Blank-Face Joe"s steps resounded in the hidden place he had built into his office. He had been using this location whenever he had needed a place where he could calmly focus, and today he needed it more than ever. The last time he had come here, he had used the hidden location to safely breakthrough in his cultivation techniques.But today, he just needed a quiet place where he wouldn"t be disturbed by anyone. After entering walking a few meters inside of the narrow secret pa.s.sage, he arrived in a cubic room that contained a few furniture. In the middle of the room was a mattress that had been put directly on the floor, and on the side was a small desk that was put against a wall, directly in front of a few screens that recorded what was happening all over his mansion.
As he wasn"t going to meditate, he walked past the mattress and sat in front of the desk before lighting the different screens that were in front of him. As the general that dealt with the information business, he couldn"t be unprepared in his own house and had already installed dozens of hidden cameras all over his mansion. He had a few ideas about the intention of the general a.s.sa.s.sin, but those weren"t based on any concrete information and only came from his guts.
Thus, he waited there for a dozen minutes while keeping a look on the different monitors in front of him. Not even thirty minutes after that, he saw his underlings arrive, and he prepared himself to leave for Filthy Jade Palace"s building. With the seven keys in his hand, he could finally take open the treasury of the organization. The treasury contained the infamous Pandora"s Box and the millions of resources the organization had gathered during its existence. As he knew that the days of the city were counted, he needed to gather the most valuable resources before getting out of here, before it turned into a giant mess.
On the wall opposite to the one that contained the different monitor was a strange rifle that hung on it. As he was leaving the room, he looked at it before deciding that he couldn"t leave it here. It was a weapon he had acquired during a secret trade with an otherworldly organization they had been dealing with. The weapon in itself wasn"t anything extraordinary in the universe, and could even be considered as a common oddity in the cities there. But in New Casablanca, the gap between the level of technology made it rare and caused Blank-Faced Joe to doubt before taking it.
After taking the photon rifle from the wall, he pressed a dial that was on the stock, near the trigger, and a few clicking sounds emanated from the rifle as it began folding and shifting. After a few seconds pa.s.sed, Blank-Faced Joe looked at the gun in his hand as he couldn"t help but praise the state of art technology that the alien civilization had developed. His hand moved as he smoothly shoved the gun in a shoulder holster he was wearing, and left the secret room in his office. After a few minutes, he gathered a few important doc.u.ments he had in his office before putting everything in the middle of the room.
Swoosh! Blank-Faced Joe briskly started a fire and began throwing the sensible information he had gathered over the years. He had done many things in the Core, and now that it was time to leave, he was making sure that nothing here could lead to him. After a few minutes of work, a ma.s.sive fire had appeared in the middle of his office and was beginning to eat away the rest of the furniture he had. He turned away and walked out of his office before closing the door back. He didn"t care about putting the fire away, and if the mansion burned, then it would serve his purpose as the house contained several traces of his pa.s.sage. He didn"t know if burning it away would make his traces disappear entirely, but it could still serve as a defensive means to secure his tracks.
"Time to end it all…", he thought as he walked out through the door of his mansion. He saw his underlings standing outside, and they calmly looked at him as he began moving toward them. "You have the keys?", he asked the few men that stood in front of him. They nodded in unison, and a satisfied smile appeared on Joe"s pale face.
"Let"s go.", he exclaimed before beginning his walk toward Filthy Jade Palace. He wasn"t aware of the news of the general"s death had spread, but even if the lowly gangs learned that they wouldn"t be able to hinder his advance and the valuable loot was in the treasury, that was locked and needed the seven keys to open. Even if they tried to bomb the walls down, the building would fall apart before they could evade, creating a dent in the protective walls that sheltered the treasury.
And even if they managed to do that, he would be sure that the secretive general killer wouldn"t stand around while seeing them loot the place. He already had a few hunches about the hidden ident.i.ty of the killer, but as they didn"t contact him, he couldn"t make baseless conclusions on the matter.
"Chances are that the organization is falling down.", he said while pa.s.sing through a narrow pa.s.sage that led to the organization"s building. "But do not fear comrades as today we will take what is our own!" he exclaimed as he felt that the morale of his troops was low. They had been following Blank-Faced Joe for a few years, and after having called him boss for so long, they had started to know him. And they were aware of the strangeness of his actions lately. Richard was one of his most faithful underlings and had even come to consider Joe as a close friend.