READ NOVEL ONLINE Chapter 364
A heavy shuriken sliced through the stagnant air of the hangar. It whirled around three or four times before suddenly breaking free from its concealment, just as I recognized its form – it was already upon me.
If it weren’t for my superhuman agility, I would have been dead in an instant.
A Violet squad member raised her sword horizontally, preparing to block just as the shuriken fiercely collided with her single-handed weapon.
-Ki-YEEN!
The shuriken, losing its rotation at a rapid pace, still brought a sense of awe to Violet.
The red magical power that glinted on her sword clashed with another invisible magic, emitting a brilliant flash.
“What the hell! Magic that’s invisible to the eye!”
A moment of admiration passed, and 763’s torso was cleanly severed, as if cutting through paper.
“Ugh! It got cut in half!”
“It’s a transparent enemy! What the heck! Did it distort our perception?”
The command center immediately responded to the danger signal. Massive calculations poured into the hangar’s interior.
The collective intelligence focused a multitude of brains onto a few, accelerating thought processes. Vision, hearing, and smell were included, as well as every step taken and the flow of air through the void.
Even touch was delicately projected.
Unit 1120 felt like the world had slowed down.
That was half-right.
Time, measured in seconds, was divided into hundreds to thousands of pieces. Like a video editor analyzing frames, the collective intelligence precisely observed the Violets in the field.
“Where is it? Where is it?”
Suddenly, the shuriken appeared out of thin air. The Violet saw flickering afterimages dancing around the rotating weapon.
It was subtle, but something on the blade protruded and disturbed the air, causing a faint shimmer.
With another swing of her sword, she aimed to intercept.
“Is it in that direction?”
Just then, the lights in the ceiling exploded simultaneously. The corridors connected to the hangar were instantly swallowed by pitch-black darkness.
“Ugh! It’s dark! I can’t see anything!”
-Crack!
The sound of another Violet’s neck rolling in the darkness could be heard.
Startled, Unit 4521 instinctively ducked at the moment her comrade’s head was severed.
In that split second, she was wide-eyed at the sight of the wall being sliced apart as if cutting through butter, and the Violet quickly threw several flares into the air.
As the light burst, darkness was expelled in an instant.
In that moment, once again, a murderous intent sliced through the air.
“Ugh!”
-KA-CHANG!
With the experience and predictions drawn forth by collective intelligence, Unit 4521 raised her right arm just in time to barely block the invisible attack.
After defending sideways, she retrieved her sword and thrust forward again. Utilizing the basics of Aegis combat techniques, she defended twice and then jabbed into the void.
Calculating, and recalculating.
In this life-or-death situation against an unseen enemy, Violet drew every sense in her body to its limit.
“Fighting with my eyes closed feels the same! Hey! Let loose!”
The machine gunner standing by outside the hangar rushed in, protected by shield-wielding comrades. Unit 442 struggled to lift the multi-barrel machine gun.
“Strength creates light! Prepare for allied fire!”
With a cold decision, the command center hammered the tactical map. The barrels of the multi-barrel machine gun began to spin fiercely.
-TATATATAT!
“Open fire!”
The darkness suddenly lit up with intense flashes.
The beams from the flare swept across the walls and ceiling, where the enemy was presumed to be.
Among the dispersed Violets, in a brief moment, something blurry darted past.
Having caught sight of it, the Violets raised their rifles, unleashing concentrated fire.
-POW!
The fusillade of bullets pouring down like a broom sweeping up debris stopped abruptly amidst a brief explosion.
“Function failure! Equipment damage! Switching—”
The first arrow buried deep into the machine gunner’s barrel. Before they could respond, the gunner’s head was pierced through.
The second sharp strike, perfectly aimed at the gap in the shield. One by one, Violets fell to the arrows flying towards them like bullets.
“Unit 3321 dead! Unit 531 dead!”
“Ahh!”
Remaining calm, the Violets pressed forward.
