Chapter 306: Invasion

That was the last murmured whisper of the "intruder"—the breath of life so faint in its final moments that it sounded like a breeze drifting from the edge of an illusion, quietly dissolving beside the ear, leaving only a few unsettling droplets.

That was the sound of blood falling to the floor.

"What did he say?"

Another member of the Hidden Church crept over and asked in a low voice.

The black-robed figure standing beside Yu Sheng’s corpse lowered his head, seemingly still troubled by that unsettling auditory hallucination. It wasn’t until his companion asked a second time that he looked up as if waking from a dream, muttering in a somewhat dazed tone: "He said he was about to die, but something would come alive... I don’t know, I didn’t catch it clearly."

His voice carried a hint of hesitation, as if merely repeating those words brought a measure of spiritual unease.

But where did this unease come from? What exactly was he worried about? The black-robed man couldn’t say himself.

He only heard the wounded Hidden Church member—the one who had been knocked flying by the intruder’s club and severely injured—groaning in agony. Even the massive doses of stimulants and adrenaline automatically injected by the power armor couldn’t fully suppress the pain. The suit’s life-support system was now forcibly sustaining him, but if they delayed any longer, he wouldn’t make it.

"We need to get him to the operating theater immediately... His internal organs are like a lump of mud," someone who had checked on the injured man said rapidly. "The original body can’t be saved. Make a decision—pure steel or blessed flesh?"

The Hidden Church member lying on the floor gasped painfully, raising a hand slightly, his voice hoarse and anguished through the helmet: "Steel..."

The black-robed man examining his wounds nodded and instructed the others: "Good. Notify the medical team to prepare for brain transfer surgery—we need a mechanical monk’s body."

As he spoke, he bent down, grasped the injured man’s hand, and offered low words of comfort: "Relax, brother. You’re about to receive a pure and powerful new body. The useless original shell will be sent to the biomass processor, becoming a cornerstone of our progress. Hold my hand, and walk to the starting point of the path of ascension. But first, I need to cut off parts of your limbs—we can’t wait for a stretcher cart. We have to get your brain to the operating theater as quickly as possible."

The harsh noise of severing the injured man’s limbs echoed through the corridor.

Even with amputation below the neck, the N-K-22 power armor’s helmet could sustain the brain for fifteen minutes.

But despite the commotion behind him, the black-robed man standing beside Yu Sheng’s corpse remained still, as if something had drained his spirit. He stared at the "intruder" on the ground with a blank, dazed expression.

"What are you looking at? We need to get out of here," someone called nearby. "Leave this wreckage in the corridor. Someone will come to collect it later."

The black-robed man snapped out of it and nodded hurriedly: "Oh, oh, right."

He turned to walk toward his comrades, but couldn’t help glancing back at the pool of blood on the floor. Then, as if sensing something, he looked up at the corner of the wall.

A hidden camera in the corner stared silently back at him.

Bronze Knights escorted several black-robed cultists as they quickly left the place. These Hidden Church members seemed to sense some kind of danger instinctively, moving in haste.

At the spot where Yu Sheng had fallen, scattered clothes, the knife that had fallen from his pocket, the blood-soaked club—all of these things slowly dissolved into the pool of blood, as if swallowed into another dimension, gradually sinking into the bloodstains.

The phone was also soaked in blood. Thin bloodstains, as if alive, crept over its screen and casing. Then, suddenly, the phone screen lit up.

The border communication interface popped up, followed by a private message window. Keys on the virtual keyboard flashed quickly, and a line of text was composed and sent to Bai Liqing:

"Ah, let’s get back to the earlier topic. What do you think of the cultists from the Hidden Church?"

A moment later, the phone vibrated. Bai Liqing’s reply came back, just one word: "Yes."

Then, after a pause, probably feeling her answer was off, she added: "Are you planning to capture them alive and bring them back? Should I just send you some backup? It’s too dangerous for you to be in their lair alone."

The blood stains on the phone screen slowly spread, and a message was quickly sent: "No need. If you send people, it will alert the enemy. They might blow up the entire ship if they realize things are out of control."

"...Okay. Then tell me how I should coordinate."

...

At the top level of the "Pillar of Order," inside the control hall, the white-robed old man still sat majestically in his seat, waiting for the action team’s results.

He received good news.

