Chapter 182: Echoing from Afar
As night fell over the wasteland, the Third Scout Squad had already held their ground at the rocky hill observation point for a full twenty-four hours.
The rotation watch had not been interrupted. The infrared camera platform remained fixed on the pitch-black fissure of Rift No. 79 without pause, and the spectrum antenna continued to capture the fluctuations drifting up from underground. Everyone was exhausted, their eyes bloodshot. A layer of fine, gray-black sand coated their protective suits. The temperature difference between day and night on the wasteland was extreme; the nighttime chill seeped through the gaps in their clothing, intertwining with the icy, corrosive breath drifting from the direction of the rift.
"Captain, the spectrum curve has stabilized," the maintenance operator reported, rubbing his sore eyes as he stared at the screen. "That ancient psychic flow is no longer rising. It's stuck in the middle section of the shallow channel, completely stationary. Its intensity remains constant; it neither weakens nor continues to advance toward the surface."
Old Zhou immediately walked over to check the screen, and Lin Yan also stood up, focusing his mind to release his perception.
The fissure in his Sea of Consciousness continued to tingle, and that familiar, vast, and indifferent aura was clearly discernible. Its position was fixed within the rift, hundreds of meters away in the rock strata channel leading to the exit. It had stopped its upward ascent. It neither stepped out of the rift nor retreated deeper into the earth.
It simply stopped quietly in the middle of the channel, like a person pausing halfway up a staircase to observe.
"It's not coming up?" the young assault specialist asked in a low voice. His tense shoulders relaxed slightly, but he didn't dare to fully let his guard down. "Could it be that the collective retreat of the scaled beasts earlier was just a false alarm?"
"It's not exactly a false alarm," Lin Yan said slowly, shaking his head as his gaze fell upon the heavy darkness of the rift. "It has reached its predetermined position and chosen to settle here. This distance is just right. It can see all our outer blockade arrays and the deployment of mobile forces through the rift's exit, while maintaining a signal link with the underground spore nodes within the city. Going any further would expose it to the direct suppression range of the resonance barrier, which is unnecessary for it."
It didn't need to step onto the wasteland itself.
Stopping in the middle of the shallow channel was a position that allowed it to advance or retreat at will. If it wanted to move forward, it could instantly drive the psychic flow to break through the exit; if it wanted to retreat, it could return to the deep lower levels in a flash. Most importantly, at this position, its control over the spiral spore network spreading through the bastion's pipe galleries reached a new peak.
Suddenly, the static in the communicator jumped, followed immediately by the piercing sound of an emergency alarm from the command center, shattering the silence of the wasteland.
"Emergency bulletin! Multiple isolation pods in the East and South Districts of the bastion are transmitting abnormal signals! A massive number of dormant anchor points are showing synchronized fluctuations! The Seas of Consciousness of the sleepers are unstable, and their psychic links are being continuously stimulated by a remote signal! Repeat, multiple dormant anchor points are exhibiting anomalies!"
The expressions of the squad members changed simultaneously.
At the exact moment it stopped in the rift outside the city, the sleeping parasitic seeds within the city collectively received a faint signal stimulus from the abyssal depths. The precise synchronization of these two events confirmed everyone's worst fears.
It stopped here specifically to better pull the strings of that hidden net within the city.
"Scholar Su's channel is connected," the maintenance operator said, adjusting the communication frequency. The large screen simultaneously broadcasted the live feed from the research institute's monitoring hall.
Scholar Su stood before the massive map of the city's pipe network, his expression solemn. In the background, countless researchers rushed back and forth, constantly updating the data transmitted from the isolation pods.
"A total of seventeen isolated sleepers are showing restlessness in their Seas of Consciousness," Scholar Su's voice came through the communicator, carrying a suppressed urgency. "The anchor points haven't fully activated yet, and they haven't reached the stage of losing control and going mad, but the activity level of the anchor points continues to rise. They have started to frequently hear whispers from underground, experiencing anxiety, insomnia, and恍惚 (dazed) consciousness. Our healing agents can only temporarily suppress the symptoms; they cannot sever that psychic link coming from the direction of the rift."
