Chapter 191: The Smoldering Embers Ignite
For the next two days, Lin Yan devoted the vast majority of his energy to tracking the ascending streams of consciousness of the four ancient beings.
He no longer let his perception tentacles linger in the middle of the rift as he had in the past. Each time he probed, he only released a fleeting, hair-thin thread. The moment it brushed against the underlying fluctuations, he would immediately retract it, minimizing the risk of being locked onto by multiple ancient beings simultaneously. He created a separate encrypted log on his terminal, noting the ascending rate, resonance rhythm, and the method of linkage with the supreme ruler for each ancient consciousness.
The four ancient beings were not entirely identical.
The first ancient being's fluctuation was long and expansive, like a spiderweb continuously spreading outward. It prioritized interfacing with the spore network embedded throughout the strata. It was deduced to specialize in regulating resonance links and igniting anchor points from afar.
The second ancient being's fluctuation was short and sharp, with distinct peaks and troughs. Every tremor carried a cutting sensation, leaning toward psychic assaults and suppressing illusion tides.
The third ancient being's fluctuation was thick and slow, like a boulder grinding over rock strata. As it flowed, it caused the consciousness of all scaled beasts in the surrounding rock to synchronously submit. It was undoubtedly the commander of the beast herds.
The fourth ancient being's fluctuation was the most obscure. It would appear and disappear intermittently, frequently vanishing from his perception range only to reemerge from another direction. It specialized in concealment and setting up illusion traps.
This assessment was simultaneously reported to Scholar Su and the garrison command center.
In the operations meeting room, simplified waveform diagrams of the four ancient beings were displayed side by side on the projection. Everyone's expression was grim. A single supreme ruler was already difficult enough to deal with, given its skill in global coordination and long-term planning. Now, with the four ancient beings each possessing their own strengths, once they all arrived at the shallow channel and formed a coordinated unit, the tactical combinations would become impossible to defend against. Multi-point resonance ignition, large-scale illusion tides, beast herd cluster charges, and illusion ambushes could be launched in overlapping waves, leaving humanity's defense line stretched thin and struggling to cover all fronts.
"They haven't merged yet; they are still en route," Scholar Su said, his finger pointing at the trajectory map. "We still have time. We must continue to accelerate the screening while simultaneously organizing targeted garrison forces. We need to assign specialized squads to deal with beast tides, illusion arrays, and psychic assaults."
Despite his words, everyone knew the shortcomings in their hearts: screening could never be one hundred percent effective. The pipe network was densely packed throughout the entire bastion. The old city district had a complex web of pipelines, and many pre-buried branch pipe galleries from earlier years were never registered. Hidden within them were countless unknown spiral nodes, with sleepers who had narrowly escaped screening scattered around these nodes.
The command center could only focus its efforts on high-risk areas. Low-risk old alleys had to rely on the irregular spot checks of patrolling cultivators, inevitably letting some slip through the net.
An old man lived alone in a courtyard in an old alley in the south of the city.
Surnamed Chen, he was in his early seventies. Half a month ago, while repairing the well in his backyard, he had drawn shallow seepage water connected to the underground pipe network. The water carried spores that silently took root in his Sea of Consciousness, and his anchor point quietly formed. This alley was not on the priority resonance chain list, and the screening squad had scheduled them for a later date. Both of their previous visits had coincided with the old man going out to buy groceries, causing them to miss the screening.
Over the past two days, as the four ancient beings in the depths continued to ascend, the synchronization strength of the underlying consciousness in the entire area steadily increased.
Anchor points didn't need the priest to fire pulses, nor did they need the supreme ruler to issue active commands. The mere synchronization field naturally emitted by the approaching ancient beings from afar was enough to slowly nourish and awaken the anchors buried within the crowd.
The first sign of abnormality appeared in Old Man Chen's dreams.
In his dream, there was boundless darkness. Countless spiral patterns coiled and intertwined within the dark. A low humming drilled through his eardrums into his brain, repeatedly washing over his Sea of Consciousness. At first, it was just restless sleep and frequent awakenings. But as night fell on this day, his anchor point quietly slipped into a pre-activation state.
