Chapter 525 A Kind of Bad Omen
Everything vanished like an illusion. The giant space station that rolled over like a mountain passed through the buildings and the ground of the foggy city, maintaining a skewed angle and blending into the earth all the way. It didn't even make a sound the whole time. If it weren't for the monitor on the power armor that faithfully recorded the thrilling scene just now, Xu Jiali would even doubt whether it was a collective hysteria.
The girl next to her, Jiplo, was trembling slightly, her cat-like pupils gleaming with nervousness in the dim mist. Xu Jiali glanced back at her, and she immediately jumped up nearly a meter high—like a cat that suddenly found a cucumber behind its butt when it turned around: "Boss, boss, what are you looking at all of a sudden? I was so scared! Meow…"
"What did you say you did with my allowance?"
"Boss, you must have heard wrong..." Lingling said quickly, but halfway through she shrank her neck and turned her head away awkwardly, "Then I'll give you some of my salary this month, meow..."
Xu Jiali ignored this cat-head who had been sniffing catnip all day and was almost oblivious to the world. Instead, he frowned and continued to vigilantly observe the situation on the street. He then checked the various environmental parameters automatically recorded by the power armor and found a lot of inexplicable blanks and short interferences - things that had never happened in his service career.
"Captain, communication has been restored," a deep diver's voice interrupted Xu Jiali's thoughts, "The signal from the diving port has also been received!"
"Everyone surface immediately!"
…
Baili Qing's expression remained the same as usual, but if someone familiar was here, they would probably be able to see an unusual solemnity in her extremely light gray eyes. She carefully looked at the report that had just been sent back from the diving port, and after a long time she raised her head and looked at Song Cheng who was standing across the table.
"Are the results of the team's physical examination out yet?"
"The divers are in good physical condition and show no signs of contamination. Three of them briefly experienced dissociation, but it was mild and left no sequelae," Song Cheng replied immediately. "Several of the accompanying psychic attendants showed symptoms of mild mental confusion and spiritual agitation. These may be mild stress reactions caused by 'witnessing an over-limit event.' They are not serious and will recover on their own after a short rest. I have already arranged a vacation for this team."
Baili Qing nodded slightly, then asked, "Xiao Song, what do you think about this?"
Song Cheng pondered for a moment and spoke slowly, "The black threads they encountered... are likely similar to the ones in the 'Dark Alley,' a sign that the power of the Goddess of Omen is spreading in this foreign land. As for the 'encounter' mentioned in the report, I believe they encountered something belonging to the Black Spot Group. Judging from the footage captured by the on-site personnel's body cameras, it should be a large space station, similar in style to the Algradians' 'Observatory,' but no markings of the Star Nobility were seen."
Baili Qing didn't say anything, but her eyes fell on the screen in front of her again.
The image on the screen was frozen at the moment when a huge alloy wall rolled along the streets of the foggy city - that was the scene captured by a deep diver's power armor.
"Issue a risk warning to all spirit world detectives and investigators. Exercise caution when entering alien realms deeper than L-2. Also, if anyone discovers any traces of what appears to be 'black spider silk' in any alien realm, evacuate immediately and report to the Secret Service," Baili Qing instructed without even looking up. "Finally—send twenty additional deep-dive teams into the City in the Mist, focusing on monitoring the boundaries of the dense foggy districts and several identified weak points in the space."
"clear."
After Song Cheng left, the huge office quickly returned to silence. Baili Qing sat behind the desk and rubbed his forehead, as if he was lost in long thought.
After an unknown amount of time, she seemed to have made up her mind. She set the office to lockdown and took off one of her earrings.
A lavender crystal hangs from the delicate silver earrings. The seemingly naturally formed gem hides extremely precise and complex patterns.
Baili Qing turned the crystal face upwards, brushed her fingers over the edge of the earring, and waited for a few seconds.
A stream of light appeared on the surface of the lavender crystal, and a holographic projection no bigger than a palm appeared above the crystal. There was no human figure in the projection, only the words "Channel Encrypted" were displayed.
There was some noise coming from the other side, and then an obviously technologically processed electronic synthesized voice reached Baili Qing's ears: "Rare guest, rare guest - doing business? Or sponsorship?"
"Something has happened at the border recently," Baili Qing said expressionlessly, "Your people are almost crossing the line of 'small actions'."
There was silence on the other end of the communicator for several seconds.
Baili Qing didn't expect the other party to answer, but spoke directly: "Tell me the truth, what are you doing? Is something out of control?"
"Why are you so sure it's me?" The earring finally responded, "The group has countless project divisions, and you and I may not be that familiar with each other..."
