Only two people know the coordinates of the command center: one is an elder who has already entered the New World, and the other is Nie Xingjun, the current acting speaker of the Federation Parliament!
Nie Xingjun is a rising star in politics in recent decades. If nothing unexpected happens, he will be the Speaker of the House of Representatives and the Number Three person in the entire Eastern Federation during the next parliamentary election. He is already 140 years old this year, and according to Federation rules, he still has 30 years left in his term. So, barring any unforeseen circumstances, his position in the House of Representatives should be fixed.
However, with the outbreak of the New World incident, the older generation of leaders, such as Zhang Zhengyuan and Hou Tianhua, had already rushed to the New World. The middle-aged generation took over almost instantly, and the original successor to the Federation Speaker was Hou Nanfeng, the Southern District Commander trained by the Hou Family.
However, because the initial plan was to lure out the King of Qin, the big fish known as Number One, Hou Nanfeng tragically became a bait in the command center. Otherwise, this rising star of the Nie Family would never have been chosen as the acting chairman.
Even so, the Nie Family is a family with a deep foundation. Since taking over the Federation, its policies have been generally effective and the army has mostly supported it. However, it is only now that Nie Xingjun has realized that he doesn't seem to understand the Federation very well.
The alarm sounded, but not a single soldier came to his rescue. He couldn't even use his special authority to mobilize the army or announce to the outside world that he was being held hostage!
As one of the highest-ranking figures in the Federation, his authority extends beyond simply mobilizing the military and surrounding security forces; he can also release information to the media and announce the current situation at any time. This is the kind of authority protected for high-ranking politicians, and as the acting speaker, his authority is almost the highest. But now, his authority has been restricted!!
Nie Xingjun stared at the woman disguised as a secretary as if he had seen a ghost, his shock even greater than when Number One wanted to shut down Data City.
At this moment, he had no interest in thinking about Wang Ye's escape or Heavenly Secrets's disappearance; his mind was completely focused on who this person in front of him was.
Even the Speaker's authority, even if he is acting Speaker, is the highest authority in the Federation. To ban it, the entire House of Representatives must vote, and a two-thirds majority is required to pass a bill restricting it. Then, all three houses of Congress must convene for deliberation and three consecutive votes to temporarily block the Speaker's authority. This is almost equivalent to a coup.
In the hundreds of thousands of years of the Data City Federation, this kind of thing has never happened even once; it has only been a scenario imagined by directors in many movies.
But a situation like today's is something no one could film, because no one could possibly have imagined it.
The highest-ranking official in a country had his authority quietly restricted.
Who is this?
Top hacker?
How is that possible?
"No one is allowed to leave this room," the woman said to Nie Xingjun. "Come with me."
At this moment, Nie Xingjun no longer possessed the aggressive demeanor he had displayed earlier, and became extremely cautious.
This woman knows everything about the Federation and has the ability to restrict my authority; I can't even imagine the power she wields behind the scenes.
As they left the conference room, the woman looked at the other person and asked, "Where is the command center?"
"You can just disable my permissions without knowing where the command center is?"
"Still testing the waters?" the woman said coldly. "The coordinates of the command room were given to you by Zhang Zhengyuan. No one wants to alert Zhang Zhengyuan's line of work. Naturally, only he knew about hiding the command room back then."
"May I ask who you are?"
My surname is Long.
"Dragon" Nie Xingjun's pupils shrank instantly.
There has always been a rumor within the family that behind the ten major families, there is actually a hidden family, namely the Long Household.
But many people, including himself, didn't believe the rumor. Neither the political nor the business world had heard of any powerful figure surnamed Long. These things couldn't be hidden; in Data City, the higher the status, the greater the authority, and everything was recorded in the data archives. This person before him was like a bug.
"There are some things you don't need to know yet. Your authority will be temporarily taken over by someone else. All you need to do is take me to the command center."
Replace my permissions?
Looking at the other party's nonchalant demeanor, Nie Xingjun was extremely conflicted. How could the other party talk about something as simply as drinking water?
What exactly happened?
--
"Ladies and gentlemen," a middle-aged man said quickly after the woman left the conference room, standing at the front table. "I will now take over the meeting. From this moment forward, the Federation will enter a state of emergency. All electrical power will be mobilized to supply the New World. Everyone in the three industrial zones will be evacuated, as will all elderly people in the three alternate worlds. All alternate worlds will be shut down within three hours to prepare for the upcoming power needs!"
"This"
Everyone stared in disbelief at this newcomer. Who was this? A madman?
Shut down all other worlds?
Even Zhang Zhengyuan wouldn't have said something so crazy back then.
However, the reason why no one dared to refute this was that they could see from the permissions that the man's current permissions were those of the Speaker of the Council, and there was no question of him acting as a proxy.
The Federation, with its highest authority, typically requires a two-thirds majority vote in both houses of Congress and several complex procedures to formally appoint a speaker. Yet here, in just a few minutes, the acting speaker was replaced by someone they'd never seen before?
Even playing house shouldn't be this casual!
Who are these people?
"Just do it, don't ask why. If it weren't for the hassle of replacing all of you at the last minute, I wouldn't have bothered waiting for you all this time." The man said coldly, "Be smart, don't cause trouble, or I can't guarantee the consequences!"
Everyone: "."
--
"What? Shut down all the otherworld areas?"
The regional officials who received the news were completely stunned. How come there was no word about such a big thing? Had the higher-ups gone mad?
At this moment, Elder Jin, who was now in charge of the Jade Dynasty Realm, naturally also received the news. Only now did he fully believe Wang Ye's words.
It's possible that the Federation is actually controlled by a group of people, or that someone in the Federation has been manipulating everything behind the scenes all along!
"What's going on above?" Elder Jin said sternly, "Even if the New World is the mainstream project now, the old world also has huge benefits and can accommodate a lot of civilians. Shutting it all down and abandoning it is tantamount to completely cutting off our escape route."
" Elder Jin, we don't know either. The higher-ups said it's a client update for the New World, which requires a huge amount of electricity. Not only do they have to shut down the power to other other worlds, but they also have to shut down the basic power supply to many areas. They're currently ordering the civilians in those areas to evacuate as soon as possible. I've never heard of such a large-scale operation in my entire life!"
"Yeah, have those people up there gone mad?"
"Have you checked with your superiors?"
"How could it not be verified? We've contacted almost every possible channel. More than seventy members of the House of Representatives are giving the same answer, and the military has already entered the city, saying they received a top-level military order. This action shows they didn't consult us at all. Old Jin, what do you think we should do? The Jade Dynasty World is our foundation!"
"Please wait a moment, let me find out first."
After hanging up the call, Elder Jin looked at Wang Ye and said, "It seems what you said was true. Do you know what they're planning to do?"
Wang Ye took a breath. "There's too little information, I don't know much, but I'm pretty sure that the acting speaker you mentioned has already been taken into custody. I was right, time is running out!"