Chapter 145: The Curtain Descends
The newly painted red warning line on the city walls of the West Bastion extended five kilometers outward, representing the only remaining buffer boundary for humanity at this moment.
The outer sentry posts had been completely evacuated. The ancient roads were no longer bustling with patrol convoys rushing back and forth. Only solitary, long-range detection base stations stood atop the dirt mounds, their antennas silently aimed toward the quarantine zone. Drones patrolled along fixed routes in continuous loops, transmitting an endless stream of spectrum data back to the command center.
Lin Yan and Gu Shen took turns standing watch on the city walls, maintaining long-distance Sea of Consciousness vigilance. They used their perception to monitor any psychic anomalies in the direction of the quarantine zone, working in tandem with the base stations.
That evening, the low-hanging clouds pressed down heavily, and the gray, hazy sky swallowed the contours of the wasteland. Lin Yan gently released his perception, crossing the five-kilometer buffer zone to probe deep into the isolation area. This time, he did not capture any independent illusion webs.
The countless phantom seed nodes scattered across the valleys, mining pits, and collapsed tunnels were slowly aligning their resonance baselines. Slender, hidden psychic links spread beneath the earth, connecting the massive webs guarded by the priests into one continuous network. The illusion webs at all locations, including the Bone-Dry Valley and the abandoned mining city, began to breathe in unison.
"They're connected," Lin Yan said in a low voice. On the other end of the communication channel, Gu Shen immediately tensed his mind, synchronously spreading out his perception to share the psychic onslaught.
They were no longer three isolated traps. A massive, contiguous psychic curtain spanning the entire Western Front was slowly taking shape. The phantom seed anchor points served as its warp and weft. Three ancient lizard progeny priests hid at different fulcrums within the curtain, ready to mobilize the timing branches of any region and deploy corridors at any position. Once one stepped into the wasteland shrouded by this curtain, there would be no detours left to take.
Soon, Zhao Kai's report arrived at the terminal on the city walls from the rear intelligence room: Global detection confirms that the cross-regional resonance links have been established. The contiguous illusion web blockade curtain in the Western Front quarantine zone is fully formed.
When the news was reported to the command center, a suffocating silence fell over the briefing room.
Zhou Chong stared at the purple blocks spreading across the map, his fingertips tightening slightly. They had retreated from the ten-kilometer red line to five kilometers, yielding time and time again. But what they had earned in return was not a respite for the alien race; instead, it had given the enemy the leisure to consolidate all their traps and weave this impenetrable psychic barrier.
The primary function of this curtain was blockade. Any squad attempting to traverse it for external reconnaissance would fall into an illusion midway, and the scaled beast clusters waiting near the nodes would seize the opportunity to surround and slaughter them. From now on, it would be exceedingly difficult for humanity to probe the depths of the quarantine zone, and all movements toward Rift No. 79 would be completely shrouded in mystery.
And the blockade was merely a precursor. The entire curtain, while in low-power dormancy, continuously accumulated resonance energy. The priests held the fulcrums to regulate the flow, waiting only for the matrix's signal to push the entire formation inward, striking directly at the bastion.
"Our heavy firepower can shatter local nodes, but it cannot sever the underlying resonance links," Instructor Wen's calm voice echoed through the channel, hiding a sense of powerlessness. "There are too many redundant nodes. Destroy a batch, and the rest can quickly reorganize. There is no way to break this in a single blow."
Chen Ye rested his hand on his rifle, gazing quietly at the hazy wasteland. "Twenty-five years ago, when the rift first broke out, we could at least go out and fight, go out and search. Now, even the channels to figure out the enemy's movements are being shut down."
