Chapter 229: A Sliver of a Breach
The instant the first latch snapped, the alloy gate lost the restraint on one side. The heavy steel plate tilted inward, presenting a half-meter-wide fissure directly before everyone's eyes. A cold wind, thick with a pungent stench, poured back into the cabin through the gap. Floating within the wind were fine spore particles. The moment they came into contact with the air inside the cabin, the continuous dull pain in everyone's Sea of Consciousness abruptly worsened. Many people let out a muffled groan, and chaotic illusions instantly flashed before their eyes.
In the shadows of the passage, the third-tier scaled beast that had just rammed the latch into breaking slowly lowered its head. Its skull, covered in bone spurs, reached toward the fissure, its dark crimson vertical pupils locked firmly onto the soldiers lined up horizontally inside the cabin. The scales on its body were cracked, with many areas of mangled flesh—the lingering wounds from its continuous ramming. Yet, there was no exhaustion in those eyes, only the indifferent, fanatical fervor of a hunter stalking its prey.
"Hold the formation! Do not retreat!" Scholar Su strode forward, his short blade held horizontally before him, his voice steady and low. "Four of you, block the front of the fissure! The flanking squads, guard the remaining three latches to prevent the other scaled beasts from concentrating their ramming on the remaining points!"
Four soldiers immediately rushed forward, crossing their spears to jam them into the fissure. The spear shafts pressed hard against the edge of the door panel, barely managing to halt the gate's continued inward collapse. However, the combination of flesh, wood, and metal could never withstand the full-force charge of a third-tier scaled beast. The spear shafts emitted creaking, bending sounds under the crushing pressure of the door panel, bearing immense strain with every passing second.
On the outside of the gate, the other two third-tier scaled beasts grew restless. Abandoning their rotation to ram other positions, they converged together toward this torn fissure. Dense masses of ordinary scaled beasts were crammed into the narrow passage behind them, their alternating low roars merging into a continuous wave of sound. The sonic waves surged through the fissure into the shelter pod, vibrating everyone's eardrums. They did not swarm in all at once; the Beast Commander was restraining the herd, still adhering to the rhythm set by the ancient beings, not eager to rush to their deaths en masse.
Lin Yan stood guard by the terminal, his Sea of Consciousness simultaneously split toward two locations: on one side, monitoring the overlapping thermal signatures outside the gate's fissure, and on the other, tracking the moving spore signals deep within the underground rock layer. On the screen, the Spiderweb Ancient Being's spore clusters had already reached the outer side of the intake plenum of the oxygen purification unit. Countless tiny spores were slowly pressing against the intake filter along the rock seams. All their neutralizing agents and blast-blocking explosives had been completely exhausted; there were currently no means left to actively intercept them.
"The spores have reached the outside of the intake filter and are beginning to attach and corrode the filter fibers," Lin Yan reported urgently. "Once the filter is breached, the spores will spread throughout the entire shelter pod via the air supply ducts. By then, everyone will be submerged in compounded psychic toxins, and the illusions will spiral completely out of control."
Scholar Su glanced out of the corner of his eye toward the civilian area in the rear. Many people had already begun to lose their minds due to the influx of spore-laden air. A woman with vacant eyes instinctively took a step toward the fissure. A nearby military police officer pulled her back with all his might, repeatedly shouting the wake-up command. Her body trembled uncontrollably, and it took a long time before she barely came to her senses, covering her face and shedding tears in silence.
Deep within the cavern, the consciousness of the five ancient beings resonated slowly.
The Beast Commander firmly controlled the rhythm of the attack, allowing only the injured third-tier scaled beast to probe and intimidate at the fissure, without rashly pushing forward. It was waiting for the cabin's defensive line to collapse on its own due to this breach, waiting for panic to devour the defenders' will, and waiting for someone to break under the mental shock brought by the spores and scatter in a rout. Capitalizing on the spores surging into the cabin, the Sharp-Sense Ancient Being increased the intensity of its erosion. No longer maintaining the previous constant threshold, it gradually dialed up the pressure, amplifying the dizziness and piercing pain in everyone's Sea of Consciousness.
The Illusion Ancient Being seized the opportunity to frantically project images.
Some people saw scaled beasts breaking through the defensive line, their claws tearing apart their companions; others saw the food and water promised by the ancient beings beyond the fissure. These two illusions alternated and flashed, repeatedly tearing at their minds. Those with weak wills could no longer distinguish reality, wavering endlessly between terror and temptation.
The supreme ruler's consciousness hovered above this darkness, quietly examining both sides of the fissure.
