Chapter 170: The Hidden Whispers
The short, urgent warning bell pierced through the layered corridors of the bastion. Unlike the continuous red sirens that signaled an approaching beast tide, this was the unique alarm of the psychic monitoring array—sharp yet oppressive.
The dormitory hallway instantly erupted into chaos. The hurried footsteps of patrolling military police echoed across the floor. Simultaneously, a calm but tense female voice came over the broadcast, looping the commands: "The global psychic monitoring has captured a high-intensity alien scattered signal, Anchor Point 73. All district screening teams, take your positions immediately. Prioritize evacuating the academy, healing center, and logistics residential areas. All Sea of Consciousness cultivators must carry detection equipment and cooperate with the screening. Non-duty personnel must remain in their residences. Do not gather randomly. Repeat, do not gather randomly."
Lin Yan sat up abruptly from his bed, the fissure in his Sea of Consciousness inexplicably burning.
Others could only rely on the jumping spectrum on the instrument screens to judge the signal's direction, but he was different. That alien whisper hidden within the bastion was like a fine needle, gently pricking his innate fissure from a great distance. It was faint and cold, carrying the familiar, unique resonance frequency of the Ancient Progeny.
Without a detector, he could vaguely sense the general direction of the signal—the area around the combat preparation university.
A knock on the door followed immediately. Scholar Su stood outside, accompanied by two research institute assistants carrying portable Sea of Consciousness detectors. The old scholar no longer had the calm demeanor from the review meeting; anxiety hid in his eyes. Seeing Lin Yan open the door, he skipped the pleasantries: "There's no time to follow procedures. The monitored signal keeps flickering in the academy district, appearing and disappearing. We've tried many cultivators, but either they can't sense this low-intensity anchor point fluctuation, or they get interfered with by illusion hooks as soon as they get close. Your Sea of Consciousness has a native fissure, making your sensitivity to this kind of psychic signal far exceed that of ordinary people. Can you assist us in tracking it?"
Lin Yan didn't agree immediately. His fingertips gently pressed against his temples as the fissure transmitted waves of dull pain. He understood the risks. Since the anchor point dared to actively amplify its signal, it had most likely set a trap, specifically designed to lure Sea of Consciousness cultivators closer so it could infect them at the right moment.
"My Sea of Consciousness still has hidden damage. I can't sustain psychic resonance for long. I can only help you locate it; I can't suppress it head-on."
"That's enough." Scholar Su nodded and handed him a small auxiliary detector. "We only need the direction. Once the coordinates are confirmed, the garrison's isolation squad will take over immediately. Remember, the moment you feel your Sea of Consciousness becoming unstable, stop immediately. Do not endure it."
Chen Ye happened to run out from the adjacent room. Hearing the conversation, he immediately volunteered to follow: "I'll go too, as physical cover. My Sea of Consciousness only suffered superficial oscillation, so it's not easy for the hooks to lock onto."
The four of them quickly strode through the corridor toward the combat preparation university.
At this moment, the academy area had been placed under temporary martial law. Instructors in uniform were orderly gathering the cadets in the center of the playground, cordoning off the teaching buildings, training halls, and outer roads. The youths' faces showed fear, yet they still maintained their formations—an instinct honed by years of warfare. Several Sea of Consciousness instructors on guard duty were pacing back and forth with detectors, the curves on their screens erratic and elusive, unable to lock onto a precise location.
"The signal has weakened again; it's gone!" an assistant stared at the instrument and cried out anxiously.
Just as the instrument's spectrum returned to normal, Lin Yan's brow tingled. That cold whisper brushed against his Sea of Consciousness fissure once more. He raised his eyes, his gaze landing on a row of dilapidated后勤 (logistics) bungalows behind the training hall. It was the resting place for the academy's cleaners and odd-job workers, a place rarely paid attention to.
"Over there." Lin Yan pointed toward the bungalows, his voice lowered. "The signal source is in that area. It's not the cadets, nor the on-duty instructors. The fluctuation is very stable; it's an anchor point buried here long-term. It just briefly surfaced."
Scholar Su immediately signaled two military police officers to flank the bungalows on both sides. The group slowly approached, hugging the shadows of the wall.
There were four bungalows in total, with old doors and windows, and walls stained with grime. The door of the outermost room was ajar, a faint light leaking from the crack. There were no roars, no ferocious monsters. Inside, there was only a middle-aged man wearing gray logistics work clothes, sitting at a table with his head down, slowly wiping an iron shovel used for sweeping the ground.
He looked completely ordinary, no different from the tens of thousands of logistics personnel toiling away inside the bastion.
