Page 505

Crystal chandeliers shone brightly, and elegantly dressed celebrities gathered here—this was a temple of art, and also the pinnacle of fame and fortune.

In the VIP box on the second floor with the best view, a well-known international arms dealer was enjoying the performance below the stage with a glass of champagne and a radiant smile.

He recently made a huge profit by secretly selling a batch of NATO-standard missiles, which should have been destroyed, to an unknown shell company through multiple intermediaries.

What he didn't know was that because he tried to raise the price during the transaction and secretly contacted the CIA to try and win both sides in exchange for political asylum, his name had already appeared in a black notebook.

"Boom, boom."

There was a gentle knock on the door of the private room.

A tall woman in a high-class waitress uniform walked in, carrying a silver tray with a bottle of fine red wine on it.

She had a pair of extremely rare gray eyes, and her emerald green hair was elegantly styled in an updo, making her look capable and aloof.

"Sir, excuse me. This is your Romanée-Conti."

Pu Siqinglan bowed slightly, her voice clear and melodious, carrying fluent German.

"Oh? I don't think I ordered this."

The arms dealer was somewhat suspicious, but being a lecherous and greedy man, he didn't refuse, seeing the expensive wine label and the beautiful waitress in front of him. "Perhaps it was a gift from some friend who wanted to curry favor with me? Come in, beautiful lady."

Pu Siqinglan entered the private room and skillfully opened the bottle and decanted the wine.

"Please enjoy, this is the most wonderful glass of wine you've ever had."

Pu Siqing handed the wine glass to the arms dealer, a meaningful smile playing on her lips.

"Haha, I appreciate your kind words."

The arms dealer failed to grasp the underlying meaning. He took the glass, greedily inhaling the aroma, his gaze lingering on Pu Siqinglan's alluring figure. "After the concert, would you be interested in coming with me—"

Before he could finish speaking...

The orchestra below the stage was playing the climax of the "Radetzky March," and the stirring drumbeats resounded throughout the hall.

In that instant, the arms dealer's face suddenly froze, and the wine glass in his hand fell with a "clatter" onto the thick carpet, the red wine splattering like blood.

He suddenly clutched his chest, opened his mouth wide, and gasped for breath. His face turned a deep liver color due to extreme oxygen deprivation, and his eyes, which had been filled with greed, bulged out, staring intently at the crystal chandelier on the ceiling.

Heart paralysis.

It attacks without warning, yet is deadly and severe.

Pu Siqinglan was not alarmed, and her eyelids did not even twitch.

At this moment, the arms dealer was slumped helplessly on the sofa, his consciousness rapidly fading. In the last moments of his blurred vision, he saw the beautiful waitress calmly walking towards him instead of calling for help.

Pu Siqinglan bent down and pulled the cell phone from his gradually cooling arms—it contained the unique key to his secret Swiss bank account, and was also the tool he planned to use to contact the CIA.

She grabbed the arms dealer's still twitching finger and pressed it onto the fingerprint unlock button.

Next, she performed an iris scan on him, a series of operations performed with effortless grace, as if she were manipulating an inanimate object.

"The money that originally belonged to the organization, plus the wealth you have accumulated over the years... totals 630 million US dollars."

Pu Siqinglan looked at the successful transfer screen on her phone, then gave a cold smile to the still-warm corpse. "Thank you for your generous gift."

She then formatted the data on her phone and casually threw it into the ice bucket next to her.

The audience erupted in applause, cheering for the wonderful performance.

No one knew that a life had silently vanished in the private room on the second floor.

Five minutes later.

Pu Siqinglan had changed out of her waitress uniform and was now dressed in an elegant black evening gown. She mingled with the departing crowd and calmly walked out of the Golden Hall.

Sigrún has taught at the Iceland University of the Arts as a part-time lecturer since and was Dean of the Department of Fine Art from -. In – she held a research position at Reykjavík Art Museum focusing on the role of women in Icelandic art. She studied fine art at the Icelandic College of Arts and Crafts and at Pratt Institute, New York, and holds BA and MA degrees in art history and philosophy from the University of Iceland. Sigrún lives and works in Iceland.

A heavy industrial underground dock in Kobe Port, Japan, which is publicly declared to be "abandoned".

The massive elevator hummed as it slowly descended thirty meters underground, carrying gin and vodka. The air was thick with the smells of engine oil, ozone, and the stale scent of cooling steel.

