Chapter 180: The Sleepers
The lights in the Sea of Consciousness detection room at the general hospital were cold. The probe of the scanner was pressed against Lin Yan's temple. On the screen, the undulating waveforms slowly relaxed, yet they still bore a distinct, unerasable fissure.
Scholar Su stared at the scan results, his brow tightly furrowed.
"That psychic touch at the pipe gallery node just now has increased the activity of your fissure again. Fortunately, there are no new tears; it's just that your origin has been excessively depleted." Scholar Su put away the instrument and handed him a sedative and nourishing agent. "Drink this first, then go back to the recovery room and rest for half a day. Do not actively release your perception again."
Lin Yan took the agent and drank it in small sips. The liquid slid down his throat, and a gentle coolness slowly spread toward his Sea of Consciousness, slightly suppressing the lingering numbness and dull ache. He leaned back in the soft chair in the recovery room with his eyes closed. Before he could even sink into a light sleep, the door was hurriedly pushed open by a researcher, whose face was pale with panic.
"Scholar Su! The investigation squad in the West Branch Corridor of the East District found a second spiral node! And... two residents near the node have already been parasitized. They haven't erupted into madness; they've been hiding within the crowd."
Scholar Su stood up abruptly: "Without an outbreak?"
"Yes. When the screening instruments scanned them, they were completely unaware themselves. Their emotions, thoughts, and daily behaviors are all perfectly normal. The anchor points inside their Seas of Consciousness are in deep hibernation, emitting no abnormal fluctuations outward. If not for the high-precision perception of a cultivator at close range, it would be impossible to find them."
This statement instantly plunged the atmosphere in the room to its lowest point.
The previous seamstress, whose anchor point had activated to cause auditory hallucinations and loss of control, was a symptomatic case and easy to detect. But now, dormant parasites had appeared—the seeds of the alien race had taken root in the Sea of Consciousness, lurking and dormant, disguised as ordinary people and mixed in with the bastion's residents.
When the time was right, a single thought from the supreme ruler could activate all dormant anchor points simultaneously, and the entire city would plunge into massive chaos in an instant.
"Quick, transmit the on-site data," Scholar Su said, striding quickly toward the monitoring hall. Lin Yan also stood up and followed. His rest was temporarily put on hold; the weight of this matter far exceeded personal recuperation.
The massive projection screen simultaneously broadcasted the on-site footage.
The second node was similar in structure to the T-junction. The pipe walls were densely covered with miniature spiral marks, and the spore concentration was slightly lower than at the first site, with the direction of diffusion pointing toward the core of the East District residential area. The two sleepers had been quietly brought to isolation pods and placed individually, without alarming the surrounding residents.
They were a middle-aged couple who ran a small grain and oil shop in the East District. According to the neighbor statements, the two were usually gentle, had regular schedules, purchased goods and set up their stall on time, and had no conflicts with anyone. They appeared as ordinary as could be.
"We didn't feel anything at all." Behind the isolation glass, the man's voice was bewildered. "We open and close the shop every day, buy and sell goods, and sleep normally at night. We've never heard strange voices or seen monsters."
The woman nodded beside him, her eyes filled only with pure confusion, without a trace of the icy madness that comes after alien infection.
The research institute's perception cultivators continuously probed from outside the isolation pod, reporting in a low voice: "The anchor point is buried extremely deep, fused with the Sea of Consciousness itself, like a seed buried beneath the soil. It doesn't consume origin or alter memories; it merely attaches quietly, receiving signals from the spiral node deep underground. As long as the supreme ruler doesn't send an activation command, they will remain exactly as they are."
"That is the most terrifying part," Scholar Su said, tapping the table heavily with his fingertips. "Previously, we thought the outcome of parasitism was only losing control and going mad. Now we realize that was just one of its uses. A mass awakening is a city massacre, while dormant parasitism is a timed fuse planted inside us. It can plant hundreds or even thousands of fuses within the bastion. When the beast tide launches a frontal assault on the bastion, the city will detonate simultaneously, attacking from both inside and outside."
A garrison officer's face turned pale: "Then what do we do now? Do we directly isolate and detain all the sleepers?"
