Chapter 123: The Soundless Web
Before dawn, the western assembly point of the bastion was already brightly lit.
Cold white searchlights sliced through the heavy darkness before daybreak. The armored vehicles of three squads were lined up in neat formation as the members completed their psychic inspections and equipment checks one by one. The air was filled with the mixed scent of disinfectant, lubricating oil, and metallic ammunition. No one spoke loudly; there was only the low hum of instruments and the crisp click of gear buckles snapping into place.
Lu Heng's squad was positioned in the middle of the convoy.
Lin Yan wore his full protective gear, securing the Sea of Consciousness stabilizer injections and emergency antidotes in order on his tactical waist belt. His fingertips brushed over the hilt of his short blade, the cold metallic touch settling his mind. He had spent half the night regulating his breath; his Sea of Consciousness was as still as water, without a trace of restlessness.
Chen Ye stood nearby, repeatedly adjusting his Sea of Consciousness warning bracelet, his fingertips pressing with slight force. After the underground battle, he was no longer the rookie who could easily be broken by illusions. Yet, facing a mission involving this soundless illusion web infection, a layer of tension still weighed heavily in his heart.
"I heard the silent illusion web doesn't create horrifying illusions," Chen Ye said in a low voice. "You won't see dead people or hear familiar voices?"
"Not necessarily." Su Wan squatted in front of the vehicle's detector, calibrating the parameters without looking up. "Silent infection occurs in two layers. The first layer merely paralyzes the Sea of Consciousness and suppresses your vigilance, making you sluggish and fatigued. Only after you let your guard down does the second layer slowly unfurl the illusion. It doesn't shatter your consciousness; it slowly soaks your mind soft. By the time you realize it, you are already trapped in an encirclement."
Old Guo checked the magazine of his shotgun, loading silver-plated barrier-breaking rounds into it—ammunition that had an extra tearing effect on the soft tissues of scaled beasts and the hyphae of fungal carpets.
"That's exactly what makes it the hardest to defend against. When a beast tide charges, you know to fire. When a psychic splinter strikes, you know to defend. But with this illusion web, the person infected just feels a bit tired and only wants to stop and rest for a while."
Lu Heng walked over and spread a laminated tactical map on the hood of the vehicle.
"The three squads will advance in a triangular formation with an eight-kilometer gap between each, using partitioned communication channels while keeping an emergency public frequency. We are responsible for investigating Beacon Two, which lost contact. Upon reaching the outpost, Su Wan will scan for psychic fluctuations and fungal signals from a distance. We will only approach for reconnaissance after confirming it is safe. Everyone, remember the iron rule: the moment the detector picks up illusion web waves, stop advancing immediately, all personnel gather their Sea of Consciousness, inject stabilizers, and absolutely no solo exploration."
He raised his eyes to look at Lin Yan. "Use your perception primarily to detect the faint veins of the illusion web in advance, but you are strictly forbidden from tracing them back on your own. The enemy has already thoroughly analyzed your tactics from the corridor last time. It is highly likely that fake veins set up as reverse bait traps have been placed in this area. If you follow those signals, you will fall right into a trap."
"Understood," Lin Yan nodded.
At exactly six o'clock, the three convoys drove out of the west gate in sequence.
The wasteland was still immersed in the morning mist. A gray, murky fog flowed close to the ground, reducing visibility to less than fifty meters. The wind was colder than usual, carrying fine sand grains and a faint, almost imperceptible stench of rotting soil. The vehicle's air filters ran frantically to filter out the illusion web spores floating in the air.
The vehicles advanced steadily. The early warning beacons along the route blinked normally, and there were no abnormal signals for the time being.
Forty minutes later, Lu Heng's squad arrived two kilometers outside Beacon Two.
Lu Heng raised his hand, signaling to stop and kill the engine, suppressing the vehicle's signal sources to avoid exposure. Su Wan activated the long-range scanning module, and the waveforms on the detector screen pulsed slowly.
"Faint fungal signals detected, originating from the rock strata beneath the beacon's building. The psychic fluctuations are very weak, disguised as the natural dissipation of wasteland spores. They are mixed together, and without careful distinction, they are impossible to catch." Su Wan swiped her finger across the screen to enlarge the waveform. "It's not a large-scale suppression; it's a continuous, slow-release illusion web. The entire beacon is shrouded in a thin layer of it."
