When Chen Chuan looked toward the four passages before him, Hongfu's voice came right on time: "Scanning in progress."
With the field-shielding materials breached, Fumu's field could connect here without hindrance and be utilized by her.
After a moment, an architectural blueprint of the area materialized on Chen Chuan's boundary credential. Three of the tunnels led in different directions, but the area to which the remaining one led was shrouded in gray. It was impossible to see what lay inside; one could only tell that the space occupied a substantial area.
Needless to say, the target had to be right there.
He asked, "Will the field intrusion alert this thing?"
Hongfu replied, "Before an active conscious entity enters a combat state, it must absorb massive amounts of high-energy nutrients. To conserve energy under normal circumstances, it usually remains in a dormant state of minimum consumption. Ever since facing the last security threat, the Municipal Council stepped up purchases of high-energy nutrients and maintained a prolonged vigil against the Government Affairs Hall.
"There is a certain probability that the Guardian Spider is in an intermediate state—a phase of autonomous awakening. In that case, once the field data intrudes, it may react within five minutes."
Though her explanation seemed lengthy, their communication took place through mental transmission, so Chen Chuan understood it in a mere instant.
"Five minutes?" He nodded. "More than enough time."
He looked toward the metal doors of the tunnel in the middle. A platinum glow emerged across his body. Having come this far, he no longer needed to conceal his presence.
The next moment, his body flashed, arriving at the other end of the tunnel in the blink of an eye.
Everywhere he passed, heavy metal doors tore open like tissue paper, layer upon layer of shielding barriers shattered in his wake, and the innermost building wall was blasted through with a massive hole. A tremendous volume of air was forcibly displaced from the depths of the tunnel, howling violently with deafening, rolling reverberations.
The shockwave shook the entire building. Inside, people felt the floor heave beneath them like waves at sea. Startled and bewildered, they thought for a moment that an earthquake had struck.
Chen Chuan came to a halt and glanced ahead. The chamber spanned roughly six to seven hundred square meters. At the center, where numerous high-energy nutrient vessels converged, rested a colossal creature.
It took the overall shape of a spider, covered head to toe in a chitinous exoskeleton. Its surface gave off a dark-red sheen that pulsed rhythmically, as though energy coursed within.
Most striking were its massive mouthparts and a pair of razor-sharp chelicerae. On either side of its body grew four stout, jointed legs bristling with coarse, black hairs tough as steel needles, glistening with a faint blue sheen.
And at this moment, with his arrival, it seemed to sense a grave threat. The sixteen compound eyes arranged on either side of its head suddenly flashed in unison, and a wavering aura of luminous flame swiftly rose over its body.
This was the energy field of a specially evolved active conscious entity, somewhat similar in nature to the fire of spirituality possessed by limit-broken creatures in the convergence zone.
The surrounding vessels began to glow with fluorescence, visibly pumping high-energy nutrient fluid into its body at high speed. At the same time, shrill sirens wailed throughout the subterranean chamber.
Fueled by the abundant surge of energy, the Guardian Spider hoisted its massive body up. Even crouching low against the flat ground, it stood four to five meters tall, looking down haughtily at Chen Chuan before it.
Chen Chuan spared it a cool glance. The glow clinging to his body expanded rapidly, filling the entire subterranean space in a flash and enveloping the active conscious entity within.
Beneath this brilliance, radiant as a blazing sun, the pheromones that the Guardian Spider had just begun releasing melted away under the light, unable to spread outward in the slightest.
The active conscious entity seemed to sense impending doom. It let out piercing shrieks as massive biological vesicles bulged across its back. Stored within them were specialized toxin spores capable of contaminating vast swathes of land; if released, they would drift on the wind, attach to the surrounding environment, and multiply rapidly, inflicting catastrophic environmental pollution.
Yet before the vesicles could rupture, they withered under the scorching radiance. The toxins inside dissolved in an instant without taking any effect.
The Guardian Spider's abdomen pulsed violently. With soft pops, a dense swarm of small spiders cascaded from beneath its belly. These spiders scrambled to scurry away, yet after merely a few steps, they slumped limply. Wisps of blue-gray smoke rose from their bodies, and in an instant, they melted into pools of residue.
Chen Chuan then raised a finger and pointed it at the active conscious entity. A glow slowly flickered at his fingertip. The Guardian Spider shrieked even more piercingly, its cries carrying notes of both threat and pleading; through the twitching of its eyes and facial muscles, its head managed to contort into an eerily human expression.
Chen Chuan's gaze remained serene. A burst of light flashed from his fingertip, instantly flooding the entire subterranean hollow. After persisting for several breaths, it finally receded.
Before him now lay only a scorched cavern; nothing remained in the center. The active conscious entity, powerful enough to rival a martial artist, had been vaporized in practically a single instant.
Most of the nutrient vessels on the surrounding walls were also charred to carbon. Only from an occasional crack or two did green nutrient fluid seep out, pattering down onto the ground.
