Warhammer: Hail to the Void Lords!.

Chapter 984, 08.983: 'Who is Mr. Kingston?'

Since the public corridors and private offices are not connected to the same power supply system, the sudden power outage in the corridors did not affect the still brightly lit and luxurious atmosphere inside the offices.

"Speaking of which, how did this Mr. Kingston become so rich? He donated so much 'funds' to us, and it is thanks to him that we have achieved what we have today, and can stay safely in the General Staff instead of going to the front lines to die."

"Some things are better left unsaid. All we need to know is that Mr. Kingston is working for... some big shots we can't afford to mess with."

"That's not something we should worry about." The lieutenant colonel lit a fine cigar and said leisurely, "Alright, let's get to work. Investigate the next moves of that naval lord colonel, intercept those 'sans-culottes' military action plans, and increase our bargaining power in the military's arbitration tribunal."

"Now, we need to take the five thousand that the navy obtained..."

Boom!
A dull, loud bang abruptly interrupted their conversation.

The heavy mahogany door of the office was suddenly kicked open from the outside by an irresistible force.

The two were immediately taken aback.

"Put down your weapons!" Tei walked at the front, not drawing her gun, but revealing the scarlet rose knot. "Agent of the Divine Emperor, ordered to investigate the case."

"Intrusion!"

The lieutenant colonel reacted swiftly, immediately drawing his pistol and pointing it at the judge.

The staff captain turned and rushed toward the wall, preparing to ring the alarm bell that connected the entire camp.

Snapped!
A muffled gunshot, filtered by a silencer, rang out, and the huge glass window of the office shattered with a crash.

A silver bullet, whistling with death, precisely severed the arm of the lieutenant colonel who was holding his gun.

At the same time, the military political commissar, Farida, was equally quick-witted and nimble.

She had deliberately brought a smaller laser pistol, and almost the instant the other party moved, she raised her hand, and a silent beam of light flashed, accurately blowing the staff captain's head off.

Two Astartes monks clad in black power armor slipped in from outside the door and then closed it behind them like ghosts, silently guarding the entrance and turning the place into a forbidden zone isolated from the world.

They and Farida walked forward one after the other, calmly observing the indoor environment.

"How could this be... the courtroom? The military supervisory committee? How... how did you find this place?!" The lieutenant colonel, lying on the ground, was deathly pale. He clutched his bleeding arm with his only remaining hand and asked in terror.

“As long as someone carries out your plan, we can follow the clues, peel back the layers, and eventually find this place,” They said coldly. “I heard you wanted to steal the frontline battle plans?”

"This is...this is an order from the General Staff! We are merely exercising the supervisory authority entrusted to us by the Military Affairs Department! We have the right...cough..."

He was speaking when suddenly his eyes widened, his body stiffened abruptly, and veins bulged on his face, making him look terrifying. Then he collapsed to the ground like a lump of mud and fell silent.

Tey frowned and quickly stepped forward to examine the body.

“He’s dead. It’s neurotoxin, hidden under his gold dentures. Strange, he didn’t bite it open himself; it seems to have been released automatically from inside the dentures,” They said after forcibly prying open the deceased’s mouth and examining it carefully.

Farida stepped forward and observed the deceased's face, contorted with extreme pain.

"He didn't even know that his dentures contained a deadly poison? Wait a minute!"

Farida suddenly realized something and immediately began searching the surrounding area. She first touched the bottom of the table, then peered underneath, carefully feeling every possible hiding place with her gloved hands.

Soon, her fingertips touched a tiny bump that didn't match the material of the tabletop.

Snapped.

She kept it.

“It’s a remote control device…” Farida examined the cylindrical object in her hand, which was only the size of a button. She looked at They and said, “It seems to be remotely controlled. But who would have put it here?”

They left the body and began searching the surrounding area.

As a God Emperor agent who had undergone countless rigorous training sessions, she knew very well that it was no longer important to investigate who had installed the remote control, eavesdropped, and set the trigger in this office.

The important thing was how much useful information she could quickly glean from this place. "Search for anything useful here quickly. We must leave before backup power is restored," Thee calmly ordered.

