The secret room is in sight; I take a deep breath and approach the zone with caution. Krognar is a good enchanter, but this woman has powers that are beyond what I can imagine.

"Listen, we won't hurt you if you answer our questions," I say through the door.

"Go fuck yourself." A female voice echoes before the walls gain a reddish color. A heatwave sweeps the area, and some metal helmets lying around become red hot. I can't help but be impressed at her prowess; this is not a mean feat by any stretch of the imagination.

A sigh escapes my mouth as I look at the door separating me from the captured squad leader.

"You cannot escape; there's no way that the Organization will be able to find you," I say, and silence follows.

The heat transmitted through the walls increases again before vanishing. Alison's ragged breath indicates that she has already hit her limit.

"D-Don't fuck with me!" she replies with a wavering voice. "Adam will never let you get away with this!"

I raise an eyebrow, "And who is this Adam?"

Silence falls again; it's barely broken by an inaudible 'fuck' coming from our prisoner.

"I assume it's the one you people refers as the Director, right?" I ask.

"..." Alison doesn't reply, but I'm pretty sure that I hit the nail on the head on that one.

"Tell me what you know about your Organization, and I might let your companions live." I finally resort to threatening her.

"What have you done to the others?! Release them, or I'll burn you alive!" Alison screams and shouts as loudly as she can. Heat waves after heat waves accompany her deluge of insults and threats, but she calms down once she realizes that I'm not saying anything.

"Don't worry. They are safe for now." I say. Of course, this is a complete lie. As far as I know, Alison's companions became a Spirit's lunch. "Cooperate, and we'll let you all go."

"Who are you?" Alison grumbles.

"I'm the one asking questions here. Maybe I'll interrogate Carla then, I'll-"

"Shut up; I'll talk." She says with reluctance after I mentioned her friend's name. "What do you want to know?"

I grin, "That's better. First of all, what is your Organization?"

"The Organization is, as the name suggests, an organization," Alison replies.

"Pump some essence of frost in there," I order a Legionary, who nods before turning a valve. Muffled screams come from the room as the gaseous essence of frost almost freezes Alison to death.

"W-What was that?" she mutters after we stop the deadly gas. Any more than this and she would turn into a human-shaped ice cube. This essence of frost is so potent that it could freeze flames in place.

I didn't believe it at first when a Fabricator explained its properties to me, but I changed my mind after seeing the fluid in action myself.

"Answer me. I won't tolerate any more of your bullshit." I say as exasperation leaks out of my voice.

"F-Fine." Alison, who is barely recovering from the ordeal she just went through, accepts my demands without making a fuss.

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"I'll ask again. What is your Organization?" I say.

"The Organization is dedicated to stopping any form of apocalypse from wiping out life on Earth." The prisoner explains.

Images of the previous timeline, where the Director used his men as one-time use barriers, comes to mind. It seems that reality doesn't align with what Alison is saying. This situation reeks of propaganda and brainwashing, which is a sadly familiar state of affairs at this point.

"Okay," I say as I do my best to appear threatening. "Then, what is the USB port in your head about?"

"You saw it then..." Alison mutters. "I don't know anything about that, it's-"

"EnOuGh!" I shout as I release my aura for a brief moment. From what I hear, it's enough to make Alison fall on her back. "Don't bullshit me, or do you want another dose of gas?"

Alison clicks her tongue; it looks like my threats are enough to make her change her mind.

"Okay, I'll talk. I don't know much, so you'll be a bit disappointed." The prisoner answers.

I refrain from also clicking my tongue, we have no way of confirming that she's telling the truth since our mind-reader cannot access their memories. And I'm afraid that another round of gas will kill her, so we'll have to wait for more information in this particular timeline.

"This 'USB port' as you call it, is a port that allows us to connect to the Organization's mainframe. From what I was told, it's apparently a massive underground network of quantum computers that spans for miles." Alison replies.

My jaw drops at the revelation. As far as I know, quantum computing was in its infancy back when I still paid attention to this kind of information. It couldn't have changed so much in such a short period, so there must be more about this mainframe that Alison lets on. Or she could also be unaware that this 'Adam' is lying to her, it is very likely considering his personality.

