True Apocalypse Game

Aili also chimed in from the side.

"Please, rest assured. I will protect Martha with my life!"

Thomas added timidly, "Y-yes, that’s right. Anyone who wants to hurt Martha will have to step over my dead body!"

They were also worried that if that terrifying organization decided to settle scores later, they would follow the trail back from Martha and find them.

If that happened, they would be utterly doomed.

Even so, the three officers still agreed to take in Martha. They did it for no other reason than to be able to live with their consciences.

Shen Feng smiled faintly and said,

"Don’t worry. I’ve already pulled them out by the roots. Besides, the Spiritual Child is more like a disposable tool to them. They definitely won’t come looking for Martha."

He didn’t explain anything about the Purification Society to the three of them. When it came to such dark secrets, the less Joey’s group knew, the better.

Knowing more would only put them in more danger.

"Beware... the Spider..." Martha suddenly said, facing a nearby wall. Her face was blank, her voice like a monotone, electronic drone.

Shen Feng walked over and stroked the little girl’s hair, committing her words to memory. After everything that had happened, Martha’s words could not be ignored.

He nodded to the three officers, then turned and walked out of the lakeside cabin. The Gray Tide enveloped his body as he strode forward, vanishing into the dense woods in the blink of an eye.

Watching Shen Feng vanish, Joey and the other two stared blankly at the woods for a while, a sense of wistful loss washing over them.

The mysterious Savior had appeared like a gust of wind and left just as quickly.

If Martha hadn’t been right there beside them, they might have wondered if any of it had truly happened at all.

"Chief, what... what should we do now?" Thomas asked Joey, still staring blankly in the direction Shen Feng had disappeared.

Joey took a deep breath, his gaze also fixed on the spot where the Savior had vanished, and said slowly,

"We go back to our duties, of course. The official story is that we found Martha and the other children by the lake. They were just wandering around when we arrived. Also... we need to hold a press conference immediately. We need to blow this thing wide open."

Aili was taken aback and asked,

"Didn’t the Savior just say we’d be fine? Why do we still need to use the media?"

Joey picked up Martha and another child, saying,

"Even if the Savior said that, we still need to do our best to protect ourselves and these kids. The world can’t be saved by just one person. We have to do our part, too."

With that, he carried the two children toward the police car.

Aili and Thomas nodded in agreement. They each picked up one of the other children and followed him to the car.

For now, Shuanghu Town was still quiet. But it was clear that before long, things were going to get very busy...

...

The news of Cheney, the Acting President of the Eagle Country Senate, disappearing from his vacation villa quickly made waves online.

After all, he wasn’t some minor player; he was a major figure with significant influence in Eagle Country’s political landscape.

The first to discover the situation were agents from the Eagle Country’s Special Service Bureau.

The agents assigned to protect Cheney had been unresponsive for over ten minutes, raising alarm bells at the Special Service Bureau.

A joint team from the FBI and the Special Service Bureau was preparing to head to the Maple Leaf Castle villa to investigate when even more explosive news broke online.

Someone had called the police—and notified the media—that more than a dozen children had been found inside Cheney’s Maple Leaf Castle!

These children were all underage, suffered from mental illnesses and communication disorders, and every single one of them was on the national missing persons registry!

Some had been missing for three to five years without a trace, only to turn up here.

Before the Special Service Bureau and the FBI could even reach the scene, a flock of reporters had already descended on Maple Leaf Castle like vultures, capturing the situation as it unfolded.

Aside from the children, there were several dead bodies. Nothing else.

Not only was Cheney gone, but so were the Special Service Bureau agents assigned to protect him.

But the children were enough.

What’s more, all the children were injured and showed clear signs of abuse.

With the precedent of Epstein’s "Loli Island" affair, it was hard not to draw parallels between it and this new case of missing children at Acting Senate President Cheney’s villa.

By the time the agents from the Special Service Bureau and the FBI arrived, news of the villa had already spread across the entire internet. The story was the top headline for every major news outlet.

CNN even gave the villa a name: "Pedophile Castle," a clear parallel to Epstein’s "Loli Island."

Social welfare organizations also arrived swiftly, eager to help and comfort the poor children.

And when the Special Service Bureau discovered they were completely unable to contact Cheney, and that he had left no trace behind, the situation became crystal clear.

He had fled to escape justice.

And no one could say for sure whether other political figures were involved, especially some with immense power.

In an instant, the whole world knew of Cheney’s evil deeds and his flight.

Conspiracy theories also began to fly, suggesting that Cheney had actually been quietly eliminated by a powerful interest group, that the whole affair was tangled up in countless dark and corrupt secrets.

As for the case of the missing children in Shuanghu Town, many people simply treated it as a sidebar to the Cheney scandal, and it received comparatively little attention.

Joey, however, re-established his authority in Shuanghu Town, earning the new-found respect of its residents.

The rescued Little Martha also drew a great deal of sympathy.

...

「New York, Kennedy Airport.」

After leaving the airport, Brendan and David immediately found their pickup vehicle. They got in without a word, and the car headed for the New York headquarters of the Rattlesnake Company.

They had been tied up in an underground lab by the Antichrist, and had only managed to escape by the skin of their teeth. It had been a desperate flight for their lives.

Now that they had finally made it to New York and could catch their breath, they felt no sense of relief.

Cheney was dead.

Although the news reported that Cheney had simply vanished, fleeing to escape justice, the two of them knew the truth: Cheney had most certainly been killed by the Antichrist.

Their handler was gone.

They needed a new leader.

Just then, Brendan’s phone rang. He answered it immediately, and the voice of one of his subordinates came through the receiver.

"Mr. Brendan, please return to the New York headquarters as soon as possible. Mr. Ivanovic from the Middle East Region is back. He said he wants to see you... to discuss the matter of appointing a new leader..."