It saw human soldiers using their spears to desperately hold up the door panel. It saw that even though they were completely out of ammunition and medicine, starving and freezing, they still refused to step back. It also saw the signs of collapse spreading through the crowd, and saw the spores quietly infiltrating the ventilation system. The scales of victory were tipping, but had not yet fallen. It signaled the Beast Commander to wait patiently, allowing the fear and spore toxins to complete the harvest before launching the general assault.
At the gate's fissure, the third-tier scaled beast slowly took a step forward, its nose approaching the crossed spears, spraying hot, fetid breath onto the shafts. It suddenly whipped its head, its bone spurs striking fiercely against the spears.
Crack!
One of the spear shafts bent and deformed with a sharp sound. The force supporting the gate diminished by a fraction, and the fissure widened by another ten-plus centimeters.
"Switch spears! Hold the line!" a soldier in the front row roared in a low voice. A companion beside him immediately stepped up, handing over a second spear to cross and lock it with the remaining intact one. The soldier's shoulder pressed tightly against the butt of the spear, his muscles taut, veins bulging on his arms. Every ounce of his strength was used to counter the pushing force of the giant beast outside.
The chaos in the civilian area continued to ferment.
A young man suddenly broke free from the military police's restraint and charged toward the fissure like a madman, muttering under his breath, "There's water, there's food." When he was only a few steps away from the fissure, a soldier nearby turned sideways, reached out, and viciously yanked him to the ground, pinning him down. The man struggled wildly, screaming endlessly; the illusion had firmly seized his sanity.
"Take him to the rear isolation zone and assign someone to watch him!" Scholar Su ordered in a low, heavy voice.
Two military police officers stepped forward, hoisted the struggling man, and quickly dragged him toward a corner far from the fissure. Such anomalies were like a contagious disease. Two or three more people, their eyes glazed over, began walking uncontrollably toward the gate. The military police had to split up to stop them, their already stretched-thin manpower being continually divided.
To make matters worse, the warning light at the operations post suddenly flashed on.
"Spore penetration detected at the intake filter! A small amount of spores has already entered the air supply duct!" The operations personnel's voice trembled as they quickly turned the ventilation valves. "I am cutting off this intake route and shutting down the air supply branch corresponding to the purification unit!"
The valve turned, and the humming air supply fan abruptly stopped.
With this ventilation route shut down, the air circulation inside the cabin deteriorated further. The already foul air became suffocatingly stuffy. Several weak patients in the wounded area breathed even faster, their chests heaving violently. The remaining three-day lifespan of the oxygen purification module was forcibly shortened by a fraction.
Lin Yan stared at the spore movements on the screen, his heart heavy. "The Spiderweb Ancient Being hasn't stopped. It is searching for the seams of the remaining intake vents. We shut down one route, and it moves to the next."
Outside the door, the third-tier scaled beast gathered its strength once again, lowering its head, its bone spurs aimed directly at the crossed spears and the seam of the door panel.
Thud!
The charge slammed down fiercely.
Another sound of wood snapping rang out; the second spear broke. The gate caved inward another fraction. The fissure was now wide enough to accommodate half the body of a scaled beast. The dark crimson vertical pupils of the giant beast were right up close, and its fetid saliva dripped down from the bone spurs, landing on the cabin floor and corroding tiny spots.
"The remaining three latches are experiencing structural overload! The rock layer of the door frame is beginning to crack!" Lin Yan warned loudly.
Scholar Su gripped his short blade tightly and strode to the very front of the fissure, standing shoulder-to-shoulder with the remaining three soldiers. They had no spears left, only the short blades in their hands. Once the scaled beasts squeezed in, they would have to engage in close-quarters combat. Everyone knew that against the thick scales and bone spurs of a third-tier scaled beast, their chances of winning with cold steel were minuscule. They were merely delaying the inevitable, delaying until they could delay no longer.
In the radio booth, the guard still mechanically pressed the transmit button.
The weak long-wave signal broke through the thick spore clouds, drifting toward the empty, dead wasteland. The headphones still held only the hissing white noise, without a single echo. He took off the headphones and, through the partition wall of the booth, clearly heard the intertwined sounds of beast roars, metallic friction, and suppressed wails outside. Reinforcements would not come; this answer had long been etched into his heart. Yet, he still honored the agreement, sending out the messages over and over again.
At the gate's fissure, the third-tier scaled beast let out a low, deafening roar. The other two third-tier scaled beasts behind it began to move forward, preparing to press down upon this breach together. The dense masses of ordinary scaled beasts in the rear grew restless, their roars rising wave after wave. The Beast Commander was preparing to end the probing and launch the true charge.