She stood up from beside the body and carefully flipped through the files in the office. Seeing this, Farida began to assist her in the investigation.

The other Astartes entered from outside, and Pirus, with his extraordinary meticulousness, searched for any potentially useful clues for They.

But Brother Albion stopped abruptly halfway through his journey.

He abruptly turned his head, the red goggles beneath the skull mask turning an eerie red. He strode toward a row of bookshelves.

Beep!

He deftly detonated the detonator of a miniature molten metal bomb hidden under classified documents with a single finger.

"A bomb?" Farida carefully retrieved a small, molten bomb from a book whose pages had been ripped out. "How did this end up here?"

"It seems someone is very careful to guard against anyone who might trace this place. If all else fails, they'll destroy any information that could potentially be exposed."

This guy is very capable, comparable to many of the senior agents I've met in the Inquisition.

"We must be careful," They said with a grave expression, his brow furrowed.

Brother Albion continued his search of the area where the bomb had been found. Soon, he discovered a hidden box disguised as a fake book.

Inside the hidden box was a small safe, made of indestructible refined gold. Its small size and custom-made miniature mechanical lock cylinder, which was different from the standard imperial lock, made it almost impossible to open by conventional means.

Faced with such a cleverly designed existence, They had just frowned when she heard a soft "click" from Brother Albion's hand.

The next second, he casually tossed the complicated lock cylinder out, and it landed on the ground with a "thud".

"Intelligence documents found." He pulled out a parchment from it and reported coldly in his emotionless electronic voice.

The squad leader, Brother Lionas, used his superhuman senses and astonishing information processing abilities to quickly scan the documents.

Then, with a level of eloquence and expression that most Ministry of the Interior clerks could only dream of, she assisted the judge in quickly extracting useful information, summarizing it, and expressing it accurately and concisely.

Before long, they painstakingly sifted through the massive amount of information and figured out the pattern of collaboration between the two deceased in the office:

As a mid-level officer, the lieutenant colonel was responsible for intercepting sensitive intelligence from high-level meetings.

The captain, a mid-to-low-ranking officer, was responsible for taking the intelligence prepared by the other side out and hiding it at a pre-arranged rendezvous point, waiting for the other side's agents to come and collect it.

The two were preparing to deliver the message that "the Imperial Navy has purchased five thousand eight-wheeled vehicles to form a new type of force" when They and Farida successfully tracked them down and caught them red-handed while they were processing the intelligence.

Although both women are now dead, they still discovered clues in the office that hadn't been destroyed in time—they had been passing on frontline military intelligence of the Whirlwind Front to a mysterious man called "Sir. Kingston".

This "Mr. Kingston" must undoubtedly be an alias. Even when Thee used her highest authority to search the Tribunal's portable Thinker's Data Panel, she could not find such a person.

But They still discovered a coincidence that was by no means a coincidence—the frequency of direct communication between this mysterious man and his informants would change regularly with the fluctuations of the warp storms—which strongly suggested that he was someone who traveled through the void year-round.

Following this lead, They quickly discovered that the timestamps of her communications closely matched the timestamps of several merchant fleets that sailed out of the warp rift to deliver supplies to Minerva.

In terms of timing, it always happens within three days after leaving the subspace passage, and "Mr. Kingston" will then begin encrypted communication with his informant.

Even more chillingly, their correspondence revealed that the two officers made no secret of their ambition to become traveling merchants or join a dynasty of traveling merchants, and that they needed the support of this "Mr. Kingston."

They probably never realized the real cause of their deaths—their tension and resistance stemmed from the belief that they had been caught red-handed for leaking military secrets to the merchant ronin faction.

It's still too early to say who this person truly is, but judging from his incredibly extravagant spending and the powerful influence revealed in the subtle clues, he probably has very deep connections with a certain, or even some, merchant and wandering merchant families.

What exactly do they want to do?
"Brother Albion, dispose of the corpses here. Return everything inside to its original state. Brother Lionas, quickly compile an intelligence report and send it to Horatio. Let him know who has plotted against him."

(End of this chapter)