Dimensional Hotel-Chapter 533: Closing in on the Border

The bizarre invader was almost instantly torn to shreds by a rain of bullets—a broken body was carried by inertia over a small distance in the air, eventually landing only two or three meters in front of Zolda Black Stone and the golden-haired elf.

The gunfire ceased, and there was a momentary silence in the hall.

Killed just like that? So neatly?

"I thought it was some kind of monster that couldn’t be harmed by knives or guns..." an officer from the security forces muttered, "How could it be taken down with just a gun?"

"Stay alert!" a person who looked like a commander quickly reminded, "This invader is very peculiar! You two, go check the body."

"Yes!"

The soldiers began cautiously handling the scene. The golden-haired elf standing next to Zolda Black Stone seemed still a bit dazed.

A slight stinging and dizziness spun deep in her mind, partly due to her direct link with ’Black Stone’, but this time’s ’aftereffect’ was unlike usual, a certain... discordant ’noise’ had mixed into her consciousness, and when the invader lunged in that jump, the noise in her mind inexplicably amplified, still not fully dissipated.

The golden-haired elf shook her head hard, her vision momentarily clear, yet at the next instant seemingly shrouded in layers of black veils. Strange black threads appeared occasionally in her sight—a sudden wave of unease snapped her back to full awareness.

It was a spiritual intuition inherent to a high-level Astrologer. Though she had abandoned the ’Astrologer’ identity many years ago, she was still a Algredian favored by the stars.

She abruptly lowered her head to the ground, only to see a pool of blood slowly expanding beneath the invader’s corpse, with the blood branching into tiny streams, slowly creeping toward where Zolda Black Stone and she stood.

When hurt, people bleed, and blood flows; this should be normal.

But watching the slowly spreading blood, a strong sense of discord and vigilance arose in her—a terrifying sensation from deep within, as though she were witnessing some ancient and indescribable oddity.

The golden-haired elf’s eyes sharply changed; her wheel-shaped mechanical legs slid backward, while she simultaneously pointed at the ground, a fierce Spiritual Fireball forming instantly at her fingertips.

The fireball flew toward the blood, but before they contacted, the flowing blood suddenly stopped and quickly transformed into a line of text in the golden-haired elf’s field of view—

"Oh dear, you found me."

"Tss—"

The blood was instantly vaporized by the Spiritual Fireball, leaving only a radiating scorch mark on the ground.

A faint chill spread in her heart. The golden-haired elf stood in place, momentarily even doubting if she had truly vanquished that eerie foe—was the blood really vaporized? Or did it merge into Zolda Black Stone’s restraint device at the last moment? Did she really see it clearly?

Then she lowered her head again, quickly checking herself, ensuring no blood was splattered on her.

The nearby Black Spot Soldiers had already noticed the anomaly just now; they hurried to enclose the invader’s body in a body bag before starting to char the area around the corpse with flame throwers. A commander swiftly spoke, "Send the body to the incinerator..."

"No," the golden-haired elf interrupted the onsite commander’s words, staring intently at the body bag on the ground; the danger warning brought by her spiritual intuition throbbed painfully at her forehead. Deep in thought, her brows furrowed tightly, "No, it must not remain in the space station...put it in the ejection device, launch it into space with the fastest speed, then hit it with a ’Falling Star’ missile, burn it in space—hurry!"

"Yes, yes!"

...

At the headquarters of the Special Service Bureau, in the full-dome alert monitoring hall, Baili Qing hurriedly arrived, her brows furrowed, watching the scene presented by the main monitoring system in holographic projection.

On the giant map symbolizing the full domain of Boundary Land, countless points of time-space instability were continuously flickering—they included Exotic Realms scattered across Boundary City, as well as various long-distance space passages and shortcut networks, while around many flickering instability points, red light spots representing different levels of anomaly emerged intermittently.

The last time the monitoring center had issued a sharp explosion was when someone penetrated the entire time-space structure of Boundary Land with a single door-opening, triggering the highest security alert of the Special Service Bureau that night.

Baili Qing rubbed her temples, trying hard to shake off that unsettling memory from her mind.

The head of the monitoring center stood beside her, beads of sweat glistening on his sparse-haired scalp, tense: "The first wave of anomalies started about an hour ago, with no pattern. Something unseen swept randomly across the time-space instability points of the entire territory, the intensity wasn’t actually high—not compared to the commotion Yu Sheng created back when he ’opened a door’, but the situation is very bizarre...

"Many affected Exotic Realms underwent brief deep drifting; several agents and deep diver teams executing tasks in Exotic Realms reported observing projections from other timespaces—strange architectural structures and personnel illusions appeared out of thin air in Exotic Realms, emerging suddenly and disappearing quickly...

"Most projections did not interact with the witnesses, but in two projections, the personnel illusions seemed to notice our agents, showing reactions of surprise and tension...

