Chapter 221: The Poison Tide in the Pipelines
The grille on the outside of ventilation pipeline number three had already deformed severely under the continuous ramming of the scaled beasts. The metal bars bulged outward, and the gaps grew wider and wider.
The two soldiers guarding the pipeline monitoring station gripped the detonators tightly, their eyes fixed on the jumping spore concentration readings on the gauge. The light points representing the spore clusters on the screen were still expanding. The Spiderweb Ancient Being was continuously pumping the black spores surging from underground into the pipeline's interlayer. Following the airflow direction of the ventilation ducts, they were slowly advancing toward the interior of the shelter pod. Once the spores passed through the grille and diffused into the cabin along the air supply circuit, the invisible psychic toxins would instantly blanket the entire sealed space. By then, no one would be able to withstand the compounded illusion attacks.
"The grille won't survive many more impacts!" one soldier whispered, his fingertips trembling slightly. "After we detonate, it will only shatter this section of the pipeline and seal the passage. But the ventilation system will lose one air supply route, and the oxygen circulation pressure inside the cabin will increase."
The other soldier did not reply. His gaze swept past the monitoring screen and looked deep into the shelter pod. There were sleeping children, wounded groaning in pain, and civilians who had already been numbed by the mental torment. They had no other choice.
Outside, the third-tier scaled beast responsible for ramming the ventilation shaft took a few steps back, let out a low, muffled roar, and accelerated again, slamming its head fiercely into the grille.
Screech—
Several metal bars were directly bent and torn apart, exposing a gap as wide as a palm. The murky, blackened spore mist tumbled through the gap and drilled into the pipeline. The concentration value on the gauge spiked violently, and the red warning light flashed urgently.
"Detonate!"
The soldier pressed the switch.
A muffled explosion erupted inside the pipeline interlayer. A flash of fire lit up, and the scorching shockwave incinerated that section of the ventilation duct along with the invading spore clusters. The deformed grille was completely blasted into collapse, and the rubble and metal debris tightly sealed the pipeline entrance. The surging spore flow was forcibly severed.
The vibration of the explosion conducted through the cabin's structure, causing the entire shelter pod to tremble slightly. Many people inside were startled and looked up nervously toward the ventilation shaft on the ceiling. Panic spread through the crowd like ripples.
"It's okay, we just sealed off the ventilation pipeline. The spores can't get in for now," a patrolling military police officer said in a low voice to comfort them, pacing back and forth to stabilize the crowd's emotions.
Scholar Su quickly walked to Lin Yan's terminal, his gaze falling on the newly refreshed thermal map.
"The spore cluster at ventilation shaft number three has been cleared, but the Beast Commander has already realized our pipeline defense measures," Lin Yan said, sliding his finger across the screen to mark the locations of three other ventilation pipelines. "They won't just stare at a single point. Now, two ordinary scaled beasts have moved to the outside of ventilation shaft number one and started probing with rams. The Spiderweb Ancient Being hasn't backed down; it is readjusting the spore flow, preparing to infiltrate by rotating through different points."
Deep within the cavern, the consciousness of the five ancient beings flowed steadily.
Although the Spiderweb Ancient Being's recent probe had failed, it had obtained key intelligence: humans had pre-installed blast-blocking devices in all ventilation pipelines. Forcing its way through the pipelines would trigger explosions, and the spore channels would be sealed directly. It did not rush to continue forcefully transporting spores. Instead, it adjusted its strategy, slowing down the spore cultivation speed and dispersing them into dozens of tiny spore clusters. These slowly seeped along the seams of the outer pipeline walls, no longer concentrating their assault on a single ventilation shaft.
The Sharp-Sense Ancient Being maintained a continuous psychic erosion. The intensity was not high, but it never stopped for a moment. Everyone's Sea of Consciousness inside the cabin was continuously soaked in this dull pain. Sleep was repeatedly fragmented; many could only manage brief, shallow naps, and their exhaustion accumulated day by day.
The Illusion Ancient Being adjusted its projection strategy. The bloody and horrifying scenes decreased, replaced by fragmented, gentle illusions of daily life. When resting with their eyes closed, some saw their own courtyards and smelled the aroma of cooking food. Some heard the bugle calls from the watchtowers of distant bastions, mistakenly believing reinforcements had arrived. Others saw the rift close and the wasteland return to peace, with everyone able to walk out of the shelter pod. These illusions posed no threat, but they slowly gnawed at people's vigilance, breeding wishful thinking.
The Beast Commander continued to arrange for the scaled beasts to take turns ramming the outer walls of the cabin and various ventilation points. The rhythm of the ramming was deliberately erratic—sometimes over a dozen dense knocks in a row, sometimes half an hour of complete silence. This was done to deliberately disrupt the rest patterns of the people inside, keeping everyone's nerves taut and denying them any true relaxation.