The trajectory of the arrows, the direction their comrades fell, and the pain just before death – the network instinctively captured all this information to calculate the enemy’s position.
“Tracking the trajectory!”
Having been indiscriminately spraying fire, the squad members turned their barrels with mechanical precision.
With coordinated movements, they unleashed concentrated fire into the void.
Bullets vanished from one point, followed by sparks as a faint silhouette momentarily revealed itself before disappearing.
“There! Prepare the explosives! Self-destruct team on standby!”
Just as the order to charge was about to drop, the unknown enemies suddenly vanished without a trace. There was nothing left. No sound, no disrupting vibrations.
A single thought suddenly struck the Violets’ minds as they tilted their heads.
“Wait, wasn’t there another passage on the opposite side?”
As they illuminated the area, another passage appeared exactly opposite where they had entered.
Moments later, a blurry silhouette was spotted darting away into that passage.
“Eh…?”
With sudden clarity came an urgent reaction from the collective intelligence.
“Rodents moving to the opposite corridor of the hangar immediately!”
They were attempting to escape.
“All troops redeploy! Do not let them escape!”
The Violet squad dashed towards the passage, but their charge would not last long.
“Huh? Guys, I’m—”
-THUD!
The bodies of the Violets were cleanly sliced, scattered across the ground like cube steaks.
The sight that barely caught the eye of another Violet was the faint trace of fine wire disappearing into the distance.
“Whoa, it’s wire…!”
The nanowire imbued with magical power sliced the Violets into pieces in an instant.
“How dare they chop us up!”
“I’ll chop them up just the same!”
Before long, Arshite’s agents fled desperately, pursued by the furious Violets.
[Exiting!]
A horde of soldiers charged through the primal jungle. Normally, the place would be filled with the roars of beasts and the howls of monsters, but now it resounded with entirely different sounds.
-THUMP! THUMP! THUMP!
The heavy bootsteps echoed through the jungle.
The dense primal woodland would have tested the patience of the Violets, but not today.
The girls drew their swords and frantically sliced through everything in their path. Like human threshers.
“It’s too dense! Cut it all down!”
-CRACK!
Unintentionally, the jungle was being cleared at a terrifying speed.
Hundreds of Violets swung their swords with immense power, toppling everything before their eyes.
From above, it looked like a swarm of tractors racing through a harvest field.
Except the target wasn’t crops, but ancient forests.
Each time the blades grazed by, trees fell, and green fragments scattered into the sky. Even more astonishing was that their speed didn’t falter in the least.
Instead, they accelerated. The girl squad trailing behind armed with hefty machine guns and primary weaponry had become cumbersome in the usual thick jungle. But now, with the lead members clearing pathways with their lightweight swords, they could charge even faster.
Like a caterpillar devouring fruit, dozens of paths extended into the heart of the green jungle.
In the distance, something invisible dashed between the thickets about a hundred meters ahead of the fleeing Violets.
[Foundation’s secret asset destruction complete – Retreating, heading towards exit location -]
Arshite’s special agents ran tirelessly.
In stark contrast to their rough and rapid movements, their actions were quiet and composed.
As their feet touched the leaves, they would only tremble momentarily. Even leaping onto thin branches did not unsettle them.
Swift yet stealthy. A stark contrast to the Jubilant march of the Aegis group.
Yet every moment was precarious.
Despite their unique stealth techniques, Arshite’s assassins could not shake off the relentlessly pursuing enemies.
[The enemy’s familiar creatures are tracking from above.]
“Uggh!”
A monkey armed with blades and guns swung through the trees overhead.
“Caw!”
A flock of crows flapped wildly, flitting in and out of the encircling net.
At their feet, a swarm of white mice scuttled around.
If it weren’t for their unique movement skills, they would have been discovered long ago.
[They still haven’t detected us.]
[Is the A route not an option? Can’t we use the Foundation’s Convergence Corridor gate?]
One agent whispered, and another shook his head firmly.
The anxiety in his voice could not be concealed by the camouflage and mask covering his face.
