Chapter 66: The Triple Nodes
The end of the rock crevice suddenly opened up.
The team bent over and walked out of the narrow passage. Before them lay a massive natural karst cave. Countless stalactites hung high from the cave ceiling, and water droplets continuously fell, splashing into turbid puddles on the ground. The beams from their headlamps stretched far into the distance, yet they could not illuminate the complete boundaries of the cave. They could only see, amidst the darkness, dense ranks of scaled beasts standing in silent vigil.
They did not charge immediately.
The air throughout the entire cave was filled with a cold, stagnant aura. Three independent psychic nodes were fixed within the hidden caves on the rock walls to the left, right, and far end, respectively. They were interconnected, forming a triangular, linked psychic network.
The will of the Ancient Progenitor sat at the very core of the entire network, distributing computing power to the three nodes. On one hand, it continuously released mental illusions that entangled the mind; on the other hand, it superimposed waves of tangible psychic impacts. These dual methods simultaneously crushed the Seas of Consciousness of the eight squad members.
The moment they stepped out of the rock crevice, everyone felt a heavy weight in their hearts simultaneously.
The scenery before their eyes began to distort. Some saw their hometowns being burned by scaled beasts, with flames reaching the sky; others saw their fallen comrades standing amidst the beast swarm, silently beckoning. Illusions and reality overlapped, and their ears seemed to hear the calls of loved ones and the deathbed wails, constantly tearing at their minds. At the same time, invisible waves of psychic force battered the Sea of Consciousness barriers one after another, bringing a dual assault.
"Steady! Do not let the illusions stir your emotions!" Lu Heng issued a low command, holding his long knife horizontally. "Circular formation!"
The eight members quickly closed in, standing back-to-back to form a tight circular defensive perimeter.
The scaled beasts finally received their commands. Roaring in unison, they surged out from the darkness. The pitch-black beast tide sprinted wildly through the stagnant water, splashing massive amounts of water. Their sharp claws and fangs reflected a cold, eerie gleam under the headlamp beams.
"Left, right, and the far-end rock wall—three nodes," Lin Yan, standing on the outer edge of the circular formation, swung his knife to slay the scaled beasts lunging close while spreading his psychic threads throughout the cave. "They are networked in a triangle, providing mutual backup. If we destroy one, the other two can temporarily share the computing load, and the network will not collapse directly. To create large-scale chaos, we must seize the exact moment when all three nodes synchronize and calibrate their signals."
His psychic threads struggled to navigate through the psychic torrent of the cave, continuously enduring the psychic pressure emanating from the Ancient Progenitor's will. A persistent, swelling pain racked his skull, and the barrier of his second-tier peak Sea of Consciousness trembled incessantly. The psychic power within churned wildly, just a hair's breadth away from breaking through the bottleneck. Yet, the Ancient Progenitor's will was too heavy, always suppressing that final spark of opportunity.
"Old Chen, hold the left flank! Su Qing, keep a close eye on the detector and capture the inflection point of the nodes' synchronization waveform!" Lin Yan quickly assigned their roles.
Old Chen swung his long knife, the blade whistling through the air as he consecutively hacked down two charging scaled beasts. Dark green blood dripped from the blade into the turbid puddles. Su Qing raised her knife to fend off sporadic surprise attacks while keeping her eyes glued to the screen of the recorder in her hand, staring fixedly at the three undulating psychic curves.
"The curves are starting to overlap! The three nodes are synchronizing and calibrating their commands!" Su Qing called out urgently.
Now!
The three nodes exchanged battlefield information and uniformly issued the next round of attack orders. The triangular network entered a brief window of global synchronization.
Lin Yan focused his mind, compressing all his psychic power into a single, slender yet sharp psychic thread, and simultaneously pierced the signal flow at the intersection of the three nodes.
Weng——
An invisible psychic shockwave exploded within the karst cave.
