Chapter 122: Confidential Report of Anomalies
By the time the convoy entered the inspection zone at the West Gate, the dusk had completely swallowed the wasteland.
Layers of psychic detectors swept over the vehicle and the crew. The green lights on the monitors pulsed steadily, indicating no spore contamination or hidden psychic markers. The outer alloy gate slammed shut and locked, isolating the murky winds of the wasteland, before the inner gate slowly lifted, bringing the group back inside the bastion.
Upon returning to the city, the standard procedures remained unchanged: equipment returned to storage, ammunition inventoried, and patrol logs submitted. Su Wan separately packaged and encrypted the coordinates of the secondary rift in the culvert and the waveform of the priest's remote signal, synchronizing them to the intelligence department.
Lu Heng dismissed the group for rest, instructing them to report back to the team as normal the next morning.
"Don't sleep too deeply tonight. There are many variables on the wasteland recently, and the war zone may issue an emergency notice at any time," he reminded them, his gaze falling on Lin Yan. "After your psychic contact with the priest across the rift just now, did you feel any discomfort in your Sea of Consciousness?"
"I'm fine. It was just a long-distance signal contact; the other party did not launch an assault," Lin Yan replied.
"That's good. But remember, the fact that it can lock onto your Sea of Consciousness aura from such a distance means the matrix has firmly memorized your psychic imprint. In the future, whenever you sense a similar sinister aura near the wasteland or rifts, report it immediately. Do not test it alone."
The group parted ways. Chen Ye followed Old Guo to the logistics department to replace his worn bracers, Su Wan hurried to the Intelligence Branch with her detection terminal, and Lin Yan returned to his dormitory alone.
After a quick wash, he did not immediately begin regulating his breath.
Sitting at his desk, he laid out a pen and paper, meticulously sorting through the day's encounter: the scaled beasts abandoning their ambush, the priest only providing remote command without ever appearing, and the immediate severing of the link to retreat the moment contact was made.
This tactic was completely different from before.
Previously, relying on the resonance illusion web, the dual priests were accustomed to frontal suppression and surrounding intruders. Now, having lost their ability to resonate in a chorus, they had become scout commanders hiding in the dark, using scaled beasts as their eyes and ears to probe patrol routes and record the rhythm of troop rotations.
This was not a temporary adaptation; it was a hunting strategy deliberately adjusted by the illusion web matrix.
The ancient lizard progenitors were slowing their pace, nibbling away at the outposts on the Western Front's perimeter and gathering intelligence. They were not in a rush for a decisive battle. They were waiting—waiting to find a weak gap in the defensive line before striking all at once.
Lin Yan put away his pen and paper, closed his eyes, and slowly circulated his ancient martial arts internal energy to soothe his Sea of Consciousness. His Sea of Consciousness was stable, with no tremors or stinging pain. Yet, that wisp of sinister aura belonging to the priest was like a distant, suspended thread, faintly hooking into his perception.
After an unknown amount of time, his communicator suddenly vibrated briefly.
It was a message from Su Wan, containing only a short line: Urgent confidential report just arrived from the intelligence department. Come over when you can; several new sentry beacons on the Western Front have lost contact.
Lin Yan's heart tightened. He stood up, grabbed his jacket, and quickly walked out of the dormitory.
The Intelligence Branch was still brightly lit. Many personnel on duty were walking briskly along the corridors on both sides, and the atmosphere was noticeably more tense than during the day. Su Wan was waiting for him at the door of a small intelligence analysis room, the usual calm completely gone from her face.
"Three outer perimeter sentry beacons, over twenty kilometers apart, all lost contact two hours ago." Su Wan pushed open the door. The map of the Western Front wasteland spread across the optical screen, with three red warning lights flashing conspicuously. "Each beacon was manned by a two-person team and equipped with an emergency signal transmitter. Regulations dictate that an alarm must be triggered immediately upon attack. But at these three locations, not a single alarm sounded; the signals went completely silent."
Two intelligence staff officers were also in the room, staring at the constantly refreshing data on the screen and discussing in low voices.
"There was no abnormal spike in spore concentration, and no signs of a large-scale beast tide," one of the staff officers said, pointing at the lights. "If scaled beasts had launched a strong attack, the psychic warning detectors at the beacons would have triggered an alarm. If three outposts were silently swallowed, there is only one possibility—a high-tier illusion web silent infection."
