Welcome to Ability Store-Chapter 53 - 52: Erosion Returns
"That’s quite impressive," Chen Xuan silently remarked.
"Yes... How could they hold sway over most of the world’s abilities without some real skill?" Lin Qing sighed. "To be honest, I felt quite guilty when I talked about it yesterday. It felt like betraying my past self. There are simple and kind-hearted individuals in the Dimensional Limit Mechanism, and some members are survivors of invasion events. If I could, I truly wouldn’t want to confront them."
She wasn’t saying this as a precursor to future regret.
Chen Xuan could see the unwavering determination in the girl’s eyes, with the underlying message clearly being that if it could change that future, she would go forward without hesitation, even if it meant opposing every member of the mechanism.
"Then in the history you know, how did the Dimensional Limit Mechanism get exposed to the public eye?" he couldn’t help but ask curiously.
"The invasion points keep increasing, and the mechanism’s control eventually decreases. Initially, ability-based crimes spiral out of control, sparking social attention, and national forces step in; then civilian ability users emerge to combat these crimes, and later on, industries start discovering individuals with unusual talents. Each major outcome has the shadows of those few companies behind them. That’s when the Dimensional Limit Mechanism starts to gradually appear from behind the scenes to the forefront."
"It feels like it’s all coming together," Chen Xuan mused, stroking his chin, particularly about the ability users combating crimes... Considering the mechanism has always been monitoring the Awakened in the city, could it be that these proactive ’heroes’ were somehow permitted by them?
"I know what you’re thinking, but this exposure certainly isn’t part of their plans," Lin Qing asserted confidently.
The two had already discussed this multi-level spread plan many times, and given the current situation, the Dimensional Limit Mechanism’s chances of success were less than ten percent.
It’s not that their abilities are lacking, nor are they not strong enough, but this gap is reflected in decades of intelligence accumulation.
"What I’m worried about now is whether too many people will rush over, giving the Dimensional Limit Mechanism an excuse to pressure for the park’s closure," Chen Xuan said while sorting through procedures. "Even though that wouldn’t necessarily hinder our plan, it might discount its effectiveness."
From the interview in the afternoon, it was clear that the news attracted not just people from Jiang City but plenty of tourists from out of town, all eagerly gathering in front of the zoo.
For those professional vloggers, such enormous traffic is not something they can afford to miss.
"I bet the Dimensional Limit Mechanism won’t do that. Closing the park and dispersing tourists would be tantamount to admitting this fact indirectly, which is like surrendering to the Masked Woman, and that’s not their style," said Lin Qing dismissively. "Once they decide to act, they have to make sure no one has any reason to say a word against them."
"So it’s a face-to-face confrontation?"
"Exactly. Only by making everyone realize that the Masked Woman is a complete fraud can they truly quell this wave of public opinion," Lin Qing suddenly lowered her voice, "Thank you."
"Why the sudden thanks?" Chen Xuan asked, a bit surprised. "We haven’t accomplished it yet. And even if we can muddy the waters enough to force the Dimensional Limit Mechanism to show their hand, it’ll just be the beginning."
Bringing this behemoth to collapse is not something a small scheme or two can accomplish. If it’s like a skyscraper, what they are doing now is merely pulling out one brick from the first layer.
"But that’s the beginning of all changes, isn’t it?" She put down her coffee cup and looked directly at Chen Xuan. "Even if you refuse to help me, I would have gone on to accomplish it alone, but it’s by no means an easy goal. Just thinking about it fills one with despair. I might end up dying in some corner no one cares about, with no change to the future at all..."
"How could it be? Even if I don’t help you, I wouldn’t shut you out," Chen Xuan shrugged. "As long as this shop has found you, you’ll always have a place for shelter..."
He suddenly paused.
What stopped him from going on wasn’t anything else, but a pair of warm and soft lips.
Lin Qing leaned in and pressed against him.
Maybe for a second, or perhaps two or three, she quickly pulled back her head, "But I still prefer you to fight alongside me. Alright, don’t mind it; it’s a way of expressing gratitude in the future. I’m off to take a shower."