"Detaining them is easy, but it only treats the symptoms, not the root cause," Scholar Su shook his head. "We don't know how many more people are hiding dormant anchor points. Ordinary batch Sea of Consciousness scanners cannot identify spore anchor points in a dormant state. We can only rely on high-tier perception cultivators to manually inspect them one by one. The West Bastion has a permanent population of hundreds of thousands; our number of perception cultivators is far from sufficient."
"Can we clear the anchor points from their Seas of Consciousness?"
"The difficulty is immense," the physician in charge of Sea of Consciousness healing spoke up. "The anchor point and the Sea of Consciousness are intertwined and symbiotic. Forcibly stripping it away will most likely directly damage the host's origin, resulting in permanent dementia or the collapse of their consciousness. Even if we are lucky enough to successfully extract it, the spore network at the pipe gallery nodes is still continuously producing new seeds, and soon, more people will be parasitized. As long as the root is not removed, screening and isolation will forever lag behind the speed of diffusion."
Lin Yan stood beneath the large screen, quietly looking at the clusters of spiral patterns on the pipe wall.
The blockade array outside the city trapped the shallow-level scaled beasts; the underground pipe network within the city was riddled with spore nodes; countless ordinary people had become dormant vessels. The supreme ruler's overall plan had become clear.
The beast tide was a feint; the anchor point parasitism was the true killing blow. It didn't care whether one or two attacks could breach the city walls. It had enough patience to spend months or years slowly completing the infiltration layout within the bastion. When the conditions were ripe, they would strike from both inside and outside simultaneously, and the sanctuary bastion that humanity had spent twenty-five years building would collapse from within.
"Can the nodes themselves be dealt with?" Lin Yan asked.
"We have discussed the plans," Scholar Su brought up the pipeline structure diagram. "Plan One: Directional low-temperature freezing of the pipe section to temporarily freeze spore activity. The downside is a water outage in that area, and after the freeze is lifted, the spiral marks will resume releasing spores. Plan Two: Replace the entire section of pipe, cut out the pipe walls bearing the spiral marks, and replace them with brand-new, special alloy pipelines treated to resist psychic corrosive breath. The drawback is that the engineering volume is massive, the construction period is long, and we cannot confirm the locations of all nodes. Even if we replace this one, other places will continue to produce spores endlessly."
"There is another risk," Lin Yan slowly added. "Once we massively cut and destroy the spiral nodes, it is equivalent to openly declaring war on it and touching its nerves. It can order the activation of all dormant anchor points in the city at any time."
Everyone fell silent.
They were caught in a dilemma.
Taking action to clear the nodes might immediately trigger the city's sleepers; ignoring them would allow the spores to continue spreading, and the number of sleepers would only increase day by day. The initiative was firmly in the hands of that existence deep underground. Every countermeasure humanity had was laden with immense risk.
The meeting finally settled on a conservative combination plan:
First, mobilize all available perception cultivators, divide them into small teams, and prioritize fine-grained, door-to-door investigations in the neighborhoods surrounding the two discovered nodes to find dormant parasites as much as possible. Secretly isolate them and do not disclose the news to the public to avoid city-wide panic.
Second, replace the marked pipe gallery sections in batches and on a small scale. Handle only one node at a time, stagger the construction times, and avoid concentrated actions to minimize the probability of provoking the abyssal supreme ruler.
Third, accelerate the development of a broad-spectrum psychic neutralizing agent, inject it into the main water supply pipeline, dilute the spores floating in the water, and reduce the probability of ordinary people being parasitized.
Fourth, add a new task for frontline scout squads: when exploring the deep-level channel structure of the rift, focus on looking for water system branches connected to the city's pipe network, and find the main artery through which spores are transported from the subterranean source outward.
After the meeting adjourned, night had fallen.
Lin Yan did not return to the recovery room. He walked alone to the outside of the isolation pod, looking through the glass at the grain and oil shop couple. They sat quietly inside, leaning against each other, still discussing in low voices how to handle the remaining rice and flour in their shop. Their words were full of concern for an ordinary life.
They were not enemies; they were merely unfortunate vessels chosen. Just like Lin Yan himself, except they had no Sea of Consciousness cultivation and no ability to resist. They could only passively sleep, waiting for a command that might fall at any unknown time.
"Does it have any standard for choosing vessels?" Lin Yan turned and asked Scholar Su.