The supreme ruler quietly observed the flow of emotions inside the shelter pod.
It saw the explosion. It saw humanity resolutely sacrifice one ventilation route to block the spore invasion. It also saw the hope and wavering taking root in the hearts of the civilians inside. It was not in a rush to force a decisive battle; the siege itself was a war of attrition. The continuous destruction of the ventilation passages would increase the oxygen burden. The mental torment would continue to break people's spirits. Food and water were decreasing day by day. It did not need to take the initiative; the predicament would slowly ferment on its own.
"Scaled beasts have been detected probing the outside of ventilation shaft number one. Arrange two people to take turns watching it. Double the patrol frequency for the remaining three ventilation points," Scholar Su ordered quickly. "Notify the maintenance team to shut down the air supply branch corresponding to pipeline number three, recalculate the oxygen consumption rate, and adjust the air supply ratio of the remaining ventilation pipes."
The maintenance personnel immediately rushed to the ventilation control cabinet to turn the valves and adjust the airflow.
After losing one air supply route, the air circulation inside the cabin noticeably worsened. A faint smell of sweat, medicine, and blood slowly permeated the sealed space. The air in the wounded area was the most turbid. Several severely wounded soldiers breathed heavily, and the military doctor could only open the nearby ventilation shafts as much as possible to prioritize supplying them with fresh air.
Time pushed forward another day.
The numbers on the material consumption table continued to slide downward. The drinking water ration was reduced again, leaving only a small half-plastic bottle per person per day. The compressed rations were broken in half, with one small piece for the morning and one for the evening. Hunger began to take its toll. Many civilians looked pale, and the children couldn't help but cry softly. The mothers could only hold them tightly and coax them gently, not daring to make too much noise for fear of attracting deeper fear.
The seeds of conflict quietly sprouted.
During the evening shift rotation, two civilians argued over the water distribution. One felt that the wounded and children deserved a larger share, while the other believed that since everyone was trapped here, the water should be divided equally, and no one had the right to take more. The argument was not loud, but it attracted the attention of those around them. The long-suppressed irritability erupted over this trivial matter. It was only when the military police stepped in to separate the two that the scene was barely pacified.
Scholar Su watched from afar, his brows furrowed.
He knew this was only the beginning. Hunger, thirst, endless mental torment, and the seemingly endless wait would slowly grind away the restraint between people. Suspicion and selfishness would take root in the darkness.
Lin Yan stared at the terminal and suddenly frowned. "Something's wrong. The spore signals from the Spiderweb Ancient Being have dispersed. They are not going through the ventilation pipelines. They are spreading along the geological seams of the shelter pod's foundation. The spores are seeping into the underground rock layer, intending to drill in through the cable routing troughs at the bottom of the cabin."
Everyone's heart sank again.
Pipelines could be sealed, but the entire shelter pod was rooted in the rock layer. The underground was riddled with countless routing troughs and settlement seams; it was impossible to pre-install explosives to seal them all.
As if coordinating with the Spiderweb Ancient Being's movements, dense ramming sounds erupted simultaneously from all directions on the outer walls of the cabin. The muffled thuds came one after another, creating a chaotic noise to confuse the senses, attract the defenders' attention, and cover the silent infiltration of the underground spores.
The lights inside the cabin flickered. The power supply lines occasionally short-circuited due to the continuous external vibrations, plunging the space into dimness for an instant. In the darkness, illusions found it easier to take advantage of the vulnerability. Several suppressed sobs came from the civilian area.
Lin Yan quickly marked three locations on the terminal where the spore signals at the bottom of the cabin were converging, and reported loudly: "Spores are pouring into the routing troughs at the southwest, due south, and southeast of the cabin floor! They intend to bypass the ventilation defenses and invade from the bottom layer!"
Scholar Su took a deep breath and gripped the short blade at his waist. "Divert all remaining explosives into three groups. Go down through the internal maintenance tunnels and set up blast-blocking charges at the routing trough nodes. Move fast. We cannot let the spores spread across the bottom of the cabin."
Three squads quickly assembled. Carrying lighting equipment and explosives, they drilled into the narrow, low bottom maintenance tunnels. The passage was cramped and confined, and the familiar, chilling, fishy stench of spores could already be faintly smelled in the air.
Above the shelter pod, the scaled beasts continued to ram the outer walls; below the shelter pod, the black spores moved silently through the seams of the rock layer.