"Are there any un-screened sleepers who are also being affected simultaneously?" Old Zhou asked in a deep voice.
"That is the greatest hidden danger," Scholar Su said, tapping heavily on the map markers for the pipe gallery nodes in the East and South Districts. "We have only found less than thirty percent of the suspicious individuals. The remaining sleepers hiding in the residential areas, those who haven't been screened, are currently receiving the signal as well. They have no isolation protection. Once their anchor points break through the critical threshold, they will suddenly lose control in the residential areas."
Lin Yan closed his eyes, using the fissure in his Sea of Consciousness to distantly perceive that invisible long line spanning the rock strata, connecting the middle of the rift all the way to the underground pipe network of the bastion.
One main source branched out into countless fine threads, following the groundwater veins and spiral nodes, piercing into the Seas of Consciousness of ordinary people in the city. The abyssal supreme ruler sat at the source of this long line, stopped in the rift channel, gently plucking the threads.
It hadn't yet made up its mind to fully detonate everything.
It was merely testing.
Testing the stability of the signal transmission, testing the tolerance threshold of the dormant anchor points, and testing humanity's response and troop deployment directions in the face of synchronized disturbances within the city.
No action outside the city, no detonation inside the city; it simply used this method to apply continuous pressure, constantly draining the manpower and mental fortitude of the West Bastion. The garrison forces had to be divided to maintain urban order, watch over the sleepers, and urgently screen residents; the frontline defenses had to be on full alert, watching the rift to prevent it from bursting out at any moment. Humanity was forced to be tense on both fronts, exhausted from running around.
"Can we increase the resonance frequency of the blockade array to try and interfere with the signal link between it and the city's spore network?" a frontline officer's voice joined the channel.
"The risk is extremely high," Scholar Su immediately vetoed the idea. "The design goal of the resonance barrier is to block large-scale illusion tides and scaled beasts, not to cut off this kind of diffuse, faint psychic signal transmitted through the rock strata and water systems. Forcibly increasing the power will, first, disturb the geological strata, with a probability of tearing the underground pipelines and accelerating spore diffusion; second, the strong resonance might stimulate it and directly trigger the detonation of all anchor points. We cannot afford to gamble on that."
The meeting room fell into a brief silence.
Lin Yan spoke up, his voice clearly transmitted through the communication channel: "It is currently 'calibrating' the link. It stopped at this point, repeatedly adjusting the signal output intensity to find a critical threshold. Below the threshold, the anchor points merely become restless; surpassing the threshold, all sleepers in the city lose control simultaneously. It is feeling out this boundary."
It was playing with a scale, adding weights to the side of losing control bit by bit, seeing how much humanity could endure.
"So we can only passively wait for it to test us?"
"It's not completely without a solution," Scholar Su quickly stabilized his mind and issued a new round of orders. "First, increase the supply of slow-release sedatives to all isolated sleepers, and arrange for high-tier Sea of Consciousness cultivators to continuously guard the isolation pods to suppress the anchor points at any time. Second, screening squads should prioritize accelerating the residential areas near the pipe gallery nodes in the South and East Districts, racing against time to find the sleepers before the anchor points activate. Third, continue to inject neutralizing agents into the main water supply line to weaken the spores' sensitivity to receiving signals. Fourth, all frontline observation squads must focus on recording every fluctuation in the intensity of its psychic flow. As soon as the values cross the warning red line, trigger the highest city-wide alert immediately."
The orders were issued layer by layer, and the bastion instantly sprang into action.
The number of patrolling military police on the streets doubled, moving discreetly through the residential areas. Perception cultivators went door-to-door in pairs. The research institute's agent transport vehicles drove to various water supply pumping stations throughout the night. All actions were kept as quiet as possible to avoid causing widespread panic among ordinary citizens. The vast majority of people still didn't know that a timed fuse was hidden beside them, with the other end of the fuse tied to the hand of that existence deep within the rift dozens of kilometers away.
At the rocky hill observation point, the night grew deeper.
