Chapter 615: The Second Wave of Invasion

Borderlands, East City District, a dark alley on Old Street.

The drowsy twilight sky hung over the alley, making the heterogeneous streets feel especially cold and dark. Strange lights glowed from the storefronts, spilling out of the display windows with a nearly viscous, bizarre texture—trembling and writhing in the air as if about to flow onto the ground. Messy wires and ropes hung with colorful little banners crisscrossed overhead, and the strings of lights on the wires buzzed and flickered with psychedelic colors.

Heavy footsteps broke the silence of the dark alley. Several tall figures in power armor slowly walked through the alley, finally stopping in front of the old bookstore, where they began inspecting the nearby traces.

Xu Jiali opened the visor of his power armor, frowning at the several grooves on the ground.

A slender figure stood beside him, wearing light power armor with a pair of pointed cat ears on the helmet—the psionic attendant, Lingdang, alertly watched the surroundings. In the dim ambient light, her vertical pupils dilated, reflecting the ubiquitous thin mist in the alley.

"Boss, my spiritual intuition is warning me, meow..." The Gipro girl's tail bristled inside the power armor, her voice sounding especially tense. "This place is a bit unsafe."

"Of course it's unsafe—the danger level here is already Level 3, with two plus signs behind it," Xu Jiali said in a muffled voice. "Look at these marks—they're not normal for an alley. It looks like something heavy was dragged through here, as if someone was moving heavy objects... maybe those 'knights' left them."

"The last report didn't mention these," another Deep Diver said beside him. "These marks might have been left a few hours ago."

Xu Jiali stroked his chin and raised his hand to activate some detection devices on the power armor.

Beside him, Lingdang looked up, her cat eyes suddenly fixed on a shop diagonally across the street.

"Boss, that shop seems to have cans for sale, meow~"

Xu Jiali glanced up. "That's a pet store in the dark alley—the cat food inside isn't for you. Besides, you're not a real cat. After work, go back to the dorm and get some catnip."

Lingdang let out a muffled "meow" in her throat, muttering something, when several dark shadows suddenly emerged from the shadows of nearby buildings, appearing in the cat-girl's field of vision.

The shadows had a texture like rubber or plastic, as if they were mud abruptly rising from the walls and ground. They quickly formed cat silhouettes, and on their heads, eyes emitting a faint white glow materialized.

Lingdang instantly hissed, "Meow-ow!" Her whole body arched, and the mechanical orb floating beside her began humming as it rose into the air.

Another psionic attendant nearby reacted almost simultaneously, shouting a warning as she activated her mechanical orb: "Attention, entity generation!"

The sounds of guns being loaded and shields charging buzzed through the alley in quick succession. The Deep Divers immediately prepared to deal with the entities, but the few "cats" that had emerged from the opposite corner didn't move toward them at first. Instead, they paced on the spot in the darkness, their pale, hollow eyes occasionally staring into the thick mist deeper in the alley.

Lingdang's back arched high, several sharp claws popped out of her power armor gauntlets, bright arcs of electricity jumping between the alloy claws, and her throat emitted a threatening growl: "Meow-wrrrr—"

But Xu Jiali, who had experience from multiple dark alley operations, sensed something unusual. Maintaining his alert state, he placed a hand on the psionic attendant's shoulder. "Hold back first—something's off. These cats aren't aggressive."

Lingdang still grumbled in her throat, but she restrained herself from lunging forward to have a clawing match with the local cats. While manipulating the floating mechanical orb beside her to cast a psionic shield on her boss, she stared nervously into the distance. Then she noticed... the alley seemed to be widening.

"Boss! The alley is widening! The earlier intelligence mentioned this!"

"I noticed too—everyone stay alert, confirm the 'umbilical cord' situation!"

Xu Jiali issued orders rapidly, while also noting the pacing behavior of those "cats." After a moment of hesitation, he boldly took two steps toward them.

"I'm a friend of Yu Sheng," he said, recalling the intelligence he'd received earlier. He casually activated the projection device on his arm guard, projecting Yu Sheng's image into the air. "Do you understand? Friend, one of us..."

Several Deep Diver team members stared wide-eyed at their captain's actions. They had heard about the changes in the 'cats' of the dark alley, but seeing it firsthand was clearly a first. Lingdang was especially tense, her eyes filled with wariness toward the 'outside cats.'

Then she realized the intelligence was true.

Those 'cats' immediately calmed down upon seeing Yu Sheng's holographic projection. They even gathered together, meowing as if discussing something, then stretched their bodies toward Xu Jiali, lazily extending their front paws and waving them in the air while meowing.

Xu Jiali paused for a moment, then turned to look at his psionic attendant. "What are they saying?"

"...How would I know, meow!" Lingdang looked bewildered. "I'm not a real cat!"

Xu Jiali's face twitched. He was about to ask something else, but then he noticed the little black cats starting to jump up and down anxiously, gesturing toward him and yowling urgently.