The siege by the lizard ancient beings was no longer just outside the door. From the air, the ground, and the Sea of Consciousness, they were tightening the noose simultaneously. Inside the iron box, the agony continued.
End of Chapter.
The two soldiers guarding the pipeline monitoring station gripped the detonators tightly, their eyes fixed on the jumping spore concentration readings on the gauge. The light points representing the spore clusters on the screen were still expanding. The Spiderweb Ancient Being was continuously pumping the black spores surging from underground into the pipeline's interlayer. Following the airflow direction of the ventilation ducts, they were slowly advancing toward the interior of the shelter pod. Once the spores passed through the grille and diffused into the cabin along the air supply circuit, the invisible psychic toxins would instantly blanket the entire sealed space. By then, no one would be able to withstand the compounded illusion attacks.
"The grille won't survive many more impacts!" one soldier whispered, his fingertips trembling slightly. "After we detonate, it will only shatter this section of the pipeline and seal the passage. But the ventilation system will lose one air supply route, and the oxygen circulation pressure inside the cabin will increase."
The other soldier did not reply. His gaze swept past the monitoring screen and looked deep into the shelter pod. There were sleeping children, wounded groaning in pain, and civilians who had already been numbed by the mental torment. They had no other choice.
Outside, the third-tier scaled beast responsible for ramming the ventilation shaft took a few steps back, let out a low, muffled roar, and accelerated again, slamming its head fiercely into the grille.
Screech—
Several metal bars were directly bent and torn apart, exposing a gap as wide as a palm. The murky, blackened spore mist tumbled through the gap and drilled into the pipeline. The concentration value on the gauge spiked violently, and the red warning light flashed urgently.
"Detonate!"
The soldier pressed the switch.
A muffled explosion erupted inside the pipeline interlayer. A flash of fire lit up, and the scorching shockwave incinerated that section of the ventilation duct along with the invading spore clusters. The deformed grille was completely blasted into collapse, and the rubble and metal debris tightly sealed the pipeline entrance. The surging spore flow was forcibly severed.
The vibration of the explosion conducted through the cabin's structure, causing the entire shelter pod to tremble slightly. Many people inside were startled and looked up nervously toward the ventilation shaft on the ceiling. Panic spread through the crowd like ripples.
"It's okay, we just sealed off the ventilation pipeline. The spores can't get in for now," a patrolling military police officer said in a low voice to comfort them, pacing back and forth to stabilize the crowd's emotions.
Scholar Su quickly walked to Lin Yan's terminal, his gaze falling on the newly refreshed thermal map.
"The spore cluster at ventilation shaft number three has been cleared, but the Beast Commander has already realized our pipeline defense measures," Lin Yan said, sliding his finger across the screen to mark the locations of three other ventilation pipelines. "They won't just stare at a single point. Now, two ordinary scaled beasts have moved to the outside of ventilation shaft number one and started probing with rams. The Spiderweb Ancient Being hasn't backed down; it is readjusting the spore flow, preparing to infiltrate by rotating through different points."
Deep within the cavern, the consciousness of the five ancient beings flowed steadily.
Although the Spiderweb Ancient Being's recent probe had failed, it had obtained key intelligence: humans had pre-installed blast-blocking devices in all ventilation pipelines. Forcing its way through the pipelines would trigger explosions, and the spore channels would be sealed directly. It did not rush to continue forcefully transporting spores. Instead, it adjusted its strategy, slowing down the spore cultivation speed and dispersing them into dozens of tiny spore clusters. These slowly seeped along the seams of the outer pipeline walls, no longer concentrating their assault on a single ventilation shaft.
The Sharp-Sense Ancient Being maintained a continuous psychic erosion. The intensity was not high, but it never stopped for a moment. Everyone's Sea of Consciousness inside the cabin was continuously soaked in this dull pain. Sleep was repeatedly fragmented; many could only manage brief, shallow naps, and their exhaustion accumulated day by day.
The Illusion Ancient Being adjusted its projection strategy. The bloody and horrifying scenes decreased, replaced by fragmented, gentle illusions of daily life. When resting with their eyes closed, some saw their own courtyards and smelled the aroma of cooking food. Some heard the bugle calls from the watchtowers of distant bastions, mistakenly believing reinforcements had arrived. Others saw the rift close and the wasteland return to peace, with everyone able to walk out of the shelter pod. These illusions posed no threat, but they slowly gnawed at people's vigilance, breeding wishful thinking.
The Beast Commander continued to arrange for the scaled beasts to take turns ramming the outer walls of the cabin and various ventilation points. The rhythm of the ramming was deliberately erratic—sometimes over a dozen dense knocks in a row, sometimes half an hour of complete silence. This was done to deliberately disrupt the rest patterns of the people inside, keeping everyone's nerves taut and denying them any true relaxation.