When the elevator came to a stop, the sight before him made even the seasoned Vodka gasp in surprise.

In the center of the brightly lit, massive dry dock, a colossal, black steel beast lay silently.

That was a submarine.

Its entire body is a matte black that can devour all light. The streamlined hull exudes a suffocating sense of oppression under the searchlights. Dozens of technicians wearing anti-static work clothes are climbing up and down the hull, making final adjustments. Sparks from welding torches fly down from time to time, like a sacrifice to this monster.

"Big...Big brother..."

Vodka took off his sunglasses, rubbed his eyes, as if he couldn't believe what he was seeing, "This...this was also made by Cointreau? This thing looks even more futuristic than the Americans' nuclear submarines!"

"Yes."

Gin's footsteps echoed clearly as he stepped onto the metal pier. He looked down at the massive ship below, a rare hint of excitement in his eyes.

“Jundu did not directly purchase finished products, as that would be too easy for intelligence agencies of various countries to track. He controlled several shipyards with military backgrounds and, under the guise of dismantling retired submarines in recent years, disassembled and transported the core components of retired submarines from three different countries like pieces of a puzzle, and finally reassembled them here in secret.”

Gin reached out and held onto the railing, pointing to the submarine's jet-black paint job.

"Moreover, the submarine's coating is a stealth coating refined from ore obtained from the Kingdom of Vespania. In the face of that coating, most of the world's current military radars and sonars are nothing more than blind and deaf."

“Vespania…” Vodka swallowed hard. “Wasn’t the organization running out of resources before? How could Cointreau even manage to get his hands on that place?”

"That man's reach extends deeper than we imagined."

Gin sneered and pulled out a cigarette case from his pocket. "With this big guy, we have the right to deploy and withdraw troops in any sea area on this planet. No country's coastline is safe for us."

Just then, Gin's phone vibrated.

He took out his phone, glanced at it, and a cruel smile curled at the corner of his mouth.

"Look, Chianti and his group have already started their 'warm-up exercises'."

"Is it that mission to retrieve the defector scientist?" Vodka asked.

“Ah.” Gin exhaled a smoke ring. “Not only did Cointreau give us this ship, but they also equipped those lunatics in Chianti with the latest stealth attack helicopters. Right now, they should be on the high seas, teaching those traitors who think they’re protected by the CIA a lesson.”

Vodka chuckled, then looked down at the submarine: "Brother, what about this big guy? When will it be ready to move?"

"at any time."

Gin stubbed out his cigarette and flicked it into the dock below. A spark streaked across the air in a red line before being swallowed by the darkness.

At that moment, on the submarine deck below, a man in a dark blue captain's uniform seemed to notice the gaze from above. He turned around and bowed slightly to Gin on the pier.

Gin did not respond.

“The order from Cointreau has arrived.” Gin withdrew his gaze, his voice low. “Its maiden voyage has been confirmed—we have a group of top scientists who have been persecuted and are being transferred from Europe, and they are waiting to receive them.”

"Then we don't need to go with them?"

“No need, that’s the ‘transportation team’s’ job. We’re only responsible for clearing obstacles for the organization.” Gin turned around, his black trench coat fluttering in the air, and walked towards the elevator with his back to the steel behemoth. “Let’s go, Vodka. This monster has awakened; we don’t need to watch it eat.”

Vodka took one last look at the submarine that was slowly being injected with ballast water in preparation for a diving test, and a surge of unprecedented excitement welled up in his heart. He quickly followed Gin's footsteps.

The old organizations, though terrifying, were at best like rats hiding in the sewers, unable to see the light of day.

Now, with this submarine, with those cargo ships that control global logistics, with those invisible companies... the organization has become a true Leviathan.

It will no longer hide; it is there, vast, silent, and deadly.

As the elevator doors slowly closed, the deep underground world was shut out of sight.

Chapter 135: Shifting Attention

Chiyoda Ward, Tokyo.

The night was as dark as ink, and a sudden downpour enveloped the entire city of Tokyo. The rain lashed against the car windows, forming winding streaks that distorted the dazzling neon lights outside into bizarre and colorful patches.

An unassuming gray Mazda sedan was parked in the shadows under the overpass.

The lights inside the car were not on.

The faint blue light from the dashboard illuminated Amuro Tooru's sharply defined profile. He held a freshly printed report in his hand, his eyes gleaming with thought in the dim light.

"Mr. Furuya."

