On a distant island from the Unique Plains, thick fog enshrouded this place all year long, and because of the vague mana here, no one came here or piqued anyone's interest.
However, under this island was the base of the Unique Plains' most notorious organization, ATLAS!
The star hackers of the Unique Plains were far more active than the Epic Plains counterpart. Not only were they actively involved in all the territories of unique plains, but they also had many spies within these top organizations.
Furthermore, unlike the epic plains, the Star Lord held absolute authority here, and under the Star Lord were the Nine Anonymous Stars!
At this moment, a meeting was being held among these top ten figures of the ATLAS around a round table. They were all wearing full-body battle armor; even their faces were hidden behind masks.
In truth, only the Star Lord knows about the actual appearance of the Nine Anonymous Stars as they all worked alone, and revealing their identities to the other organization members or the other Anonymous Stars was forbidden.
The even bigger mystery was the identity of the Star Lord itself since no one had ever seen the Star Lord's face or heard his real voice.
But today, they were all called back by the Star Lord, which implies the gravity of this matter, and the Nine Anonymous Stars were quite curious about the reason behind this abrupt summons.
"The pillars of Star Hackers, thank you all for gathering here at such short notice." A static voice rang from the only person who was enshrouded in darkness among the ten seats, it was the Star Lord!
The Nine Anonymous Stars didn't speak as they waited for Star Lord to continue since this wasn't where they could talk without Star Lord's command first.
"I summoned you all from your important posts because I think we may have found the clues about the missing Captain Free Sword!" Star Lord statically stated.
Although the faces of Nine Anonymous Stars were hidden, the atmosphere suddenly turned heavy the moment Star Lord revealed this startling news.
At this moment, one of the Nine Anonymous Stars said in his static voice, "Can I have permission to speak?"
They all used voice changers to ensure no one could tell their identities or gender.
"Anonymous Star 4, you may." The Star Lord replied.
"Isn't Free Sword already died within the Dead Faction Territory?" Anonymous Star 4 questioned.
"It is indeed like this. There is over 80% chance of him dying in that explosion and 20% of getting captured by the Dead Emperor. But there seemed to be some kind of hindrance in the Dead Faction Territory after that blast.
"The top figures of the unique plains seem to be avoiding that place, and I've even acquired a piece of highly secretive news that the federation seems to be preparing to flee to the Universal Void.
"Although this is an absurd piece of information, I believe there might be some credibility since my source is very reliable. We have yet to discover the valid reason behind such an action, but we are closely paying attention to it.
"This also brings me to our current meeting. The reason I said that we had found the clues about Free Sword is because we have encountered a very strange event in the past month…" Star-Lord then briefly explained how the Captain Free Sword offender ring was activated and when they tracked the source, it turned out to be someone else.
"Not only does this person somehow acquire Free Sword's offender ring, but he also has a very peculiar background. He's someone who had ascended from the epic plains recently, and not only that, but he even had past dealings with the epic plains' Star Lord.
"In fact, he was the reason the Epic Plains' Star Lord managed to score an impossible achievement and won the chance to ascend. This Faceless Ancient's background is even stranger than this, and his prowess defies common sense.
"Since you all heard about the explosion in the dead faction territory, you should be surprised to know this person is also an atomic weapon expert. So, after analyzing everything, I reached two conclusions.
"First, Free Sword and Faceless Ancient are in the cohort, and all these years that Free Sword was missing, he was in the Epic Plains where he encountered the Faceless Ancient, or he was already in contact with him.
"But the chances of this possibility are meager because I have analyzed Free Sword's nature countless times from his days as the Star Pirate. He was an extremely vicious person who trusted no one; he had betrayed countless people and never worked with anyone more powerful than him.
"So, this brings me to my second conclusion, which seems far more accurate in comparison to the former. Free Sword encountered Faceless Ancient, and they both fought!
"Therefore, Free Sword lost, and Faceless Ancient took his everything, even his freedom. There are countless methods to make a tier-8 unique slave. In the end, Faceless Ancient used Free Sword to cause a commotion in the Dead Faction Territory. It even used one of the Faceless Ancient atomic weapons to make it appear Free Sword had perished in desperation.
"But let's be honest and think it more carefully; why would someone like Free Sword risk showing his face, knowing what kind of calamity awaits him?
"Yet, he first draws the federation's attention and then deliberately leads them to the Dead Faction Territory. We can even consider it a good move since both sides would have fought each other.
"But then, like an idiot, he started killing dark beings in Dead Faction Territory. This didn't make any sense, and it was like someone was pulling his strings. Then, Faceless Ancient appeared in the Unique Plains with Free Sword's offender ring.
"No matter how you look at it, if you know about the Faceless Ancient background and his involvement with Free Sword, you will also reach the same conclusion that Faceless Ancient is the true puppet master.
"Now, just a few hours ago, he completely wiped out our No.1 team within seconds. I'm now even more sure that he either has the whereabouts of the legendary key or he already had it." Star Lord revealed his conjecture, which shocked all the Anonymous Stars and made them dreadful because his analysis made simply too much sense.
"Either way, now he's our prime target, and we need to move before someone else figures it out. That's why I summon you all here to give you this top priority task, which has to be completed no matter the price!" Star Lord statically declared.
"Capture Faceless Ancient at all costs, and the most effective way is to make him leave the Unique Plains, and we can all personally move, and he won't be able to stop us!"