Chapter 163: The Net Locks
That psychic shriek made no sound, yet it struck directly at the depths of their consciousness.
In an instant, it felt as if a heavy hammer had brutally smashed into everyone's heads. The four assault team members groaned in闷哼 (muffled pain), clutching their heads with both hands. Their night vision goggles slipped askew and fell, and countless overlapping, distorted illusions instantly exploded in their field of vision—the collapsing bastion, the pouncing scaled beasts, the crying relatives—all rushing into their minds at once.
Chen Ye shook his head. Relying on the mental fortitude honed by years of fighting against the illusion web's assaults, he barely managed to steady himself. He reached out and grabbed the nearest team member, roaring in a low voice, "Steady your minds! Follow Lin Yan! Don't scatter!"
Lin Yan's experience was far more brutal than the others'.
The resonance impact from the illusion web's lock-on struck precisely against the already scarred fissure in his Sea of Consciousness. The excruciating pain erupted explosively, as if a dry, cracked rock formation was being forcibly pried apart by immense force. A black wave of dizziness surged over him like a tide. The pipe network tunnel before him twisted and stretched endlessly. Blood-colored mucus seeped from the walls, and countless faces of the ancient lizard progeny emerged from the pipe walls, hissing and flicking their tongues at him.
He stumbled and braced himself against the concrete wall, his knuckles turning white as he gripped it. The outline of the three strong-dose stabilization agents in his pocket pressed against his palm.
He could not inject them now.
Once his perception was dulled, in this enclosed tunnel surrounded by the illusion web, he wouldn't be able to tell which traps were illusions. The entire squad would walk straight into a dead end.
"The priest has locked down the frequency band in this area. There will be no more blank windows," Lin Yan said through gritted teeth, his voice trembling. Relying on the ancient martial arts breathing technique, he forcibly gathered his collapsing Sea of Consciousness. "The frequency gap for our original return route has completely vanished. The wasteland side has been sealed off by the illusion web. Charging forward blindly is just running into a trap."
Zhao Kai's voice in the earpiece had been completely drowned out by piercing static, unable to transmit any effective warnings. Communication was severed.
They had completely lost contact with the Western Front bastion.
The team member with the knife scar panted heavily, his gun barrel frantically aiming at the rear of the tunnel. "Then what do we do? The rift mother nest is ahead, and our retreat is sealed off. We're trapped to death in this pipe network!"
"The pump room!" Lin Yan suddenly raised his eyes, suppressing the surging pain. "The pump room connects to another drainage branch. We saw it when we passed by earlier. It's an abandoned underground channel. Although we don't know where it leads, at least it's not on the primary resonance route the priest prioritized for sealing. That is our only alternative exit!"
There was no time for further discussion.
The secondary priest's psychic signal was rapidly dispatching the guards. The third-tier scaled beast that had been patrolling the pump room earlier had already received the command and was rushing toward them along the main tunnel. The muffled tapping sounds rang out again. This time, the rhythm was urgent; it was no longer calibrating the rock strata's resonance, but a signal for the hunt.
Thump! Thump! Thump! The tremors rapidly approached along the pipe walls.
"Retreat to the pump room! Maintain formation, do not break away individually!" Chen Ye pulled up the dazed team member. The six of them turned and staggered along the pipe network, sprinting frantically toward the pump room.
The illusions on both sides of the tunnel grew wildly. The puddles at their feet turned into churning purple fog, and the phantom shadows of tentacles drifted in mid-air, within arm's reach. Whispers drilled into their ears, constantly persuading them to stop, to surrender on the spot, saying that offering up their consciousness would spare them from pain.
The team members had reached their absolute limit. Some were shedding tears uncontrollably as they ran, their Seas of Consciousness on the verge of collapse under the continuous psychic crushing. They did not have Lin Yan's sensitivity to the illusion web's frequency, nor did they have the ancient martial arts mental technique to stabilize their origin. They could only rely on their iron will to endure.
Lin Yan ran at the very front. While leading the way, he continuously released a wisp of slender perception to anticipate the trap nodes of the phantom array ahead.
Every time his perception probed out, the fissure tore a fraction more. The burning and stabbing pain layered upon itself. His vision occasionally lost focus briefly, and several times he nearly collided with collapsed broken beams. He strictly held his bottom line, using his perception only for pathfinding and early warnings, absolutely refusing to spread a large-scale barrier, conserving every fraction of his origin.
Turning the corner, the entrance to the pump room appeared before them.
But the moment they stepped into the pump room, everyone abruptly halted.