Hongfu's voice came through: "Target eliminated. Sensor scans show no residual contaminated tissue."
Chen Chuan spared it not another glance. He turned and departed. After taking merely two steps, his figure vanished from the spot, and in the next moment, he was already outside the Municipal Council Building.
Behind him came rolling rumbles like a howling tempest. Throughout the assembly hall and the spaces beyond, countless objects went flying, people tumbled to the floor one after another, and total chaos erupted.
He paid no mind to any of this; the staff and council members of the Municipal Council were not his responsibility to handle. From the very start of the operation, Fumu had blocked all of the Council's field communication channels, severed every relevant telephone line, and engaged radio jamming equipment from the outset.
The city patrols in Weiguang District should have mobilized by now. The next step was road blockades, and thirty minutes later, the garrison troops from Jiyang District would enter the city from the north to carry out military takeovers of all key departments.
Armed personnel and fighters deployed from the Defense Department and the Disposal Bureau would arrest the key council members. Should any security forces resist during the process, they would be neutralized without hesitation under governmental authorization.
All three Investigation Supervisors of the Disposal Bureau were deployed this time, focusing their strikes on hardline elite fighters loyal to the Council.
His next step was to head to White Bird District to eliminate the other active conscious entity.
Just then, the whir of rotor blades came from overhead. An airship flew toward him and dropped a rope; it was an armed combat airship from the Defense Office.
Chen Chuan glanced upward. Instead of taking the rope, he simply lowered his center of gravity slightly and pushed off with both feet. His body leaped into the air, rising instantly level with the airship. Pausing midair for a fraction of a second, he drifted gently down onto the open-air deck of the airship under the awed and reverent gazes of the security personnel.
By this time, only five minutes had passed since he first stepped into the Municipal Council Building's subterranean chamber.
He tapped his boundary credential. "Team Two reporting. The Guardian Spider has been eliminated. Now proceeding to White Bird District to clear the next target."
Having delivered the report, he walked to the prow of the airship and looked toward White Bird District.
Awaiting him there was an active conscious entity shipped in by the Consortium. Word had it that it incorporated the most advanced biotechnology available today, though it appeared not yet fully cultivated, making it difficult to say how much of its strength it could exert.
He did not need to rush regarding this entity. White Bird District was, in truth, the place where damage was of least concern.
Due to the district's high degree of autonomy, it was the only area without a Disposal Bureau branch, and the Government Affairs Hall held no responsibility for its security. As long as the entity was prevented from breaking out of that district and entering the greater Center City metropolitan area, all was well.
Meanwhile, along the stretch of road leading to Feihong Bridge toward White Bird District, Deng Fu, Tai Dongwei, and Geng Zheng were patrolling across the bridge deck in an armed patrol car.
For reasons unknown to them, the three, originally assigned to patrol Weiguang District, had been reassigned here today.
After a while, they pulled over to the side of the road and stepped out to patrol on foot. Deng Fu suddenly spoke up: "Do you guys feel like something's off?"
Tai Dongwei and Geng Zheng both looked at him, asking in unison, "Off how?"
Deng Fu said, "Oh, just thinking out loud." Tai and Geng could not help looking suspicious.
Geng Zheng looked around, frowning. "Something is a bit off."
Tai Dongwei followed his gaze. The traffic passing by and the ferries beneath the bridge were no different from usual. He frowned. "Looks completely normal to me."
Geng Zheng shook his head. "I can't put my finger on it. Something just feels wrong."
Tai Dongwei looked around once more, then suddenly realized. "I've got it!" He turned to the other two, pointed outward, and exclaimed, "Bugs! There are fewer bugs!"
Geng Zheng and Deng Fu exchanged glances and realized he was right. Ever since the Linax Federation's biological test specimens invaded Center City, those pestilent bugs had been virtually everywhere.
It was just that their daily patrols took place in Weiguang District, where they were accustomed to an environment largely free of insects, so they sometimes forgot about the little critters entirely. Yet on the entire drive over today, they had hardly spotted any.
Geng Zheng sighed in relief. "Fewer is fewer. They're just bugs anyway—nothing bad about having fewer around."
Tai Dongwei shook his head. "No. Other districts haven't sprayed repellent like Weiguang District. For bugs not to show up..." He thought for a moment, and being the most knowledgeable of the three, offered an explanation: "It's very likely they sensed some kind of danger and released colony-wide pheromones, which caused them to thin out."
Geng Zheng asked, "Danger? What danger?"
Tai Dongwei was about to say, "No idea..." when his voice broke off. In shock, he stared into the distance.
Over there, an enormous combat airship was flying their way. Behind it followed six more combat airships, paired in twos in a battle formation across the sky. They swiftly passed over Feihong Bridge and headed in the direction of White Bird District.
Gazing up at the sky, he muttered, "Old Deng, your gut was right. Looks like something huge is going down today..."
Chapter 911