"We haven't found a pattern yet," Scholar Su sighed. "There are those with weak willpower and those with strong willpower; there are the elderly, the young, and children. The only certainty is that people like you, who are born with a fissure in your Sea of Consciousness, have a priority far higher than ordinary people. You are the type of vessel it wants most."
Lin Yan raised his hand and pressed against his brow, the familiar dull ache spreading.
He was a sentinel, a scout, someone who could glimpse the will of the abyss. But this talent also made him the most premium target in the eyes of the alien race. As long as he moved within the spore network, that subterranean consciousness could easily lock onto him.
"I request to no longer participate in tasks such as pipe gallery exploration and urban sleeper screening," Lin Yan said calmly. "My aura is too conspicuous. As long as I operate within the spore network, it is equivalent to voluntarily giving it a clear coordinate. Continuing to participate in urban exploration will only increase the risk of losing control."
Scholar Su looked at him deeply and nodded in agreement: "Reasonable. Next, you will return to the rotation of scouts on the outer perimeter of the rift, responsible only for long-range monitoring of the wasteland, staying far away from the urban underground spore network. The dark front within the city will be handed over to other cultivators."
Night enveloped the bastion.
The streets were lit as usual, vendors packed up their stalls, pedestrians returned home, and the lights of the academy's evening classes went out one by one. The vast majority of residents still lived in the illusion of safety, unaware that countless spiral marks were quietly inhaling and exhaling spores within the pipelines beneath their feet, unaware that among the passersby brushing past them, there might be sleepers who had taken root and were quietly awaiting awakening.
Lin Yan walked out of the research institute and strolled slowly back to his dorm along the street.
The beast tides on the wasteland could be seen and heard; guns, cannons, and oscillation cannons could withstand them head-on. But this war within the city was silent, without gunpowder smoke or roars; the enemy hid deep within the Sea of Consciousness of every person.
The abyssal supreme ruler was in no rush.
It had an endlessly long time to slowly sow and slowly wait.
Lin Yan looked up toward the pitch-black wasteland beyond the bastion. Rift No. 79 lay dormant deep within the gray fog, connected to the highly interconnected underground water systems, continuously transporting spores outward.
Blockaded outside, infiltrated within—a massive net was tightening. And his battlefield had returned to the edge of the wasteland rift, guarding the exit of that abyssal breath, serving as the eyes that would be the first to see the storm arrive.
End of Chapter.
Scholar Su stared at the scan results, his brow tightly furrowed.
"That psychic touch at the pipe gallery node just now has increased the activity of your fissure again. Fortunately, there are no new tears; it's just that your origin has been excessively depleted." Scholar Su put away the instrument and handed him a sedative and nourishing agent. "Drink this first, then go back to the recovery room and rest for half a day. Do not actively release your perception again."
Lin Yan took the agent and drank it in small sips. The liquid slid down his throat, and a gentle coolness slowly spread toward his Sea of Consciousness, slightly suppressing the lingering numbness and dull ache. He leaned back in the soft chair in the recovery room with his eyes closed. Before he could even sink into a light sleep, the door was hurriedly pushed open by a researcher, whose face was pale with panic.
"Scholar Su! The investigation squad in the West Branch Corridor of the East District found a second spiral node! And... two residents near the node have already been parasitized. They haven't erupted into madness; they've been hiding within the crowd."
Scholar Su stood up abruptly: "Without an outbreak?"
"Yes. When the screening instruments scanned them, they were completely unaware themselves. Their emotions, thoughts, and daily behaviors are all perfectly normal. The anchor points inside their Seas of Consciousness are in deep hibernation, emitting no abnormal fluctuations outward. If not for the high-precision perception of a cultivator at close range, it would be impossible to find them."
This statement instantly plunged the atmosphere in the room to its lowest point.
The previous seamstress, whose anchor point had activated to cause auditory hallucinations and loss of control, was a symptomatic case and easy to detect. But now, dormant parasites had appeared—the seeds of the alien race had taken root in the Sea of Consciousness, lurking and dormant, disguised as ordinary people and mixed in with the bastion's residents.
When the time was right, a single thought from the supreme ruler could activate all dormant anchor points simultaneously, and the entire city would plunge into massive chaos in an instant.
"Quick, transmit the on-site data," Scholar Su said, striding quickly toward the monitoring hall. Lin Yan also stood up and followed. His rest was temporarily put on hold; the weight of this matter far exceeded personal recuperation.