That purplish-black third-tier scaled beast was already blocking the center of the pump room. The semi-transparent psychic tentacles on its back were fully taut, glowing with an eerie purple light, its vertical pupils firmly locked onto the six intruders. Having received the priest's signal, it had intercepted their route in advance.
Both the retreat and the side path were blocked.
"Form a back-to-back formation!" Chen Ye roared in a low voice, fiercely holding his shock baton horizontally in front of him. The low-frequency oscillation module was activated, and the humming vibrations spread out, briefly offsetting a portion of the psychic intrusion. "Assault team, aim your shock pistols at its tentacles! That is the vital point for transmitting the priest's signal!"
The four team members quickly scattered, forming back-to-back pairs against the walls, their gun muzzles aimed at the third-tier scaled beast.
The third-tier scaled beast let out a low roar, releasing a psychic shock first. Invisible waves swept across the entire pump room, and the air seemed to solidify.
Lin Yan felt as if the fissure in his Sea of Consciousness was about to give way. The intense pain caused cold sweat to break out all over his body. He knew he could not passively endure this round of impact. He was the only Sea of Consciousness fulcrum for the entire squad. Gritting his teeth, he concentrated his remaining psychic power into a single point and crashed it against the waves.
It was not a head-on, hard collision. Instead, he mimicked the dull, dead resonance frequency of the rock strata, forcibly hiding the life fluctuations of the six squad members within the frequency of the earth.
This was the breath-concealing method taught to him by his master, the final camouflage in a desperate situation.
The psychic scan from the third-tier scaled beast washed over the group, and its signal briefly faltered for an instant.
It was this half-breath of a gap!
"Fire!"
The low-frequency shockwaves from the pistols fired in succession. Two beams of white light accurately struck the tentacles on its back.
"Hiss—!"
The third-tier scaled beast roared in excruciating pain. Its massive body suddenly thrashed, and its thick tail swept fiercely toward one side. A team member who failed to dodge in time was struck by the tail. The crisp sound of breaking bones rang out clearly. The man flew out like a ragdoll, crashing heavily against the rock wall, and instantly lost all signs of life.
"Old Zhou!" The team member with the knife scar's eyes tore open in rage. Red-eyed, he wanted to charge forward.
"Don't lose focus!" Lin Yan sternly stopped him, keeping his eyes fixed on the fluctuations of the scaled beast's tentacles. "It's calling for help from the priest. More scaled beasts are coming. We can't afford a prolonged fight! Chen Ye, restrain it! The rest, follow me and find the entrance to the drainage channel!"
In the corner of the pump room, a low, narrow洞口 (opening) half-buried by rubble was the entrance to that abandoned underground drainage channel. The opening was narrow; one could only crawl through it while bending over.
Chen Ye gripped his baton and charged at the third-tier scaled beast. The baton collided with the beast's hard shell, sparking a piercing clang. He was familiar with the scaled beast's fighting style, specifically targeting the gaps in its armor, desperately entangling the giant beast's attention.
The remaining three assault team members fired to provide cover while following Lin Yan in a dive toward the opening, tearing away the blocking rubble with their bare hands. The stones were sharp, and their palms were quickly slashed open with bloody cuts.
Harassed continuously by Chen Ye, the third-tier scaled beast grew furious, and its psychic shockwaves grew stronger with each wave.
The fissure in Lin Yan's Sea of Consciousness had already reached the critical red line. The dizziness came in waves, more intense than the last, and the scenery before him constantly overlapped. He could no longer hold on. Trembling, he reached out and pulled out a strong-dose stabilization agent. Biting open the seal with his teeth, he fiercely plunged it into his arm.
The cool liquid flowed through his veins, and the burning, excruciating pain was quickly covered by a layer of numbness.
The price arrived as expected.
The boundary between the real and the fake in the surrounding illusions began to blur. The phantoms on the pipe walls looked incredibly real, and he could no longer tell whether the voices in his ears were the priest's tricks or his teammates' shouts. He forcefully shook his head, forcing himself to remember the direction of the underground channel and the underlying color of the rock strata's resonance, relying on the frequency memory engraved in his consciousness through countless past experiences to distinguish the traps.
"The opening is clear! Hurry and get in!" Lin Yan commanded in a low shout.
"I'll cover the rear! You go first!" Chen Ye yelled loudly, blocking a claw strike from the scaled beast.
"We leave together!" Lin Yan refused. "If you stay behind alone, you won't survive until the priest's reinforcements arrive!"
Seizing a gap when the giant beast's pounce missed, Chen Ye withdrew and retreated rapidly backward. Following the team members, he bent over and钻 (slipped) into the low underground drainage channel.