"Disembark. Spread out and advance, maintaining visual distance from each other," Lu Heng ordered in a deep voice.
The group disembarked one by one, using the undulating dirt embankments and ruined walls as cover to slowly approach the beacon.
Beacon Two was a small fortress built from prefabricated panels, half-buried in a dirt embankment, its exterior walls covered with withered yellow vines. The red warning light at the top of the beacon was completely extinguished. It was eerily quiet, without a single sound; deathly silence enveloped this small structure.
Lin Yan gathered his Sea of Consciousness, releasing only a wisp of fine thread suspended in the air to slowly sweep the surroundings.
He deliberately suppressed his instinctive urge to trace the signal back. He only perceived the flow of the signal, refusing to delve deeper along the veins. The matrix and the priests were well-acquainted with his tactics; fake signal baits were most likely waiting in the dark for him to take the bait.
The closer they got to the beacon, the clearer that sense of lethargy became.
It wasn't physical exhaustion; it was a laziness on the level of consciousness. It felt as though he had stayed up for several consecutive nights, giving rise to the illusion in his heart that "there is no need to be vigilant; everything is perfectly safe." Lin Yan's mind jolted, and he immediately understood that they had stepped into the range of the silent illusion web.
"Here it comes, the first layer of infection," Lin Yan reminded them in a low voice over the channel. "Your minds will unconsciously relax. Everyone, guard your Sea of Consciousness and do not let your thoughts scatter."
"All personnel, gather your Sea of Consciousness and stabilize your minds," Lu Heng ordered immediately. "Su Wan, locate the source of the illusion web signal."
Su Wan stared at the instrument. "The signal is coming from the basement beneath the beacon. There should be a transplanted fungal carpet node pre-buried there. It's not large in volume, specifically used to cast the silent web. There are no priests nearby; they are supplying energy remotely from a further distance."
Old Guo held his shotgun and circled the perimeter along the wall. "There are no traces of scaled beast ambushes on the outside. The footprints on the ground are very shallow; it looks like when the attack happened, the two people at the outpost didn't even have time to make a defensive move."
Chen Ye walked to the door of the beacon. The alloy door was ajar, with faint purplish-black fungal hyphae seeping out from the crack. He took a deep breath and pushed the door open.
A damp, decaying stench hit them.
The interior of the beacon was in disarray. The terminal on the desk was still lit, displaying the last frozen image of the wasteland monitoring feed. Two standard-issue rifles leaned against the corner. Two stationed soldiers lay beside the operating console. Their expressions were peaceful, without a trace of terror on their faces, as if they had simply leaned against the console and fallen into a deep sleep. Yet, their Seas of Consciousness had long been dismantled and assimilated by the illusion web.
Several people stood silently at the door, a heavy weight in their hearts.
There had been no struggle, no roars. The enemy had taken two lives so soundlessly.
"Do not touch the bodies or any objects inside; the fungal hyphae will attach and transfer the infection." Su Wan took out a sampling tube and extended a mechanical probe to collect fungal samples from the air. "This site is merely a forward node, an amplifier for the illusion web. The true controller is still hiding far away."
Just then, Lin Yan's wisp of perception suddenly caught a secondary signal branching off.
This signal was disguised to have the exact same waveform as the fungal hyphae of the illusion web, but its rhythm had a subtle difference, as if deliberately guiding his perception toward the southeast—a deep, natural rock crevice unregistered on any map.
It was bait.
The enemy had calculated precisely that he was accustomed to tracing veins to find command points, and had specifically released this fake psychic pathway. If he pursued it alone, the rock crevice would undoubtedly conceal a lethal ambush set by scaled beasts and the priest.
Lin Yan did not move. He calmly reported over the channel: "A bait signal detected to the southeast, mimicking the fungal carpet veins. The target is to lure me into separating from the squad alone. It is a trap specifically designed for me."
Lu Heng's eyes darkened. "Just as expected. The matrix's prediction is even more precise than we imagined."
Su Wan quickly adjusted the scanning frequency, tracing backward along the true energy flow: "Found it! The real energy supply link heads northwest, about seven kilometers from here, at the ruins of an old-era air defense bunker. That is the priest's hiding place. But the interior space of the bunker is complex, and it is highly likely there is a second-layer illusion web trap inside."