The massive projection screen simultaneously broadcasted the on-site footage.
The second node was similar in structure to the T-junction. The pipe walls were densely covered with miniature spiral marks, and the spore concentration was slightly lower than at the first site, with the direction of diffusion pointing toward the core of the East District residential area. The two sleepers had been quietly brought to isolation pods and placed individually, without alarming the surrounding residents.
They were a middle-aged couple who ran a small grain and oil shop in the East District. According to the neighbor statements, the two were usually gentle, had regular schedules, purchased goods and set up their stall on time, and had no conflicts with anyone. They appeared as ordinary as could be.
"We didn't feel anything at all." Behind the isolation glass, the man's voice was bewildered. "We open and close the shop every day, buy and sell goods, and sleep normally at night. We've never heard strange voices or seen monsters."
The woman nodded beside him, her eyes filled only with pure confusion, without a trace of the icy madness that comes after alien infection.
The research institute's perception cultivators continuously probed from outside the isolation pod, reporting in a low voice: "The anchor point is buried extremely deep, fused with the Sea of Consciousness itself, like a seed buried beneath the soil. It doesn't consume origin or alter memories; it merely attaches quietly, receiving signals from the spiral node deep underground. As long as the supreme ruler doesn't send an activation command, they will remain exactly as they are."
"That is the most terrifying part," Scholar Su said, tapping the table heavily with his fingertips. "Previously, we thought the outcome of parasitism was only losing control and going mad. Now we realize that was just one of its uses. A mass awakening is a city massacre, while dormant parasitism is a timed fuse planted inside us. It can plant hundreds or even thousands of fuses within the bastion. When the beast tide launches a frontal assault on the bastion, the city will detonate simultaneously, attacking from both inside and outside."
A garrison officer's face turned pale: "Then what do we do now? Do we directly isolate and detain all the sleepers?"
"Detaining them is easy, but it only treats the symptoms, not the root cause," Scholar Su shook his head. "We don't know how many more people are hiding dormant anchor points. Ordinary batch Sea of Consciousness scanners cannot identify spore anchor points in a dormant state. We can only rely on high-tier perception cultivators to manually inspect them one by one. The West Bastion has a permanent population of hundreds of thousands; our number of perception cultivators is far from sufficient."
"Can we clear the anchor points from their Seas of Consciousness?"
"The difficulty is immense," the physician in charge of Sea of Consciousness healing spoke up. "The anchor point and the Sea of Consciousness are intertwined and symbiotic. Forcibly stripping it away will most likely directly damage the host's origin, resulting in permanent dementia or the collapse of their consciousness. Even if we are lucky enough to successfully extract it, the spore network at the pipe gallery nodes is still continuously producing new seeds, and soon, more people will be parasitized. As long as the root is not removed, screening and isolation will forever lag behind the speed of diffusion."
Lin Yan stood beneath the large screen, quietly looking at the clusters of spiral patterns on the pipe wall.
The blockade array outside the city trapped the shallow-level scaled beasts; the underground pipe network within the city was riddled with spore nodes; countless ordinary people had become dormant vessels. The supreme ruler's overall plan had become clear.
The beast tide was a feint; the anchor point parasitism was the true killing blow. It didn't care whether one or two attacks could breach the city walls. It had enough patience to spend months or years slowly completing the infiltration layout within the bastion. When the conditions were ripe, they would strike from both inside and outside simultaneously, and the sanctuary bastion that humanity had spent twenty-five years building would collapse from within.
"Can the nodes themselves be dealt with?" Lin Yan asked.
"We have discussed the plans," Scholar Su brought up the pipeline structure diagram. "Plan One: Directional low-temperature freezing of the pipe section to temporarily freeze spore activity. The downside is a water outage in that area, and after the freeze is lifted, the spiral marks will resume releasing spores. Plan Two: Replace the entire section of pipe, cut out the pipe walls bearing the spiral marks, and replace them with brand-new, special alloy pipelines treated to resist psychic corrosive breath. The drawback is that the engineering volume is massive, the construction period is long, and we cannot confirm the locations of all nodes. Even if we replace this one, other places will continue to produce spores endlessly."
"There is another risk," Lin Yan slowly added. "Once we massively cut and destroy the spiral nodes, it is equivalent to openly declaring war on it and touching its nerves. It can order the activation of all dormant anchor points in the city at any time."