Lin Yan was the last to step into the opening. Turning back, he raised his hand and threw the shock grenade he was carrying.
The explosion roared, and the rubble and mud instantly collapsed, sealing off the entrance from the pump room to the underground channel. The thick stones temporarily blocked the third-tier scaled beast's pursuit, but amidst the vibrations of the rock strata, its furious, frenzied roars could still be heard.
Inside the underground channel, it was even more cramped and low. They could only advance by bending their waists. The tunnel extended diagonally deeper into the underground. The air was thin, filled with a heavy stench of decay and corrosive breath.
The group crawled forward in silence. No one spoke. The heavy weight of their fallen comrade pressed down on everyone's heart.
Lin Yan's arm trembled slightly. The numbness from the stabilization agent enveloped his Sea of Consciousness, and the pain from the fissure temporarily vanished. But he remained vigilant at all times for the inevitable backlash once the drug wore off. He did not dare to casually use his perception again, relying solely on his naked eyes and hearing to lead the way.
No one knew how long they had been crawling when, suddenly, a flowing wind blew from the front of the tunnel.
It was not the stifling, stagnant wind of the sealed underground. It was a flowing current of air, connecting to the external wasteland.
"There's wind," the team member with the knife scar whispered, a glimmer of light reigniting in his eyes. "The exit is ahead!"
The group quickened their pace, moving forward along the airflow.
A moment later, the tunnel ahead suddenly opened up. The exit of the underground channel led to an abandoned subsidence area scattered with broken rebar and concrete rubble. The gray fog still shrouded heaven and earth, and the corrosive breath of the curtain was omnipresent. But here, they had already broken out of the direct coverage range of the main illusion web core of Rift No. 79.
But just as they crawled out of the underground channel and stepped onto the rubble of the ruins, Lin Yan suddenly froze.
The pain suppressed by the drug hadn't returned yet, but a wisp of familiar psychic fluctuation belonging to a secondary priest drifted lightly over this subsidence area.
They had not given up the pursuit. The priests had divided a portion of the illusion web nodes and followed the direction of their escape, chasing them out.
The gray fog slowly parted. Two second-tier scaled beasts were already waiting quietly behind the broken buildings of the ruins, waiting for them to walk into the trap.
End of Chapter.
In an instant, it felt as if a heavy hammer had brutally smashed into everyone's heads. The four assault team members groaned in闷哼 (muffled pain), clutching their heads with both hands. Their night vision goggles slipped askew and fell, and countless overlapping, distorted illusions instantly exploded in their field of vision—the collapsing bastion, the pouncing scaled beasts, the crying relatives—all rushing into their minds at once.
Chen Ye shook his head. Relying on the mental fortitude honed by years of fighting against the illusion web's assaults, he barely managed to steady himself. He reached out and grabbed the nearest team member, roaring in a low voice, "Steady your minds! Follow Lin Yan! Don't scatter!"
Lin Yan's experience was far more brutal than the others'.
The resonance impact from the illusion web's lock-on struck precisely against the already scarred fissure in his Sea of Consciousness. The excruciating pain erupted explosively, as if a dry, cracked rock formation was being forcibly pried apart by immense force. A black wave of dizziness surged over him like a tide. The pipe network tunnel before him twisted and stretched endlessly. Blood-colored mucus seeped from the walls, and countless faces of the ancient lizard progeny emerged from the pipe walls, hissing and flicking their tongues at him.
He stumbled and braced himself against the concrete wall, his knuckles turning white as he gripped it. The outline of the three strong-dose stabilization agents in his pocket pressed against his palm.
He could not inject them now.
Once his perception was dulled, in this enclosed tunnel surrounded by the illusion web, he wouldn't be able to tell which traps were illusions. The entire squad would walk straight into a dead end.
"The priest has locked down the frequency band in this area. There will be no more blank windows," Lin Yan said through gritted teeth, his voice trembling. Relying on the ancient martial arts breathing technique, he forcibly gathered his collapsing Sea of Consciousness. "The frequency gap for our original return route has completely vanished. The wasteland side has been sealed off by the illusion web. Charging forward blindly is just running into a trap."
Zhao Kai's voice in the earpiece had been completely drowned out by piercing static, unable to transmit any effective warnings. Communication was severed.
They had completely lost contact with the Western Front bastion.
The team member with the knife scar panted heavily, his gun barrel frantically aiming at the rear of the tunnel. "Then what do we do? The rift mother nest is ahead, and our retreat is sealed off. We're trapped to death in this pipe network!"