The communicator in front of his seat lit up, and a member of the Hidden Church in power armor covered by a black robe appeared on the screen: "Wise One! We’ve dealt with the intruder, in a corridor on the outskirts of the core zone."

The old man’s tense facial muscles finally relaxed a little: "Good work—recovery personnel will handle the aftermath. What are our losses?"

"One fighter severely injured, amputated below the neck. We’re bringing his head to the operating theater. He fought bravely and requested entry into the steel evolution branch in his dying breath."

"Mm, one who fights valiantly deserves such a reward," the white-robed old man said with a light exhale, his whole body relaxing. "After the procedure, report to the upper district."

"Yes!"

The communicator went silent, and the atmosphere in the control hall relaxed considerably with the good news.

"I thought he might be something special," one Hidden Church member muttered nearby.

"Just a weird guy. But there are plenty of weird things in this world," another chimed in. "Not nearly as troublesome as those shadows we dug out of the Adar Pit."

"Uh..."

"What?"

"Nothing. The feeds from a few cameras flickered just now. Might be that some channels were reset during the core system’s self-repair. I checked—everything is normal."

"Don’t scare people..." an operator at the console muttered, stretching in his chair. He looked up at the camera on the ceiling.

The camera stared back at him silently, just like always.

But for some reason, he suddenly felt a trace of... disgust and displeasure at that camera watching him.

This feeling of displeasure was completely inexplicable. He shivered involuntarily but had no idea how to explain it to others, so he quickly averted his gaze and stopped looking at the ceiling.

A faint electrical noise came through his monitoring headphones—someone seemed to be saying something in the communication channel, but the sound was blurry and indistinct.

The operator frowned. At first, he suspected a poor connection in the headphones, but quickly ruled that out because there really was someone speaking in that faint electrical noise.

He frowned more deeply and carefully adjusted the monitoring channel, trying to locate the source of that noise.

Suddenly, the "Wise One’s" voice came from not far away, interrupting the subdued chatter in the hall:

"Has there been no reply from the personnel sent to clean up yet?"

"No," a communicator replied immediately, then let out a surprised “Eh?” and his tone quickly grew tense. "Something’s wrong!"

"What’s wrong?"

"The recovery team’s signal disappeared—just now, in an instant!"

The relaxed atmosphere in the hall abruptly tightened again. The Wise One’s face darkened, and he rose from his seat: "Signal disappeared? Figure out what happened. Is it a communication failure or..."

"Both the communication signal and the bio-monitoring signals on the personnel vanished—Wise One, they’re gone!"

"What about the cameras?"

"They were just captured passing through Corridor D-2 and entering a connecting gate, but no one came out of the next gate in the corridor!"

"Which drone bay is closest? Send a drone there immediately."

The hall suddenly became chaotic, filled with urgent commands and reports. The Wise One’s voice carried a hint of anger, while the nearby operators sounded tense and flustered.

But the operator at the console was still diligently adjusting his monitoring headphones, switching through the available channels one by one, as if mesmerized, trying to figure out what that voice in the system noise was saying.

After an unknown amount of time, he suddenly heard a voice—very, very clear, as if it were speaking directly into his ear:

"Can you hear me now?"

The operator yanked off his headphones as if electrocuted, his eyes wide with fright. He looked up sharply toward the Wise One: "There’s someone talking in the monitoring channel! Something has infiltrated our equipment—"

"What?!" The Wise One was taken aback. He immediately opened the communicator and connected to the action team still on its way back to the upper district: "Situation change! Go to the server room immediately. There are still intruders hiding on the ship!"

But only empty white noise came through the communicator.

Someone quickly checked the communication system and cameras, then reported nervously: "The action team’s signal has also disappeared—near Corridor D-1. The cameras didn’t capture any attacker or combat footage."

The Wise One stood still, his face ashen, brooding uneasily.

Something was hiding in this tower.

It was striking down the people in this tower one by one. Though the method was unknown, it was clearly extremely fast and ruthless, capable of dealing with fighters in power armor before they could even react.

And there might be more than one intruder—because the two teams that had gone missing weren’t even in the same area. And a report had just come in about a voice on the monitoring channel. Apparently, the intruder was hacking the system while launching attacks all over the place.

"...Dispatch a second team. Have them followed by cameras at all times, maintain contact, seal off all passages in Zones D-1 and D-2, and search inch by inch."

"Yes!"

(End of Chapter)