Chapter 66: Sea of Qi

Despite the isolation of the headphones, the gunshots still echoed loudly in the subterranean space.

The Team Leader reacted with lightning speed. Just as the monster raised its scythe-like forelimbs, before it could exert force to strike downward, its head took a three-round burst. Bullets pierced right through its skull, and its two front limbs ultimately dropped lifelessly onto the armor plating.

Seizing the moment, the Leader smashed his rifle butt into its chin, preparing to fling it aside. Beside him, Kyle hastily drew his pistol and pumped a few more rounds into the monster's chest and abdomen.

A sharp, grating friction came from his waist. Only then did the Leader realize that the anomalous entity possessed a total of four arms; the other pair of forelimbs, resembling the antennae of a longhorned beetle, had unawares clamped onto his sides. Even as the anomaly's upper body listed to one side, this extra pair of forelimbs remained tightly wedged in his armor, their sharp tips sinking several millimeters into the protective plates.

"Good job, Number 5. This thing even knows how to play dead..."

The Leader tried to pry it off, but ultimately had to use his firearm to shatter the joints of that pair of forelimbs before he could wrench it away.

Throughout this process, Kyle stood guard, scanning the surroundings to ensure no other anomalies with glowing eyes were approaching.

N4-4: "Don't move!"

This shouted command caused Kyle to instinctively halt the foot he was about to step aside with, freezing him in place.

The Leader shook off the entity, lowered his head to memorize its physical characteristics, and swept his flashlight beam toward the position of the other team members—

A translucent, shimmering "wall" of light refracted the beam. Rising vertically, swirling currents of gas formed this obstructive barrier, blurring the personal light sources of the four individuals on the opposite side and separating Kyle and the Leader on one side of the vestibule.

Several bullet heads floated suspended within the wall.

The others had also attempted to provide fire support moments ago, but the rounds had failed to pierce through.

Just then, Kyle's shifting foot had nearly stepped right inside.

N4-2 picked up a broken metal support strut. The moment the metal tip entered the gas wall, it became stuck. He tried to pull it out, but merely bent the rear of the iron pipe, while the swallowed portion remained utterly motionless.

"Is this a spatial anomaly?"

Kyle carefully pulled his foot back, observing this flowing wall of gas.

Deep within the current, which surged like congealed gel, fragments of bricks and stones along with unidentified black particles were beginning to materialize and piece themselves together, gradually blocking the line of sight.

Habitually, he looked toward the other Mobile Task Force members, seeking answers from them, but everyone remained silent.

"I've never seen anything like this... Usually, space is just stretched, or walls and terrain suddenly shift."

The Leader pulled a metal rod from his backpack, deployed the umbrella-like mechanical structure at its tip, and jammed it into the ground.

A dazzling crimson glare rippled across the device.

This was a portable Reality Restabilization Anchor, a powerful tool utilized by the Bureau to counter anomalous distortions.

Yet at this moment, the anchor's spinning apex structure failed to halt the formation of that wall. The Leader picked it up and thrust it directly into the gas wall, letting the crimson light bleed inward, but it merely delayed the wall's solidification.

"It seems we can only exert effective interference before it fully solidifies." The Leader flicked his shoulder lamp, continuing to issue commands before the two parties were completely cut off: "Cancel the bait operation. Fall back to the base of the stairs; I'll take Number 5 and find an alternative route to rendezvous. This path is too narrow, we need to—"

A sudden tremor and the sound of a collapse cut the Leader's instructions short. Everyone fell silent, straining to identify the source of the noise.

It sounded precisely as though a secret passage had been unsealed in the distance.

The team members on the opposite side of the gas wall turned as one toward the rear, raising their weapons.

N4-2: "A Y-junction has appeared on our route back. It looks like we'll have to rethink—they're coming!"

Several human-like silhouettes flickered vaguely behind the chunks of brick and stone.

The team members opened fire toward their point of origin. Gunfire erupted furiously, only to diminish at a noticeable speed as the gas wall grew increasingly dense, and a burst of static interference crackled through the communications channel.

"Orders remain unchanged. Don't die!"

The moment the Leader finished shouting those final words, the gas wall fused into a solid, dilapidated wall. The Reality Restabilization Anchor's structure suffered structural damage and ceased operation.