But the moment Lin Yan got close, the stabbing pain in his Sea of Consciousness fissure intensified sharply.
It was him.
The alien psychic anchor point was attached to this man.
The man seemed to sense the movement outside the door and slowly raised his head. His eyes were very calm, devoid of madness or bloodlust, even carrying a trace of numb gentleness. The corners of his mouth twitched into a stiff smile: "Officers, conducting a nighttime check? Did something happen? I'm just here tidying up my tools, waiting for daybreak to sweep the training ground."
His tone was normal, his speech steady. He didn't sound like an infected person who had been mentally invaded and lost himself.
Chen Ye tensed his body, quietly gripping his shock baton, and reminded them in a low voice: "Be careful. The Ancient Progeny's psychic infection excels at disguise. Many people parasitized by anchor points don't realize anything is wrong themselves. Their consciousness is wrapped layer by layer, and they live their daily lives as usual."
Scholar Su slowly raised the detector, aiming the probe at the man. On the screen, a pale purple alien spectrum slowly rose, wrapping around the human psychic waveform outside like vines encircling a tree trunk.
"When did you start hearing whispers in your ear?" Scholar Su asked softly.
The man blinked in confusion and shook his head: "Whispers? No. I go to work on time every day, collect my rations, sleep after work. I haven't heard anything."
"Do you remember three years ago, when you went to the edge of the wasteland to scavenge discarded building materials?" Scholar Su continued to press.
The man's pupils contracted extremely subtly. This fleeting change did not escape Lin Yan's eyes.
It was that trip outside. In the buffer zone of the wasteland, the Ancient Progeny had quietly planted the psychic anchor point on him. It didn't devour his consciousness on the spot, nor did it immediately create chaos. It was like burying a seed, quietly lurking inside the bastion, absorbing the emotional fluctuations of the surrounding crowd day after day. The academy had a large number of cadets; the youths' minds were not yet stable, and their emotions were intense, making it the perfect nourishment for the anchor point.
In the twenty-five-year war of attrition, the Ancient Progeny never relied solely on frontal charges. They patiently selected ordinary people as vessels, lurking silently for years, or even decades, quietly waiting for the command of the general offensive.
"I... I can't remember clearly." The man's brow furrowed slightly, his expression beginning to blur. "The fog was very thick that day. I think I fell and hit my head on a rock. After that, I always felt sleepy."
The moment his words fell, an invisible psychic ripple suddenly exploded from his body!
It wasn't a destructive impact, but a dense, continuous whisper that scattered through the air, drifting toward the large group of cadets gathered on the playground. It didn't harm the physical body; it specifically drilled into the unsteady Seas of Consciousness of the youths, planting tiny seeds of illusion.
"Stop it!" Scholar Su shouted sternly.
The surrounding Sea of Consciousness instructors immediately erected continuous psychic barriers. Pale white barriers stretched between the bungalows and the playground, blocking the spreading whispers. But the psychic eruption speed of the anchor point's vessel was too fast; a few fine threads had already penetrated the barrier, landing on several younger cadets in the front row.
Several youths suddenly clutched their heads, their bodies trembling, their eyes unfocused. Horrific phantoms of wasteland rifts and scaled beasts pouncing to kill had already begun to materialize before their eyes.
Lin Yan's Sea of Consciousness fissure was fiercely torn by this wave of eruption, and agonizing pain swept through his mind, his vision going black in waves. He knew he couldn't retreat. Suppressing the dizziness, he mobilized a wisp of psychic power. Instead of resisting the massive anchor point fluctuation, he followed that core psychic thread in reverse, tracing it back to lock onto the location where the anchor point was rooted in the man's Sea of Consciousness.
"The core of the anchor point is in the shallow layer of his Sea of Consciousness; we can't forcibly peel it off! If we pull hard, the vessel's consciousness will shatter directly, and the anchor point will instantly detonate a large-scale illusion tide!" Lin Yan gritted his teeth and called out.
The parasitic mode designed by the Ancient Progeny was insidious; the vessel's life was the anchor point's safety catch.
Chen Ye stepped forward: "Then what do we do? Just let it continue to lurk?"
"Isolate it, seal the psychic pathways," Scholar Su decided swiftly. "Activate the containment pod, bring it back to the research institute, and use a layered Sea of Consciousness sealing device to trap the anchor point and slowly peel it off. The top priority now is to cut off its channel for spreading signals outward."
