Dimensional Hotel-Chapter 545: Large-Scale Invasion
The piercing alarm sounded almost instantaneously throughout all the floors, and under the massive shadow cast by Black Stone Station, the entire city plunged into great chaos—
Now everyone who looked up could see an astonishing astronomical mega-structure covering the sky. The giant disc-shaped shell of Black Stone Station resembled an upside-down steel land from the ground, countless auxiliary constructions and various weapon turrets, enhancement devices, and shield generators attached to the shell appeared jagged and terrifying in the shadow.
As Black Stone Station appeared, an invisible force also dispersed the surrounding clouds, tearing apart vast spaces. The starlight from the distant universe spread across the sky like a broken mirror, and its scale was still expanding.
The people on the ground started scattering in terror, the traffic on the city streets instantly fell into chaos, alarms blared throughout, and the collective mental impact from being bathed in the external starlight began spreading through the entire Boundary City like a plague.
Boundary Land, Depth L-1.
Vast areas of pale purple mist rose on the city’s edge, within which something seemed to be continually disintegrating, collapsing from the sky. Indistinguishable illusions first rose from the "suburbs" outside Boundary City and gradually engulfed the urban area inside, filled with unsettling silhouettes—dragons, giants, giant beasts cloaked in thunder, and crown-wearing kings.
Boundary Land, Depth L-2.
Tortuous and twisted obsidian pillars began to grow throughout the city, like a flipped earth, with the skeletons buried in the old world hearing the horn of various city-states, mistakenly believing they were still in this world.
Boundary Land, Depth L-3.
But just then, a strange, low rumble suddenly spread throughout Boundary Land.
It sounded like a horn being infinitely elongated, sweeping across the entire city continuously.
The horn came from the grand and mysterious Tower at the city’s center—at some unknown time, the silver-white Council Tower was coated with a layer of floating light and shadow, and the long horn sounded from the top of the Tower throughout four bounds.
The pale purple mist on the city’s edge began to fade rapidly, the outdated army within the mist woke up abruptly in reality, fell back into the Dream Realm, the invading obsidian columns collapsed and disintegrated, under the rapidly dissipating obsidian "snowflakes", the people seemed to be affected by an invisible force, gradually ignoring the anomalies around them in bewilderment and began to subconsciously move towards the nearest refuge facilities.
Baili Qing stared grimly in the direction of the Council Tower, while the hurried report of an underling came from the side: "Director, ’Requiem’ has been activated on the Council Tower side, and currently the entire depth is temporarily maintained at L-1... but it’s unknown how long it will last."
Baili Qing’s face was clouded: "What about that Space Station?"
"There are no signs of continuing to fall," the subordinate quickly replied, "It’s hovering 300 meters above the Council Tower, but the exact mass data couldn’t be measured... It seems like it hasn’t truly ’arrived’ at Boundary Land, but rather two spaces have overlapped."
"Overlap?" Baili Qing abruptly turned her head, "You mean... similar to those rifts in the hallway before?"
"Yes, yes," the subordinate nervously swallowed, "but this time’s scale is obviously very large."
Baili Qing’s gaze moved toward the window again, a layer of diffuse and thick Shield had already appeared over Boundary City, centered on the Council Tower, with countless hidden Shield Generators at the city’s edge as nodes, its strength theoretically sufficient to withstand the fall of the Space Station—if it truly ’falls down’.
But worse than the Space Station falling directly is precisely its current state of violating physical laws, stably floating in the overlapping space above the city.
This implies that large-scale anomalies are still ongoing—a certain event located beyond the boundary of reason is still approaching reality.
As if to confirm the gloomy prediction in Baili Qing’s heart, just when the giant Space Station was still steadily hovering above the Council Tower, while many felt that at least at this moment things had stabilized, an unsettling cracking sound suddenly reached everyone’s ears.
It sounded like a gigantic mirror continually shattering.
Song Cheng held the windowsill, looking up at the sky in astonishment.
He saw the starlight around that "Black Stone Space Station" starting to distort.
As if the universe itself was being "folded", the starry background near Black Stone Station slowly turned into a massive vortex structure, and then the starlight stagnated on the vortex’s outer wall, while something extended from the deep space, gradually penetrating an irregular shadow from the bottom of Black Stone Station.
He saw it clearly.
It was a jagged, ancient, and mysteriously shrouded dark Tower, descending from the starry sky, directly penetrating the core area of Black Stone Space Station, the tower body stretched and elongated infinitely in the depths of space, one end unobservable by the naked eye, and the other continued "growing" towards Boundary City after penetrating the Space Station.
Slowly, but inexorably.
"Damn... this might be hard to top..."
Song Cheng heard someone exclaiming beside him, turned his head, and saw that it was Xu Jiali.
Beside Xu Jiali was a Spiritual Servant already in a dazed and static state.
Baili Qing heard a burst of noise coming from the earpiece, but it seemed not interference, rather something in the environment was leaking, exploding, and burning.
In between, Erin’s faint cursing and Luo’s exclamations could be heard.