"Yes, they are all Algredians."

The head of the Monitoring Center paused briefly, observed Baili Qing’s reaction, and continued, "The anomaly peak has now passed, and the frequency and intensity of abnormal occurrences in various places have decreased, but they still happen sporadically across the entire region. Additionally, a team of deep divers reported fifteen minutes ago that they observed suspicious spider silk traversing the entire Exotic Realm at the ’Windmill Mill’—this is the third sighting of spider silk in realms other than ’Mist City’ and ’Dark Alley.’

"All of these appeared intensively within the last hour."

Baili Qing crossed her arms, slowly tapping her fingers against her arm, and broke the silence after a moment: "What about the reality dimension?"

"The real world remains stable; that invisible force seems unable to puncture the L-0 depth boundary—at least for now," the head quickly replied, "However, we have received several reports from foreign realm residents in the city, all Algredians or Gyprolians—they say they sensed a ’premonition of impending danger’ and unstable psionic changes.

"Given the Algredians’ and Gyprolians’ keen talent in the field of psionics, I’m afraid that ’force’ has already begun to affect the real world."

Baili Qing listened silently, and after a few seconds of oppressive silence, she nodded gently, "I understand—keep monitoring. Also, focus on monitoring the Wutong Road area and around the Council Tower, and report any anomalies to me at any time."

"Understood."

After leaving the Monitoring Center, Baili Qing did not return to her office but instead took the elevator to a special floor—the N level.

In this special floor where no one would disturb her, she let out a gentle sigh, then removed one of her earrings and reactivated a secret channel.

After several attempts, the communication was finally connected—the voice on the other end sounded noticeably tired, impatient, and resistant, "Listen, I’m very busy now—our ’acquaintance’ should not be enough for someone like you to reach out to me casually..."

"I received clear intelligence that a laboratory of the Black Dot Group is studying an artifact possibly from the ’Outer Realm Alien God,’ internally named ’Zolda Black Stone’—is it your project?"

Baili Qing’s unusually straightforward and forceful inquiry this time seemed to catch the other party by surprise, and there was a brief silence on the communication channel before a response came, "We lost a soldier, and now it seems he indeed ended up with you—however, the monitoring at the time showed that he was clearly captured by an ’Artificial Saintess.’ You from the Special Service Bureau call us extremists, since when did you get involved with those real lunatics from the Hidden Monastery..."

"We have no cooperation with the Venerate Saints Monastery, and these trivial matters are irrelevant to the current topic," Baili Qing interrupted him, "Luo, listen, given that we’ve collaborated a few times and that you’ve never backstabbed, I’m sincerely warning you—your project is likely out of control; anomalies are observed even at the Boundary Land. Unlike your ’colleagues,’ I don’t understand why you’re engaging in such dangerous activities..."

"My project is perfectly normal—everything is under control," the impatient voice came from the earring, "Perhaps there are minor leaks within acceptable error ranges, but they’re just minor troubles... As long as you don’t send a bunch of weirdos to mess with me, everything will soon be back on track. Understand? I don’t want to bother anyone, and I don’t want anyone to bother me—let me research quietly..."

The voice in the earring suddenly cut off, followed by the faint sound of chaotic background noise.

Baili Qing frowned slightly, "What’s happening on your end?"

Two or three seconds later, a response came from the communication channel, "Someone suddenly launched a missile into space for some unknown reason—it might have been an operational error, and it’s unrelated to you. Listen, I’ve said all I need to say, and I’m really busy now—besides, to be frank, I don’t trust you or your Special Service Bureau; the trade losses you’ve caused me over the years far exceed any of my experimental accidents, so, goodbye."

After a brief buzz, the holographic projection above the earring dissipated.

Baili Qing looked expressionlessly at the now-dimmed crystal earring, her eyes a bit cold.

A moment later, she picked up the earring, gently exerting force.

With a slight creaking sound, the crystal on the earring was crushed into powder, and the metal was twisted into a ball of red-hot waste.

"Perhaps I was too polite to her," she said blandly.

A pair of huge eyes quietly floated behind her.

"Mice hiding too well think themselves invincible in the world," Baili Xue’s voice echoed leisurely, "I’ll eventually send a couple of shipmen to her..."

"Her laboratory is located in a lawless area..." Baili Qing rubbed her temples, "Forget it, the most important thing now is to reconstruct the spatial-temporal defense of the Boundary Land—there’s a ton of work to do."

She let out a gentle breath, her gaze falling again on the remnants of the earring in the palm of her right hand.

Under her gaze, the dust recondensed, and the damaged metal structure began to repair as though time were rewinding.

Baili Qing sighed and put the earring back on her ear.

"So, sister, you got angry and crushed it, but now you have to repair it yourself..."

"Shut up."

"Oh."