Lin Yan walked to the edge of the rocky hill, gazing through the vast gray fog toward Rift No. 79.
The dark fissure lay quietly upon the earth. That ancient consciousness was stopped in the channel hundreds of meters behind the fissure's opening. It didn't move, didn't charge, didn't kill. It was like a calm chess player. One hand held the thousands of sleepers within the city, while the other watched all of humanity's defensive works outside the city. Unhurried, it slowly tested the boundaries of the chessboard.
"It is ten thousand times harder to deal with than a beast tide," Old Zhou walked to Lin Yan's side and sighed in a low voice. "When a beast tide comes, we can fight head-on with guns, cannons, oscillation artillery, and barriers. Win or lose, at least we can see our opponent. But it just stays in the darkness, and with a mere thought, ordinary people in the city start to become restless. We don't even know what its true form looks like."
"It doesn't need its true body to join the battle," Lin Yan said, pressing against his brow as the fissure transmitted a long, steady dull ache. "The psychic network, the spores, the anchor points, the scaled beasts, the priests—they are all limbs extended from it. It stays in the safest position, controlling the entire net."
The maintenance operator suddenly reminded them, "Captain, the fluctuation rose slightly, then fell back. A test."
On the screen, the pale purple curve jumped up slightly, then returned to its original horizontal line.
A gentle pluck of the thread.
Within the city, an unknown number of hidden ordinary people suddenly heard a vague, low hiss from underground in their sleep. They tossed and turned in bewilderment, completely unaware that a fuse had already been buried deep within their Sea of Consciousness.
Lin Yan gazed into the darkness deep in the wasteland.
This standoff had turned into a long war of attrition. It guarded the middle of the rift while the anchor points within the city became restless one after another. Humanity had to screen and save people while keeping an eye on the rift, with even a moment to catch their breath compressed to the absolute limit.
And Lin Yan knew clearly that as long as he remained on the outer perimeter of the rift, this gaze hidden in the darkness would always easily capture that conspicuous fissure in his Sea of Consciousness. He was the sentinel, but at the same time, he was the vessel it had always coveted.
The standoff continued, and the scale still hung on a knife-edge.
End of Chapter.
The rotation watch had not been interrupted. The infrared camera platform remained fixed on the pitch-black fissure of Rift No. 79 without pause, and the spectrum antenna continued to capture the fluctuations drifting up from underground. Everyone was exhausted, their eyes bloodshot. A layer of fine, gray-black sand coated their protective suits. The temperature difference between day and night on the wasteland was extreme; the nighttime chill seeped through the gaps in their clothing, intertwining with the icy, corrosive breath drifting from the direction of the rift.
"Captain, the spectrum curve has stabilized," the maintenance operator reported, rubbing his sore eyes as he stared at the screen. "That ancient psychic flow is no longer rising. It's stuck in the middle section of the shallow channel, completely stationary. Its intensity remains constant; it neither weakens nor continues to advance toward the surface."
Old Zhou immediately walked over to check the screen, and Lin Yan also stood up, focusing his mind to release his perception.
The fissure in his Sea of Consciousness continued to tingle, and that familiar, vast, and indifferent aura was clearly discernible. Its position was fixed within the rift, hundreds of meters away in the rock strata channel leading to the exit. It had stopped its upward ascent. It neither stepped out of the rift nor retreated deeper into the earth.
It simply stopped quietly in the middle of the channel, like a person pausing halfway up a staircase to observe.
"It's not coming up?" the young assault specialist asked in a low voice. His tense shoulders relaxed slightly, but he didn't dare to fully let his guard down. "Could it be that the collective retreat of the scaled beasts earlier was just a false alarm?"
"It's not exactly a false alarm," Lin Yan said slowly, shaking his head as his gaze fell upon the heavy darkness of the rift. "It has reached its predetermined position and chosen to settle here. This distance is just right. It can see all our outer blockade arrays and the deployment of mobile forces through the rift's exit, while maintaining a signal link with the underground spore nodes within the city. Going any further would expose it to the direct suppression range of the resonance barrier, which is unnecessary for it."
It didn't need to step onto the wasteland itself.