The military police quickly stepped forward, taking out specially made restraint straps embedded with vibration-pattern metal plates that suppressed psychic fluctuations. The man didn't struggle violently; he just slowly cracked the gentle shell on his face. Deep in his eyes, a vertical pupil shadow that didn't belong to a human—ice-cold and indifferent—flickered. His mouth repeatedly muttered obscure, hissing-like syllables in a low voice. It was the language of the Ancient Progeny, hidden in the depths of his consciousness, usually firmly suppressed.
Just as he was about to be placed on the isolation stretcher, a deep, prolonged roar came from the direction of the distant wasteland.
It wasn't the restlessness of scattered scaled beasts; it was the precursor to rock strata resonance before a large-scale beast tide assembly.
Lin Yan abruptly turned his head to look toward the bastion's outer wall.
The Ancient Progeny had calculated the timing perfectly.
As the anchor point inside the bastion was exposed and the entire city's attention was drawn to the screening, a new wave of beast tides on the outer perimeter of the Western Front had already begun to assemble toward the bastion. The overt and covert lines struck simultaneously on the same night.
The alarm on the broadcast switched again. The deep, heavy Level 1 Beast Tide Warning echoed across the entire West Bastion.
"Large-scale beast tide anomaly detected in the wasteland. All garrison posts, take your positions immediately. Assemble and load oscillation cannons. Wall defense troops, man the walls!"
Scholar Su's face darkened. He looked at the sealed anchor point vessel on the stretcher, then at Lin Yan: "They deliberately made this anchor point surface to lure us into investigating, tying up the bastion's energy, and creating an opportunity for the beast tide."
Lin Yan pressed his aching brow, looking at the towering bastion walls where countless artillery positions were lighting up in the distance.
Although the Elder of Rift No. 79 was dead, the command chain of the underground Ancient Progeny had not been severed. A new bloody battle was imminent.
Chen Ye grabbed his shock baton, his expression solemn: "I'm reporting to the wall defense formation."
Scholar Su looked at Lin Yan: "Your Sea of Consciousness injury makes you unsuitable to man the walls and endure psychic impacts head-on. Stay here at the academy, assist the instructors in stabilizing the cadets infected by the whispers, and prevent an illusion outbreak. This place cannot fall into chaos either."
In the distance, over the wasteland where gray fog churned, countless dark shadows were slowly advancing toward the West Bastion along the earth.
Inside the high walls, a hidden shadow had just been dug out from a corner; outside the high walls, the fangs of the beast tide were already bared.
On this night on the Western Front, the enemy was on both fronts.
End of Chapter.
The dormitory hallway instantly erupted into chaos. The hurried footsteps of patrolling military police echoed across the floor. Simultaneously, a calm but tense female voice came over the broadcast, looping the commands: "The global psychic monitoring has captured a high-intensity alien scattered signal, Anchor Point 73. All district screening teams, take your positions immediately. Prioritize evacuating the academy, healing center, and logistics residential areas. All Sea of Consciousness cultivators must carry detection equipment and cooperate with the screening. Non-duty personnel must remain in their residences. Do not gather randomly. Repeat, do not gather randomly."
Lin Yan sat up abruptly from his bed, the fissure in his Sea of Consciousness inexplicably burning.
Others could only rely on the jumping spectrum on the instrument screens to judge the signal's direction, but he was different. That alien whisper hidden within the bastion was like a fine needle, gently pricking his innate fissure from a great distance. It was faint and cold, carrying the familiar, unique resonance frequency of the Ancient Progeny.
Without a detector, he could vaguely sense the general direction of the signal—the area around the combat preparation university.
A knock on the door followed immediately. Scholar Su stood outside, accompanied by two research institute assistants carrying portable Sea of Consciousness detectors. The old scholar no longer had the calm demeanor from the review meeting; anxiety hid in his eyes. Seeing Lin Yan open the door, he skipped the pleasantries: "There's no time to follow procedures. The monitored signal keeps flickering in the academy district, appearing and disappearing. We've tried many cultivators, but either they can't sense this low-intensity anchor point fluctuation, or they get interfered with by illusion hooks as soon as they get close. Your Sea of Consciousness has a native fissure, making your sensitivity to this kind of psychic signal far exceed that of ordinary people. Can you assist us in tracking it?"
Lin Yan didn't agree immediately. His fingertips gently pressed against his temples as the fissure transmitted waves of dull pain. He understood the risks. Since the anchor point dared to actively amplify its signal, it had most likely set a trap, specifically designed to lure Sea of Consciousness cultivators closer so it could infect them at the right moment.
"My Sea of Consciousness still has hidden damage. I can't sustain psychic resonance for long. I can only help you locate it; I can't suppress it head-on."