He hadn't completely lost control, nor did he have any frenzied desire to attack. But his Sea of Consciousness had been firmly locked with the subterranean spore network, transforming into a highly sensitive resonance node. He was like an unexploded detonator buried in the crowd. As long as the synchronization signal from the ancient beings afar rose by just a fraction, or if another anchor point nearby became restless, he would instantly explode along the resonance chain.
The old man sat in his room, his withered hands clutching his head, muttering incomprehensible spiral whispers in a low voice. His eyes were cloudy as he stared blankly at the corner of the wall. He didn't even know that he had become a new link in the spore network, quietly waiting for the moment of ignition.
Night shrouded the streets and alleys. A patrolling cultivator walked past the alley entrance. His Sea of Consciousness swept over a scene of tranquility, failing to detect this faint anchor point fluctuation hidden beneath the normal thoughts of countless residents. The smoldering embers of pre-ignition were silently concealed beneath the lights.
At the rocky hill observation shed on the wasteland.
Lin Yan had just completed a round of short-term perception sampling and logged the latest positions of the four ancient beings. They were less than half a day's journey away from the rendezvous point in the middle of the rift. Their ascending speed had slightly increased, and the resonant harmony between them was becoming clearer.
"At this rate, the four ancient beings will all arrive around nightfall tomorrow, completing their assembly with the supreme ruler in the middle of the rift," Lin Yan reported to Scholar Su via communicator. "After they merge, the intensity of the underlying synchronization field in the entire area will experience a leap. At that point, the tolerance thresholds of all anchor points within the city will collectively drop, and the risk for those sleepers who slipped through the screening will multiply."
"Received." Scholar Su's voice carried exhaustion. "I will immediately notify all healing patrol teams in the city to increase the frequency of night patrols, focusing on the old pipe network districts. Additionally, all oscillation cannons on the defense line will enter Level 1 standby, and the Sea of Consciousness early warning team will be on duty all night."
After hanging up, only the soft hum of the instruments remained in the observation shed.
The operator on duty beside him stared at the priest's still-weak signal and breathed a sigh of relief: "The priest is still the same as before. The bone crown is severely injured, and it doesn't look like it can recover in the short term. It's a good thing it's here; at least we won't suddenly face high-frequency pulses."
Lin Yan didn't agree.
He knew clearly that this wounded high-tier priest was no longer a main piece in the enemy's hands. Once the four ancient beings finished assembling, the priest's role would be completely replaced. It was more like a discarded piece, left in the rock cavity to continue attracting the attention of humanity's monitoring instruments and patrols, covering up the encirclement formation taking shape in the rear.
The enemy's focal point had long since shifted.
He closed his eyes again and released a wisp of perception with extreme caution.
The streams of consciousness of the four ancient beings were drawing closer, thick and ancient. Four different types of power intertwined, moving toward that eternal, indifferent main consciousness in the middle of the rift. They were in no rush to attack; they were completing their assembly first, weaving the synchronization network into perfection.
Meanwhile, within the bastion, who knew how many sleepers like Old Man Chen had slipped through the net.
One by one, the smoldering embers had quietly entered a pre-ignition state, scattered across every corner of the city, strung along invisible resonance chains. As soon as a command was given from the depths, or the intensity of the synchronization field crossed the critical threshold, sporadic losses of control would break out in succession, spreading outward along the resonance chains and igniting chaos across the city.
On one side were the multiple ancient chess players about to gather in the depths of the abyss; on the other side were the silently pre-igniting fuses hidden within the city's populace.
Tranquility was merely a superficial illusion. Both battlefields had reached the eve of the storm.
Lin Yan raised his hand and pressed against his brow. The fissure trembled gently with the distant resonant harmony of the ancient beings, and a fine numbness spread through his Sea of Consciousness.
He looked toward the main city of the bastion. The lights of ten thousand homes were warm and bright. No one knew that in some inconspicuous courtyard, the smoldering embers had quietly ignited the fuse, silently waiting for the first horn of synchronization to echo from the depths of the earth.