Lin Yan slowly retracted his perception. The core of his Sea of Consciousness felt a long, dull ache, and the old hidden injury within it throbbed faintly in response. He had witnessed the evolution of this tactic from beginning to end: the matrix breeding phantom seeds in Rift No. 79, the priests selecting sites to weave the webs, the scaled beasts guarding and harvesting; from individual dormant phantom seeds to the current contiguous blockade curtain. The ancient lizard progeny were in no rush for a decisive battle. They were merely using the phantom arrays to slowly bleed humanity dry, exhausting the Sea of Consciousness power capable of resisting psychic erosion.
"It hasn't pushed over yet; it's just sealing off the road first," Lin Yan said softly.
"It's waiting," Gu Shen added. "Waiting for our remaining Sea of Consciousness combat power to continue depleting, waiting for the newly trained cadets from the combat readiness academies to collapse en masse within the illusions, waiting for the defensive line to lose its sufficient shield. Only then will the curtain advance inward."
Night fell. The searchlights on the city walls swept across the five-kilometer buffer zone. The moment the light touched the edge of the quarantine zone, it was swallowed by the thick darkness, unable to illuminate the wasteland beneath the curtain.
The command center issued a Level-1 alert order overnight: Sea of Consciousness cultivators were to cancel their rest rotations and remain on twenty-four-hour standby; heavy firepower squads were to maintain combat readiness; civilians inside the city were to familiarize themselves with the underground air-raid shelters in batches; and strictly no one was allowed to cross the five-kilometer warning line without authorization.
The lights within the bastion still burned, but a tense atmosphere quietly spread through the streets and alleys.
Deep within the quarantine zone, the three priests slowly retracted their externally projected psychic power. The cross-regional resonance links flowed stably, and the massive psychic curtain sank into dormancy, hidden beneath the rock strata and the darkness. A signal traveled down through the thick underground main hyphae, passing through layers of tunnels, and was delivered deep into Rift No. 79, merging into the matrix's massive fungal carpet.
The web was complete. The external channels of the Western Front had been sealed.
The matrix received the message, and countless plump hyphae writhed slowly. The blockade curtain was only the first step. Under its cover, a new round of breeding had already begun.
This time, what was being cultivated was no longer just phantom seed embryos.
Beneath the darkness of the wasteland, a greater undercurrent was slowly surging.
End of Chapter.
The outer sentry posts had been completely evacuated. The ancient roads were no longer bustling with patrol convoys rushing back and forth. Only solitary, long-range detection base stations stood atop the dirt mounds, their antennas silently aimed toward the quarantine zone. Drones patrolled along fixed routes in continuous loops, transmitting an endless stream of spectrum data back to the command center.
Lin Yan and Gu Shen took turns standing watch on the city walls, maintaining long-distance Sea of Consciousness vigilance. They used their perception to monitor any psychic anomalies in the direction of the quarantine zone, working in tandem with the base stations.
That evening, the low-hanging clouds pressed down heavily, and the gray, hazy sky swallowed the contours of the wasteland. Lin Yan gently released his perception, crossing the five-kilometer buffer zone to probe deep into the isolation area. This time, he did not capture any independent illusion webs.
The countless phantom seed nodes scattered across the valleys, mining pits, and collapsed tunnels were slowly aligning their resonance baselines. Slender, hidden psychic links spread beneath the earth, connecting the massive webs guarded by the priests into one continuous network. The illusion webs at all locations, including the Bone-Dry Valley and the abandoned mining city, began to breathe in unison.
"They're connected," Lin Yan said in a low voice. On the other end of the communication channel, Gu Shen immediately tensed his mind, synchronously spreading out his perception to share the psychic onslaught.
They were no longer three isolated traps. A massive, contiguous psychic curtain spanning the entire Western Front was slowly taking shape. The phantom seed anchor points served as its warp and weft. Three ancient lizard progeny priests hid at different fulcrums within the curtain, ready to mobilize the timing branches of any region and deploy corridors at any position. Once one stepped into the wasteland shrouded by this curtain, there would be no detours left to take.
Soon, Zhao Kai's report arrived at the terminal on the city walls from the rear intelligence room: Global detection confirms that the cross-regional resonance links have been established. The contiguous illusion web blockade curtain in the Western Front quarantine zone is fully formed.