Inside the fissure, over thirty warriors and a group of starving, weak civilians were squeezed from both sides by the tide of spore toxins and the tide of scaled beasts.
The iron box cage, its final defensive line, had reached the very edge of shattering.
End of Chapter.
In the shadows of the passage, the third-tier scaled beast that had just rammed the latch into breaking slowly lowered its head. Its skull, covered in bone spurs, reached toward the fissure, its dark crimson vertical pupils locked firmly onto the soldiers lined up horizontally inside the cabin. The scales on its body were cracked, with many areas of mangled flesh—the lingering wounds from its continuous ramming. Yet, there was no exhaustion in those eyes, only the indifferent, fanatical fervor of a hunter stalking its prey.
"Hold the formation! Do not retreat!" Scholar Su strode forward, his short blade held horizontally before him, his voice steady and low. "Four of you, block the front of the fissure! The flanking squads, guard the remaining three latches to prevent the other scaled beasts from concentrating their ramming on the remaining points!"
Four soldiers immediately rushed forward, crossing their spears to jam them into the fissure. The spear shafts pressed hard against the edge of the door panel, barely managing to halt the gate's continued inward collapse. However, the combination of flesh, wood, and metal could never withstand the full-force charge of a third-tier scaled beast. The spear shafts emitted creaking, bending sounds under the crushing pressure of the door panel, bearing immense strain with every passing second.
On the outside of the gate, the other two third-tier scaled beasts grew restless. Abandoning their rotation to ram other positions, they converged together toward this torn fissure. Dense masses of ordinary scaled beasts were crammed into the narrow passage behind them, their alternating low roars merging into a continuous wave of sound. The sonic waves surged through the fissure into the shelter pod, vibrating everyone's eardrums. They did not swarm in all at once; the Beast Commander was restraining the herd, still adhering to the rhythm set by the ancient beings, not eager to rush to their deaths en masse.
Lin Yan stood guard by the terminal, his Sea of Consciousness simultaneously split toward two locations: on one side, monitoring the overlapping thermal signatures outside the gate's fissure, and on the other, tracking the moving spore signals deep within the underground rock layer. On the screen, the Spiderweb Ancient Being's spore clusters had already reached the outer side of the intake plenum of the oxygen purification unit. Countless tiny spores were slowly pressing against the intake filter along the rock seams. All their neutralizing agents and blast-blocking explosives had been completely exhausted; there were currently no means left to actively intercept them.
"The spores have reached the outside of the intake filter and are beginning to attach and corrode the filter fibers," Lin Yan reported urgently. "Once the filter is breached, the spores will spread throughout the entire shelter pod via the air supply ducts. By then, everyone will be submerged in compounded psychic toxins, and the illusions will spiral completely out of control."
Scholar Su glanced out of the corner of his eye toward the civilian area in the rear. Many people had already begun to lose their minds due to the influx of spore-laden air. A woman with vacant eyes instinctively took a step toward the fissure. A nearby military police officer pulled her back with all his might, repeatedly shouting the wake-up command. Her body trembled uncontrollably, and it took a long time before she barely came to her senses, covering her face and shedding tears in silence.
Deep within the cavern, the consciousness of the five ancient beings resonated slowly.
The Beast Commander firmly controlled the rhythm of the attack, allowing only the injured third-tier scaled beast to probe and intimidate at the fissure, without rashly pushing forward. It was waiting for the cabin's defensive line to collapse on its own due to this breach, waiting for panic to devour the defenders' will, and waiting for someone to break under the mental shock brought by the spores and scatter in a rout. Capitalizing on the spores surging into the cabin, the Sharp-Sense Ancient Being increased the intensity of its erosion. No longer maintaining the previous constant threshold, it gradually dialed up the pressure, amplifying the dizziness and piercing pain in everyone's Sea of Consciousness.
The Illusion Ancient Being seized the opportunity to frantically project images.
Some people saw scaled beasts breaking through the defensive line, their claws tearing apart their companions; others saw the food and water promised by the ancient beings beyond the fissure. These two illusions alternated and flashed, repeatedly tearing at their minds. Those with weak wills could no longer distinguish reality, wavering endlessly between terror and temptation.
The supreme ruler's consciousness hovered above this darkness, quietly examining both sides of the fissure.
It saw human soldiers using their spears to desperately hold up the door panel. It saw that even though they were completely out of ammunition and medicine, starving and freezing, they still refused to step back. It also saw the signs of collapse spreading through the crowd, and saw the spores quietly infiltrating the ventilation system. The scales of victory were tipping, but had not yet fallen. It signaled the Beast Commander to wait patiently, allowing the fear and spore toxins to complete the harvest before launching the general assault.