It was as if they were frantically warning him.

A chill from spiritual intuition suddenly rose from the bottom of his heart. Xu Jiali felt a sharp sting in his mind.

In the corner of his eye, he saw more than a dozen black cats of various sizes dart out from who knows where, charging wildly across the street like panicked animals. The cats scurried around in a chaotic chorus of cries, then converged into a black ball, a chaotic mass of paws, tails, and ears writhing on the surface before rapidly rolling into the old bookstore not far away.

This bizarre scene sent a jolt of alarm through all the Deep Divers. Xu Jiali, feeling a clear murderous intent rising from the chill in his heart, let years of combat instinct override his thoughts. Without hesitation, he activated the joint overload on his power armor and lunged sideways!

A loud noise erupted from the armor joints, and the power backpack behind him roared to life. The heavy steel form left an afterimage in the air. As he lunged, Xu Jiali activated the additional combat module on his arm guard. Just as an extra-reinforced rigid shield deployed, he caught sight of a distortion suddenly appearing in the air.

Even with his superhuman dynamic vision as a Deep Diver, he only barely caught the figure that shot out from the shadow rift—then several sharp fingertip blades shattered his first shield, and left violent flash overloads on the second shield!

In an instant, several exchanges occurred. The shields flickered violently. During the gap when the energy barrier recharged, deep gashes sparking with fire appeared on the high-strength alloy power armor.

A tall, sleek black figure danced like a phantom through the air. As Xu Jiali landed, another Deep Diver was sent flying with a cry—he hadn't even seen how that killing machine managed to change direction after attacking him, striking another teammate.

At the same time, heavy footsteps reached everyone's ears. Tall figures in brass armor tore through the mist, emerging in groups into the dark alley...

Xu Jiali rolled to his feet, casually drawing a beam dagger from the weapon rack at his waist. With his other hand, he raised the heavy particle rifle and sprayed a burst toward the brass armor: "Lingdang! Prepare a psychic scream—everyone, engage!"

...

"These are the Star Embryo crystals shipped from Shuji," Yu Sheng said, gesturing toward the pile of pale crystals stacked on a platform beside him. He was introducing them to Bai Liqing in a high-security laboratory within the Special Affairs Bureau headquarters. "They were all excavated from the large cavities deep in the mantle—those cavities were originally 'nutrient sacs' for the Star Embryo during its ascension preparation phase. The supporting structures on their inner walls are this type of crystal. You could say that, aside from the 'Ascended Body,' these crystals are the material closest to the Star Embryo's 'essence.'"

The laboratory technicians were on high alert, all clad in heavy protective suits. Although Bai Liqing wasn't as 'fully armed' as them, she still had a layer of protective barrier shimmering around her, driven by ancient draconic magic. As she approached the pale crystals, she was very cautious: "Are you sure this thing is stable now?"

"It's very stable," Yu Sheng said, brashly reaching out to pat the things that looked like ordinary stones to him. "Let me put it this way—in a sense, these are equivalent to my gallstones..."

Just as he finished speaking, Bai Lixue's voice drifted into his ears (she was sneakily hiding in a corner of the lab at that moment): "That metaphor sounds kinda painful..."

Yu Sheng: "So... equivalent to my relics..."

Bai Liqing coughed dryly, indicating that Yu Sheng's metaphors were fine but he didn't need to continue.

"I know most people have some nervousness about things left behind by the Dim Angels, but these angel relics that have been 'transformed' by me are indeed harmless. Especially these crystals buried deep under Shuji—in essence, they're just a special type of mineral that's been reforged," Yu Sheng explained patiently, touching the tip of his nose. "Correspondingly, with some 'technical methods,' this stuff is also very suitable for making 'Angel Catalysts'—first, they don't belong to any known mineral. Relatively speaking, this unusual nature makes it less likely to be exposed right away. Second, these things have a high affinity with the 'Boundary Bridge'..."

He glanced at Bai Liqing, not saying it explicitly, but the other clearly understood the implication.

Originally, Yu Sheng hadn't planned to use the crystal fragments from beneath Shuji as decoys. After all, these had completely shed the characteristics of the Dim Angels and were no different from ordinary minerals. However, the affinity shown between the Star Embryo Tree and the Boundary Bridge gave him new ideas after returning from the cathedral.

In the cathedral within the Soul Wilderness, the Boundary Bridge had already regenerated on the 'Star Embryo Crystal Tree,' which inspired Yu Sheng. He thought that whether it was making fake 'Boundary Bridge fragments' or 'adding something extra' to the fakes, these Star Embryo crystals from Shuji might be excellent base materials.

As for how to make the fakes seem more authentic, so the finished products could fool the eyes of those Hermetic Order followers—that was clearly something for the technical experts to consider.

Bai Liqing nodded lightly.

"Let's begin," she said, looking at the laboratory staff in heavy protective suits. "Remember, although there's no contamination, caution is still required."

"Yes, Director!"

(End of chapter)