The synchronization link between the triangular nodes was instantly disrupted, and the signal flow fell into disarray. Some scaled beasts received the command to charge forward, while others received the signal to halt and defend. The previously uniform beast tide experienced massive, disjointed movements. The front-row scaled beasts rushed forward fiercely, while the back rows abruptly stopped, even colliding and trampling each other. The formation instantly fell into chaos.
"The beast swarm is in chaos! Seize the opportunity!" Seeing this, Lu Heng immediately issued a loud command. "Prioritize pushing deeper into the cave! Do not engage in prolonged combat! Our goal is to find the true body of the alien race, not to slaughter all the scaled beasts here!"
Taking advantage of the gap in the chaotic beast swarm, the team fought as they retreated, breaking through deeper into the cave.
Deep within the rock strata, the Ancient Progenitor felt the disturbance in the triangular node network, and a ripple of cold thoughts stirred. It did not panic. It quickly mobilized its computing power, redistributed it to the three nodes, and rapidly repaired the broken signal links. The secondary priests cooperated fully to quickly correct the chaotic commands.
In a matter of mere breaths, the psychic network stabilized once again.
"It repaired it too fast!" Lin Yan's heart sank, cold sweat seeping from his forehead. "With the Ancient Progenitor坐镇 (commanding) the core and the secondary priests providing backup, this level of interference can only create a brief window of opportunity; it cannot completely paralyze the network."
The scaled beasts, having restored their synchronization, reformed their formation and roared as they pursued. The mental illusions and psychic impacts superimposed once again, even stronger than before. The squad fought and retreated, with members continuously bearing the brunt of the psychic pressure. The Sea of Consciousness barrier of a veteran cracked; he stifled a groan, and blood overflowed from the corner of his mouth.
"I can't hold on much longer..." the veteran panted, his hand gripping the spear beginning to tremble.
"Move closer, to the inner side of the formation to rest for a moment!" Lu Heng shouted in a deep voice, diverting some of his own strength to share the pressure.
The will of the Ancient Progenitor continued to transmit through the psychic network. It had already seen through Lin Yan's methods, knowing the capabilities of this second-tier peak human and understanding that the opponent's Sea of Consciousness had reached its critical point. The Ancient Progenitor was no longer in a hurry to eliminate the squad. Instead, it planned to continuously use combat, illusions, and psychic impacts to repeatedly temper Lin Yan.
It wanted to watch with its own eyes as this human broke through the second-tier Sea of Consciousness barrier and stepped into the third tier.
Then, it would personally strangle him in the moment of his breakthrough.
This was the hunting habit of an ancient race toward strong opponents. The moment when an opponent was at their most vulnerable, breaking through a bottleneck, was the perfect time to strike.
Lin Yan vaguely sensed this underlying intention, and a chill rose in his heart. The Ancient Progenitor's goal was not merely to eliminate the entire exploration squad; it had set its sights on him, who was on the verge of breaking through his Sea of Consciousness barrier.
"It is deliberately applying pressure to force me to break through my Sea of Consciousness," Lin Yan whispered to Lu Heng and the others. "In the instant of breaking through, there will be a brief blank period in my Sea of Consciousness. That is when I will be at my weakest, and it will seize that opportunity to kill me with full force."
Lu Heng frowned tightly. "Then should we slow down the pace and suppress your Sea of Consciousness, avoiding a forced breakthrough in this place?"
"It's hard to control," Lin Yan shook his head. The continuous life-and-death battles and psychic impacts had been constantly tempering his Sea of Consciousness. "The heavy pressure will not stop, and the bottleneck could shatter at any moment. We can only speed up. While I can still maintain my combat power, we must rush into the deepest part of the cave. As long as we find the true body of the Ancient Progenitor and obtain video evidence, the mission will be considered complete."
Everyone fought fiercely against the blocking scaled beasts, pushing deeper into the cave.
The darkness ahead grew denser and denser. A massive, unimaginable psychic aura lay dormant at the very end of the cave. The Ancient Progenitor waited quietly, watching the squad step by step approach its territory, waiting for that inevitable breakthrough of the Sea of Consciousness and the life-and-death decisive battle.
