Chapter 1235 Top-Secret Intel!

• Right now... Michael Shephard sipped the coffee the flight attendant had just poured, gazing at the cotton-white clouds outside the window, and couldn’t help marveling at human tech. Even though he’d reached the Return-to-Void realm, trying to soar ten thousand meters up and leap across the Pacific straight into Braygua still wasn’t happening. So yeah, when it came to the pinnacle of tech—nukes—he was still a little wary. Last time in the far west, he’d survived a small tactical nuke from the Rus Federation, but what if it had been a real, high-yield bomb? Michael wasn’t about to take that gamble. He didn’t need to. Still, the thought sparked a flicker of curiosity. In a country like Braygua where there were no cultivators, what kind of advanced weapon could actually keep so many cultivators in check? One thing was certain: it wasn’t nukes. Otherwise, Braygua wouldn’t invite him onto their home turf. If they were asking him to come, it meant Braygua had something impressive enough to stand up to him. Otherwise, why haul a boulder just to smash their own foot by inviting a Return-to-Void level powerhouse onto their soil? “What kind of weapon could be that strong?” Michael frowned slightly, recalling some top-secret files Minister Xiao had given him. The files only had fragmentary notes about Braygua’s secret weapons... or maybe they were just guesses. Messy, scattered—but there was one line that felt a little credible to Michael. Back in the eighties, a world-famous oil state broke out into an independence war. After World War II, that oil state had always been under Braygua’s thumb. Sure, there were little flare-ups now and then, but nothing serious. Only that one war had the scale and bloodshed to rock the world. It was called an independence war, but those top-secret notes suspected an overseas grandmaster had stirred it up to hunt for treasures in the oil state. Because with the oil state’s own strength, there was no way it could have organized a decent resistance on its own. As the world’s cop back then, Braygua had troops stationed there and hit back right away. But with the backing of that overseas grandmaster, the independence army fought like demons. Braygua’s tanks, planes, armored vehicles—stuff just started blowing up for no reason. A lot of Braygua soldiers were cut down out of nowhere on the battlefield. In a flash, those soldiers were spooked to the bone. No one dared charge the front line anymore. The enemy you can’t see? That’s the one that makes your blood run cold. An overseas grandmaster—equivalent to an Eastern Return-to-Void cultivator—could kill across distance like that. With his power, the independence army swept forward, unstoppable and sharp as a blade. But just as they were pressing in step by step, thinking victory was close and Braygua’s soldiers would be driven out—everything flipped in a single night. The battlefield overturned completely. After that, the independence army was wiped out, and Braygua took the oil state back under control. As for what happened that night? Everyone had a different story. According to some of the independence army survivors, that night was like an earthquake—constant rumbling, never stopping. But no one really saw what went down. On Braygua’s side, all the soldiers got the same order that night: pull back fifty miles behind the front line. Braygua’s troops didn’t take part. Still, a few bits of news trickled out from veterans who’d left the service...