"The pump room!" Lin Yan suddenly raised his eyes, suppressing the surging pain. "The pump room connects to another drainage branch. We saw it when we passed by earlier. It's an abandoned underground channel. Although we don't know where it leads, at least it's not on the primary resonance route the priest prioritized for sealing. That is our only alternative exit!"
There was no time for further discussion.
The secondary priest's psychic signal was rapidly dispatching the guards. The third-tier scaled beast that had been patrolling the pump room earlier had already received the command and was rushing toward them along the main tunnel. The muffled tapping sounds rang out again. This time, the rhythm was urgent; it was no longer calibrating the rock strata's resonance, but a signal for the hunt.
Thump! Thump! Thump! The tremors rapidly approached along the pipe walls.
"Retreat to the pump room! Maintain formation, do not break away individually!" Chen Ye pulled up the dazed team member. The six of them turned and staggered along the pipe network, sprinting frantically toward the pump room.
The illusions on both sides of the tunnel grew wildly. The puddles at their feet turned into churning purple fog, and the phantom shadows of tentacles drifted in mid-air, within arm's reach. Whispers drilled into their ears, constantly persuading them to stop, to surrender on the spot, saying that offering up their consciousness would spare them from pain.
The team members had reached their absolute limit. Some were shedding tears uncontrollably as they ran, their Seas of Consciousness on the verge of collapse under the continuous psychic crushing. They did not have Lin Yan's sensitivity to the illusion web's frequency, nor did they have the ancient martial arts mental technique to stabilize their origin. They could only rely on their iron will to endure.
Lin Yan ran at the very front. While leading the way, he continuously released a wisp of slender perception to anticipate the trap nodes of the phantom array ahead.
Every time his perception probed out, the fissure tore a fraction more. The burning and stabbing pain layered upon itself. His vision occasionally lost focus briefly, and several times he nearly collided with collapsed broken beams. He strictly held his bottom line, using his perception only for pathfinding and early warnings, absolutely refusing to spread a large-scale barrier, conserving every fraction of his origin.
Turning the corner, the entrance to the pump room appeared before them.
But the moment they stepped into the pump room, everyone abruptly halted.
That purplish-black third-tier scaled beast was already blocking the center of the pump room. The semi-transparent psychic tentacles on its back were fully taut, glowing with an eerie purple light, its vertical pupils firmly locked onto the six intruders. Having received the priest's signal, it had intercepted their route in advance.
Both the retreat and the side path were blocked.
"Form a back-to-back formation!" Chen Ye roared in a low voice, fiercely holding his shock baton horizontally in front of him. The low-frequency oscillation module was activated, and the humming vibrations spread out, briefly offsetting a portion of the psychic intrusion. "Assault team, aim your shock pistols at its tentacles! That is the vital point for transmitting the priest's signal!"
The four team members quickly scattered, forming back-to-back pairs against the walls, their gun muzzles aimed at the third-tier scaled beast.
The third-tier scaled beast let out a low roar, releasing a psychic shock first. Invisible waves swept across the entire pump room, and the air seemed to solidify.
Lin Yan felt as if the fissure in his Sea of Consciousness was about to give way. The intense pain caused cold sweat to break out all over his body. He knew he could not passively endure this round of impact. He was the only Sea of Consciousness fulcrum for the entire squad. Gritting his teeth, he concentrated his remaining psychic power into a single point and crashed it against the waves.
It was not a head-on, hard collision. Instead, he mimicked the dull, dead resonance frequency of the rock strata, forcibly hiding the life fluctuations of the six squad members within the frequency of the earth.
This was the breath-concealing method taught to him by his master, the final camouflage in a desperate situation.
The psychic scan from the third-tier scaled beast washed over the group, and its signal briefly faltered for an instant.
It was this half-breath of a gap!
"Fire!"
The low-frequency shockwaves from the pistols fired in succession. Two beams of white light accurately struck the tentacles on its back.
"Hiss—!"
The third-tier scaled beast roared in excruciating pain. Its massive body suddenly thrashed, and its thick tail swept fiercely toward one side. A team member who failed to dodge in time was struck by the tail. The crisp sound of breaking bones rang out clearly. The man flew out like a ragdoll, crashing heavily against the rock wall, and instantly lost all signs of life.
"Old Zhou!" The team member with the knife scar's eyes tore open in rage. Red-eyed, he wanted to charge forward.