"Illusion web silent infection." Lin Yan repeated the term in a low voice.
"Exactly. It is a high-level technique used by the priests. They do not release violent psychic shocks or create large-scale illusions. Instead, they use extremely soft and concealed psychic waves to quietly seep into the Sea of Consciousness. By the time the stationed soldiers realize something is wrong, their Sea of Consciousness has already been quietly paralyzed, leaving them without even the strength to press the alarm." Su Wan pulled up an old dossier. "Previously, only when the dual priests resonated in a chorus could they deploy such a large-scale silent net. Now that their resonance link is broken, theoretically, they shouldn't be able to simultaneously control three distant beacons."
This was exactly what puzzled everyone.
Lu Heng pushed open the door and walked in at this moment. He hadn't changed out of his combat suit, clearly having rushed over upon receiving the news.
"Is it possible that the matrix rebuilt a relay fungal carpet node deep within Rift No. 79?" Lu Heng looked at the optical screen. "As the foundation of the illusion web, the matrix's signals can be transmitted over long distances through underground hyphae. The two priests could take over different areas separately, executing silent infections independently. They wouldn't need to resonate; they could rely on the main trunk of the matrix for unified energy supply."
The moment this guess was voiced, the room instantly fell silent.
Su Wan quickly retrieved old geological survey data from beneath the wasteland. "The extension range of the underground hyphae network is even larger than we previously estimated. The hyphae of the matrix in Rift No. 79 can spread through the crevices in the rock strata to the shallow underground dozens of kilometers away. In other words, it doesn't need to move personally; it only needs to spread its hyphae underground to supply energy to the two dispersed priests."
Lin Yan stared at the three red lights, and the scenes he had seen in the corridor flashed through his mind—the priests were merely tentacles extended by the matrix.
After separating, they no longer needed to resonate with each other; they only needed to attach themselves to the single main root of the matrix.
Previously, humanity had believed that the threat of the dual priests lay in their combined chorus. Now, it became clear that the chorus was merely their most powerful combat formation. As long as the matrix survived, even if separated, they could still rely on the massive underground fungal carpet network to operate independently, causing havoc in multiple locations simultaneously.
"Are the people at the beacons... still salvageable?" Lin Yan asked.
The staff officer shook his head, his expression heavy. "Silent infection prioritizes paralyzing motor functions, followed by summoning nearby lurking scaled beasts to finish the job. It has been two hours since the signals were lost; the probability of survival is extremely low. We cannot rashly send out squads for search and rescue now. The three beacons are scattered; it is highly likely they are bait themselves, waiting for us to split our forces to rescue them, only to ambush our patrol teams one by one."
Shen Yanqiu pushed open the door and walked into the analysis room at this moment, his face grim.
"Headquarters has received the news. Adjacent areas on the Western Front in the other war zones have also reported sporadic, silent losses of outposts. It is not just our side that has been hit." He raised his hand and brought up a cross-war zone summary report on the optical screen. "The ancient lizard progenitors are synchronously tightening their probes across the entire front. This is a coordinated operation."
No one spoke.
In the twenty-five years of the war of attrition, humanity had long been accustomed to the轰轰烈烈 (spectacular and轰轰烈烈) crises of beast tides attacking cities and rifts erupting. But this silent, soundless devouring was far more chilling. The enemy was no longer charging with roars; they were hiding beneath the earth, using the illusion web to pluck away the isolated outposts on the wasteland one by one.
"War zone decision," Shen Yanqiu spoke in a deep voice. "No search and rescue squads will be dispatched tonight. Tomorrow morning, three elite squads will be organized to depart simultaneously in a triangular formation, covering each other's flanks to investigate the three beacons that lost contact. No independent advances. Maintain communication links at all times. If you encounter illusion web infection, all personnel must immediately activate Sea of Consciousness stabilizing agents and retreat in place. Lu Heng, your squad will be assigned to one of these groups."
Lu Heng straightened his back. "Received."
Shen Yanqiu's gaze swept over Lin Yan. "You will depart with the team tomorrow. Your Sea of Consciousness gathering ability gives you the highest survival rate in a silent illusion web environment. But I must warn you: since they dare to strike three locations simultaneously, they have likely reserved a trap specifically for you. The matrix is intimately familiar with your fighting style."