After saying that, she dashed up to the second floor with a gleeful smile, leaving Chen Xuan standing dazedly behind the bar.
...
...
The next afternoon at one, the panda exhibit in the zoo was jam-packed with people. To maintain order, the nearby police station even deployed most of its force to guide the flow of people at every entrance to prevent any accidents.
In the park’s history, only when the pandas were first brought here did such a grand event occur.
But today, no one came for the pandas.
"Time’s almost up," Wang Baihu climbed onto the rooftop of the reptile house a hundred meters away, taking out binoculars to observe, "No suspicious activity detected for now."
"Can you see Honglian?" Captain Wan’s voice rang through the earpiece.
He scanned to the left and right, then spotted a familiar figure in front of a small kiosk. Today, Honglian was deliberately disguised, wearing a baseball cap and sunglasses, with a string of earrings shimmering by her ear, along with that unique red hair, looking every bit the delinquent girl.
This kiosk was less than twenty meters from the panda exhibit, ensuring that no matter where the Masked Woman appeared, she could swap to her side immediately.
"I can see her; she’s in position."
Honglian evidently could hear their conversation too; she turned her head to glance toward the reptile house, "I want to know if the two reinforcements sent are also in position?"
"No need to worry about that. Someone will inform you whom to capture later," the captain said.
"We’re at this point, and we’re still not allowed to know the names and abilities of the reinforcements?" Honglian was evidently a bit dissatisfied with this.
"It’s for confidentiality purposes. Even your abilities are kept from members in other areas," Wan Chongshan soothed her, "Focus on the mission; act on the command without hesitation, no matter how unlike the target the person may seem."
Just then, the crowd suddenly started buzzing with activity.
"Please make way and let me get to the front," a masked woman said softly.
"She’s really here!" The crowd erupted immediately, all aiming their cameras at her.
Wang Baihu could naturally see her too—a substitute dressed in nanometer-level mimicry of the Masked Woman. This was a trick the logistics team excelled in—improvising and creating confusion. This Masked Woman was greedy and short-sighted, going to any length for attention. She had no real ability, just happened to have a brother working in the telecom bureau, and they concocted this farce out of envy over the attention from the Sha River Bridge incident.
She would humiliate all the spectators under the eyes of everyone, nailing all the supporters of the Masked Woman into coffins. When she herself became the clown, her theories would naturally be laughed off as jokes.
Rather than overturning the truth, it’s more effective to defame the truth-teller; this tactic had always worked for the logistics team.
Of course, the premise was that they had to capture the real Masked Woman.
Wang Baihu speculated that among those two reinforcements, one might have a similar ability to quickly identify their target within the crowd. Whether it was by locking onto the ability or other characteristics remained unknown.
He glanced at his watch; it was just half-past one, thirty minutes away from the Masked Woman’s scheduled time of two.
But the substitute didn’t have much time left.
Bzzzz——
All of a sudden, his phone started vibrating.
Wang Baihu took a look and couldn’t help but widen his eyes. The mechanism had just sent them an invasion point warning.
"Warning: C-level regular erosion detected; location coordinates determined."
Why does it have to be now!?
"Ignore it; prioritize the current mission!" Captain Wan decisively ordered, "It’s just C-level; it can wait half a day."
"Understood—" Before Wang Baihu could finish, his phone vibrated again!
"Warning: C-level regular erosion detected; location coordinates determined."
"Warning: C-level regular erosion detected; location coordinates determined."
"Warning: B-level regular erosion detected; location coordinates determined, please proceed to handle immediately."
Invasion events occurring successively within seconds? And rapidly escalating from C-level to B-level, how is this possible!? Wang Baihu instinctively checked the location coordinates and found all the invasion points were surprisingly close to him, all within the neighboring Botanical Garden!
No way... He felt a massive wave of anxiety. Theoretically, only one situation would cause such a phenomenon—if there was a Wanderer repeatedly traversing between two worlds, leading the mechanism’s machinery to capture identical waveforms continuously, and this behavior truly would cause the invasion points to expand rapidly!
Wang Baihu’s mind yelled out; he was just about to inform Honglian of his suspicion, but he discovered that his colleague’s figure was no longer in front of the kiosk.