But still, it raises another question. Why on Earth would these people connect to a massive quantum computer? It seems to make their abilities stronger, but I can't understand why. It would also explain why Sarah couldn't read the memories of Organization members.

"And what is this mainframe supposed to do?" I ask.

The prisoner clicks her tongue, "Isn't it obvious? It does most of the required calculations for us so we can unleash the power of the World Code without as much backlash."

I nod.

Yes, of course. How could have not figured that out?

"World Code? What's that?" I ask again.

"You can't possibly be serious..."Alison mutters. "I don't know what interrogation technique you're trying to use, but I suggest that you stop." She pauses for a second, "You are aware of the World Code, right?"

"I barely understood a word," I answer honestly.

This 'World Code' she mentioned is a new concept for me. It could just be a different name for spells, like how people on Hisako's planet refers to mana as 'World Energy,' but the fact that these people aren't using mana to fuel their powers tells another story.

Could it be another power system that even the Enforcers don't know about? It is exciting news if that's the case, and it could also shed some light on the origin of Sarah's power, and maybe mine.

It's a chilling thought; maybe I'm not so unique after all...

"Tell me more." I order, "And don't lie to me. If you do, then we will release some gas again."

"Okay, I'll speak." Alison immediately reply. It looks like being gassed by some essence of frost has traumatized her, which is good news for us. Mentioning the gas should be enough to push her to reveal her secrets.

"The World Code is like a theory of everything." Alison declares.

I nod to myself; something tells me that this is going to be interesting.

...Adam's PoV...

I am very disappointed.

The idiots I sent to take care of John Thomson vanished from existence as soon as they arrived. Our surveillance system cannot locate them, and we can't ping them with our system. It can only mean that they were either transported to another dimension in an instant, or they were killed on arrival.

We did detect a surge of mana when Alison and her squad arrived, but it was nowhere near enough to teleport them away. Of course, I already checked for other nearby surges indicating that a large group traveled through dimensions. But, to my dismay, there was nothing.

To put it simply, these people disappeared without a trace.

It cannot be a coincidence; John Thomson must be related to that mysterious phenomenon. I knew that he had good equipment at his disposal, but this is beyond my expectations.

At first, I thought that he was a surprisingly competent enchanter who lucked out and got himself a devoted army.

But reality proved me wrong.

This person was supposed to be an easy target, killing him should have stopped the wave of changes happening in Earth's magical community. Instead, he wipes out my soldiers in less than a millisecond.

It can only mean one thing. This John Thomson isn't a rogue mage; he instead belongs to one of our rivals. It would explain his impossible feats and the disappearance of my soldiers.

But I cannot fathom who his employer might be. As far as I know, nobody else has similar equipment at their disposal. Not to mention that his objectives are unclear. His disturbances are making things more difficult for all of us, so who in their right mind would order such a thing?

Nevertheless, I-

A blinking light on my screen interrupts my thoughts. My eyes widen when I realize that the system successfully found the position of most of the missing squad.

They are located on an unknown planet, far from any of the known worlds.

And also far from our reach.

I shrug, we could attempt to bring them back, but the risk to the system is too high, not to mention the number of resources it would waste. It's a shame, but we'll have to leave them to their own devices. We don't even know if they are still alive in the first place, it wouldn't be funny if we burned down a couple of servers just to realize that we retrieved dead bodies.

It's a shame since some of them would have made excellent pawns given time, but I guess it was not meant to be.

And it isn't like we are short on men. My efforts to increase our 'collecting' has paid off; we have never been so numerous. Of course, cases about missing persons are on the rise globally, but it's so spread out that nobody would suspect a thing. After all, what could link two disappearances cases from opposite sides of the planet?

Most of the new arrivals are surprised and try to escape if they wake up before we finish the procedure. Some unlucky guys also woke up during the surgery to implement the port to connect to the system.

We overwrite their memories afterward, so putting them back to sleep is far more cumbersome than just restraining them during the remainder of the surgery. It's a bit messy, but it doesn't stop our surgeons from doing their jobs. We even soundproofed the operating rooms so that the screams don't disturb the other members of the Organization.

I sigh, what was supposed to be a small problem turned out to be far more troublesome than I anticipated.