Stopping in the middle of the shallow channel was a position that allowed it to advance or retreat at will. If it wanted to move forward, it could instantly drive the psychic flow to break through the exit; if it wanted to retreat, it could return to the deep lower levels in a flash. Most importantly, at this position, its control over the spiral spore network spreading through the bastion's pipe galleries reached a new peak.
Suddenly, the static in the communicator jumped, followed immediately by the piercing sound of an emergency alarm from the command center, shattering the silence of the wasteland.
"Emergency bulletin! Multiple isolation pods in the East and South Districts of the bastion are transmitting abnormal signals! A massive number of dormant anchor points are showing synchronized fluctuations! The Seas of Consciousness of the sleepers are unstable, and their psychic links are being continuously stimulated by a remote signal! Repeat, multiple dormant anchor points are exhibiting anomalies!"
The expressions of the squad members changed simultaneously.
At the exact moment it stopped in the rift outside the city, the sleeping parasitic seeds within the city collectively received a faint signal stimulus from the abyssal depths. The precise synchronization of these two events confirmed everyone's worst fears.
It stopped here specifically to better pull the strings of that hidden net within the city.
"Scholar Su's channel is connected," the maintenance operator said, adjusting the communication frequency. The large screen simultaneously broadcasted the live feed from the research institute's monitoring hall.
Scholar Su stood before the massive map of the city's pipe network, his expression solemn. In the background, countless researchers rushed back and forth, constantly updating the data transmitted from the isolation pods.
"A total of seventeen isolated sleepers are showing restlessness in their Seas of Consciousness," Scholar Su's voice came through the communicator, carrying a suppressed urgency. "The anchor points haven't fully activated yet, and they haven't reached the stage of losing control and going mad, but the activity level of the anchor points continues to rise. They have started to frequently hear whispers from underground, experiencing anxiety, insomnia, and恍惚 (dazed) consciousness. Our healing agents can only temporarily suppress the symptoms; they cannot sever that psychic link coming from the direction of the rift."
"Are there any un-screened sleepers who are also being affected simultaneously?" Old Zhou asked in a deep voice.
"That is the greatest hidden danger," Scholar Su said, tapping heavily on the map markers for the pipe gallery nodes in the East and South Districts. "We have only found less than thirty percent of the suspicious individuals. The remaining sleepers hiding in the residential areas, those who haven't been screened, are currently receiving the signal as well. They have no isolation protection. Once their anchor points break through the critical threshold, they will suddenly lose control in the residential areas."
Lin Yan closed his eyes, using the fissure in his Sea of Consciousness to distantly perceive that invisible long line spanning the rock strata, connecting the middle of the rift all the way to the underground pipe network of the bastion.
One main source branched out into countless fine threads, following the groundwater veins and spiral nodes, piercing into the Seas of Consciousness of ordinary people in the city. The abyssal supreme ruler sat at the source of this long line, stopped in the rift channel, gently plucking the threads.
It hadn't yet made up its mind to fully detonate everything.
It was merely testing.
Testing the stability of the signal transmission, testing the tolerance threshold of the dormant anchor points, and testing humanity's response and troop deployment directions in the face of synchronized disturbances within the city.
No action outside the city, no detonation inside the city; it simply used this method to apply continuous pressure, constantly draining the manpower and mental fortitude of the West Bastion. The garrison forces had to be divided to maintain urban order, watch over the sleepers, and urgently screen residents; the frontline defenses had to be on full alert, watching the rift to prevent it from bursting out at any moment. Humanity was forced to be tense on both fronts, exhausted from running around.
"Can we increase the resonance frequency of the blockade array to try and interfere with the signal link between it and the city's spore network?" a frontline officer's voice joined the channel.
"The risk is extremely high," Scholar Su immediately vetoed the idea. "The design goal of the resonance barrier is to block large-scale illusion tides and scaled beasts, not to cut off this kind of diffuse, faint psychic signal transmitted through the rock strata and water systems. Forcibly increasing the power will, first, disturb the geological strata, with a probability of tearing the underground pipelines and accelerating spore diffusion; second, the strong resonance might stimulate it and directly trigger the detonation of all anchor points. We cannot afford to gamble on that."