When the news was reported to the command center, a suffocating silence fell over the briefing room.
Zhou Chong stared at the purple blocks spreading across the map, his fingertips tightening slightly. They had retreated from the ten-kilometer red line to five kilometers, yielding time and time again. But what they had earned in return was not a respite for the alien race; instead, it had given the enemy the leisure to consolidate all their traps and weave this impenetrable psychic barrier.
The primary function of this curtain was blockade. Any squad attempting to traverse it for external reconnaissance would fall into an illusion midway, and the scaled beast clusters waiting near the nodes would seize the opportunity to surround and slaughter them. From now on, it would be exceedingly difficult for humanity to probe the depths of the quarantine zone, and all movements toward Rift No. 79 would be completely shrouded in mystery.
And the blockade was merely a precursor. The entire curtain, while in low-power dormancy, continuously accumulated resonance energy. The priests held the fulcrums to regulate the flow, waiting only for the matrix's signal to push the entire formation inward, striking directly at the bastion.
"Our heavy firepower can shatter local nodes, but it cannot sever the underlying resonance links," Instructor Wen's calm voice echoed through the channel, hiding a sense of powerlessness. "There are too many redundant nodes. Destroy a batch, and the rest can quickly reorganize. There is no way to break this in a single blow."
Chen Ye rested his hand on his rifle, gazing quietly at the hazy wasteland. "Twenty-five years ago, when the rift first broke out, we could at least go out and fight, go out and search. Now, even the channels to figure out the enemy's movements are being shut down."
Lin Yan slowly retracted his perception. The core of his Sea of Consciousness felt a long, dull ache, and the old hidden injury within it throbbed faintly in response. He had witnessed the evolution of this tactic from beginning to end: the matrix breeding phantom seeds in Rift No. 79, the priests selecting sites to weave the webs, the scaled beasts guarding and harvesting; from individual dormant phantom seeds to the current contiguous blockade curtain. The ancient lizard progeny were in no rush for a decisive battle. They were merely using the phantom arrays to slowly bleed humanity dry, exhausting the Sea of Consciousness power capable of resisting psychic erosion.
"It hasn't pushed over yet; it's just sealing off the road first," Lin Yan said softly.
"It's waiting," Gu Shen added. "Waiting for our remaining Sea of Consciousness combat power to continue depleting, waiting for the newly trained cadets from the combat readiness academies to collapse en masse within the illusions, waiting for the defensive line to lose its sufficient shield. Only then will the curtain advance inward."
Night fell. The searchlights on the city walls swept across the five-kilometer buffer zone. The moment the light touched the edge of the quarantine zone, it was swallowed by the thick darkness, unable to illuminate the wasteland beneath the curtain.
The command center issued a Level-1 alert order overnight: Sea of Consciousness cultivators were to cancel their rest rotations and remain on twenty-four-hour standby; heavy firepower squads were to maintain combat readiness; civilians inside the city were to familiarize themselves with the underground air-raid shelters in batches; and strictly no one was allowed to cross the five-kilometer warning line without authorization.
The lights within the bastion still burned, but a tense atmosphere quietly spread through the streets and alleys.
Deep within the quarantine zone, the three priests slowly retracted their externally projected psychic power. The cross-regional resonance links flowed stably, and the massive psychic curtain sank into dormancy, hidden beneath the rock strata and the darkness. A signal traveled down through the thick underground main hyphae, passing through layers of tunnels, and was delivered deep into Rift No. 79, merging into the matrix's massive fungal carpet.
The web was complete. The external channels of the Western Front had been sealed.
The matrix received the message, and countless plump hyphae writhed slowly. The blockade curtain was only the first step. Under its cover, a new round of breeding had already begun.
This time, what was being cultivated was no longer just phantom seed embryos.
Beneath the darkness of the wasteland, a greater undercurrent was slowly surging.
End of Chapter.