End of Chapter.
The team bent over and walked out of the narrow passage. Before them lay a massive natural karst cave. Countless stalactites hung high from the cave ceiling, and water droplets continuously fell, splashing into turbid puddles on the ground. The beams from their headlamps stretched far into the distance, yet they could not illuminate the complete boundaries of the cave. They could only see, amidst the darkness, dense ranks of scaled beasts standing in silent vigil.
They did not charge immediately.
The air throughout the entire cave was filled with a cold, stagnant aura. Three independent psychic nodes were fixed within the hidden caves on the rock walls to the left, right, and far end, respectively. They were interconnected, forming a triangular, linked psychic network.
The will of the Ancient Progenitor sat at the very core of the entire network, distributing computing power to the three nodes. On one hand, it continuously released mental illusions that entangled the mind; on the other hand, it superimposed waves of tangible psychic impacts. These dual methods simultaneously crushed the Seas of Consciousness of the eight squad members.
The moment they stepped out of the rock crevice, everyone felt a heavy weight in their hearts simultaneously.
The scenery before their eyes began to distort. Some saw their hometowns being burned by scaled beasts, with flames reaching the sky; others saw their fallen comrades standing amidst the beast swarm, silently beckoning. Illusions and reality overlapped, and their ears seemed to hear the calls of loved ones and the deathbed wails, constantly tearing at their minds. At the same time, invisible waves of psychic force battered the Sea of Consciousness barriers one after another, bringing a dual assault.
"Steady! Do not let the illusions stir your emotions!" Lu Heng issued a low command, holding his long knife horizontally. "Circular formation!"
The eight members quickly closed in, standing back-to-back to form a tight circular defensive perimeter.
The scaled beasts finally received their commands. Roaring in unison, they surged out from the darkness. The pitch-black beast tide sprinted wildly through the stagnant water, splashing massive amounts of water. Their sharp claws and fangs reflected a cold, eerie gleam under the headlamp beams.
"Left, right, and the far-end rock wall—three nodes," Lin Yan, standing on the outer edge of the circular formation, swung his knife to slay the scaled beasts lunging close while spreading his psychic threads throughout the cave. "They are networked in a triangle, providing mutual backup. If we destroy one, the other two can temporarily share the computing load, and the network will not collapse directly. To create large-scale chaos, we must seize the exact moment when all three nodes synchronize and calibrate their signals."
His psychic threads struggled to navigate through the psychic torrent of the cave, continuously enduring the psychic pressure emanating from the Ancient Progenitor's will. A persistent, swelling pain racked his skull, and the barrier of his second-tier peak Sea of Consciousness trembled incessantly. The psychic power within churned wildly, just a hair's breadth away from breaking through the bottleneck. Yet, the Ancient Progenitor's will was too heavy, always suppressing that final spark of opportunity.
"Old Chen, hold the left flank! Su Qing, keep a close eye on the detector and capture the inflection point of the nodes' synchronization waveform!" Lin Yan quickly assigned their roles.
Old Chen swung his long knife, the blade whistling through the air as he consecutively hacked down two charging scaled beasts. Dark green blood dripped from the blade into the turbid puddles. Su Qing raised her knife to fend off sporadic surprise attacks while keeping her eyes glued to the screen of the recorder in her hand, staring fixedly at the three undulating psychic curves.
"The curves are starting to overlap! The three nodes are synchronizing and calibrating their commands!" Su Qing called out urgently.
Now!
The three nodes exchanged battlefield information and uniformly issued the next round of attack orders. The triangular network entered a brief window of global synchronization.
Lin Yan focused his mind, compressing all his psychic power into a single, slender yet sharp psychic thread, and simultaneously pierced the signal flow at the intersection of the three nodes.
Weng——
An invisible psychic shockwave exploded within the karst cave.