"That's enough." Scholar Su nodded and handed him a small auxiliary detector. "We only need the direction. Once the coordinates are confirmed, the garrison's isolation squad will take over immediately. Remember, the moment you feel your Sea of Consciousness becoming unstable, stop immediately. Do not endure it."
Chen Ye happened to run out from the adjacent room. Hearing the conversation, he immediately volunteered to follow: "I'll go too, as physical cover. My Sea of Consciousness only suffered superficial oscillation, so it's not easy for the hooks to lock onto."
The four of them quickly strode through the corridor toward the combat preparation university.
At this moment, the academy area had been placed under temporary martial law. Instructors in uniform were orderly gathering the cadets in the center of the playground, cordoning off the teaching buildings, training halls, and outer roads. The youths' faces showed fear, yet they still maintained their formations—an instinct honed by years of warfare. Several Sea of Consciousness instructors on guard duty were pacing back and forth with detectors, the curves on their screens erratic and elusive, unable to lock onto a precise location.
"The signal has weakened again; it's gone!" an assistant stared at the instrument and cried out anxiously.
Just as the instrument's spectrum returned to normal, Lin Yan's brow tingled. That cold whisper brushed against his Sea of Consciousness fissure once more. He raised his eyes, his gaze landing on a row of dilapidated后勤 (logistics) bungalows behind the training hall. It was the resting place for the academy's cleaners and odd-job workers, a place rarely paid attention to.
"Over there." Lin Yan pointed toward the bungalows, his voice lowered. "The signal source is in that area. It's not the cadets, nor the on-duty instructors. The fluctuation is very stable; it's an anchor point buried here long-term. It just briefly surfaced."
Scholar Su immediately signaled two military police officers to flank the bungalows on both sides. The group slowly approached, hugging the shadows of the wall.
There were four bungalows in total, with old doors and windows, and walls stained with grime. The door of the outermost room was ajar, a faint light leaking from the crack. There were no roars, no ferocious monsters. Inside, there was only a middle-aged man wearing gray logistics work clothes, sitting at a table with his head down, slowly wiping an iron shovel used for sweeping the ground.
He looked completely ordinary, no different from the tens of thousands of logistics personnel toiling away inside the bastion.
But the moment Lin Yan got close, the stabbing pain in his Sea of Consciousness fissure intensified sharply.
It was him.
The alien psychic anchor point was attached to this man.
The man seemed to sense the movement outside the door and slowly raised his head. His eyes were very calm, devoid of madness or bloodlust, even carrying a trace of numb gentleness. The corners of his mouth twitched into a stiff smile: "Officers, conducting a nighttime check? Did something happen? I'm just here tidying up my tools, waiting for daybreak to sweep the training ground."
His tone was normal, his speech steady. He didn't sound like an infected person who had been mentally invaded and lost himself.
Chen Ye tensed his body, quietly gripping his shock baton, and reminded them in a low voice: "Be careful. The Ancient Progeny's psychic infection excels at disguise. Many people parasitized by anchor points don't realize anything is wrong themselves. Their consciousness is wrapped layer by layer, and they live their daily lives as usual."
Scholar Su slowly raised the detector, aiming the probe at the man. On the screen, a pale purple alien spectrum slowly rose, wrapping around the human psychic waveform outside like vines encircling a tree trunk.
"When did you start hearing whispers in your ear?" Scholar Su asked softly.
The man blinked in confusion and shook his head: "Whispers? No. I go to work on time every day, collect my rations, sleep after work. I haven't heard anything."
"Do you remember three years ago, when you went to the edge of the wasteland to scavenge discarded building materials?" Scholar Su continued to press.
The man's pupils contracted extremely subtly. This fleeting change did not escape Lin Yan's eyes.
It was that trip outside. In the buffer zone of the wasteland, the Ancient Progeny had quietly planted the psychic anchor point on him. It didn't devour his consciousness on the spot, nor did it immediately create chaos. It was like burying a seed, quietly lurking inside the bastion, absorbing the emotional fluctuations of the surrounding crowd day after day. The academy had a large number of cadets; the youths' minds were not yet stable, and their emotions were intense, making it the perfect nourishment for the anchor point.
In the twenty-five-year war of attrition, the Ancient Progeny never relied solely on frontal charges. They patiently selected ordinary people as vessels, lurking silently for years, or even decades, quietly waiting for the command of the general offensive.
"I... I can't remember clearly." The man's brow furrowed slightly, his expression beginning to blur. "The fog was very thick that day. I think I fell and hit my head on a rock. After that, I always felt sleepy."
The moment his words fell, an invisible psychic ripple suddenly exploded from his body!
