The Mercenary Queen Strikes Back (Lily Hastings) novel Chapter 57

Chapter 57

Nova smiled, “Impressive indeed.”

The muscular man, who didn’t look like a student at all, clearly idolized Felix.

Ft 35 vouchers

Hearing Nova praise Felix, he gave a proud thumbs-up. “You’ve got good taste! Felix is amazing, right? Want to think about joining our team?”

That was exactly why Felix had sought Nova out and been so candid. He valued her strength and wanted to recruit her.

With the muscular man laying it out, Felix dropped the pretense and introduced the team members to Nova first.

He stood on his toes to clap the brawny man’s shoulder. “This is Dustin Campbell, the team’s muscle. We call him Dust.

“He used to be an international bodyguard, not for too long, though. He took a bullet protecting a client and retired after

that.”

Dustin gave a sheepish grin, looking a bit shy.

Felix then pointed to the petite girl still holding her rabbit doll. “This is Freya Gibson. We brought her with us when Evie and I escaped the assassin organization.

“She’s an assassin, but she hadn’t been trained long. Her skills are close to art ordinary person’s. We included her in our team because the organization is still hunting us.

“Nova, if you’re an assassin too, you know well that they never let deserters go. We’re always in danger.”

Nova was a mercenary, but she understood that assassins and mercenaries were fundamentally similar. One belonged to an assassin organization, and the other to a mercenary group.

Many countries didn’t have soldiers as brave and united as those of Zoria. For instance, Machie’s soldiers were the type who might just desert and run under fire.

Such forces would fall apart like a house of cards, posing no real threat.

Faced with the inability of their own forces, these countries were forced to spend heavily on recruiting mercenaries from abroad.

Given all that, the profession of the mercenary emerged. Mercenaries became known as members who risked their lives for

r

money.

Zoria was known as “mercenary forbidden land” because its united military needed no outside help.

Mercenaries and assassins were no different. Nova knew the assassin’s code well. So she stayed silent, tacitly acknowledging

Besides Nova, Felix’s team had five members, including a slim, short boy wearing thick glasses and keeping his head down. Felix introduced him. “That’s Isaac Mackay, a skilled hacker. He’s shy and doesn’t talk much. But once he gets comfortable, he might not stop talking to you.”

Isaac did have social anxiety and struggled to communicate with strangers.

After getting a general sense of the team, Nova asked, “So, you’re just inviting me to join?” Honestly, this team did have several hidden experts.

1/3

2:05 pm P p pp

Chapter 52

135 voucher

Ves: Felis paused, then chuckled. “But the truth is, the assassin organization my sister and I belonged to has issued an international bounty. Anyone who kills me, Evie, or Freya Gibson will get two million dollars.”

Two million dollars meant nothing to Nova, who stood at the peak of the mercenary world. But that sum was enough to attract hordes of low-level and even high-level assassins, putting Felix and the other two in grave danger.

No wonder the three of them were hiding at SLRA while secretly building a team. It was all to fend off their hunters and survive.

It was no different from when Nova was hunted by Ray and the guards after escaping Devil’s Isle.

Isaac, who had been silent, suddenly spoke up, “This is the bounty post.” He pulled a laptop from his bag and opened an interface.

It was Crimson Web. The platform was affiliated with the Bloodblade Mercenary Corps, a paid intelligence site used by underworld figures, with all proceeds flowing into Nova’s account.

Besides, Crimson Web was also a platform where mercenaries, assassins, underground agents, and black-market players accepted and posted missions.

Even Interpol now often used it to track fugitives, making it the world’s largest underground network. New wanted notices and bounty threads pop up every single day.

It didn’t surprise Nova that Felix and the others used Crimson Web.

But they would never guess that the girl before them was the creator of this global underground site. Nova herself had written Crimson Web’s core code years ago.

Nova glanced at the bounty post Isaac showed her.

The poster’s username was “###ABO”, and the title read: [Urgent! Two million dollars bounty. Hunt three organization deserters. Kill one, get the bounty.]

The page included headshots of Felix, Evie, and Freya, with comments from assassins and mercenaries worldwide, like a forum.

Nova raised an eyebrow and asked, “How can you be sure the poster is the one who wants you dead? How do you know it’s your former assassin organization?”

Felix didn’t answer.

Evie replied, “Who else would want us dead besides the organization we were part of?”

“Totally.” Freya hugged her rabbit doll and nodded.

Only Crimson Web’s admins could trace the poster’s real identity.

But there was something few people knew. Nova pointed to the three auto-generated hashtags in the poster’s ID and explained, “In Crimson Web’s hidden code, three hashtags mean the post is by an individual.

“One hashtag indicates a group post, like from a mercenary corps or assassin organization. So the one hunting you isn’t an organization. It’s… an individual.”

The poster was pretending to be an organization to mislead others. These coding rules were ones Nova had embedded during development. So she knew them inside out.

Her words stunned all five of them. They had never heard of this, not even from high-level assassins they had met before.

2/3

14:05 Mon Jun 8.

2:05 pm P P P P

Chapter 52

Wide-eyed, they asked, in unison. “How do you know Crimson Web’s hidden code?”

3/3

AD

* 35 vouchers

Comment

Send gift

No Ads

2:05 pm P PPP