At the gate's fissure, the third-tier scaled beast slowly took a step forward, its nose approaching the crossed spears, spraying hot, fetid breath onto the shafts. It suddenly whipped its head, its bone spurs striking fiercely against the spears.
Crack!
One of the spear shafts bent and deformed with a sharp sound. The force supporting the gate diminished by a fraction, and the fissure widened by another ten-plus centimeters.
"Switch spears! Hold the line!" a soldier in the front row roared in a low voice. A companion beside him immediately stepped up, handing over a second spear to cross and lock it with the remaining intact one. The soldier's shoulder pressed tightly against the butt of the spear, his muscles taut, veins bulging on his arms. Every ounce of his strength was used to counter the pushing force of the giant beast outside.
The chaos in the civilian area continued to ferment.
A young man suddenly broke free from the military police's restraint and charged toward the fissure like a madman, muttering under his breath, "There's water, there's food." When he was only a few steps away from the fissure, a soldier nearby turned sideways, reached out, and viciously yanked him to the ground, pinning him down. The man struggled wildly, screaming endlessly; the illusion had firmly seized his sanity.
"Take him to the rear isolation zone and assign someone to watch him!" Scholar Su ordered in a low, heavy voice.
Two military police officers stepped forward, hoisted the struggling man, and quickly dragged him toward a corner far from the fissure. Such anomalies were like a contagious disease. Two or three more people, their eyes glazed over, began walking uncontrollably toward the gate. The military police had to split up to stop them, their already stretched-thin manpower being continually divided.
To make matters worse, the warning light at the operations post suddenly flashed on.
"Spore penetration detected at the intake filter! A small amount of spores has already entered the air supply duct!" The operations personnel's voice trembled as they quickly turned the ventilation valves. "I am cutting off this intake route and shutting down the air supply branch corresponding to the purification unit!"
The valve turned, and the humming air supply fan abruptly stopped.
With this ventilation route shut down, the air circulation inside the cabin deteriorated further. The already foul air became suffocatingly stuffy. Several weak patients in the wounded area breathed even faster, their chests heaving violently. The remaining three-day lifespan of the oxygen purification module was forcibly shortened by a fraction.
Lin Yan stared at the spore movements on the screen, his heart heavy. "The Spiderweb Ancient Being hasn't stopped. It is searching for the seams of the remaining intake vents. We shut down one route, and it moves to the next."
Outside the door, the third-tier scaled beast gathered its strength once again, lowering its head, its bone spurs aimed directly at the crossed spears and the seam of the door panel.
Thud!
The charge slammed down fiercely.
Another sound of wood snapping rang out; the second spear broke. The gate caved inward another fraction. The fissure was now wide enough to accommodate half the body of a scaled beast. The dark crimson vertical pupils of the giant beast were right up close, and its fetid saliva dripped down from the bone spurs, landing on the cabin floor and corroding tiny spots.
"The remaining three latches are experiencing structural overload! The rock layer of the door frame is beginning to crack!" Lin Yan warned loudly.
Scholar Su gripped his short blade tightly and strode to the very front of the fissure, standing shoulder-to-shoulder with the remaining three soldiers. They had no spears left, only the short blades in their hands. Once the scaled beasts squeezed in, they would have to engage in close-quarters combat. Everyone knew that against the thick scales and bone spurs of a third-tier scaled beast, their chances of winning with cold steel were minuscule. They were merely delaying the inevitable, delaying until they could delay no longer.
In the radio booth, the guard still mechanically pressed the transmit button.
The weak long-wave signal broke through the thick spore clouds, drifting toward the empty, dead wasteland. The headphones still held only the hissing white noise, without a single echo. He took off the headphones and, through the partition wall of the booth, clearly heard the intertwined sounds of beast roars, metallic friction, and suppressed wails outside. Reinforcements would not come; this answer had long been etched into his heart. Yet, he still honored the agreement, sending out the messages over and over again.
At the gate's fissure, the third-tier scaled beast let out a low, deafening roar. The other two third-tier scaled beasts behind it began to move forward, preparing to press down upon this breach together. The dense masses of ordinary scaled beasts in the rear grew restless, their roars rising wave after wave. The Beast Commander was preparing to end the probing and launch the true charge.
Inside the fissure, over thirty warriors and a group of starving, weak civilians were squeezed from both sides by the tide of spore toxins and the tide of scaled beasts.
The iron box cage, its final defensive line, had reached the very edge of shattering.
End of Chapter.