[It’s impossible. We won’t make it before the exit time. We have to use the emergency escape device.]
One agent cautiously fiddled with a flashlight-like device attached to his chest.
[Stop it. This is the dungeon’s core. Spatial stability is too high. We need to take the B route. We have to escape to the dungeon perimeter to secure the spatiotemporal instability needed to activate the emergency escape device. The problem is…]
The agent slowly raised his head.
They were surrounded by enemies. Although at first glance, the encirclement appeared large and haphazard, in reality, the gaps were closing in real-time.
It resembled a living spiderweb.
[If we get too close, we’ll definitely be detected. They’ve already seen through our concealment.]
[Let’s play for time and retreat.]
The agent with the compound bow nodded heavily.
A signal to buy some time. As team members began to fire in sequence and retreat, he pulled back his bowstring without hesitating.
An arrow shot lightning-fast through the thick foliage.
-PEW!
The head of a Violet running through the bushes was cleanly penetrated.
In an instant, the encirclement recalculated the origin of fire based on the position of the dead Violet. The response from the Violets was sharp. Ruthless gunfire poured out towards the direction the arrow had come.
-BOOM! KABOOM!
As the explosions of artillery faded, a blue plasma orb fell from above, casting a glow over the agents.
The agent murmured in despair.
“Oh no, damn it…”
From afar, Enrique sipped a drink through a straw with a delighted expression.
“Boom! Blow it up!”
-KA-BOOM!
A massive mushroom cloud surged into the sky.
The surviving agents could do nothing but curl up to avoid the blast while sensing a comrade’s death.
Above their heads, in addition to the crows, several hang gliders were now soaring overhead.
The silent army methodically choked their way closer.
-THUMP THUMP THUMP!
[Shit, we have a long way to go… Those things, could they possibly have nuclear weapons?]
[It’s magic! No time to look back! From here, it’s our escape route! Let’s use that thing we prepared in advance!]
The imposing sound of approaching footsteps echoed, coming within one hundred meters.
Distant small black silhouettes could be seen darting through the trees. The tirelessly running agents suddenly dove to the ground.
[Now!]
With a determined expression, he pulled out a button and pressed it. The explosives they had buried beforehand detonated in unison.
-KA-BOOM!
High-magic fragments poured down like rain upon the rushing Violets.
“Ugh!”
With pitiful cries, soldiers slumped to the ground. For just a moment, they scurried back before another tide of black surged forward.
The enemies were undeterred by the traps and rushed forward ceaselessly.
-CRUNCH!
“Ugh! It’s a trap!”
Caught in cleverly concealed magic, they shattered and were blown apart, while some suddenly found their legs sliced off by a trap swallowing their knees.
Yet, the Ariels continued to charge, trampling on the fallen comrades.
[Run! The exit’s just ahead!]
As they raced forward with lunacy and obsession, fearing neither death nor danger, the agents poured all their remaining strength into their sprint.
[What the hell, they keep coming!]
The sounds of explosions and gunfire echoed so close they reverberated against their eardrums.
-TATATAT!
The hang gliders sprinkled red liquid from above. The incendiary rain mercilessly fell and set the jungle ablaze, engulfing one of the agents.
[Agh!]
[Ugh, I’m turning it off. It didn’t spread too much!]
The fire was extinguished, but that wasn’t the issue.
A mouse caught a whiff of something suspicious.
The burning smell, a suspicious scorched odor.
“Peep! I’m going in!”
The mouse leaped from the crow’s back, raising its tiny front paws in the air as it shouted.
[What is that? A mouse?]
“Thunder!”
In an instant, the mouse began to glow red and burst into flame. With its small body as a price, an enormous and complex magic sequence unfurled in the air.
[Oh my god.]
[That’s Adriana’s flash storm! Hit the ground!]
The noble little creature sacrificed its life to unleash a great hurricane of electric storm encompassing a vast area.
-BRATTLE!