"...It seems I'm wasting my time." Baili Qing quickly lost her patience, yet seemed to have gotten the answer she wanted. She shook her head, her finger resting on the edge of the earring again. "You can continue to hide in one of your secret bases, but you should know that if the border area falls into danger, any place connected to the border area network will no longer be safe. This is just a friendly reminder. Don't touch anything that goes beyond the boundaries of reason."
At the last moment when the communication was interrupted, Baili Qing heard a voice coming into her ears——
“Rationality itself is meaningless if we can only stay within our boundaries.”
Then, the communication was cut off unilaterally by the other party.
"Ah, as unpleasant as ever," Baili Xue's voice came from the side, and a pair of huge eyes appeared on the nearby wall. "If only we knew where those black spot paranoid guys were hiding, we could just send two ships down and blow them up and be done with it."
Baili Qing did not make any response. She just put her earrings back on calmly, and then turned her head to look at the huge floor-to-ceiling window - there were no phantoms or mist outside the window at this moment, but it reflected the normal scenery of the world city like an ordinary window.
She blinked, and deep in her faded pupils, another scene was reflected that only she and her sister could see - between the endless city buildings, there were countless cracks and hidden paths of all sizes.
A group of rifts runs through the entire giant city, and densely packed hidden paths shuttle between the earth and the sky.
Some of those cracks and paths are alien entrances scattered throughout the city, some are channels that can directly lead to certain "path points" in the observable universe, and some are secret channels that are like "shortcuts" and are effective within the boundary area.
Secret Service technicians can use a variety of detection equipment to monitor these cracks and paths in the city, anchor their locations and calculate their recent change trends, but observing them directly with their "eyes" is obviously another experience.
The abstract data and blurry radar images in the eyes of the monitoring department are magnificent and strange wonders in front of Baili Qing.
Baili Xue's eyes slowly drifted to the floor-to-ceiling window and began to wander in Baili Qing's sight.
Baili Qing frowned: "Don't make trouble, I'm watching..."
She suddenly stopped.
In her field of vision, the countless cracks outside the floor-to-ceiling window that spread across the entire intersection suddenly flickered, and then dense black spider silk suddenly appeared from each crack, like countless intertwined hidden giant webs descending in an instant. The entire city was instantly covered by layers of huge spider webs, and even the sky fell into darkness!
Baili Xue, who was crawling on the window, screamed in an instant and jumped onto the ceiling with a "whoosh".
However, in just a moment, the strange and terrifying scene disappeared, and the scene outside the floor-to-ceiling window returned to normal again.
Baili Qing took a breath of cold air, and the next second she could only stare in shock at the scenery outside the window which had returned to normal.
Baili Xue floated down from the ceiling: "Sister, what just happened was..."
"I saw it too. It wasn't something that really happened at the moment, but it didn't seem like an illusion either."
"Some kind of omen?"
"...some kind of ominous sign."
…
“A-choo——”
Irene, who was sitting on the coffee table holding her phone watch and passionately arguing with a stupid netizen, suddenly sneezed loudly. The sneeze made her lose her balance and she rolled onto the carpet.
Yu Sheng, who was writing and drawing on the sofa with a stack of manuscript paper, felt something hit his leg. He looked down and saw the little doll lying between the sofa and the coffee table, with its head tilted back and blinking.
"How can a puppet like you sneeze?" Yu Sheng casually picked up the little thing, dusted off the dirt, and put it on the mat while saying, "And you can sneeze so hard."
"I'm not just any puppet, I'm the Alice puppet!" Irene said proudly, looking up. She had obviously forgotten about her online fight. Then her attention was drawn to the manuscript in Yu Sheng's hand. "Hey, what are you doing? What's this?"
"Weapon blueprints," Yu Sheng continued to sketch. "I prepared these for myself. I'll send them to Mo Ran later and ask her to help me produce a batch..."
Irene blinked, listening to Yu Sheng's explanation and looking at the somewhat abstract diagrams on the manuscript paper. After a long while, she finally couldn't help but ask, "What's the connection between these... What's a blood reservoir? What's a blood gun? What's a blood needle launcher? How do all these fancy names relate to these abstract stick figures you drew?"
Yu Sheng couldn't hide his embarrassment when he heard this: "...I admit that my drawing is a bit rough, but at least it's not to the level of an abstract stick figure, right?"
Irene said, "Oh," and pointed at the manuscript paper. "Then can you first explain what this water gun is used for?"
Yu Sheng thought about it and said seriously: "It is used to spread the fungal mat while trying not to get killed..."
(End of this chapter)
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