Chapter 147: Signs of Losing Control
The gray light at the edge of the sky slowly faded, and the long night locked firmly over the West Bastion. The searchlights on the city walls swept back and forth along fixed trajectories. The beams of light fell upon the withered, yellow grass of the five-kilometer buffer zone, swaying unsteadily, yet never daring to cross the boundary or pierce into the darkness shrouded by the psychic curtain.
Lin Yan stepped down from his watch post and descended the city walls along the stairs. The hidden pain within the core of his Sea of Consciousness had not yet dissipated; with every heartbeat, it felt as though that fissure was being gently tugged. He had long grown accustomed to this sensation, neither expecting it to improve nor hoping for any turn of fortune. In everyone's understanding, once a Sea of Consciousness origin tear injury was inflicted, it became a shackle that accompanied one for life.
On the way to the city's temporary medical monitoring area, medical staff kept rushing past, pushing stretchers. Most of the civilians on the stretchers had vacant eyes; some muttered incoherently in low voices, repeatedly reciting fragmented, terrifying scenes—all nightmares birthed from the corrosive breath seeping into their consciousness.
"Forty-two new cases of psychic disturbance were added last night," Instructor Wen said in a low voice as she walked down beside him. "Three of them were ordinary people who have already begun to experience mild hallucinations, unable to distinguish reality from illusion. If this continues for another half month and the concentration of the corrosive breath keeps rising, a massive psychic riot will break out inside the city."
"Is there no way to isolate it?" Lin Yan asked.
"Barrier devices can only protect a few core locations, such as the command center, the combat readiness academy, and the ammunition depots." Instructor Wen gave a bitter smile. "The energy consumption is massive, and materials are scarce; it's simply impossible to spread the coverage across the entire bastion. Ordinary people have no Sea of Consciousness to serve as a buffer; they are the most vulnerable link."
The two walked all the way to the training ground of the combat readiness academy.
The continuous shouts of sparring that used to echo here were much thinner today. Many students sat by the edge of the field, holding their heads and gasping for air, their faces pale. The lingering aftereffects of yesterday's resistance test had not yet faded; the dizziness and fear brought on by the Sea of Consciousness tremors could not be easily dispelled in the short term.
Chen Ye was leaning against the fence of the training ground, wiping his shock baton. Seeing Lin Yan approach, he raised his hand in greeting.
"Finished another round of watch? Doesn't feel good, does it?" Chen Ye glanced at Lin Yan's subconscious gesture of pressing his brow. "Lu Heng just came over to pass on a message. A reconnaissance drone tried to probe by flying low and circling above the curtain. Less than three minutes after flying in, the signal was completely lost. In the end, it only transmitted back a segment of garbled spectrum. We couldn't even find the wreckage."
Zhao Kai sat on the stone steps nearby, a portable detection terminal spread out in front of him. The screen was playing back the waveform of the drone's final transmission. Dense purple waves were intertwined, like an invisible net. Whether approaching from the ground or the air, it would be captured by the curtain.
"There is no spatial blockade; what is sealed is psychic perception. As long as the target enters with consciousness, the illusion web will lock onto it. Without a strong Sea of Consciousness expert to lead the way, any probing method is a suicide mission." Zhao Kai tapped the screen with his fingertip. "But right now, only you and Gu Shen, as third-tiers, can stably go out on duty. Going in is equivalent to sending our only remaining trump card straight into a trap."
Gu Shen arrived at the training ground at this moment, his eyes filled with exhaustion. He had just completed another round of city wall vigilance and was equally worn out from the corrosive breath washing over his Sea of Consciousness.
"The command center just finished a brief meeting," Gu Shen said. "The high command is divided into two voices. One faction advocates continuing to defend to the death, relying on heavy firepower; as long as the curtain dares to press inward, we saturate the nodes with bombardment. The other faction believes that passive defense is a slow death, and proposes selecting a squad to gamble on forcibly piercing the curtain to probe the movements toward the rift. They debated for a long time but reached no conclusion."
"Forcibly piercing is too risky." Lin Yan slowly shook his head. "The curtain has newly added priest fulcrums, making the links even more flexible. Once synchronously locked by the priests, the squad will instantly fall into multiple overlapping staggered-timing phantom arrays, without even being able to send out a distress signal."
He wanted to figure out the matrix's movements inside Rift No. 79 more than anyone else. But reason suppressed his impulse; the continuous stabbing pain transmitted from within his Sea of Consciousness constantly reminded him of his own shortcomings. This injury would not grant him any favors, nor would it erupt with power in times of crisis; it would only drag him down mercilessly when he pushed his Sea of Consciousness beyond its limits.