"I understand," Lin Yan replied calmly.
The meeting quickly adjourned, and everyone returned to prepare.
Walking out of the Intelligence Branch, the night was deeper, and the cold white lights on the bastion streets exuded a chill. From the direction of the distant city walls came the horn signaling the changing of the guard, its long, deep sound slowly dispersing over the city.
Lu Heng and Lin Yan walked side by side on their way back to the dormitory.
"Tomorrow's mission is different from a normal patrol. The most terrifying aspect of the silent illusion web is that you might not even know when you've been hit," Lu Heng reminded him in a low voice. "Don't trust your eyes, and don't trust the thoughts that pop into your mind. Base everything on Su Wan's detector readings. Instruments cannot be deceived by illusions."
"Noted."
After parting ways, Lin Yan returned to his dormitory.
He did not rest immediately. Instead, he took out the Sea of Consciousness cultivation notes given to him by Instructor Wen, repeatedly reviewing the methods of gathering his mind. Tomorrow, he would be facing priests operating independently, remotely supplied by the matrix's fungal carpet, and a silent illusion web that seeped into the Sea of Consciousness without a sound.
He was still stuck at the second tier.
Deep down, he knew that tomorrow's wasteland might very well be the life-and-death tempering he had been approaching for so long.
Meanwhile, deep underground, within the core of the illusion web in Rift No. 79.
The boundless purple fungal carpet undulated slowly, like breathing. The two injured priests lay quietly in the matrix's shadow, with countless fine hyphae connecting to their bodies, continuously supplying energy. Streams of perceptual information from the three outposts on the wasteland flowed through the hyphae into the matrix.
The three humans at the outposts had all been eliminated.
After receiving all the intelligence, the illusion web matrix's consciousness flowed slowly. Having learned the characteristics of the human Sea of Consciousness from Lin Yan, it had abandoned violent psychic shocks in favor of this soundless infection.
It was not eager to settle the score in a single battle.
It had laid bait on the wasteland, waiting for that special human to step into the net it had woven once again.
In the darkness, countless hyphae continued to spread further into the wasteland.
End of Chapter.
Layers of psychic detectors swept over the vehicle and the crew. The green lights on the monitors pulsed steadily, indicating no spore contamination or hidden psychic markers. The outer alloy gate slammed shut and locked, isolating the murky winds of the wasteland, before the inner gate slowly lifted, bringing the group back inside the bastion.
Upon returning to the city, the standard procedures remained unchanged: equipment returned to storage, ammunition inventoried, and patrol logs submitted. Su Wan separately packaged and encrypted the coordinates of the secondary rift in the culvert and the waveform of the priest's remote signal, synchronizing them to the intelligence department.
Lu Heng dismissed the group for rest, instructing them to report back to the team as normal the next morning.
"Don't sleep too deeply tonight. There are many variables on the wasteland recently, and the war zone may issue an emergency notice at any time," he reminded them, his gaze falling on Lin Yan. "After your psychic contact with the priest across the rift just now, did you feel any discomfort in your Sea of Consciousness?"
"I'm fine. It was just a long-distance signal contact; the other party did not launch an assault," Lin Yan replied.
"That's good. But remember, the fact that it can lock onto your Sea of Consciousness aura from such a distance means the matrix has firmly memorized your psychic imprint. In the future, whenever you sense a similar sinister aura near the wasteland or rifts, report it immediately. Do not test it alone."
The group parted ways. Chen Ye followed Old Guo to the logistics department to replace his worn bracers, Su Wan hurried to the Intelligence Branch with her detection terminal, and Lin Yan returned to his dormitory alone.
After a quick wash, he did not immediately begin regulating his breath.
Sitting at his desk, he laid out a pen and paper, meticulously sorting through the day's encounter: the scaled beasts abandoning their ambush, the priest only providing remote command without ever appearing, and the immediate severing of the link to retreat the moment contact was made.
This tactic was completely different from before.
Previously, relying on the resonance illusion web, the dual priests were accustomed to frontal suppression and surrounding intruders. Now, having lost their ability to resonate in a chorus, they had become scout commanders hiding in the dark, using scaled beasts as their eyes and ears to probe patrol routes and record the rhythm of troop rotations.