Sitting in the passenger seat, Kazami Yuya pushed up his glasses, his tone tinged with confusion. "This is a summary of data monitored by Section 4 over the past month. Regarding that organization... it's been so quiet."

"Quiet?"

Amuro Tooru turned a page of the report, his fingertips tapping lightly on the paper. "Have they stopped their activities?"

"No, not stop, but..."

Kazami Yuya carefully chose his words, “Instead, they’ve become ‘mediocre.’ In the past month, we haven’t found any large-scale personnel movements at those key monitored locations, and the Porsche 365A’s movements are rarely linked to murders or bombings. It’s as if they’ve suddenly changed their nature, seemingly only conducting routine intelligence gathering and fund transfers, even more disciplined than ordinary yakuza organizations.”

Amuro closed the report, a faint smile playing on his lips.

As "Bourbon," he was also aware of the organization's recent low profile.

"That's normal, Kazami."

Amuro leaned back in his chair, his gaze piercing through the rain as he looked at the hazy Tokyo Tower in the distance. "Rum's downfall was a devastating blow to the organization. The intelligence team is practically paralyzed, the position of second-in-command is vacant, and internal factions are rampant. Right now, they're like a badly wounded beast hiding in a cave to lick its wounds."

"You mean...they're currently in a weakened state?"

"You could say that."

Amuro Tooru nodded, a hint of relief flashing in his eyes. "Gin may be crazy, but he's not stupid. In times like these, lying low is the wisest choice. The tasks I've been given lately have all been trivial business investigations; it seems their primary goal right now is to maintain stability."

This is undoubtedly good news for the police.

The more low-profile an organization is, the less harm it poses to society, and the more time the police have to infiltrate and plan.

Amuro Tooru even felt that if this situation continued, the day when this cancer would be completely eradicated might not be far off.

"But, Mr. Furuya..."

Kazami Yuya did not relax. He took out another file from his briefcase, his expression becoming even more serious. "Compared to the dormant Black Organization, another force has been unusually active recently."

"You mean... that organization that's searching for gems?"

"Yes. That organization that's jokingly called the zoo, but actually runs a professional assassination platform."

Kazami Yuya pointed to a photo in the file—a blurry surveillance screenshot taken three days earlier at the scene of a jewelry exhibition theft. In the photo, a figure wearing a strange mask was escaping using a hang glider, but it wasn't Kaito Kid, and a red spider pattern was left on the wall at the scene.

"In the past two weeks, they have committed a series of crimes in Europe, Southeast Asia, and Japan. Their methods are extremely high-profile, even bordering on provocative towards the police. They seem to be frantically searching for the legendary 'Pandora' gem."

"There's even intelligence indicating that they attacked several cargo ships belonging to a certain country's conglomerate on the high seas and stole some high-tech equipment," Kazami added.

Amuro Tooru took the photo, his brows furrowing slightly.

"The zoo... those weirdos?"

According to what he knew, they were a group of madmen who committed crimes everywhere in search of some gem that could grant immortality. Although they had been active before, they mostly played a cat-and-mouse game with Phantom Thief Kid, and sometimes clashed with the Black Organization. This was the first time they had acted so high-profile and aggressively.

"Perhaps it's because the Black Organization's contraction has made them feel they have an opportunity to take advantage of the situation."

Amuro Tooru made a judgment: "Just like the world of the underworld, it's all about the waxing and waning of power. When the tiger is sick, the monkeys naturally want to become king."

"Should we intervene?"

"of course."

Amuro Tooru's eyes sharpened. "No matter what gem they're looking for, if it threatens national security, they're our enemy. Keep a close eye on them, Kazami. Maintain the status quo with the Black Organization for now, and shift your focus slightly towards the 'zoo'."

"Yes!"

Amuro Tooru looked out at the torrential rain, and the vague unease in his heart was suppressed by this seemingly reasonable explanation.

……

at the same time.

The high seas of the Pacific Ocean, a turbulent area 400 nautical miles from the Japanese coastline.

A real storm is brewing here.

Giant waves, reaching heights of five meters, rose and fell like black mountains, while gale-force winds and torrential rain reduced visibility to the extreme.

In such severe weather, a high-speed patrol boat, without any navigation lights on, was navigating between the crests and troughs of the waves.

"Target locked. Bearing 0-3-0, distance 2 nautical miles."

The cabin was dark. All the lighting came from the dim green glow emanating from the terminal.

The one speaking is agave.