“Ugh!”
The concealment of one agent was shattered by a strike of lightning. It was swiftly restored, but…
“There she is!”
Crossbow bolts rained down like red rain. An arrow shot through one agent’s leg, piercing deeply into it.
The neighboring agent rushed in to assist, but he shook his head.
[Don’t! We don’t have long…]
[Have you forgotten the protocol? At this rate, we will all die. We have to get out.]
Clenching his teeth, the remaining two agents tore ahead, leaving their comrade behind, sensing that they were now the third in line.
“Are you black-scaled monsters really human?”
Seeing the approaching Aegis group soldiers, the agent ignited the explosives’ detonator.
-KA-BOOM!
Dozens of Violets were caught in the explosion. As they witnessed their shattered comrades, the Violets shouted in rage.
“Plagiarism! It’s a plagiarist!”
“How dare they plagiarize us!”
Furious that their sacred self-destruct tactics were imitated, the Violets tightened their encircling net.
According to the sacred Violet Copyright Law – nonexistent – the imitation of self-destruct tactics carries the death penalty.
“To say you want to self-destruct means you want to become one of us! Let’s turn them into Violets!”
“Alright! Capture them alive!”
“Waahhh!”
The stampeding horde of Violets finally reached the edge of the dungeon.
[We’ve arrived, get the escape device…]
“Ugh!”
Another agent caught in the onslaught of merciless bullets clutched his stomach. Judging by the hole pierced through the escape device, a machine-gun bullet had struck.
Spitting blood, the downed agent’s concealment disintegrated completely, and Violets charged from all directions, grabbing hold of his limbs.
“AHHHHH!”
Realizing he was the fourth victim, the agent desperately shouted to his remaining comrades.
“Fire now!”
Arshite’s assassins didn’t hesitate. According to prior training, there was a high chance that their comrade would be eaten or his memory read by those monsters.
To preserve their comrade’s pride, the agent acted as instructed.
-CRUNCH!
An arrow pierced through his head, and in an instant, the last agent bore a satisfied smile and peacefully passed away.
[Damn it!!!]
In that moment, a one-person escape device activated. The spatiotemporal veil tore and scattered, as reality burst into shining fragments.
“We’re fleeing! Catch them!”
The Violets lunged furiously. As the black hands reached out, nearly within grasp.
-!!!!
“What? Who’s calling?”
A powerful vibration resonated through everyone’s heads, plunging the Violets into brief chaos.
That fleeting moment became a turning point for the agent’s fate.
“Ah!”
The view shifted rapidly through the pouring flames. The calm, quiet hangar. The six remaining agents were enveloped in extreme lethargy.
Soon, a senior officer approached and heavily opened his mouth.
“…What about the others?”
In response to the commander’s question, the agent answered with a heavy silence.
Half-success. Half-failure.
The Violets, with bewildered expressions, mumbled as they fiddled with their heads.
“What was that?”
“Yeah…”
That fleeting thought that brushed through their minds just a moment ago. The Violets found themselves lost in an odd sensation, unable to comprehend what it was.
As the collective intelligence pondered deeply, it finally derived a singular answer.
“It felt like coming down from the sky!”
“Yeah, the sky! But, was there another Violet up there other than us?”
“Right…?”
The Violets tilted their heads, utterly perplexed, as they simply could not grasp what it all meant.
In the cold void of space, an object floated against the backdrop of a blue planet.
It was a satellite.
With a singular purpose. To perfectly operate the mass of gray matter, combining the Foundation’s technological prowess, Magnavis’s magical engineering, and Laplacian’s biotechnology, in orbit around Trist.
Since this was an experiment, once was enough.
“Gaaahhh—”
After a series of adorable pulses scattered into space, the satellite emitted a blue gleam and evaporated into thin air. The destruction procedure had been executed seamlessly.
“The sealing of the subject and the prevention of Ariel’s erosion transition has been completed.”
“Good, don’t forget that other allies are watching this.”