"Should we report to the other two squads and encircle over there?" Chen Ye gripped the psychic shock baton in his hand tightly.
Lu Heng did not answer immediately. He looked at the murky fog slowly flowing over the distant wasteland, then glanced at his watch. "Not yet. The other two squads have their own beacons to investigate. If we rashly alter the formation, the triangular cover layout will be broken, and the enemy could seize the gap to divide and conquer us one by one. We will report the coordinates to headquarters first and await orders."
The moment the communication message was sent, the alarm on Su Wan's detector suddenly spiked.
"Warning! The intensity of the illusion web is rising rapidly! It's not just this small node; the fungal hyphae across the entire area are activating synchronously! They don't intend to defend the bunker; they plan to trap the five of us in the area around Beacon Two!"
The ground trembled slightly. Purple fungal hyphae grew wildly from the cracks in the outer walls of the beacon, coming alive as they wove into a net on the ground. From the rock crevices of the distant wasteland came low, continuous shrieks; the roars of scaled beasts rose and fell one after another, closing in from all directions.
What they had stepped into was never a simple reconnaissance site.
From the moment the three beacons lost contact, this entire stretch of wasteland had been a massive net meticulously laid by the illusion web matrix for them—especially for Lin Yan.
In the channel, the urgent voice of the command center rang out: "Attention all squads! Large-scale synchronous activation of the illusion web detected! Immediately evaluate breakout routes. Support forces are deploying; ETA is at least forty minutes!"
Forty minutes.
The five of them had to endure forty minutes alone under the suppression of the silent illusion web and the encirclement of scaled beasts.
Lin Yan slowly held his short blade horizontally, his Sea of Consciousness tightly gathered into a single point. The lethargy continued to erode his mind, scaled beasts were closing in from all sides, and from the direction of the distant bunker, the sinister consciousness of the two priests slowly raised their gaze, fixing upon him.
This time, it was no longer a one-on-one encirclement in a corridor.
This time, it was a meticulously prepared hunting ground on the wasteland, orchestrated by the illusion web matrix.
He was closer than ever before to that life-and-death threshold of breaking through his Sea of Consciousness.
End of Chapter.
Cold white searchlights sliced through the heavy darkness before daybreak. The armored vehicles of three squads were lined up in neat formation as the members completed their psychic inspections and equipment checks one by one. The air was filled with the mixed scent of disinfectant, lubricating oil, and metallic ammunition. No one spoke loudly; there was only the low hum of instruments and the crisp click of gear buckles snapping into place.
Lu Heng's squad was positioned in the middle of the convoy.
Lin Yan wore his full protective gear, securing the Sea of Consciousness stabilizer injections and emergency antidotes in order on his tactical waist belt. His fingertips brushed over the hilt of his short blade, the cold metallic touch settling his mind. He had spent half the night regulating his breath; his Sea of Consciousness was as still as water, without a trace of restlessness.
Chen Ye stood nearby, repeatedly adjusting his Sea of Consciousness warning bracelet, his fingertips pressing with slight force. After the underground battle, he was no longer the rookie who could easily be broken by illusions. Yet, facing a mission involving this soundless illusion web infection, a layer of tension still weighed heavily in his heart.
"I heard the silent illusion web doesn't create horrifying illusions," Chen Ye said in a low voice. "You won't see dead people or hear familiar voices?"
"Not necessarily." Su Wan squatted in front of the vehicle's detector, calibrating the parameters without looking up. "Silent infection occurs in two layers. The first layer merely paralyzes the Sea of Consciousness and suppresses your vigilance, making you sluggish and fatigued. Only after you let your guard down does the second layer slowly unfurl the illusion. It doesn't shatter your consciousness; it slowly soaks your mind soft. By the time you realize it, you are already trapped in an encirclement."
Old Guo checked the magazine of his shotgun, loading silver-plated barrier-breaking rounds into it—ammunition that had an extra tearing effect on the soft tissues of scaled beasts and the hyphae of fungal carpets.
"That's exactly what makes it the hardest to defend against. When a beast tide charges, you know to fire. When a psychic splinter strikes, you know to defend. But with this illusion web, the person infected just feels a bit tired and only wants to stop and rest for a while."
Lu Heng walked over and spread a laminated tactical map on the hood of the vehicle.
