Two distinctly different inhuman consciousnesses stared at the same word in the same second.
Allen's finger withdrew from the virtual keyboard.
The analysis of the word "sacrifice" was forcibly interrupted.
The headphone frequency was filled with electrical static.
Lina's retreat order had been issued; the physical distance to the external threat was rapidly shrinking.
1 AM. P2 underground parking lot.
The main interface of the management panel was divided into three independent monitoring areas.
Coffin Fortress, Brooklyn Ruins, and Rust Tide.
As the physical barrier on the north side of the Red Hook Zone, Coffin Fortress bore the greatest external pressure.
Allen's left hand rapidly dragged the parameter bar on the screen.
The density of the three layers of traps increased to the highest threshold.
Acid spray nozzles were hidden behind every crack in the wall bricks.
Gravity anomaly zones covered all main roads.
The monsters' patrol paths switched from fixed cycles to random wandering.
Highly sensitive triggers were embedded in the walls of every corridor.
Any extraordinary energy fluctuation of Grade A or higher that comes into contact with the wall will cause the system to lower the isolation gate within 0.3 seconds, completely sealing off the floor.
Jason stood in front of the management sub-panel.
His finger hovered over the third quadrant of the holographic projection.
"Boss." Jason pulled up the structural scan of the twelfth floor of the Coffin Fortress.
The Rusty Corridor.
"Something's not right here."
Allen walked over.
His gaze fell on the ceiling area of the holographic model.
An extremely thin red line.
Less than a millimeter wide.
It didn't belong to any of the pre-defined structures in the architectural blueprints.
It clung to the ceiling of the corridor, extending seventy meters forward.
The image zoomed in.
The edges of the red line exhibited an irregular, jagged microstructure.
This was a physical scar left by a healed microscopic spatial rift.
A line of small gray text popped up in the system log.
Timestamp: Three hours ago.
"She's already been here." Allen stared at the red line.
Not a test.
It was reconnaissance.
She used the rift to sneak along the ceiling, traversing a vertical distance of two floors.
She didn't trigger any sensors on the walls, nor did she alert any patrolling monsters.
After recording the precise coordinates of the core chamber, she retreated the way she came.
The rift didn't trigger any physical alarms; it was a jump in spatial dimensions.
Allen slammed her hand on a concrete pillar, shaking off fine dust.
Jason jerked his head up, his hand on his weapon.
Lina's green dot hovered at the edge of the map.
Both simultaneously entered maximum combat readiness.
"She measured the dungeon's dimensions." Allen's jaw tightened.
"Next time, it won't be reconnaissance."
"She'll use the rift to cut straight into the core chamber." The blueprint editor on the management panel was zoomed out to full screen.
Allen drew three concentric circles around the core chamber of Coffin Fortress.
Defensive Building Classification.
Special Structure List.
[Spatial Anchoring Array] A passive defensive unit that consumes BP to maintain local spatial stability.
The essence of rift manipulation is tearing space apart. If the space in the target area is anchored with high intensity, the cost and time of tearing will increase exponentially.
[Deploy a spatial anchoring array (three layers)?]
[Single layer consumption: 8,000 BP. Total consumption: 24,000 BP.] Confirm.
A large amount of BP instantly evaporated.
Three beams of blue light lit up at the bottom layer of the Koffin Fortress.
The spatial parameters on the system chart tended to be a stagnant straight line.
3:42 AM.
The management panel burst into a blinding red light.
Level 1 Alert.
Not the Koffin Fortress.
A red dot appeared south of the red hook area.
Rust Tide.
Six ten-meter-long rifts simultaneously tore open between the first and sixth layers of the Rust Tide.
Each rift was about half a meter wide.
Spanning the entire floor.
The Rust Tide's underground energy field was shredded into pieces by these six invisible blades.
The data in the upper right corner of the screen plummeted. Structural Integrity: 100%...72%...45%...34%.
Allen's hands slammed commands onto the virtual keyboard.
The mental simulation instantly flipped.
Feint. She scouted Coffin Fortress, leaving the scar to lure all defensive resources to the north.
Then she attacked the weakest point, the south.
Fourth layer of the Rust Tide.
The intersection of six fissures.
Dark silver light spilled from the edges of the fissures.
A pair of military boots landed from the light.
Stepping onto the rusty metal grille.
Elena Graves.
Plain black tactical uniform.
The broken key badge on her left chest reflected a cold, hard spectrum in the silver light of the fissures.
Short hair.
She held a curved-blade dagger in each hand.
The blades of the daggers flowed with dark silver patterns identical to the fissures.
Two steps.
Three steps.
Heading towards the core chamber of the Rust Tide.
With each step, a new crack spreads outward from the metal grille beneath her feet.
The space around her physically collapses.
On the management panel, the stability parameters of the local space plummet along her path.