The meeting room fell into a brief silence.
Lin Yan spoke up, his voice clearly transmitted through the communication channel: "It is currently 'calibrating' the link. It stopped at this point, repeatedly adjusting the signal output intensity to find a critical threshold. Below the threshold, the anchor points merely become restless; surpassing the threshold, all sleepers in the city lose control simultaneously. It is feeling out this boundary."
It was playing with a scale, adding weights to the side of losing control bit by bit, seeing how much humanity could endure.
"So we can only passively wait for it to test us?"
"It's not completely without a solution," Scholar Su quickly stabilized his mind and issued a new round of orders. "First, increase the supply of slow-release sedatives to all isolated sleepers, and arrange for high-tier Sea of Consciousness cultivators to continuously guard the isolation pods to suppress the anchor points at any time. Second, screening squads should prioritize accelerating the residential areas near the pipe gallery nodes in the South and East Districts, racing against time to find the sleepers before the anchor points activate. Third, continue to inject neutralizing agents into the main water supply line to weaken the spores' sensitivity to receiving signals. Fourth, all frontline observation squads must focus on recording every fluctuation in the intensity of its psychic flow. As soon as the values cross the warning red line, trigger the highest city-wide alert immediately."
The orders were issued layer by layer, and the bastion instantly sprang into action.
The number of patrolling military police on the streets doubled, moving discreetly through the residential areas. Perception cultivators went door-to-door in pairs. The research institute's agent transport vehicles drove to various water supply pumping stations throughout the night. All actions were kept as quiet as possible to avoid causing widespread panic among ordinary citizens. The vast majority of people still didn't know that a timed fuse was hidden beside them, with the other end of the fuse tied to the hand of that existence deep within the rift dozens of kilometers away.
At the rocky hill observation point, the night grew deeper.
Lin Yan walked to the edge of the rocky hill, gazing through the vast gray fog toward Rift No. 79.
The dark fissure lay quietly upon the earth. That ancient consciousness was stopped in the channel hundreds of meters behind the fissure's opening. It didn't move, didn't charge, didn't kill. It was like a calm chess player. One hand held the thousands of sleepers within the city, while the other watched all of humanity's defensive works outside the city. Unhurried, it slowly tested the boundaries of the chessboard.
"It is ten thousand times harder to deal with than a beast tide," Old Zhou walked to Lin Yan's side and sighed in a low voice. "When a beast tide comes, we can fight head-on with guns, cannons, oscillation artillery, and barriers. Win or lose, at least we can see our opponent. But it just stays in the darkness, and with a mere thought, ordinary people in the city start to become restless. We don't even know what its true form looks like."
"It doesn't need its true body to join the battle," Lin Yan said, pressing against his brow as the fissure transmitted a long, steady dull ache. "The psychic network, the spores, the anchor points, the scaled beasts, the priests—they are all limbs extended from it. It stays in the safest position, controlling the entire net."
The maintenance operator suddenly reminded them, "Captain, the fluctuation rose slightly, then fell back. A test."
On the screen, the pale purple curve jumped up slightly, then returned to its original horizontal line.
A gentle pluck of the thread.
Within the city, an unknown number of hidden ordinary people suddenly heard a vague, low hiss from underground in their sleep. They tossed and turned in bewilderment, completely unaware that a fuse had already been buried deep within their Sea of Consciousness.
Lin Yan gazed into the darkness deep in the wasteland.
This standoff had turned into a long war of attrition. It guarded the middle of the rift while the anchor points within the city became restless one after another. Humanity had to screen and save people while keeping an eye on the rift, with even a moment to catch their breath compressed to the absolute limit.
And Lin Yan knew clearly that as long as he remained on the outer perimeter of the rift, this gaze hidden in the darkness would always easily capture that conspicuous fissure in his Sea of Consciousness. He was the sentinel, but at the same time, he was the vessel it had always coveted.
The standoff continued, and the scale still hung on a knife-edge.
End of Chapter.