"Don't lose focus!" Lin Yan sternly stopped him, keeping his eyes fixed on the fluctuations of the scaled beast's tentacles. "It's calling for help from the priest. More scaled beasts are coming. We can't afford a prolonged fight! Chen Ye, restrain it! The rest, follow me and find the entrance to the drainage channel!"
In the corner of the pump room, a low, narrow洞口 (opening) half-buried by rubble was the entrance to that abandoned underground drainage channel. The opening was narrow; one could only crawl through it while bending over.
Chen Ye gripped his baton and charged at the third-tier scaled beast. The baton collided with the beast's hard shell, sparking a piercing clang. He was familiar with the scaled beast's fighting style, specifically targeting the gaps in its armor, desperately entangling the giant beast's attention.
The remaining three assault team members fired to provide cover while following Lin Yan in a dive toward the opening, tearing away the blocking rubble with their bare hands. The stones were sharp, and their palms were quickly slashed open with bloody cuts.
Harassed continuously by Chen Ye, the third-tier scaled beast grew furious, and its psychic shockwaves grew stronger with each wave.
The fissure in Lin Yan's Sea of Consciousness had already reached the critical red line. The dizziness came in waves, more intense than the last, and the scenery before him constantly overlapped. He could no longer hold on. Trembling, he reached out and pulled out a strong-dose stabilization agent. Biting open the seal with his teeth, he fiercely plunged it into his arm.
The cool liquid flowed through his veins, and the burning, excruciating pain was quickly covered by a layer of numbness.
The price arrived as expected.
The boundary between the real and the fake in the surrounding illusions began to blur. The phantoms on the pipe walls looked incredibly real, and he could no longer tell whether the voices in his ears were the priest's tricks or his teammates' shouts. He forcefully shook his head, forcing himself to remember the direction of the underground channel and the underlying color of the rock strata's resonance, relying on the frequency memory engraved in his consciousness through countless past experiences to distinguish the traps.
"The opening is clear! Hurry and get in!" Lin Yan commanded in a low shout.
"I'll cover the rear! You go first!" Chen Ye yelled loudly, blocking a claw strike from the scaled beast.
"We leave together!" Lin Yan refused. "If you stay behind alone, you won't survive until the priest's reinforcements arrive!"
Seizing a gap when the giant beast's pounce missed, Chen Ye withdrew and retreated rapidly backward. Following the team members, he bent over and钻 (slipped) into the low underground drainage channel.
Lin Yan was the last to step into the opening. Turning back, he raised his hand and threw the shock grenade he was carrying.
The explosion roared, and the rubble and mud instantly collapsed, sealing off the entrance from the pump room to the underground channel. The thick stones temporarily blocked the third-tier scaled beast's pursuit, but amidst the vibrations of the rock strata, its furious, frenzied roars could still be heard.
Inside the underground channel, it was even more cramped and low. They could only advance by bending their waists. The tunnel extended diagonally deeper into the underground. The air was thin, filled with a heavy stench of decay and corrosive breath.
The group crawled forward in silence. No one spoke. The heavy weight of their fallen comrade pressed down on everyone's heart.
Lin Yan's arm trembled slightly. The numbness from the stabilization agent enveloped his Sea of Consciousness, and the pain from the fissure temporarily vanished. But he remained vigilant at all times for the inevitable backlash once the drug wore off. He did not dare to casually use his perception again, relying solely on his naked eyes and hearing to lead the way.
No one knew how long they had been crawling when, suddenly, a flowing wind blew from the front of the tunnel.
It was not the stifling, stagnant wind of the sealed underground. It was a flowing current of air, connecting to the external wasteland.
"There's wind," the team member with the knife scar whispered, a glimmer of light reigniting in his eyes. "The exit is ahead!"
The group quickened their pace, moving forward along the airflow.
A moment later, the tunnel ahead suddenly opened up. The exit of the underground channel led to an abandoned subsidence area scattered with broken rebar and concrete rubble. The gray fog still shrouded heaven and earth, and the corrosive breath of the curtain was omnipresent. But here, they had already broken out of the direct coverage range of the main illusion web core of Rift No. 79.
But just as they crawled out of the underground channel and stepped onto the rubble of the ruins, Lin Yan suddenly froze.
The pain suppressed by the drug hadn't returned yet, but a wisp of familiar psychic fluctuation belonging to a secondary priest drifted lightly over this subsidence area.
They had not given up the pursuit. The priests had divided a portion of the illusion web nodes and followed the direction of their escape, chasing them out.
The gray fog slowly parted. Two second-tier scaled beasts were already waiting quietly behind the broken buildings of the ruins, waiting for them to walk into the trap.
End of Chapter.