This was not a temporary adaptation; it was a hunting strategy deliberately adjusted by the illusion web matrix.
The ancient lizard progenitors were slowing their pace, nibbling away at the outposts on the Western Front's perimeter and gathering intelligence. They were not in a rush for a decisive battle. They were waiting—waiting to find a weak gap in the defensive line before striking all at once.
Lin Yan put away his pen and paper, closed his eyes, and slowly circulated his ancient martial arts internal energy to soothe his Sea of Consciousness. His Sea of Consciousness was stable, with no tremors or stinging pain. Yet, that wisp of sinister aura belonging to the priest was like a distant, suspended thread, faintly hooking into his perception.
After an unknown amount of time, his communicator suddenly vibrated briefly.
It was a message from Su Wan, containing only a short line: Urgent confidential report just arrived from the intelligence department. Come over when you can; several new sentry beacons on the Western Front have lost contact.
Lin Yan's heart tightened. He stood up, grabbed his jacket, and quickly walked out of the dormitory.
The Intelligence Branch was still brightly lit. Many personnel on duty were walking briskly along the corridors on both sides, and the atmosphere was noticeably more tense than during the day. Su Wan was waiting for him at the door of a small intelligence analysis room, the usual calm completely gone from her face.
"Three outer perimeter sentry beacons, over twenty kilometers apart, all lost contact two hours ago." Su Wan pushed open the door. The map of the Western Front wasteland spread across the optical screen, with three red warning lights flashing conspicuously. "Each beacon was manned by a two-person team and equipped with an emergency signal transmitter. Regulations dictate that an alarm must be triggered immediately upon attack. But at these three locations, not a single alarm sounded; the signals went completely silent."
Two intelligence staff officers were also in the room, staring at the constantly refreshing data on the screen and discussing in low voices.
"There was no abnormal spike in spore concentration, and no signs of a large-scale beast tide," one of the staff officers said, pointing at the lights. "If scaled beasts had launched a strong attack, the psychic warning detectors at the beacons would have triggered an alarm. If three outposts were silently swallowed, there is only one possibility—a high-tier illusion web silent infection."
"Illusion web silent infection." Lin Yan repeated the term in a low voice.
"Exactly. It is a high-level technique used by the priests. They do not release violent psychic shocks or create large-scale illusions. Instead, they use extremely soft and concealed psychic waves to quietly seep into the Sea of Consciousness. By the time the stationed soldiers realize something is wrong, their Sea of Consciousness has already been quietly paralyzed, leaving them without even the strength to press the alarm." Su Wan pulled up an old dossier. "Previously, only when the dual priests resonated in a chorus could they deploy such a large-scale silent net. Now that their resonance link is broken, theoretically, they shouldn't be able to simultaneously control three distant beacons."
This was exactly what puzzled everyone.
Lu Heng pushed open the door and walked in at this moment. He hadn't changed out of his combat suit, clearly having rushed over upon receiving the news.
"Is it possible that the matrix rebuilt a relay fungal carpet node deep within Rift No. 79?" Lu Heng looked at the optical screen. "As the foundation of the illusion web, the matrix's signals can be transmitted over long distances through underground hyphae. The two priests could take over different areas separately, executing silent infections independently. They wouldn't need to resonate; they could rely on the main trunk of the matrix for unified energy supply."
The moment this guess was voiced, the room instantly fell silent.
Su Wan quickly retrieved old geological survey data from beneath the wasteland. "The extension range of the underground hyphae network is even larger than we previously estimated. The hyphae of the matrix in Rift No. 79 can spread through the crevices in the rock strata to the shallow underground dozens of kilometers away. In other words, it doesn't need to move personally; it only needs to spread its hyphae underground to supply energy to the two dispersed priests."
Lin Yan stared at the three red lights, and the scenes he had seen in the corridor flashed through his mind—the priests were merely tentacles extended by the matrix.
After separating, they no longer needed to resonate with each other; they only needed to attach themselves to the single main root of the matrix.
Previously, humanity had believed that the threat of the dual priests lay in their combined chorus. Now, it became clear that the chorus was merely their most powerful combat formation. As long as the matrix survived, even if separated, they could still rely on the massive underground fungal carpet network to operate independently, causing havoc in multiple locations simultaneously.