Listening to the operator’s report, the directors of the Foundation gazed at the screen with tense expressions.
It was a monster. Its ability to erode other humans meant it could never be treated lightly. The evidence was that human test subjects in the Corbus Infection tests had to be incinerated immediately, unlike animals.
“Inevitably, if this thing connects to their means, the signal will respond…”
This was an extremely intricate procedure. Activating the Ether detection devices from space would reveal that Trist was already stained with countless magic spectrums.
It looked like the canvas of an abstract painter splattered with paint.
The chaotic environments of the Red Zone and Yellow Zone were irrelevant, not to mention the numerous Awakened Ones gathered in Academy City and the dungeons and monsters spread across the planet made the situation even more convoluted.
Nevertheless, the Foundation succeeded. With the assistance of Arshite’s observation satellites and the escaped Magnavis mages, at long last.
“Analyzing patterns… Signal detection and tracking…”
The Foundation’s controlling algorithm system analyzed the satellite observation data in real time.
“As you can see, the Red Zone and Yellow Zone cannot be reached by satellite signals due to their erosion zone environmental characteristics. Observations are futile there as well, just like within the dungeons on the ground.”
In response to the researcher’s explanation, the directors nodded, unperturbed.
“It doesn’t matter, it’s not a livable area to begin with.”
Everything was under the Foundation’s calculations. Even if they hid in the dungeons, they could be handled with ease. If that were the case, they just had to use separate tracking devices to search for each individually.
If this experiment truly succeeded as intended, they would be able to perfectly track down every member of the Ariel group hiding in all habitable areas. Some squad leaders or enemies might prove exception.
After what felt like an eternity, with the signal [Calculation Complete], a hologram materialized in the center of the room.
Everyone in the room gazed silently at it, their expressions a mix of anticipation and anxiety.
“If we fail…”
“There’s no way that will happen.”
The hopes of the directors transformed into reality.
Tracking was successful.
Every habitable area on the world map was painted red.
“My God…”
Everyone in the Foundation fell into silence. Shock spread like an epidemic, transcending space.
“Those insane bug bastards are around us too?”
-BOOM!
A tremendous noise reverberated in the Restraid conference room. Cordo, unable to hold back while observing the Foundation’s experimental results with the executives, sprang up.
“Look, look! They’re all in our controlled areas! Those clever little cockroaches…”
The red dots appearing all over Rust Room’s south and across the continent provoked his fury.
“Increase the security around key facilities immediately! Especially the Joint Research Facility!”
The impact reverberated like a shockwave, spreading through time to other locations at the same moment.
“…Our agents have been compromised as well.”
In the nameless mountain range at the northern Rust Room. Elena, the chief administrator, muttered as she observed the experimental satellite’s results, which would be the first and last.
“It was an unbelievable loss.”
“No, it was possible. It has already been proven that conventional tactics do not work against them. In fact, it’s a miracle we survived.”
Ignoring the official’s remark, Administrator Elena swept her forehead. Her long, deep green hair flowed below her shoulders.
“The Foundation’s methods were correct. But… is this truly human?”
The shock continued to reverberate like a tidal wave among many.
“Oh my, this is…”
“Please persuade the commander. They are the enemy of this world! They exist in the Federal Army’s region too!”
The generals of the Federal Army Command, terrified, ordered all soldiers the next day to scour the interior of major facilities and barracks.
They had realized just why Magnavis had been obliterated so quickly.
“Is this true?”
“At first glance, it seems likely these aren’t humans! How could there be so many with the same magical pattern!”
The Chairman of the National Assembly and Senators, who had delayed their schedule, borrowing the reason of terrorism, also felt their heads spinning. The red dots embedded in Rust Room and all habitable zones were a sign that the target had escaped their control.
Thus, in the midst of all this shock and confusion, the Foundation’s Secretary General could declare resolutely.
“We must exterminate these human pests.”
It was a moment when the giants of humanity, for the first and perhaps the last time, united as one.