Everyone fell silent.
They were caught in a dilemma.
Taking action to clear the nodes might immediately trigger the city's sleepers; ignoring them would allow the spores to continue spreading, and the number of sleepers would only increase day by day. The initiative was firmly in the hands of that existence deep underground. Every countermeasure humanity had was laden with immense risk.
The meeting finally settled on a conservative combination plan:
First, mobilize all available perception cultivators, divide them into small teams, and prioritize fine-grained, door-to-door investigations in the neighborhoods surrounding the two discovered nodes to find dormant parasites as much as possible. Secretly isolate them and do not disclose the news to the public to avoid city-wide panic.
Second, replace the marked pipe gallery sections in batches and on a small scale. Handle only one node at a time, stagger the construction times, and avoid concentrated actions to minimize the probability of provoking the abyssal supreme ruler.
Third, accelerate the development of a broad-spectrum psychic neutralizing agent, inject it into the main water supply pipeline, dilute the spores floating in the water, and reduce the probability of ordinary people being parasitized.
Fourth, add a new task for frontline scout squads: when exploring the deep-level channel structure of the rift, focus on looking for water system branches connected to the city's pipe network, and find the main artery through which spores are transported from the subterranean source outward.
After the meeting adjourned, night had fallen.
Lin Yan did not return to the recovery room. He walked alone to the outside of the isolation pod, looking through the glass at the grain and oil shop couple. They sat quietly inside, leaning against each other, still discussing in low voices how to handle the remaining rice and flour in their shop. Their words were full of concern for an ordinary life.
They were not enemies; they were merely unfortunate vessels chosen. Just like Lin Yan himself, except they had no Sea of Consciousness cultivation and no ability to resist. They could only passively sleep, waiting for a command that might fall at any unknown time.
"Does it have any standard for choosing vessels?" Lin Yan turned and asked Scholar Su.
"We haven't found a pattern yet," Scholar Su sighed. "There are those with weak willpower and those with strong willpower; there are the elderly, the young, and children. The only certainty is that people like you, who are born with a fissure in your Sea of Consciousness, have a priority far higher than ordinary people. You are the type of vessel it wants most."
Lin Yan raised his hand and pressed against his brow, the familiar dull ache spreading.
He was a sentinel, a scout, someone who could glimpse the will of the abyss. But this talent also made him the most premium target in the eyes of the alien race. As long as he moved within the spore network, that subterranean consciousness could easily lock onto him.
"I request to no longer participate in tasks such as pipe gallery exploration and urban sleeper screening," Lin Yan said calmly. "My aura is too conspicuous. As long as I operate within the spore network, it is equivalent to voluntarily giving it a clear coordinate. Continuing to participate in urban exploration will only increase the risk of losing control."
Scholar Su looked at him deeply and nodded in agreement: "Reasonable. Next, you will return to the rotation of scouts on the outer perimeter of the rift, responsible only for long-range monitoring of the wasteland, staying far away from the urban underground spore network. The dark front within the city will be handed over to other cultivators."
Night enveloped the bastion.
The streets were lit as usual, vendors packed up their stalls, pedestrians returned home, and the lights of the academy's evening classes went out one by one. The vast majority of residents still lived in the illusion of safety, unaware that countless spiral marks were quietly inhaling and exhaling spores within the pipelines beneath their feet, unaware that among the passersby brushing past them, there might be sleepers who had taken root and were quietly awaiting awakening.
Lin Yan walked out of the research institute and strolled slowly back to his dorm along the street.
The beast tides on the wasteland could be seen and heard; guns, cannons, and oscillation cannons could withstand them head-on. But this war within the city was silent, without gunpowder smoke or roars; the enemy hid deep within the Sea of Consciousness of every person.
The abyssal supreme ruler was in no rush.
It had an endlessly long time to slowly sow and slowly wait.
Lin Yan looked up toward the pitch-black wasteland beyond the bastion. Rift No. 79 lay dormant deep within the gray fog, connected to the highly interconnected underground water systems, continuously transporting spores outward.
Blockaded outside, infiltrated within—a massive net was tightening. And his battlefield had returned to the edge of the wasteland rift, guarding the exit of that abyssal breath, serving as the eyes that would be the first to see the storm arrive.
End of Chapter.