"The laboratory is gone! The entire laboratory, it’s all gone!" After another burst of noise, a voice emerged in the earpiece, sounded either like a culprit or an unlucky fellow distraught, "A black ’wall’ just ’smashed’ down from above, puncturing through the entire core area—right in front of me! If I hadn’t sensed something wrong and warned in advance, we would’ve all been smashed in... Hey? Stoneface, are you listening, Stoneface?"
Baili Qing’s face was grim, and it took her a great effort to keep her voice steady: "I don’t care if you live or die—where is Yu Sheng?"
"Yu Sheng was just thrown into that big hole by his subordinates. I find it quite ridiculous, but this puppet named Erin said it’s normal," Luo’s voice was slightly breathless, "He hasn’t come back yet, and Erin said there’s some interference on her end too, she can’t hear Yu Sheng’s condition clearly, just that he’s safe... I can’t see the outside situation from here, what’s going on now?"
"...The World Bridge has appeared, that’s the black ’wall’ you mentioned," Baili Qing pressed her lips together, her voice low, "It’s connecting to the Boundary Land."
"...Huh?!"
Hearing the exclamation coming from the earring, Baili Qing had no mood to continue talking with Luo, instead, she turned her gaze back outside the window, staring intently at the ’bridge’ that was slowly ’growing’ down from among the stars.
Yu Sheng hadn’t returned yet; he might still be trying desperately to end this crisis or may have already failed.
The Special Service Bureau and the Council have many "disaster contingency plans." Being a faction with an "unstable homeland," their contingency plans even included extreme situations like the destruction of the entire Boundary Land, but in such extreme cases, all protective measures have a quite slim success rate.
Should they actively enter the Broken Tower in search of a chance? Recklessly release the ancient souls from the Pale Library? Implement Dome Shattering and permanently abandon some parts of the "Homeland"?
A series of plans quickly spun through Baili Qing’s mind as she stared at the inverted tower outside, instinctively clenching her fists.
Fine, crystalline scales quietly appeared on her arms and neck, while her pale gray eyes reflected countless rapidly switching possibilities of the future and past.
At that moment, the surface of the tower, which had pierced through the Black Stone Space Station and was slowly extending toward the Boundary Land, underwent a new change.
Many bizarre "branches" suddenly grew out of the tower’s layered structure, transforming into constantly extending cracks.
Chaos surged within those cracks, then—thick, mud-like shadows began to drip down from the ends of every fissure.
The viscous shadows fell on the Big Shield above Boundary City, quickly producing billowing smoke before slowly seeping into the city—the shield, originally designed to withstand various real and surreal invasions, could not completely repel this "corrosion," with many tiny "droplets" managing to laboriously seep through the barrier, descending upon various parts of the city.
Song Cheng instantly inhaled sharply.
"Director!" He abruptly turned his head to look at Baili Qing, "That below is..."
"Immediately activate the ’Spiritual Fox’ node in Mist City," Baili Qing ordered instantly, "Execute it in zones—only ’flip’ the districts that have been invaded."
Song Cheng was taken aback, instinctively speaking out: "But this system hasn’t been very stable in previous tests, and once the pressure exceeds..."
"It’s better than allowing the civilian areas to suffer contamination—the effect of ’Requiem’ is limited, and once large-scale casualties or panic occur, the collective mental contamination could puncture the Requiem’s defense line, by then there’d be no Boundary Land or Special Service Bureau left."
"I... Alright, I understand!"
"Good," Baili Qing nodded, "I will arrange for the third and fourth battalions to act with you. Once an invaded district executes a ’flip,’ you must immediately enter the corresponding area and swiftly eliminate those ’shadows,’ and the purified districts must revert immediately—as you said, that system cannot withstand too much pressure."
Song Cheng quickly left, and Baili Qing immediately took out her phone to make the next arrangements:
"Little Su, dispatch the mobile unit to clear the shadows that have entered the city... Remember, evacuate immediately if the district becomes foggy, and if evacuation is truly not possible, construct a perimeter on the spot and hold on until the Deep Dive Team arrives..."
Outside the window, the viscous shadows seeping from the vicinity of the World Bridge continued to drip onto the Big Shield, amidst billowing smoke and hissing sounds, tiny droplets were simultaneously descending towards the city from several leak points.
Under the function of the "Requiem" system in the Council Tower, most civilians had already taken shelter in the refuge facilities.
The blind invading shadows lingered in the deathly quiet streets until this silence was shattered by gunfire from the agents of the mobile unit.
But the leak points on the Big Shield continued to increase.
A pair of gigantic eyes emerged on the outer wall of the Special Service Bureau Building, observing the situation within the city.
Moments later, a faint mist quietly spread through districts one by one within the city.
On the Big Shield, yet another new leak point appeared—the viscous shadow gathered into a mass, dripping down from above the city.
But accompanied by a "buzz," the entire district beneath this mass of shadow abruptly experienced a "ripple" like a reflection in water, followed by the fog rising and space flipping—
The experimental "Spiritual Fox" system had been activated.
A portion of Mist City erupted upwards, replacing the impending battleground of the real district.
The invading shadows fell into the thick fog, and before the blindly menacing soulless creatures was the fully armed Deep Dive Team.