"Are the people at the beacons... still salvageable?" Lin Yan asked.
The staff officer shook his head, his expression heavy. "Silent infection prioritizes paralyzing motor functions, followed by summoning nearby lurking scaled beasts to finish the job. It has been two hours since the signals were lost; the probability of survival is extremely low. We cannot rashly send out squads for search and rescue now. The three beacons are scattered; it is highly likely they are bait themselves, waiting for us to split our forces to rescue them, only to ambush our patrol teams one by one."
Shen Yanqiu pushed open the door and walked into the analysis room at this moment, his face grim.
"Headquarters has received the news. Adjacent areas on the Western Front in the other war zones have also reported sporadic, silent losses of outposts. It is not just our side that has been hit." He raised his hand and brought up a cross-war zone summary report on the optical screen. "The ancient lizard progenitors are synchronously tightening their probes across the entire front. This is a coordinated operation."
No one spoke.
In the twenty-five years of the war of attrition, humanity had long been accustomed to the轰轰烈烈 (spectacular and轰轰烈烈) crises of beast tides attacking cities and rifts erupting. But this silent, soundless devouring was far more chilling. The enemy was no longer charging with roars; they were hiding beneath the earth, using the illusion web to pluck away the isolated outposts on the wasteland one by one.
"War zone decision," Shen Yanqiu spoke in a deep voice. "No search and rescue squads will be dispatched tonight. Tomorrow morning, three elite squads will be organized to depart simultaneously in a triangular formation, covering each other's flanks to investigate the three beacons that lost contact. No independent advances. Maintain communication links at all times. If you encounter illusion web infection, all personnel must immediately activate Sea of Consciousness stabilizing agents and retreat in place. Lu Heng, your squad will be assigned to one of these groups."
Lu Heng straightened his back. "Received."
Shen Yanqiu's gaze swept over Lin Yan. "You will depart with the team tomorrow. Your Sea of Consciousness gathering ability gives you the highest survival rate in a silent illusion web environment. But I must warn you: since they dare to strike three locations simultaneously, they have likely reserved a trap specifically for you. The matrix is intimately familiar with your fighting style."
"I understand," Lin Yan replied calmly.
The meeting quickly adjourned, and everyone returned to prepare.
Walking out of the Intelligence Branch, the night was deeper, and the cold white lights on the bastion streets exuded a chill. From the direction of the distant city walls came the horn signaling the changing of the guard, its long, deep sound slowly dispersing over the city.
Lu Heng and Lin Yan walked side by side on their way back to the dormitory.
"Tomorrow's mission is different from a normal patrol. The most terrifying aspect of the silent illusion web is that you might not even know when you've been hit," Lu Heng reminded him in a low voice. "Don't trust your eyes, and don't trust the thoughts that pop into your mind. Base everything on Su Wan's detector readings. Instruments cannot be deceived by illusions."
"Noted."
After parting ways, Lin Yan returned to his dormitory.
He did not rest immediately. Instead, he took out the Sea of Consciousness cultivation notes given to him by Instructor Wen, repeatedly reviewing the methods of gathering his mind. Tomorrow, he would be facing priests operating independently, remotely supplied by the matrix's fungal carpet, and a silent illusion web that seeped into the Sea of Consciousness without a sound.
He was still stuck at the second tier.
Deep down, he knew that tomorrow's wasteland might very well be the life-and-death tempering he had been approaching for so long.
Meanwhile, deep underground, within the core of the illusion web in Rift No. 79.
The boundless purple fungal carpet undulated slowly, like breathing. The two injured priests lay quietly in the matrix's shadow, with countless fine hyphae connecting to their bodies, continuously supplying energy. Streams of perceptual information from the three outposts on the wasteland flowed through the hyphae into the matrix.
The three humans at the outposts had all been eliminated.
After receiving all the intelligence, the illusion web matrix's consciousness flowed slowly. Having learned the characteristics of the human Sea of Consciousness from Lin Yan, it had abandoned violent psychic shocks in favor of this soundless infection.
It was not eager to settle the score in a single battle.
It had laid bait on the wasteland, waiting for that special human to step into the net it had woven once again.
In the darkness, countless hyphae continued to spread further into the wasteland.
End of Chapter.