren't stronger than Dark Force cultivators, but they had plenty of combat experience. Otherwise, they wouldn't have been able to resist when the Bureau launched its surprise attack, let alone escape into these woods.

"Let's wait for the reinforcements to arrive before we push in." Chen Hai chose the safest approach.

His people had already surrounded the small wooded area. The black assassins were like meat on a chopping board, ready to be dealt with at any time. There was no need to rush in now.

Just then,

the capable middle-aged woman, who had been tapping away at her laptop, suddenly changed expression.

"What?"

She stared fixedly at the screen. Her laptop had slipped out of her control and "opened" a blank document on its own. One character after another began appearing on the page.

"Director Lu, what's wrong?" Chen Hai noticed the change in her expression and looked over. His gaze fell on the laptop screen.

One character after another rapidly appeared in the blank document.

"They're about to break out."

"What do you mean?" Chen Hai looked back at the capable middle-aged woman and saw that her hands were stiff. She wasn't typing at all.

"Captain Chen Hai, my computer's been hacked." The capable middle-aged woman suppressed her shock and spoke at once.

"Your computer's been hacked?" Chen Hai found it just as unbelievable. "I thought the Bureau's firewall was among the best in the world. There are only a handful of hackers in the entire world who could get through it..."

"I don't know either." The capable middle-aged woman looked bewildered.

As a white hat hacker for the Security Bureau, she often practiced hacking with her colleagues. But even the most powerful intrusion took time. The Bureau's firewall was right there, after all. No one could break through it in a short time.

Yet just now, her computer had been taken over in an instant. The firewall hadn't resisted at all. Without a sound, her computer had been hacked.

The thought sent a chill through her.

The more skilled someone was with information and network technology, the more they understood how impossible this was.

"Could the Bureau's firewall have some massive vulnerability that none of us know about?" The capable middle-aged woman couldn't believe it.

Villa 66, Magic City.

Su Yuan looked at the computer in front of him. The screen showed the laptop display of the capable middle-aged woman, far away on South Sea Island.

"An official-level firewall really is impressive."

Su Yuan gave a slight nod. Unlike the firewalls used by the Education Bureau and other agencies, the Security Bureau's firewall was connected directly to the national firewall.

Hacking into it? Even the world's top hacker probably couldn't manage it.

Su Yuan wasn't the world's top hacker—not yet. The information and network technology he had learned was many eras ahead of Blue Star, but he had only been studying it for a little over ten days.

So the method he was using to control the capable middle-aged woman's laptop wasn't a hack.

It was an authority takeover.

Put simply, Su Yuan had logged into the highest-privilege account on the South Sea Island Security Bureau's information network and used it to take control of the woman's computer.

That was why the firewall hadn't reacted at all.

From the firewall's point of view, Su Yuan's actions were internal activity, not an intrusion by an outside attacker.

As for how he knew the highest-privilege account for the South Sea Island Security Bureau's information network, the Grey Mirror had told him.

"Truth Society assassins..."

Su Yuan's eyes narrowed slightly. Since the Truth Society had dared to reach into the Xia Kingdom, he would make sure none of them left.

That was why Su Yuan had taken control of the woman's computer.

The Truth Society assassins were at a severe disadvantage, but if things continued as they were, a few of them would still escape without Su Yuan's intervention.

South Sea Island, outside the woods.

Team captain Chen Hai glanced at the laptop screen and the words, "They're about to break out."

Then he looked at the nearby woods.

Only twenty seconds had passed since the capable middle-aged woman had said her computer was "hacked."

In that split second, Captain Chen Hai made up his mind.

"Everyone, stay alert. The enemy's about to break out."

Captain Chen Hai immediately warned everyone.

"Captain..." The capable middle-aged woman hesitated.

"Being on alert can't hurt." Captain Chen Hai explained in a low voice.

They still didn't know who had "hacked" the computer, what that person wanted, or why they had warned them.

But Captain Chen Hai knew that whether or not the enemy was about to break out, there was no harm in putting everyone on alert.

If the message was false and the enemy didn't come out, they wouldn't lose anything by staying ready.

But if it was true and the enemy really did make a desperate break for it, being prepared would let them take the initiative instead of being caught off guard.