End of Chapter.
He no longer let his perception tentacles linger in the middle of the rift as he had in the past. Each time he probed, he only released a fleeting, hair-thin thread. The moment it brushed against the underlying fluctuations, he would immediately retract it, minimizing the risk of being locked onto by multiple ancient beings simultaneously. He created a separate encrypted log on his terminal, noting the ascending rate, resonance rhythm, and the method of linkage with the supreme ruler for each ancient consciousness.
The four ancient beings were not entirely identical.
The first ancient being's fluctuation was long and expansive, like a spiderweb continuously spreading outward. It prioritized interfacing with the spore network embedded throughout the strata. It was deduced to specialize in regulating resonance links and igniting anchor points from afar.
The second ancient being's fluctuation was short and sharp, with distinct peaks and troughs. Every tremor carried a cutting sensation, leaning toward psychic assaults and suppressing illusion tides.
The third ancient being's fluctuation was thick and slow, like a boulder grinding over rock strata. As it flowed, it caused the consciousness of all scaled beasts in the surrounding rock to synchronously submit. It was undoubtedly the commander of the beast herds.
The fourth ancient being's fluctuation was the most obscure. It would appear and disappear intermittently, frequently vanishing from his perception range only to reemerge from another direction. It specialized in concealment and setting up illusion traps.
This assessment was simultaneously reported to Scholar Su and the garrison command center.
In the operations meeting room, simplified waveform diagrams of the four ancient beings were displayed side by side on the projection. Everyone's expression was grim. A single supreme ruler was already difficult enough to deal with, given its skill in global coordination and long-term planning. Now, with the four ancient beings each possessing their own strengths, once they all arrived at the shallow channel and formed a coordinated unit, the tactical combinations would become impossible to defend against. Multi-point resonance ignition, large-scale illusion tides, beast herd cluster charges, and illusion ambushes could be launched in overlapping waves, leaving humanity's defense line stretched thin and struggling to cover all fronts.
"They haven't merged yet; they are still en route," Scholar Su said, his finger pointing at the trajectory map. "We still have time. We must continue to accelerate the screening while simultaneously organizing targeted garrison forces. We need to assign specialized squads to deal with beast tides, illusion arrays, and psychic assaults."
Despite his words, everyone knew the shortcomings in their hearts: screening could never be one hundred percent effective. The pipe network was densely packed throughout the entire bastion. The old city district had a complex web of pipelines, and many pre-buried branch pipe galleries from earlier years were never registered. Hidden within them were countless unknown spiral nodes, with sleepers who had narrowly escaped screening scattered around these nodes.
The command center could only focus its efforts on high-risk areas. Low-risk old alleys had to rely on the irregular spot checks of patrolling cultivators, inevitably letting some slip through the net.
An old man lived alone in a courtyard in an old alley in the south of the city.
Surnamed Chen, he was in his early seventies. Half a month ago, while repairing the well in his backyard, he had drawn shallow seepage water connected to the underground pipe network. The water carried spores that silently took root in his Sea of Consciousness, and his anchor point quietly formed. This alley was not on the priority resonance chain list, and the screening squad had scheduled them for a later date. Both of their previous visits had coincided with the old man going out to buy groceries, causing them to miss the screening.
Over the past two days, as the four ancient beings in the depths continued to ascend, the synchronization strength of the underlying consciousness in the entire area steadily increased.
Anchor points didn't need the priest to fire pulses, nor did they need the supreme ruler to issue active commands. The mere synchronization field naturally emitted by the approaching ancient beings from afar was enough to slowly nourish and awaken the anchors buried within the crowd.
The first sign of abnormality appeared in Old Man Chen's dreams.
In his dream, there was boundless darkness. Countless spiral patterns coiled and intertwined within the dark. A low humming drilled through his eardrums into his brain, repeatedly washing over his Sea of Consciousness. At first, it was just restless sleep and frequent awakenings. But as night fell on this day, his anchor point quietly slipped into a pre-activation state.