The few of them fell silent. Only the sporadic sounds of striking came from afar in the training ground.
Just then, a sharp, piercing alarm suddenly sounded from the east side of the city.
The communication channel instantly erupted with the urgent voice of a sentry:
"East buffer zone! A scaled beast cluster is sneaking over under the cover of illusions! There are over thirty of them, led by second-tier scaled beasts. They were hiding within the illusions at the edge of the curtain, only revealing their tracks when they approached the red line!"
Everyone's expression changed.
Previous harassment had only involved sporadic individual probes. Deploying over thirty at once was a first.
"All personnel to combat readiness!" Lu Heng's voice followed closely. "Lin Yan, Gu Shen, prioritize Sea of Consciousness suppression; help the frontline soldiers strip away the illusion interference. Chen Ye, bring the assault squad. Zhao Kai, simultaneously lock onto the coordinates of the phantom seed nodes near them and guide the remote artillery fire!"
Lin Yan didn't overthink it. He immediately stabilized his breath, and his Sea of Consciousness slowly spread out.
The fissure transmitted its familiar pulling pain. Gritting his teeth, he pushed the pain deep into his heart and rushed toward the eastern defense line with the squad.
At the five-kilometer red line on the east side, distorted light and shadows floated over the wasteland.
The illusions overflowing from the edge of the curtain twisted vision here. The distant dirt mounds looked ordinary, but as soon as one focused slightly, the scenery would constantly shift. The scaled beasts used this layer of illusion to conceal their figures, keeping their bodies low as they rapidly advanced toward the human sentry posts.
Frontline soldiers had already set up their firearms, continuously pouring bullets outward. But the illusion interfered with their vision, and many bullets struck at false shadows.
"They're changing tactics," Gu Shen said in a deep voice, externally projecting his Sea of Consciousness to erect a small psychic barrier. "They are no longer relying solely on the curtain for slow permeation; they have begun small-scale deployment of troops to consume our garrison forces. Wearing us down on one hand, while testing our reactions on the other."
A second-tier scaled beast suddenly broke through the illusion, its foul-smelling mouth biting toward a soldier. Three soldiers beside him simultaneously crossed their rifles to block. Shock weapons slammed into its hard scales, sparks flying everywhere. Only by joining forces did they barely manage to force it back.
This completely conformed to their established battlefield rules: a single second-tier scaled beast required the coordination of several soldiers to contain.
Lin Yan's Sea of Consciousness pushed outward, spreading layers of soft psychic waves to strip away the illusions covering the soldiers' eyes.
But the continuous output constantly stimulated the fissure deep within his Sea of Consciousness. The dull pain gradually turned sharp, and his vision darkened slightly. He knew exactly where his limits lay. Not daring to forcefully expand the coverage area, he could only grit his teeth and hold the area directly in front of him.
"I can't sustain a large area," Lin Yan said in a deep voice. "I can only disperse the illusions in segments. Gu Shen, let's split up to two different points."
"Understood," Gu Shen responded, moving toward another sentry post.
Artillery fire tore through the sky. Remote strikes slammed into the nearby phantom seed anchor points according to the coordinates marked by Zhao Kai. The explosions kicked up dirt, and the purple resonance waves trembled violently for a moment, but did not completely dissipate. In just a short while, they slowly stabilized again.
The nodes were damaged, but the underlying links of the curtain remained intact. The priests deep within the curtain remotely adjusted the frequencies, quickly filling the gaps.
This skirmish lasted for nearly an hour.
When the last scaled beast fell, the wasteland was covered in foul-smelling bloodstains. On the human side, four were killed in action, seven were wounded, and two more soldiers, having suffered Sea of Consciousness trauma from prolonged exposure to the lingering waves of the illusion web, were urgently carried away for treatment.
Lin Yan retracted his Sea of Consciousness, supporting himself on his knees as he gasped for air. The pain at his brow lingered for a long time. He looked toward the silent curtain deep in the darkness, his heart turning ice-cold.
The matrix was in no rush to launch a general offensive. It just sent out squads to probe and harvest, time and time again, without inflicting fatal blows. Every single clash cost humanity blood, while the alien race could hide behind the curtain, continuously mobilizing its forces.
And he, bearing this Sea of Consciousness fissure that could never be healed, could only stand here time and time again, passively welcoming the enemy.
He did not yet know that during the distant, decisive battle, this scar that currently only brought pain would become the sole glimmer of hope.