"The three squads will advance in a triangular formation with an eight-kilometer gap between each, using partitioned communication channels while keeping an emergency public frequency. We are responsible for investigating Beacon Two, which lost contact. Upon reaching the outpost, Su Wan will scan for psychic fluctuations and fungal signals from a distance. We will only approach for reconnaissance after confirming it is safe. Everyone, remember the iron rule: the moment the detector picks up illusion web waves, stop advancing immediately, all personnel gather their Sea of Consciousness, inject stabilizers, and absolutely no solo exploration."
He raised his eyes to look at Lin Yan. "Use your perception primarily to detect the faint veins of the illusion web in advance, but you are strictly forbidden from tracing them back on your own. The enemy has already thoroughly analyzed your tactics from the corridor last time. It is highly likely that fake veins set up as reverse bait traps have been placed in this area. If you follow those signals, you will fall right into a trap."
"Understood," Lin Yan nodded.
At exactly six o'clock, the three convoys drove out of the west gate in sequence.
The wasteland was still immersed in the morning mist. A gray, murky fog flowed close to the ground, reducing visibility to less than fifty meters. The wind was colder than usual, carrying fine sand grains and a faint, almost imperceptible stench of rotting soil. The vehicle's air filters ran frantically to filter out the illusion web spores floating in the air.
The vehicles advanced steadily. The early warning beacons along the route blinked normally, and there were no abnormal signals for the time being.
Forty minutes later, Lu Heng's squad arrived two kilometers outside Beacon Two.
Lu Heng raised his hand, signaling to stop and kill the engine, suppressing the vehicle's signal sources to avoid exposure. Su Wan activated the long-range scanning module, and the waveforms on the detector screen pulsed slowly.
"Faint fungal signals detected, originating from the rock strata beneath the beacon's building. The psychic fluctuations are very weak, disguised as the natural dissipation of wasteland spores. They are mixed together, and without careful distinction, they are impossible to catch." Su Wan swiped her finger across the screen to enlarge the waveform. "It's not a large-scale suppression; it's a continuous, slow-release illusion web. The entire beacon is shrouded in a thin layer of it."
"Disembark. Spread out and advance, maintaining visual distance from each other," Lu Heng ordered in a deep voice.
The group disembarked one by one, using the undulating dirt embankments and ruined walls as cover to slowly approach the beacon.
Beacon Two was a small fortress built from prefabricated panels, half-buried in a dirt embankment, its exterior walls covered with withered yellow vines. The red warning light at the top of the beacon was completely extinguished. It was eerily quiet, without a single sound; deathly silence enveloped this small structure.
Lin Yan gathered his Sea of Consciousness, releasing only a wisp of fine thread suspended in the air to slowly sweep the surroundings.
He deliberately suppressed his instinctive urge to trace the signal back. He only perceived the flow of the signal, refusing to delve deeper along the veins. The matrix and the priests were well-acquainted with his tactics; fake signal baits were most likely waiting in the dark for him to take the bait.
The closer they got to the beacon, the clearer that sense of lethargy became.
It wasn't physical exhaustion; it was a laziness on the level of consciousness. It felt as though he had stayed up for several consecutive nights, giving rise to the illusion in his heart that "there is no need to be vigilant; everything is perfectly safe." Lin Yan's mind jolted, and he immediately understood that they had stepped into the range of the silent illusion web.
"Here it comes, the first layer of infection," Lin Yan reminded them in a low voice over the channel. "Your minds will unconsciously relax. Everyone, guard your Sea of Consciousness and do not let your thoughts scatter."
"All personnel, gather your Sea of Consciousness and stabilize your minds," Lu Heng ordered immediately. "Su Wan, locate the source of the illusion web signal."
Su Wan stared at the instrument. "The signal is coming from the basement beneath the beacon. There should be a transplanted fungal carpet node pre-buried there. It's not large in volume, specifically used to cast the silent web. There are no priests nearby; they are supplying energy remotely from a further distance."
Old Guo held his shotgun and circled the perimeter along the wall. "There are no traces of scaled beast ambushes on the outside. The footprints on the ground are very shallow; it looks like when the attack happened, the two people at the outpost didn't even have time to make a defensive move."
