Hearing Marshal Chu Xuan's report,
Lilith was silent for several seconds.
She said solemnly, "Keep searching! Keep trying to make contact! You must make sure His Majesty comes back safe… Until then, all information and news concerning His Majesty is sealed off from the outside. Understood!"
"Yes," Marshal Chu Xuan said.
"If anything happens, contact me at once. Don't contact Grand General Charlotte for now; she's still in labor. After the birth, her body will go through a weak spell too. It isn't the time for her to hear such things," Lilith added.
"Understood," Marshal Chu Xuan answered.
The call ended for the time being.
Lilith took a deep breath, clenched her fists, and bit her lip lightly.
You'll be all right, surely!
All these years we've come through so many storms, so many dangers, and haven't we come through every one?
You're the Emperor of the Owl Dragon Interstellar Empire now.
How could you possibly…
Lilith did not let herself think of those things.
She had a great deal to deal with here.
She opened her top-secret files and chose one with a special number.
It was a contingency plan.
A top-secret contingency plan.
One she never wanted to use in all her life.
Even now, speaking for herself, she did not want to use it.
But as supreme secretary officer of the Owl Dragon Interstellar Empire, as the one that man trusted most.
She knew very well what she ought to do at this moment.
She took a deep breath and opened the contingency plan.
And the condition for setting it in motion was a single line.
【The Emperor dead or missing】
Lilith began, following the procedure laid down in the plan beforehand, to contact one by one the supreme commanders of every fleet group and ace fleet group of the Owl Dragon Interstellar Empire.
She ordered them to draw in their fleet groups, and put each whole fleet group at once on second-degree battle readiness.
To stand by where they were, and not to leave their present stations without her or Charlotte's order.
After that, Lilith contacted the acting lord of the Owl Dragon Star System as well.
From now on the Owl Dragon Star System was under military control; no civilian interstellar ship or fleet was to enter the Owl Dragon Star System.
All applications to use the Star Gates were to be returned.
Acting Lord Jiang Hong, hearing these arrangements, did not understand them.
But she had a premonition that something important was about to happen.
It was as though a stone had been thrown into a calm lake, the ripples beginning to spread across it, outward toward the edges.
After that, Lilith contacted the heads of each of the Owl Dragon's fifteen star regions and gave them some instructions.
The several interstellar trade groups were not left out either.
In short, the whole of the Owl Dragon Interstellar Empire was now in a state of vigilance!
For the public, it was in fact relaxed outside, tight within.
Apart from some special star-system regions being sealed off, and sailing requirements tightened somewhat, there was no great trouble.
But the upper ranks of every power seemed already to have caught some scent.
Lilith returned to the door of the delivery room.
She glanced at the delivery room door.
After a moment's hesitation, she looked to her trusted adjutant beside her and drew her aside. "I must go back to the Owl Dragon Star System for a while. You stay here. The moment Charlotte's delivery is safely over, or if anything else happens, contact me at once. If Charlotte has given birth and wakes and asks about anything, just have her rest first. If… if she wants to contact His Majesty. Then find some reason to put it off for now; in short, have her rest well. If necessary, you may have the physicians quietly give Charlotte some sleeping medication that won't harm her!"
The adjutant looked at the supreme secretary officer in surprise, swallowed, and nodded. "I… I understand."
"This is in your hands." Lilith patted her on the shoulder, then glanced at the delivery room door.
She walked quickly back the way she had come, stepped onto the hover-lift, and left.
Lilith returned to the Owl Dragon Star System in the shortest possible time.
A matter of ten-odd minutes, one step after the other.
Once back in the Owl Dragon Star System, Lilith went without a pause to the Sin-Dragon Prison.
"Take me to see Renee!"
Warden Sin-Dragon looked at Lilith before her, and sensed that the supreme secretary officer's mood was somewhat off just now; a killing air was coming off her.
"Ma'am…"
"Take me! Or do my orders no longer count with you?" Lilith's icy eyes fixed on Warden Sin-Dragon.
In the end Warden Sin-Dragon said nothing more.
Lilith, as supreme secretary officer, naturally had the authority to intervene in the Sin-Dragon Prison.
One of the few in the Owl Dragon Interstellar Empire of a rank that could.
Soon Lilith walked into the pitch-dark cell.
"Open it; I'm going in." Lilith looked at the glass enclosure and gave the order.
"That…" Warden Sin-Dragon was in a fix again.
"I don't wish to say it twice." Lilith's eyes carried killing intent.
What on earth was wrong with this grand-aunt today?
She felt like a volcano about to erupt at any moment.
Better not cross her, better not cross her.
Warden Sin-Dragon did as she was told.
She raised the glass enclosure over Renee the Angel Queen.
At this, Renee the Angel Queen raised her head and looked at Lilith before her.
"How come you…"
Before Renee the Angel Queen could speak,
Lilith, without the least ceremony, drew a dagger from her waist and drove it straight into Renee the Angel Queen's thigh.
The sight gave even Warden Sin-Dragon a start.
Renee the Angel Queen felt the pain, but still looked Lilith up and down in surprise.
She had formerly handled the dark side of things for the Angel Race, and was very skilled in intelligence and interrogation.
So now, with just one look at Lilith as she was.
She could guess roughly what it was.
"You're very angry right now. It must be because of that Majesty of yours. For you to be this angry. Something must have happened to that Majesty of yours. For instance… he's dead," Renee the Angel Queen said.
The moment she said it.
Warden Sin-Dragon, behind them, changed color.
And Lilith pulled out her dagger and stabbed Renee the Angel Queen in the belly several times more.
Her cold eyes fixed on the other, utterly heedless that Renee the Angel Queen's flowing blood had already dyed her hand red.
"About the Hive Nests, is there something very important you still haven't told us!" Lilith stared at her.
Renee the Angel Queen's face showed some pain, but she still sneered: "I said long ago. You are no match for the Great Existence. Of course… I had ideas of using the Great Existence myself… Now… your leader is dead. No one can stop the Great Existence's descent. Ha-ha-ha-ha…"
This time Lilith did not use the little knife, but simply swung her fists and beat Renee the Angel Queen before her savagely.
After several punches, Lilith said coldly, "His Majesty is not dead!"
With that, she turned her head to Warden Sin-Dragon beside her. "See to her wounds. Without His Majesty's order, she must live. And what you just heard, you ought to understand…"
Lilith left her words unfinished, turned, and left.
Warden Sin-Dragon stood there, somewhat stunned.
That was far too much to take in!