The wind howled over the wasteland, and the curtain continued to lie dormant in silence.
The torment belonging to the West Bastion was far from over.
End of Chapter.
Lin Yan stepped down from his watch post and descended the city walls along the stairs. The hidden pain within the core of his Sea of Consciousness had not yet dissipated; with every heartbeat, it felt as though that fissure was being gently tugged. He had long grown accustomed to this sensation, neither expecting it to improve nor hoping for any turn of fortune. In everyone's understanding, once a Sea of Consciousness origin tear injury was inflicted, it became a shackle that accompanied one for life.
On the way to the city's temporary medical monitoring area, medical staff kept rushing past, pushing stretchers. Most of the civilians on the stretchers had vacant eyes; some muttered incoherently in low voices, repeatedly reciting fragmented, terrifying scenes—all nightmares birthed from the corrosive breath seeping into their consciousness.
"Forty-two new cases of psychic disturbance were added last night," Instructor Wen said in a low voice as she walked down beside him. "Three of them were ordinary people who have already begun to experience mild hallucinations, unable to distinguish reality from illusion. If this continues for another half month and the concentration of the corrosive breath keeps rising, a massive psychic riot will break out inside the city."
"Is there no way to isolate it?" Lin Yan asked.
"Barrier devices can only protect a few core locations, such as the command center, the combat readiness academy, and the ammunition depots." Instructor Wen gave a bitter smile. "The energy consumption is massive, and materials are scarce; it's simply impossible to spread the coverage across the entire bastion. Ordinary people have no Sea of Consciousness to serve as a buffer; they are the most vulnerable link."
The two walked all the way to the training ground of the combat readiness academy.
The continuous shouts of sparring that used to echo here were much thinner today. Many students sat by the edge of the field, holding their heads and gasping for air, their faces pale. The lingering aftereffects of yesterday's resistance test had not yet faded; the dizziness and fear brought on by the Sea of Consciousness tremors could not be easily dispelled in the short term.
Chen Ye was leaning against the fence of the training ground, wiping his shock baton. Seeing Lin Yan approach, he raised his hand in greeting.
"Finished another round of watch? Doesn't feel good, does it?" Chen Ye glanced at Lin Yan's subconscious gesture of pressing his brow. "Lu Heng just came over to pass on a message. A reconnaissance drone tried to probe by flying low and circling above the curtain. Less than three minutes after flying in, the signal was completely lost. In the end, it only transmitted back a segment of garbled spectrum. We couldn't even find the wreckage."
Zhao Kai sat on the stone steps nearby, a portable detection terminal spread out in front of him. The screen was playing back the waveform of the drone's final transmission. Dense purple waves were intertwined, like an invisible net. Whether approaching from the ground or the air, it would be captured by the curtain.
"There is no spatial blockade; what is sealed is psychic perception. As long as the target enters with consciousness, the illusion web will lock onto it. Without a strong Sea of Consciousness expert to lead the way, any probing method is a suicide mission." Zhao Kai tapped the screen with his fingertip. "But right now, only you and Gu Shen, as third-tiers, can stably go out on duty. Going in is equivalent to sending our only remaining trump card straight into a trap."
Gu Shen arrived at the training ground at this moment, his eyes filled with exhaustion. He had just completed another round of city wall vigilance and was equally worn out from the corrosive breath washing over his Sea of Consciousness.
"The command center just finished a brief meeting," Gu Shen said. "The high command is divided into two voices. One faction advocates continuing to defend to the death, relying on heavy firepower; as long as the curtain dares to press inward, we saturate the nodes with bombardment. The other faction believes that passive defense is a slow death, and proposes selecting a squad to gamble on forcibly piercing the curtain to probe the movements toward the rift. They debated for a long time but reached no conclusion."
"Forcibly piercing is too risky." Lin Yan slowly shook his head. "The curtain has newly added priest fulcrums, making the links even more flexible. Once synchronously locked by the priests, the squad will instantly fall into multiple overlapping staggered-timing phantom arrays, without even being able to send out a distress signal."
He wanted to figure out the matrix's movements inside Rift No. 79 more than anyone else. But reason suppressed his impulse; the continuous stabbing pain transmitted from within his Sea of Consciousness constantly reminded him of his own shortcomings. This injury would not grant him any favors, nor would it erupt with power in times of crisis; it would only drag him down mercilessly when he pushed his Sea of Consciousness beyond its limits.
The few of them fell silent. Only the sporadic sounds of striking came from afar in the training ground.
