Chapter 267: Lucky to Be Alive

The Reveler cluster was gradually dissipating.

It wasn't that they had been completely wiped out—in fact, they were almost constantly regenerating, with new Revelers emerging from the mist no matter how many were killed. You couldn't kill them all—but as the heavy-armored deep divers brought by Xu Jiali crossed some "critical threshold" in the number of entities eliminated, Yu Sheng observed them beginning to "recede" at a visible rate.

First, the colorful line-people at the edges gradually retreated from view, then the entities close to the "battlefield" melted back into the mist, and finally, the entities that had been destroyed on the battlefield stopped respawning altogether.

The dense fog-shrouded street finally grew quiet. The pulse rifles in the deep divers' hands ceased their roaring, and the beam sabers cut down the last few Reveler entities. Thick layers of confetti blanketed the street, then curled up in the wind and rapidly turned to dust.

But these battle-hardened soldiers did not fully relax. They still vaguely maintained some kind of combat formation, dispersing into groups of eight to twelve around the area. While ensuring surveillance of the entire block, they also guaranteed that each group was within visual range of at least two other groups at all times, in case some "mechanism" in the eerie fog activated. Meanwhile, soldiers pulled various small devices from storage compartments in their power armor, set them up nearby to collect environmental parameters, and transmitted the data back to the control center through some kind of "umbilical cord" device connected to their armor.

Xu Jiali explained these details on the spot.

"This is our 'umbilical cord,'" said the burly man, who was already nearly two meters tall and, in his power armor, stood close to two and a half meters. He raised a hand and pointed at the chest of his armor, where a black cable extended out, floating in midair in an eerie state. The cable swayed slowly with his movements, as if submerged in an invisible liquid environment. "Its other end connects to the 'deep dive pool' in the real world. This connection maintains our humanity and rationality—and also maintains communication with the rear."

Ai Lin stared wide-eyed. "I'm telling you, every time I hear the word 'umbilical cord' now, my nerves go haywire..."

Xu Jiali gave a helpless smile. "Normal. A lot of my colleagues had the same nerve issues after the Anka Ela incident. Some even suggested to the higher-ups that we rename it—'tether' would do if nothing else—but the higher-ups didn't agree."

Yu Sheng looked thoughtful. "So it's not completely impossible to communicate between the Other Realm and the real world after all... First the 'locator,' and now this equipment of yours... The Bureau does have the technology to solve this."

"It's just that regular communications get blocked, but we have 'irregular' ones," Xu Jiali nodded, explaining while watching his comrades clean up the battlefield. "It's just that these 'irregular' methods are all a bit 'unholy'... I'll definitely get chewed out by the tech department when I get back, but a lot of us feel that way.

"You see this 'umbilical cord' of mine? When we carry out deep dive missions, in essence, we actively soak and dissolve our own flesh and mind—our 'human' body—in the deep dive pool. Then, like diving into a nightmare, the dissolved matter takes the umbilical cord and 'jumps' into the Other Realm. That's the only way to bring the other end of the cord in to transmit signals. To return, we reverse the process: we disintegrate again in the Other Realm, the fragments are retrieved by the cord, taken back into the 'amniotic fluid' of the deep dive pool, and 'reborn' in the pool...

"I think this whole process smacks a bit of subspace witchcraft—but the tech guys won't admit it. They insist it's all science..."

Xu Jiali rambled on, clearly showing off even as he complained. Yu Sheng listened with fascination, unable to help sizing up the man's equipment repeatedly—no need to say much, this stuff was really cool...

Ai Lin muttered under her breath, "This so-called 'diving' technology of yours sounds really unreliable to me. The process sounds like it could easily go wrong."

"Well, there's risk, sure, but it's actually not high, especially compared to the risk of 'Other Realm combat' itself. The probability of losing control during 'deployment' or 'diving' is negligible," Xu Jiali said, looking quite relaxed. "It's just that newbies get nervous. The first time you disintegrate and are 'born' in the 'amniotic fluid' is the most likely to cause psychological issues. They need to be led by veterans and adapt at least a dozen times before they stabilize."

Listening to Xu Jiali explain a lot about deep divers, Yu Sheng finally gained a preliminary understanding of the Bureau's "high-end combat power" for dealing with the Other Realm. According to Xu Jiali, only a minority of Other Realm incidents required deep divers—in most cases, regular operatives like Li Lin formed teams to go into various known Other Realms for rescues or investigations.

This time, however, was obviously one of those "minority cases."

"Unholy place, this is," Xu Jiali said, looking up at the boundless fog and the street scenes that flickered in and out of view, mirroring the real world. "Definitely not a known Other Realm. New one... Someone at the Bureau is going to have to work overtime again. But that's normal—someone at our place works overtime every day, if not this department then that..."