Kyle struck it with his rifle butt, managing to scrape off nothing more than a few flecks of wall dust.

The squad had been forcibly split apart.

"Newbie, don't waste your effort. Report to Headquarters immediately and transmit the characteristics of that unknown entity!"

"Understood."

The specialized communicator could maintain clear communications under any conditions, yet this was the first time Kyle learned that it must never be brought near uninvestigated hazardous anomalies—perhaps it, too, was a piece of paranormal technology containing anomalous components, which was not uncommon within the Bureau, but that was as far as his speculation could go.

The torso of the unknown entity on the ground had already dissolved by half. Kyle swept his gaze across the monster's hollow, two-eyed face; those glowing eyes had lost their luster.

Vaporization again. The corpses of "visitors" would also vaporize and vanish...

The edge of his tactical eyepiece still glowed with a "Hazardous Gas" warning. Kyle's hand froze midway through pressing the communicator's keypad.

He illuminated the dissolving corpse more closely, certain he saw fragments drifting into the air, turning into nothingness amidst a gaseous surge of distorted light.

"Report any developments," said the Leader, keeping his weapon raised and scanning the surroundings.

"The... they seem gaseous. Wait, so this is why 'visitors' can materialize out of thin air inside the building... Exactly! If it could teleport, why would it run over on foot to attack me?" Kyle spoke at a rapid-fire pace, "Poison gas composed them. When the gas arrives, they arrive!"

The Leader: "Meaning we're currently soaking in the monster's culture medium."

"Precisely! It's not that they follow the poison gas or emit it—the poison gas constructs them! That's why, upon death, they dissolve right back into a sea of gas, just like ice melting in the ocean!

"The spatial anomaly is also caused by the poison gas. It creates the monsters, it constructs the architecture; this isn't a direct tampering with physical laws, which is why the stabilization anchor isn't working effectively!

"The poison gas is their true form!"

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On the other side of the wall, the four team members were already embroiled in combat.

Ever since the first "scythe-monster" was gunned down, a tidal wave of assaults had commenced.

The path they had taken here split into two out of nowhere, and countless swaying points of light ignited in the darkness, swarming toward the remaining four members of the N4 squad who were cut off on the other side of the vestibule.

"Pangolin" was not a squad specializing in suppressing fire, but for the sake of this bait operation, they carried twice the ammunition of a routine mission, and N4-3 had even brought a light machine gun down into the cavern—making one constantly worry that the big man would get stuck in the narrow confines.

Presently, all that dead weight had been converted into bullets fired at the entities.

Whether it was the "visitors" or the "scythe-monsters," their bodies could not withstand gunfire. As the four of them took turns firing deeper into the passage, those glowing eyes were extinguished one after another.

During a lull in reloading, Vanessa glanced back and saw that the Leader and Kyle had completely vanished behind the newly formed wall.

N4-2: "We have to retreat the way we came!"

N4-4: "Are you certain the route is still the same? We might blunder into a dead end."

N4-2: "Do you plan on chiseling through the wall, then?"

Another tremor cut short their argument—several more sections of the wall in the vestibule ruptured, additional passages manifested, and a dense cluster of light points flickered in the distance. Number Two cursed, ejected his submachine gun magazine to check the remaining round count, and took the lead, pushing back toward their arrival point. Responsible for the rear guard, Vanessa unhesitatingly pulled a palm-sized explosive from her gear, rapidly set the timer, and slapped it onto the entrance of the passageway they were retreating into.

N4-2: "How long until detonation?"

"Enough for us to get clear! Don't worry, the payload is tiny; it won't shatter you to pieces!"

She fired while retreating backward. Even though the gunshots were filtered by her headphones, she couldn't help raising her voice.

The passage was narrow, making it inconvenient for them to deploy formation and establish crossfire, but it similarly restricted the monsters' movements. Controlling her ammunition consumption with extreme caution, Vanessa restrained herself, firing precise single shots to break the legs of the scythe-monsters as they trampled over the corpses on the ground, causing them to obstruct one another.

Number Four, behind her, bumped her ribcage with his elbow. "The path has shifted. We need to enter the branch."

"Understood!"

The squad retreated into the side tunnel in an orderly fashion.

As they pushed a certain distance down the V-shaped bending side passage, the timer Vanessa had set for the explosive reached its end.