Just then, a sharp, piercing alarm suddenly sounded from the east side of the city.
The communication channel instantly erupted with the urgent voice of a sentry:
"East buffer zone! A scaled beast cluster is sneaking over under the cover of illusions! There are over thirty of them, led by second-tier scaled beasts. They were hiding within the illusions at the edge of the curtain, only revealing their tracks when they approached the red line!"
Everyone's expression changed.
Previous harassment had only involved sporadic individual probes. Deploying over thirty at once was a first.
"All personnel to combat readiness!" Lu Heng's voice followed closely. "Lin Yan, Gu Shen, prioritize Sea of Consciousness suppression; help the frontline soldiers strip away the illusion interference. Chen Ye, bring the assault squad. Zhao Kai, simultaneously lock onto the coordinates of the phantom seed nodes near them and guide the remote artillery fire!"
Lin Yan didn't overthink it. He immediately stabilized his breath, and his Sea of Consciousness slowly spread out.
The fissure transmitted its familiar pulling pain. Gritting his teeth, he pushed the pain deep into his heart and rushed toward the eastern defense line with the squad.
At the five-kilometer red line on the east side, distorted light and shadows floated over the wasteland.
The illusions overflowing from the edge of the curtain twisted vision here. The distant dirt mounds looked ordinary, but as soon as one focused slightly, the scenery would constantly shift. The scaled beasts used this layer of illusion to conceal their figures, keeping their bodies low as they rapidly advanced toward the human sentry posts.
Frontline soldiers had already set up their firearms, continuously pouring bullets outward. But the illusion interfered with their vision, and many bullets struck at false shadows.
"They're changing tactics," Gu Shen said in a deep voice, externally projecting his Sea of Consciousness to erect a small psychic barrier. "They are no longer relying solely on the curtain for slow permeation; they have begun small-scale deployment of troops to consume our garrison forces. Wearing us down on one hand, while testing our reactions on the other."
A second-tier scaled beast suddenly broke through the illusion, its foul-smelling mouth biting toward a soldier. Three soldiers beside him simultaneously crossed their rifles to block. Shock weapons slammed into its hard scales, sparks flying everywhere. Only by joining forces did they barely manage to force it back.
This completely conformed to their established battlefield rules: a single second-tier scaled beast required the coordination of several soldiers to contain.
Lin Yan's Sea of Consciousness pushed outward, spreading layers of soft psychic waves to strip away the illusions covering the soldiers' eyes.
But the continuous output constantly stimulated the fissure deep within his Sea of Consciousness. The dull pain gradually turned sharp, and his vision darkened slightly. He knew exactly where his limits lay. Not daring to forcefully expand the coverage area, he could only grit his teeth and hold the area directly in front of him.
"I can't sustain a large area," Lin Yan said in a deep voice. "I can only disperse the illusions in segments. Gu Shen, let's split up to two different points."
"Understood," Gu Shen responded, moving toward another sentry post.
Artillery fire tore through the sky. Remote strikes slammed into the nearby phantom seed anchor points according to the coordinates marked by Zhao Kai. The explosions kicked up dirt, and the purple resonance waves trembled violently for a moment, but did not completely dissipate. In just a short while, they slowly stabilized again.
The nodes were damaged, but the underlying links of the curtain remained intact. The priests deep within the curtain remotely adjusted the frequencies, quickly filling the gaps.
This skirmish lasted for nearly an hour.
When the last scaled beast fell, the wasteland was covered in foul-smelling bloodstains. On the human side, four were killed in action, seven were wounded, and two more soldiers, having suffered Sea of Consciousness trauma from prolonged exposure to the lingering waves of the illusion web, were urgently carried away for treatment.
Lin Yan retracted his Sea of Consciousness, supporting himself on his knees as he gasped for air. The pain at his brow lingered for a long time. He looked toward the silent curtain deep in the darkness, his heart turning ice-cold.
The matrix was in no rush to launch a general offensive. It just sent out squads to probe and harvest, time and time again, without inflicting fatal blows. Every single clash cost humanity blood, while the alien race could hide behind the curtain, continuously mobilizing its forces.
And he, bearing this Sea of Consciousness fissure that could never be healed, could only stand here time and time again, passively welcoming the enemy.
He did not yet know that during the distant, decisive battle, this scar that currently only brought pain would become the sole glimmer of hope.
The wind howled over the wasteland, and the curtain continued to lie dormant in silence.
The torment belonging to the West Bastion was far from over.
End of Chapter.