Brian Smith's current state was terrifying, looking just like someone having a heart attack, his face as pale as paper.

"I'm fine."

Brian Smith let out a long breath, his brows tightly furrowed, utterly exhausted.

There was no reason why the young Taoist could see it, but Adam Sullivan could not.

"You're fine?"

Seeing that Brian Smith was unwilling to say more, the middle-aged man shook his head, thinking he must have some unspeakable secret, and didn't press further.

He understood the principle that one should not speak too deeply with mere acquaintances.

"What exactly is the reason? What is that chasm? What is missing..."

Brian Smith leaned back in his chair, slowly closed his eyes, and tried to relax.

He only half-understood this ability he had awakened. His body was not strong enough for him to experiment much, so at this moment, all he could do was guess.

But he vaguely felt that the reason he couldn't see Adam Sullivan's past wasn't just because his mental and physical strength couldn't support it—there also seemed to be some necessary medium missing.

What exactly was missing?

……

Half a day earlier.

December 24th, 9819 of the Kaiyuan calendar, 9:23 PM, Golden Eagle Nation time.

A helicopter circled overhead, escorting several important figures to Liberty Island, above the mouth of the Hudson River.

Under the night sky, beams of snow-white searchlights sliced through the darkness like swords, illuminating the pitch-black sea and the warships that looked like steel monsters.

"Williams Colonel, tell me, our Statue of Liberty—the statue that symbolizes the Golden Eagle Empire people's pursuit of democracy and their lofty ideals of freedom, the statue that was still holding its torch high over there just over an hour ago—where has it gone?!"

Inside the helicopter, a half-bald, obese elderly white man looked at the huge pit where the statue had once stood and asked coldly:

"Who exactly is challenging the great Golden Eagle Empire?!"

God knows how much effort he had put in to suppress this news, which was enough to shake the world.

Just a little more, and the great Golden Eagle Empire would have become the laughingstock of the world.

"Senator Davis..."

A tall white man in a crisp military uniform looked serious, sweat beading on his forehead:

"Our warships have blocked all exits from the surrounding sea. Even if Satan himself stole the statue, he couldn't escape!"

"The President is furious about this. If you can't find the statue, you'll see your own dermatitis! I swear!"

Davis remained expressionless.

He didn't believe that anyone or any force in this world could steal the statue from the great Golden Eagle Empire, but someone had to take responsibility.

But someone had to bear this responsibility.

"I will definitely find the statue!"

Cold sweat slid down Williams's face; he had no doubt that the obese white man before him had the power to do so.

"Senator, look what I've found—oh, this is unbelievable!"

At this moment, an exclamation rang out.

"Dr. Jones."

Davis ignored Williams and softly asked Jones, who was operating a computer up ahead:

"What have you found?"

"Oh, my God, this is unbelievable!"

Dr. Jones, exclaiming in amazement, tapped the keyboard and turned the computer screen toward Davis:

"Look, Senator, this is the satellite footage taken at the moment the statue disappeared!"

Davis and Williams immediately turned to look at the computer screen.

On the not-too-big, not-too-small screen was footage from just over an hour ago, when it wasn't yet fully dark at Liberty Port.

The last rays of daylight shone on the Statue of Liberty, crowned with a radiant diadem and holding the torch high, casting a long shadow.

"Oh, that's impossible!"

"My God! What happened? Is that an alien?!"

As the second hand ticked forward by a byte, both Davis and Williams cried out in shock, hardly able to believe their eyes!

In their view, the statue that had been standing tall just a second before suddenly vanished without a trace in the next second!

It was as if a bubble under the sun had popped—gone completely and cleanly, leaving only a pit dozens of meters deep!

In its place appeared a man in black who had suddenly materialized!

The man in black had his eyes tightly closed, and a hideous wound across his chest and abdomen had almost split him in two; Davis could even see the writhing organs inside his chest cavity!

In a flash, the man in black, bathed in the afterglow of the setting sun, fell into the pit.

Click!

Dr. Jones gently pressed a button, rewinding the footage by one second and replaying it at several hundred times slower speed.

But even at several hundred times slower, they still couldn't see how the statue disappeared or how that mysterious man appeared!

"Senator, General! In that one second, the void above Liberty Port warped, and a very strange magnetic field enveloped the Statue of Liberty..."

Listening to the string of technical terms coming from Jones's mouth, a trace of irritation flashed across Davis's chubby face:

"Dr. Jones, this isn't your lab, and I'm not your assistant or your student. Just tell me what happened! Is that man an alien?"