The synchronization link between the triangular nodes was instantly disrupted, and the signal flow fell into disarray. Some scaled beasts received the command to charge forward, while others received the signal to halt and defend. The previously uniform beast tide experienced massive, disjointed movements. The front-row scaled beasts rushed forward fiercely, while the back rows abruptly stopped, even colliding and trampling each other. The formation instantly fell into chaos.
"The beast swarm is in chaos! Seize the opportunity!" Seeing this, Lu Heng immediately issued a loud command. "Prioritize pushing deeper into the cave! Do not engage in prolonged combat! Our goal is to find the true body of the alien race, not to slaughter all the scaled beasts here!"
Taking advantage of the gap in the chaotic beast swarm, the team fought as they retreated, breaking through deeper into the cave.
Deep within the rock strata, the Ancient Progenitor felt the disturbance in the triangular node network, and a ripple of cold thoughts stirred. It did not panic. It quickly mobilized its computing power, redistributed it to the three nodes, and rapidly repaired the broken signal links. The secondary priests cooperated fully to quickly correct the chaotic commands.
In a matter of mere breaths, the psychic network stabilized once again.
"It repaired it too fast!" Lin Yan's heart sank, cold sweat seeping from his forehead. "With the Ancient Progenitor坐镇 (commanding) the core and the secondary priests providing backup, this level of interference can only create a brief window of opportunity; it cannot completely paralyze the network."
The scaled beasts, having restored their synchronization, reformed their formation and roared as they pursued. The mental illusions and psychic impacts superimposed once again, even stronger than before. The squad fought and retreated, with members continuously bearing the brunt of the psychic pressure. The Sea of Consciousness barrier of a veteran cracked; he stifled a groan, and blood overflowed from the corner of his mouth.
"I can't hold on much longer..." the veteran panted, his hand gripping the spear beginning to tremble.
"Move closer, to the inner side of the formation to rest for a moment!" Lu Heng shouted in a deep voice, diverting some of his own strength to share the pressure.
The will of the Ancient Progenitor continued to transmit through the psychic network. It had already seen through Lin Yan's methods, knowing the capabilities of this second-tier peak human and understanding that the opponent's Sea of Consciousness had reached its critical point. The Ancient Progenitor was no longer in a hurry to eliminate the squad. Instead, it planned to continuously use combat, illusions, and psychic impacts to repeatedly temper Lin Yan.
It wanted to watch with its own eyes as this human broke through the second-tier Sea of Consciousness barrier and stepped into the third tier.
Then, it would personally strangle him in the moment of his breakthrough.
This was the hunting habit of an ancient race toward strong opponents. The moment when an opponent was at their most vulnerable, breaking through a bottleneck, was the perfect time to strike.
Lin Yan vaguely sensed this underlying intention, and a chill rose in his heart. The Ancient Progenitor's goal was not merely to eliminate the entire exploration squad; it had set its sights on him, who was on the verge of breaking through his Sea of Consciousness barrier.
"It is deliberately applying pressure to force me to break through my Sea of Consciousness," Lin Yan whispered to Lu Heng and the others. "In the instant of breaking through, there will be a brief blank period in my Sea of Consciousness. That is when I will be at my weakest, and it will seize that opportunity to kill me with full force."
Lu Heng frowned tightly. "Then should we slow down the pace and suppress your Sea of Consciousness, avoiding a forced breakthrough in this place?"
"It's hard to control," Lin Yan shook his head. The continuous life-and-death battles and psychic impacts had been constantly tempering his Sea of Consciousness. "The heavy pressure will not stop, and the bottleneck could shatter at any moment. We can only speed up. While I can still maintain my combat power, we must rush into the deepest part of the cave. As long as we find the true body of the Ancient Progenitor and obtain video evidence, the mission will be considered complete."
Everyone fought fiercely against the blocking scaled beasts, pushing deeper into the cave.
The darkness ahead grew denser and denser. A massive, unimaginable psychic aura lay dormant at the very end of the cave. The Ancient Progenitor waited quietly, watching the squad step by step approach its territory, waiting for that inevitable breakthrough of the Sea of Consciousness and the life-and-death decisive battle.
End of Chapter.