Remotely activate the defense system.
All traps on the fourth level go live.
Thirty C-rank four-armed aberrations surged from the side corridors.
Blocking the main passage.
Elena raised her left hand.
She flicked her wrist.
A crescent-shaped crack swept out from the tip of her dagger.
Fifteen four-armed aberrations collided head-on with the crack.
The crack closed.
Fifteen bodies were severed in two simultaneously.
The cuts were perfectly smooth.
No blood splattered, no dying struggle.
The unit list on the system panel was instantly emptied by half.
The data of the fifteen C-rank units was reset to zero in 0.4 seconds.
The remaining fifteen monsters retreated under the AI's command.
Elena swung her right arm.
A second strike.
A vertical rift cleaved from the ceiling to the floor.
It advanced along the ground at a speed of forty meters per second.
Catching up with the last retreating aberration.
Splitting it in two.
The fourth level was cleared.
The core chamber was still three rooms away from her in a straight line.
Allen's finger hovered over the unit dispatch bar.
Once the core collapsed, the entire south-side network node would break, and the coverage area of the resonant pulse would immediately shrink by twelve percent.
Brooklyn Ruins.
Room 80.
Abyss Watcher.
Target: Rust Tide fourth-level core corridor.
Command: Intercept and expel the intruder.
Confirmed.
Second release.
The metal floor of Rust Tide's seventh level tore open from the middle.
Dark red metal hands clung to the edge of the crack.
The Abyss Watcher burst from the ground.
The greatsword dragged behind her.
The tip scraped against the floor, sending sparks flying.
The dark red patterns on the armor pulsated three times faster than when it had last been unleashed.
The optimization results of the network consciousness were materialized in every physical joint.
Stride length increased, center of gravity stabilized.
The greatsword's energy density surged by an order of magnitude on the monitoring chart.
Elena stopped.
Her dark silver pupils contracted instantly.
"Interesting." Her vocal cords vibrated, her voice barely audible.
Daggers were raised.
Cracks converged on the blades of the two daggers, forming two high-density silver orbs of light.
Space distorted severely around the orbs.
Clash.
Three seconds.
The Watcher's greatsword, carrying a dark red shockwave, slashed down.
Elena sidestepped.
The crack tore open behind her in a fraction of a second.
Her body leaned back.
She fell into the crack.
The crack closed.
Teleport.
She appeared in the Watcher's left blind spot.
Dual blades crossed.
Slashing towards the seam of the dark red armor's ribs.
Dark silver light patterns collided with the dark red armor material.
The two high-dimensional energies erupted at the contact surface, creating a piercing high-frequency resonance.
Sparks flew.
Allen's stats fluctuated.
Watcher's armor integrity: decreased by three percent.
Elena's Rift Slash was effective against this layer of dark red material, but not a one-hit kill.
The Watcher's counterattack arrived instantly.
The greatsword wasn't retracted.
Using the momentum of the slash, her wrist twisted forcefully.
A horizontal sweep.
The dark red blade sliced through the air.
Elena launched another Rift Jump backward.
But the Watcher's adaptation counter was running wildly in the background.
The trajectory of the second sweep deviated by five degrees.
It predicted the coordinates of her teleportation landing point.
The shockwave from the blade grazed Elena's left shoulder the moment she appeared.
The bulletproof fibers of her pure black tactical uniform snapped layer by layer.
A straight line of blood seeped from beneath her skin.
Elena took five steps back.
Her tactical boots churned two shallow grooves in the metal floor.
The Rift tore open a human-shaped passage behind her.
An escape route.
She glanced at the line of blood on her left shoulder, then at the Watcher blocking the core room door.
She sheathed her dagger in the tactical slot at her waist.
She raised her head.
Her gaze was fixed on the surveillance camera in the upper right corner of the corridor.
Her lips moved.
Allen, on the management panel 370 kilometers away, brought up the lip-reading analysis module.
Characters appeared one by one.
"Your network is strong."
"But the Rift doesn't need to cut the network."
"I only need to—"
"Cut you off." A burst of silver light.
Engulfed her body.
The Rift closed.
The fourth level of the Rust Tide returned to deathly silence.
Scattered aberration debris.
Structural integrity was frozen at 21%.
The surveillance footage was frozen on the frame before Elena disappeared.
"Sever you."
Not sever the network.
Sever the architect himself.
Elena's next target wasn't the dungeon, but Allen Grey.
And Allen was standing beside a load-bearing pillar on level P2.
He wasn't wearing his glasses.
He was wearing cheap canvas shoes.
His Shadow Perception range, due to excessive consumption, was only sixty percent of its normal value.
In the lower left corner of the management panel, the dark red Abyss Gaze icon flickered rapidly.
From the ventilation ducts of level P2, an extremely faint metallic cutting sound came.