Sinister Motives

The atmosphere in the meeting room was exceptionally heavy.

Lerill sat at the foot of the table, listening to the Chief Executive Officer speak. However, countless stray thoughts were inexplicably flooding his mind.

The core laboratory destroyed, S-003 Primordial Light missing, the group entering its highest state of combat readiness...

These terms swirled in his head, yet he felt no sense of crisis, much less the tension of someone prepared to live or die with the group.

He was simply wondering: where was his exit strategy?

Lerill silently apologized to the group in his heart.

He felt no obligation to share the risks with Deep Blue Route.

He had no desire to go down with this sinking ship.

Loyalty?

What the hell was that?

There had never been any loyalty between him and Deep Blue Route.

There was only profit and obedience under the threat of violence!

He worked for the group, and the group gave him a high position, wealth, and power. It was an exchange of equal value, nothing more.

Now, the group was facing a crisis—a massive one.

He had never even heard of that core laboratory or S-003 Primordial Light before.

But seeing the CEO’s grave expression, he knew this was no small matter.

What if the group really did collapse in the face of an irresistible force?

He needed to survive, and he needed to live even more comfortably in the future.

Lerill quietly scanned the room.

On both sides of the long table, the high-ranking executives who were usually so imposing now wore solemn expressions. Their brows were furrowed and their gazes heavy, looking for all the world like they were deeply worried about the group's crisis.

But he believed that many of those present were thinking exactly the same thing he was.

One couldn't climb to this position without a sufficient amount of selfishness.

Loyalty was used to discipline low-level employees; those at the top were always bound together by profit.

Karo sat beside him, his face unreadable.

However, Lerill noticed Karo's fingers tapping rhythmically on his knee under the table—a habitual movement when he was thinking.

What was he thinking? Was he also considering an exit strategy?

The head of the department in charge of external armed vessels was staring at the documents on the table, his eyes clearly drifting. Was he calculating how much military force he could mobilize? Or was he wondering if those forces could become his own bargaining chips if the group fell?

The Intelligence Department manager had his eyes narrowed, making it impossible for anyone to tell what he was thinking. But Lerill would bet that his private intelligence network was currently working overtime, gathering every scrap of useful information.

The Chief Scientist sat with his head down, the light reflecting off his glasses. The department he led held many of the group’s technologies. If the group really met its end, how much of that technology could he take with him?

A pack of vultures, each harboring their own sinister motives.

The corner of Lerill’s mouth twitched into a brief smirk before he quickly regained his composure.

...

The CEO sat at the head of the table, watching the group below.

In his eyes, those grave expressions, furrowed brows, and focused gazes all carried a hint of the ridiculous.

These people thought they were hiding it well.

But they didn't know that he knew exactly what was going on in their heads.

Some were even calculating whether they could use this upheaval to eliminate a few eyesore political rivals.

It didn't matter.

The CEO picked up his glass and took a slow sip.

These people thought they were the group's high-ranking leadership, the controllers, the people in the inner circle.

But they were all wrong.

In the eyes of the true masters of Deep Blue Route, they were no different from the low-level employees—all were pawns that could be discarded at any time.

The group’s true core team consisted of only a few people. They rarely showed their faces and never participated in meetings like this.

They remotely controlled everything in the group, extending their tentacles to every corner of the sea through layers of proxies.

The executives before him were merely puppets pushed to the front of the stage.

The useful ones were kept.

The useless ones were replaced.

A pawn wanting an exit strategy?

Fine.

Provided they were first stripped to the bone and drained of every last bit of value by the group.

The atmosphere in the meeting room remained heavy.

Everyone maintained a solemn facade, as if they were all deeply distressed by the group’s crisis.

Meanwhile, the darkness in everyone's hearts seemed to be expanding at a rapid pace.

...

At the same time, beneath the surface of the sea near the Deep Blue Route headquarters.

A massive bubble hung quietly in the dark water.

Inside the bubble, five figures stood in a circle.

“This is it—the Deep Blue Route headquarters,” the demon man said.

He looked through the bubble at the island looming in the distance and sneered. “The area around this island is interfered with by a very powerful mysterious force; its concealment is incredibly strong. Even if an ordinary person passed right by it, they wouldn't notice a thing.”

The elf woman said softly, “Fortunately, we have the Lord God’s guidance, or we would never have found it in a lifetime.”

The captain nodded, his expression grave.

“Alright, let's get down to business.”

“Set the side missions aside for now. The main mission is to hunt down everyone in the Deep Blue Route group.”

“You've seen the scale of this group; their numbers are vast. We can't kill them one by one. That would waste too much time and make it easy for some to slip through the cracks.”

The pale vampire man frowned. “Then what do we do? We can't just charge in and brute-force it, can we? You saw the island's defenses; a direct assault is just suicide.”

“Of course we won't use brute force,” the elf woman spoke up.

“I suggest we first use weapons of mass destruction for a large-scale strike.”

The other four looked at her.

She continued, “Prioritize clearing out the base personnel on the island.”

“They are the most numerous. Once chaos breaks out on the island, it’ll be easy for them to take the opportunity to hide or escape. If they get away and hide, finding them one by one will be the real trouble.”

The female member who created the bubble said, “The island is clearly in a state of combat readiness, and their defense system is quite advanced.”

“Using conventional shells will easily trigger alarms. Besides, with that defense system, ordinary physical explosions might not even cause effective damage.”

The vampire nodded. “True. We need to use some special means.”

The group fell into thought.

“We need a weapon with a wide area of effect. But we can't use something that makes too much noise,” the captain said slowly.

“It has to be silent,” the elf woman added.

“And it must kill without leaving a trace,” the demon man supplemented.

The group exchanged glances.

Though they appeared somewhat timid, the fact that the Lord God had sent only this one squad to exterminate Deep Blue Route was proof enough of how powerful they were.

They were all senior Reincarnators; their 'timidity' was merely caution.

Without the ability to know the plot in advance, such caution was necessary.

The captain was silent for a few seconds before looking up and saying, “It's decided. We'll use that.”

“The fruit obtained from the Pirate World in the past. Its curse effect basically matches our current operational requirements.”

The others thought about it and nodded in agreement.

After briefly formulating an action plan, the bubble began to move slowly, drifting toward the island.