"We encountered 'Ink Stain' earlier, and now we've run into a Reveler cluster. These are entities that should only spawn in other Other Realms, yet they're appearing in this fog," Little Red Riding Hood also spoke up. "We still don't know how they 'got in'..."

"Either this 'Other Realm in the mirror' has a property that connects it to other Other Realms, like the 'Train'—it's connected to other realms at some level—or this is its 'feature,'" Xu Jiali analyzed, though he came across as rough, he was quite articulate when breaking things down. "The feature being that this Other Realm can generate 'characteristic entities' from other Other Realms within itself."

"...If that's the feature, this place just shot up in danger level," Little Red Riding Hood's expression turned grim. "The depth of this fog might be between L-1 and L-2, but the danger level could reach three or even higher."

"Let the Bureau's smart people handle the analysis. The key now is that someone is trapped in here, right?" Xu Jiali said, frowning. "I won't sugarcoat it—judging by the situation... it doesn't look good. Ink Stain, Carnival crowd—just those two that have shown up are already lethal threats to ordinary people. If you run into them head-on, almost no one could escape. And I heard that person has a..."

He thought for a moment and tapped his forehead. "Oh yeah, a 'high-sensitivity, low-stability' constitution, right? Then the probability of encountering entities is even higher than yours. At this point... sigh."

The tough guy sighed.

Yu Sheng's expression also darkened.

Hu Li's ears drooped, and she lay down on the ground—because she was currently a nine-tailed fox the size of two vans, so lying down shook the earth.

Just as a depressing atmosphere was about to spread, Xu Jiali's communicator suddenly buzzed with a call from a deep diver patrolling the perimeter: "Chief! Found a trapped civilian!"

Everyone perked up instantly. Xu Jiali's eyes shot wide open, and he yelled into the communicator, "Where?! What's the situation?! Still alive?!"

A somewhat troubled voice came through the communicator: "Alive, but the situation is a bit complicated. We're trying to cut him out of... uh, the wall. He's sealed in the wall by some amber-like substance, but he should be fine."

Yu Sheng and Ai Lin exchanged glances. Little Red Riding Hood looked thoughtful. Hu Li... Hu Li's face didn't show much expression right now, but she suddenly stuck out her tongue and licked Yu Sheng, almost knocking him over—who knows what was going through that fox's mind.

Xu Jiali ordered the "trapped civilian" to be brought over, and after a moment, Yu Sheng saw his "big nephew" whom he hadn't seen in days.

He finally understood what the communicator had meant by "the situation is a bit complicated."

The perpetually weary-looking young man was now quietly encased in a large block of pale yellow, transparent substance like amber, still in a running pose, with a terrified expression frozen on his face, as if he had been "captured" and sealed in this "amber" mid-sprint.

But besides being sealed up, he had no obvious wounds.

"Uh, this..." Yu Sheng was seeing this for the first time and looked a bit dumbfounded. "Are you sure he's still alive?"

Ai Lin also looked worried. "He won't suffocate, will he?"

Little Red Riding Hood, however, let out a relieved expression upon seeing the "amber" formation, waving her hand casually. "Don't worry, don't worry—he's alive. This guy is really lucky to be alive."

Yu Sheng looked up, puzzled.

"Neutral entity, 'Granny Tree,' appears in the Other Realm 'Autumn Forest,'" Little Red Riding Hood knew Yu Sheng lacked knowledge in this area and patiently explained. "The entity's appearance is a humanoid tree that roams deep in the forest, with an old woman's face on its trunk. It actively chases living people within its territory and wraps 'intruders' in resin, but it's not lethal. The intruders sealed in 'amber' are just thrown outside Granny Tree's territory by it. People inside the 'amber' can still breathe and think, and the resin itself even has strong protective properties..."

Little Red Riding Hood paused, and Xu Jiali continued, "Granny Tree is one of the few entities that is both very powerful and eerie, yet behaves gently and harmlessly. There were even poaching rings in the past who would deliberately go to Autumn Forest to provoke Granny Tree, sending a member as bait to trick it into producing resin—because some people claimed that soaking the resin in water could cure high blood pressure, high blood sugar, and high cholesterol, and even applying it to the face could beautify the skin."

Yu Sheng listened, stunned. "...And there were poaching rings for that?! How was it dealt with?"

"Stellar Media found two experts who looked like immortals: a Taoist priest from Thousand Peak Spirit Mountain and a prophet of the Bamosa people. The two said on the show that Granny Tree's resin is radioactive."

Yu Sheng: "..."