It wasn't a destructive impact, but a dense, continuous whisper that scattered through the air, drifting toward the large group of cadets gathered on the playground. It didn't harm the physical body; it specifically drilled into the unsteady Seas of Consciousness of the youths, planting tiny seeds of illusion.
"Stop it!" Scholar Su shouted sternly.
The surrounding Sea of Consciousness instructors immediately erected continuous psychic barriers. Pale white barriers stretched between the bungalows and the playground, blocking the spreading whispers. But the psychic eruption speed of the anchor point's vessel was too fast; a few fine threads had already penetrated the barrier, landing on several younger cadets in the front row.
Several youths suddenly clutched their heads, their bodies trembling, their eyes unfocused. Horrific phantoms of wasteland rifts and scaled beasts pouncing to kill had already begun to materialize before their eyes.
Lin Yan's Sea of Consciousness fissure was fiercely torn by this wave of eruption, and agonizing pain swept through his mind, his vision going black in waves. He knew he couldn't retreat. Suppressing the dizziness, he mobilized a wisp of psychic power. Instead of resisting the massive anchor point fluctuation, he followed that core psychic thread in reverse, tracing it back to lock onto the location where the anchor point was rooted in the man's Sea of Consciousness.
"The core of the anchor point is in the shallow layer of his Sea of Consciousness; we can't forcibly peel it off! If we pull hard, the vessel's consciousness will shatter directly, and the anchor point will instantly detonate a large-scale illusion tide!" Lin Yan gritted his teeth and called out.
The parasitic mode designed by the Ancient Progeny was insidious; the vessel's life was the anchor point's safety catch.
Chen Ye stepped forward: "Then what do we do? Just let it continue to lurk?"
"Isolate it, seal the psychic pathways," Scholar Su decided swiftly. "Activate the containment pod, bring it back to the research institute, and use a layered Sea of Consciousness sealing device to trap the anchor point and slowly peel it off. The top priority now is to cut off its channel for spreading signals outward."
The military police quickly stepped forward, taking out specially made restraint straps embedded with vibration-pattern metal plates that suppressed psychic fluctuations. The man didn't struggle violently; he just slowly cracked the gentle shell on his face. Deep in his eyes, a vertical pupil shadow that didn't belong to a human—ice-cold and indifferent—flickered. His mouth repeatedly muttered obscure, hissing-like syllables in a low voice. It was the language of the Ancient Progeny, hidden in the depths of his consciousness, usually firmly suppressed.
Just as he was about to be placed on the isolation stretcher, a deep, prolonged roar came from the direction of the distant wasteland.
It wasn't the restlessness of scattered scaled beasts; it was the precursor to rock strata resonance before a large-scale beast tide assembly.
Lin Yan abruptly turned his head to look toward the bastion's outer wall.
The Ancient Progeny had calculated the timing perfectly.
As the anchor point inside the bastion was exposed and the entire city's attention was drawn to the screening, a new wave of beast tides on the outer perimeter of the Western Front had already begun to assemble toward the bastion. The overt and covert lines struck simultaneously on the same night.
The alarm on the broadcast switched again. The deep, heavy Level 1 Beast Tide Warning echoed across the entire West Bastion.
"Large-scale beast tide anomaly detected in the wasteland. All garrison posts, take your positions immediately. Assemble and load oscillation cannons. Wall defense troops, man the walls!"
Scholar Su's face darkened. He looked at the sealed anchor point vessel on the stretcher, then at Lin Yan: "They deliberately made this anchor point surface to lure us into investigating, tying up the bastion's energy, and creating an opportunity for the beast tide."
Lin Yan pressed his aching brow, looking at the towering bastion walls where countless artillery positions were lighting up in the distance.
Although the Elder of Rift No. 79 was dead, the command chain of the underground Ancient Progeny had not been severed. A new bloody battle was imminent.
Chen Ye grabbed his shock baton, his expression solemn: "I'm reporting to the wall defense formation."
Scholar Su looked at Lin Yan: "Your Sea of Consciousness injury makes you unsuitable to man the walls and endure psychic impacts head-on. Stay here at the academy, assist the instructors in stabilizing the cadets infected by the whispers, and prevent an illusion outbreak. This place cannot fall into chaos either."
In the distance, over the wasteland where gray fog churned, countless dark shadows were slowly advancing toward the West Bastion along the earth.
Inside the high walls, a hidden shadow had just been dug out from a corner; outside the high walls, the fangs of the beast tide were already bared.
On this night on the Western Front, the enemy was on both fronts.
End of Chapter.