Chen Ye walked to the door of the beacon. The alloy door was ajar, with faint purplish-black fungal hyphae seeping out from the crack. He took a deep breath and pushed the door open.
A damp, decaying stench hit them.
The interior of the beacon was in disarray. The terminal on the desk was still lit, displaying the last frozen image of the wasteland monitoring feed. Two standard-issue rifles leaned against the corner. Two stationed soldiers lay beside the operating console. Their expressions were peaceful, without a trace of terror on their faces, as if they had simply leaned against the console and fallen into a deep sleep. Yet, their Seas of Consciousness had long been dismantled and assimilated by the illusion web.
Several people stood silently at the door, a heavy weight in their hearts.
There had been no struggle, no roars. The enemy had taken two lives so soundlessly.
"Do not touch the bodies or any objects inside; the fungal hyphae will attach and transfer the infection." Su Wan took out a sampling tube and extended a mechanical probe to collect fungal samples from the air. "This site is merely a forward node, an amplifier for the illusion web. The true controller is still hiding far away."
Just then, Lin Yan's wisp of perception suddenly caught a secondary signal branching off.
This signal was disguised to have the exact same waveform as the fungal hyphae of the illusion web, but its rhythm had a subtle difference, as if deliberately guiding his perception toward the southeast—a deep, natural rock crevice unregistered on any map.
It was bait.
The enemy had calculated precisely that he was accustomed to tracing veins to find command points, and had specifically released this fake psychic pathway. If he pursued it alone, the rock crevice would undoubtedly conceal a lethal ambush set by scaled beasts and the priest.
Lin Yan did not move. He calmly reported over the channel: "A bait signal detected to the southeast, mimicking the fungal carpet veins. The target is to lure me into separating from the squad alone. It is a trap specifically designed for me."
Lu Heng's eyes darkened. "Just as expected. The matrix's prediction is even more precise than we imagined."
Su Wan quickly adjusted the scanning frequency, tracing backward along the true energy flow: "Found it! The real energy supply link heads northwest, about seven kilometers from here, at the ruins of an old-era air defense bunker. That is the priest's hiding place. But the interior space of the bunker is complex, and it is highly likely there is a second-layer illusion web trap inside."
"Should we report to the other two squads and encircle over there?" Chen Ye gripped the psychic shock baton in his hand tightly.
Lu Heng did not answer immediately. He looked at the murky fog slowly flowing over the distant wasteland, then glanced at his watch. "Not yet. The other two squads have their own beacons to investigate. If we rashly alter the formation, the triangular cover layout will be broken, and the enemy could seize the gap to divide and conquer us one by one. We will report the coordinates to headquarters first and await orders."
The moment the communication message was sent, the alarm on Su Wan's detector suddenly spiked.
"Warning! The intensity of the illusion web is rising rapidly! It's not just this small node; the fungal hyphae across the entire area are activating synchronously! They don't intend to defend the bunker; they plan to trap the five of us in the area around Beacon Two!"
The ground trembled slightly. Purple fungal hyphae grew wildly from the cracks in the outer walls of the beacon, coming alive as they wove into a net on the ground. From the rock crevices of the distant wasteland came low, continuous shrieks; the roars of scaled beasts rose and fell one after another, closing in from all directions.
What they had stepped into was never a simple reconnaissance site.
From the moment the three beacons lost contact, this entire stretch of wasteland had been a massive net meticulously laid by the illusion web matrix for them—especially for Lin Yan.
In the channel, the urgent voice of the command center rang out: "Attention all squads! Large-scale synchronous activation of the illusion web detected! Immediately evaluate breakout routes. Support forces are deploying; ETA is at least forty minutes!"
Forty minutes.
The five of them had to endure forty minutes alone under the suppression of the silent illusion web and the encirclement of scaled beasts.
Lin Yan slowly held his short blade horizontally, his Sea of Consciousness tightly gathered into a single point. The lethargy continued to erode his mind, scaled beasts were closing in from all sides, and from the direction of the distant bunker, the sinister consciousness of the two priests slowly raised their gaze, fixing upon him.
This time, it was no longer a one-on-one encirclement in a corridor.
This time, it was a meticulously prepared hunting ground on the wasteland, orchestrated by the illusion web matrix.
He was closer than ever before to that life-and-death threshold of breaking through his Sea of Consciousness.
End of Chapter.