Right at that moment, the eyes of the person leaning on the pole suddenly froze. He stiffly turned his head and looked at the empty ground not far from him. After a few seconds, a silhouette of a person could be seen slowly appearing there.
Although the person wore a female soldier"s uniform, the presence he gave off didn"t feel anything like a female. The cold look in his eyes gave him a chill that rushed up from his foot all the way up to his head.
“Thank you for taking care of my two comrades,” he said calmly.
Before the person leaning on the pole could even say a word, he felt as though he had fallen into an icy cave. The bone chilling cold made everything feel like they had slowed down to a snail"s pace. He couldn"t distinguish if a few minutes had pa.s.sed or seconds. Before he could warn his comrades about the new arrival, that person had already disappeared without a trace.
“What is happening?” He looked around in shock. He discovered that the two groups who had been battling furiously had stopped some time ago. The two groups looked at each other in confusion, looking as though they had no idea what had happened.
“Team Leader Kong, did you sense him as well?” He looked at his comrade who was leaning on the wall.
“Yeah!” Team Leader Kong"s expression was frozen as he looked towards a certain direction and answered in a certain tone.
“Was he Lieutenant General Ling?” He gulped audibly. At first, he was calling Ling Lan by her name, but now he referred to Ling Lan with her t.i.tle respectfully.
“It"s probably him. It can only be him.” Team Leader Kong felt like his entire body had turned into an ice cold corpse. That feeling came swiftly and deadly. When he finally came to his senses, he realized that Li Lanfeng and Luo Lang had already disappeared from their sight.
“To be able to take them away silently without us reacting, that kind of strength…” The person leaning on the pole looked at Team Leader Kong with cold sweat on his head. The words ‘imperial realm formidable warrior" quickly appeared in his mind.
“That"s why I said don"t look down on General Ling Xiao"s son. Their bloodline is full of cheat codes.” Team Leader Kong smiled ruefully as he shook his head. At first, he wanted to find a chance to talk to Lieutenant General Ling peacefully. Now, it seemed Lieutenant General Ling didn"t even want to give him a chance to even meet him.
“How are we going to write the report?” A slight look of shame appeared on this team leader"s face. He remembered being all confident and dismissive about Ling Lan in front of his chief. Now, they were totally played by Ling Lan in the palm of her hands. He could feel his cheeks turning red from embarra.s.sment.
“Oh you.” Team Leader Kong also remembered his comrade"s dismissive att.i.tude from before. “Now, even if you were to speak the truth, no one would believe you.”
Lieutenant General Ling had already reached the imperial realm… or perhaps an even higher stage? If they stated that it was the reason why they failed their mission, their colleagues probably would think that it was an excuse for their failure. Imperial realm before the age of 25? That was indeed quite unbelievable.
“Now the only thing we can do is to make sure we corroborate our reports. We"ll say that he was too cautious so he discovered us when we got close so we didn"t have a chance to surround him and thus he got away.” Team Leader Kong still wanted to be able to stand with his head held up high in front of his colleagues. By reporting like this, although they had failed, they could just make themselves seem unprepared to capture Ling Lan, not like how it actually was, being totally rolled over by Ling Lan. Plus, if they actually reported the truth, no one would believe them. They could only make up a reason that everyone could accept.
The person leaning on the pole thought for a moment. Other than that, they didn"t have any other way of writing a sensible report. In the end, he could only agree with a sullen look on his face. Of course, they didn"t forget to remind their team members of this. Their team members also didn"t want the news of them losing a four against one to be known by others. Even if their team leader didn"t remind them, they wouldn"t tell anyone of such a shameful performance.
Just like that, in order to save face and to not let anyone make fun of them or misunderstand, they reported those words in the end. The military headquarters totally didn"t suspect anything. In reality, they had already known that Li Lanfeng had followed Ling Lan there. He was a very perceptive individual, so it was normal that they were discovered.
Thus, the fact of Ling Lan being an imperial realm formidable warrior became hidden away just like that.
Of course, these two team leaders only guessed that was the case. After calming down and thinking about it, they also believed that it was impossible that Ling Lan was an imperial realm formidable warrior. Theoretically, domain realm masters who were on par with them were able to slow them down and cause them to hallucinate for a short period of time like what Ling Lan did just now. Then that person would be able to take others away and save them.
If he was actually stronger than them like being an imperial stage domain expert, he would have just needed to completely overpower them. He didn"t need to use that method to save his comrades and then leave.
The two of them felt that that was the truth of what happened so the feeling of shame in their hearts instantly disappeared. After all, they didn"t hide much in their reports. The opponent was indeed overly cautious, found an opening and got away.
At that moment, Ling Lan, Li Lanfeng and Luo Lang went into a random person"s house and hid there.
If the military headquarters knew they were on Planet General, hotels and hostels wouldn"t be suitable for them to hide in since they required their identification cards. Without Little Four, Ling Lan felt it was inconvenient everywhere she went and was in danger of exposing themselves at any moment. Faced with an overpowering mainframe of the Federation, Li Lanfeng could only block off partial amounts of information. He couldn"t go around the mainframe and enter flawless data to create new ident.i.ties. This was why they could only stay at one place for a short while. Otherwise, the mainframe would discover that there was something wrong with the place they were staying at.
In reality, planets nowadays were all under surveillance through one mainframe. However, this type of surveillance inevitably had places where it was white s.p.a.ce or other parts where it didn"t function as well. Those places were the average residential districts. Although there was still surveillance equipment in these districts, security wasn"t as tight. At most, every street would have one surveillance camera.
Li Lanfeng chose a house with no one living in it out of the many average houses around them. It was only for hiding themselves for a short while. A house with no one living in it was the most suitable choice.
The three of them chose a living room in the attic and sat on the floor.
“We can"t go back to Lingtian,” said Li Lanfeng.
“I don"t understand, how did we expose ourselves?” Luo Lang pulled on his hair in frustration. They clearly disguised themselves very well. He didn"t want to suspect his friends, but reality was forcing him to think that way. That feeling of distrust made him frustrated and annoyed.
“Don"t think too much. It has nothing to do with Qi Long and the others. The Federation"s military headquarters" research inst.i.tute invented a new tool that can detect domain concept energies. We were discovered probably when we activated our domains. That"s how we were caught,” Ling Lan said calmly. She knew what Luo Lang was frustrated about from his expressions.
“It"s pretty much the same as what I had predicted. I have been thinking that there was something that they used to detect our presence. I just didn"t think it could detect domain concept energies,” said Li Lanfeng.
“Does that mean if we don"t activate our domains, they wouldn"t be able to find us?” Luo Lang"s eyes glimmered.
“But if we don"t use domain energy, can we change our looks?” Li Lanfeng thought of another possibility why they were being followed. Although they could change the way they looked without activating their domains, they still needed to control the domain energies within themselves to adjust the muscles on their faces. He didn"t know whether that tool could also detect that as well.