He hadn't completely lost control, nor did he have any frenzied desire to attack. But his Sea of Consciousness had been firmly locked with the subterranean spore network, transforming into a highly sensitive resonance node. He was like an unexploded detonator buried in the crowd. As long as the synchronization signal from the ancient beings afar rose by just a fraction, or if another anchor point nearby became restless, he would instantly explode along the resonance chain.
The old man sat in his room, his withered hands clutching his head, muttering incomprehensible spiral whispers in a low voice. His eyes were cloudy as he stared blankly at the corner of the wall. He didn't even know that he had become a new link in the spore network, quietly waiting for the moment of ignition.
Night shrouded the streets and alleys. A patrolling cultivator walked past the alley entrance. His Sea of Consciousness swept over a scene of tranquility, failing to detect this faint anchor point fluctuation hidden beneath the normal thoughts of countless residents. The smoldering embers of pre-ignition were silently concealed beneath the lights.
At the rocky hill observation shed on the wasteland.
Lin Yan had just completed a round of short-term perception sampling and logged the latest positions of the four ancient beings. They were less than half a day's journey away from the rendezvous point in the middle of the rift. Their ascending speed had slightly increased, and the resonant harmony between them was becoming clearer.
"At this rate, the four ancient beings will all arrive around nightfall tomorrow, completing their assembly with the supreme ruler in the middle of the rift," Lin Yan reported to Scholar Su via communicator. "After they merge, the intensity of the underlying synchronization field in the entire area will experience a leap. At that point, the tolerance thresholds of all anchor points within the city will collectively drop, and the risk for those sleepers who slipped through the screening will multiply."
"Received." Scholar Su's voice carried exhaustion. "I will immediately notify all healing patrol teams in the city to increase the frequency of night patrols, focusing on the old pipe network districts. Additionally, all oscillation cannons on the defense line will enter Level 1 standby, and the Sea of Consciousness early warning team will be on duty all night."
After hanging up, only the soft hum of the instruments remained in the observation shed.
The operator on duty beside him stared at the priest's still-weak signal and breathed a sigh of relief: "The priest is still the same as before. The bone crown is severely injured, and it doesn't look like it can recover in the short term. It's a good thing it's here; at least we won't suddenly face high-frequency pulses."
Lin Yan didn't agree.
He knew clearly that this wounded high-tier priest was no longer a main piece in the enemy's hands. Once the four ancient beings finished assembling, the priest's role would be completely replaced. It was more like a discarded piece, left in the rock cavity to continue attracting the attention of humanity's monitoring instruments and patrols, covering up the encirclement formation taking shape in the rear.
The enemy's focal point had long since shifted.
He closed his eyes again and released a wisp of perception with extreme caution.
The streams of consciousness of the four ancient beings were drawing closer, thick and ancient. Four different types of power intertwined, moving toward that eternal, indifferent main consciousness in the middle of the rift. They were in no rush to attack; they were completing their assembly first, weaving the synchronization network into perfection.
Meanwhile, within the bastion, who knew how many sleepers like Old Man Chen had slipped through the net.
One by one, the smoldering embers had quietly entered a pre-ignition state, scattered across every corner of the city, strung along invisible resonance chains. As soon as a command was given from the depths, or the intensity of the synchronization field crossed the critical threshold, sporadic losses of control would break out in succession, spreading outward along the resonance chains and igniting chaos across the city.
On one side were the multiple ancient chess players about to gather in the depths of the abyss; on the other side were the silently pre-igniting fuses hidden within the city's populace.
Tranquility was merely a superficial illusion. Both battlefields had reached the eve of the storm.
Lin Yan raised his hand and pressed against his brow. The fissure trembled gently with the distant resonant harmony of the ancient beings, and a fine numbness spread through his Sea of Consciousness.
He looked toward the main city of the bastion. The lights of ten thousand homes were warm and bright. No one knew that in some inconspicuous courtyard, the smoldering embers had quietly ignited the fuse, silently waiting for the first horn of synchronization to echo from the depths of the earth.
End of Chapter.