The supreme ruler quietly observed the flow of emotions inside the shelter pod.
It saw the explosion. It saw humanity resolutely sacrifice one ventilation route to block the spore invasion. It also saw the hope and wavering taking root in the hearts of the civilians inside. It was not in a rush to force a decisive battle; the siege itself was a war of attrition. The continuous destruction of the ventilation passages would increase the oxygen burden. The mental torment would continue to break people's spirits. Food and water were decreasing day by day. It did not need to take the initiative; the predicament would slowly ferment on its own.
"Scaled beasts have been detected probing the outside of ventilation shaft number one. Arrange two people to take turns watching it. Double the patrol frequency for the remaining three ventilation points," Scholar Su ordered quickly. "Notify the maintenance team to shut down the air supply branch corresponding to pipeline number three, recalculate the oxygen consumption rate, and adjust the air supply ratio of the remaining ventilation pipes."
The maintenance personnel immediately rushed to the ventilation control cabinet to turn the valves and adjust the airflow.
After losing one air supply route, the air circulation inside the cabin noticeably worsened. A faint smell of sweat, medicine, and blood slowly permeated the sealed space. The air in the wounded area was the most turbid. Several severely wounded soldiers breathed heavily, and the military doctor could only open the nearby ventilation shafts as much as possible to prioritize supplying them with fresh air.
Time pushed forward another day.
The numbers on the material consumption table continued to slide downward. The drinking water ration was reduced again, leaving only a small half-plastic bottle per person per day. The compressed rations were broken in half, with one small piece for the morning and one for the evening. Hunger began to take its toll. Many civilians looked pale, and the children couldn't help but cry softly. The mothers could only hold them tightly and coax them gently, not daring to make too much noise for fear of attracting deeper fear.
The seeds of conflict quietly sprouted.
During the evening shift rotation, two civilians argued over the water distribution. One felt that the wounded and children deserved a larger share, while the other believed that since everyone was trapped here, the water should be divided equally, and no one had the right to take more. The argument was not loud, but it attracted the attention of those around them. The long-suppressed irritability erupted over this trivial matter. It was only when the military police stepped in to separate the two that the scene was barely pacified.
Scholar Su watched from afar, his brows furrowed.
He knew this was only the beginning. Hunger, thirst, endless mental torment, and the seemingly endless wait would slowly grind away the restraint between people. Suspicion and selfishness would take root in the darkness.
Lin Yan stared at the terminal and suddenly frowned. "Something's wrong. The spore signals from the Spiderweb Ancient Being have dispersed. They are not going through the ventilation pipelines. They are spreading along the geological seams of the shelter pod's foundation. The spores are seeping into the underground rock layer, intending to drill in through the cable routing troughs at the bottom of the cabin."
Everyone's heart sank again.
Pipelines could be sealed, but the entire shelter pod was rooted in the rock layer. The underground was riddled with countless routing troughs and settlement seams; it was impossible to pre-install explosives to seal them all.
As if coordinating with the Spiderweb Ancient Being's movements, dense ramming sounds erupted simultaneously from all directions on the outer walls of the cabin. The muffled thuds came one after another, creating a chaotic noise to confuse the senses, attract the defenders' attention, and cover the silent infiltration of the underground spores.
The lights inside the cabin flickered. The power supply lines occasionally short-circuited due to the continuous external vibrations, plunging the space into dimness for an instant. In the darkness, illusions found it easier to take advantage of the vulnerability. Several suppressed sobs came from the civilian area.
Lin Yan quickly marked three locations on the terminal where the spore signals at the bottom of the cabin were converging, and reported loudly: "Spores are pouring into the routing troughs at the southwest, due south, and southeast of the cabin floor! They intend to bypass the ventilation defenses and invade from the bottom layer!"
Scholar Su took a deep breath and gripped the short blade at his waist. "Divert all remaining explosives into three groups. Go down through the internal maintenance tunnels and set up blast-blocking charges at the routing trough nodes. Move fast. We cannot let the spores spread across the bottom of the cabin."
Three squads quickly assembled. Carrying lighting equipment and explosives, they drilled into the narrow, low bottom maintenance tunnels. The passage was cramped and confined, and the familiar, chilling, fishy stench of spores could already be faintly smelled in the air.
Above the shelter pod, the scaled beasts continued to ram the outer walls; below the shelter pod, the black spores moved silently through the seams of the rock layer.
The siege by the lizard ancient beings was no longer just outside the door. From the air, the ground, and the Sea of Consciousness, they were tightening the noose simultaneously. Inside the iron box, the agony continued.
End of Chapter.