Chapter 621: Escalation
Translator: EndlessFantasy Translation Editor: EndlessFantasy Translation
A letter, like a splash caused by a rock thrown into the lake, completely shattered the peace of the Earth Federation.
In the early morning, when Chen Chen was having breakfast, served Little X, the letter was delivered to his table.
“Task force five was completely annihilated.”
The subject of the letter was a line in striking blood-red text. When he saw this line of text, Chen Chen could not help raising his eyebrows.
“A suspected Alpha-level psionicist?”
After reading the contents, Chen Chen wore a pensive expression. “A nine-year-old child? George?”
“He’s suspected of having the ability to transform dreams into reality. This was inferred by a psionicist detective.”
Little X said from the side, “At present, he can’t control his psionic powers. Every time he falls asleep, he’ll have nightmares. When dreaming, a monster similar to an octopus will appear from the dream and devour the internal organs of nearby people.”
Chen Chen did not speak but continued to read silently. The mail included all the causes and consequences of the case as well as the video data left behind. However, when he saw a pa.s.sage, Chen Chen’s face suddenly grew solemn.
“That psionic detective smelled sulfur both times?”
Chen Chen turned his head to look at Little X. “Do you know what this smell represents?”
“Subs.p.a.ce?”
Little X said, “You mean, this matter may have something to do with the subs.p.a.ce?”
“There’s such a possibility.”
Chen Chen nodded and said gravely, “I have a guess — maybe psionic power itself is inextricably linked to the subs.p.a.ce.”
Little X was shocked when she heard this. She immediately understood why Chen Chen would think this.
Chen Chen once entered the subs.p.a.ce, but only psionic energy could be used in the subs.p.a.ce, and Field energy was completely unusable.
At the same time, only the power of psionic energy allowed one to roughly perceive the reality in the subs.p.a.ce. Beyond that, one would need the power of a navigator transformed by psionic energy.
In addition, the flesh and blood of the Consciousness Stealer were found to have first appeared in the orbital area near Ura.n.u.s after its trajectory was investigated. It was as if it appeared out of thin air and one of the Mandeville Points was also there, through which it was easiest to enter and exit the subs.p.a.ce...
If there were only one or two of these clues, it might still be considered a coincidence but now that three consecutive clues all linked psionic energy to the subs.p.a.ce, this was somewhat intriguing.
In summary, the subs.p.a.ce, a mysterious place that humans had never set foot in, might be inextricably linked to psionic powers.
“Of course, all this is still just my conjecture.”
Chen Chen said softly, “Maybe my guess is wrong, but in any case, I should bring George here first. I want to see him in person.”
“I’m afraid it will be difficult.”
Little X said, distressed, “01 has already ordered the detention of this boy. After all, it happened in his territory. He was also the first to get the news. In my opinion, he seems to be ready to develop the boy’s power for his own use.”
“Oh?”
Chen Chen frowned.
“You’re not the only one who has been startled. The other four have also been alerted. After all, the Blacklight Foundation has been established for so long and has never suffered such a huge loss. Naturally, 01 would pay attention to it.”
Little X explained.
The destruction of an entire task force was comparable to the loss of a group army. After all, the task force was selected through various filters by the four continents. It could be described as the elite among the elite, and each member was a multilingual all-rounder who could perform frontal a.s.saults, a.s.sa.s.sinations, invasions, case-solving, and electronic warfare. Moreover, with the time and money spent on them, they were indeed comparable to a group of army.
Thousands of people were handpicked from the tens of millions of soldiers in the world, yet one-fifth of them were lost in one night. This was inevitably shocking.
Hearing Little X’s explanation, Chen Chen stood up without even thinking about it, turned and walked toward the meeting room, and said, “X, connect me directly to 01. I want to talk to him alone.”
Soon, Chen Chen came to the holographic conference room where the Lilith a.s.sembly was held and waited silently at the same time.
In less than ten minutes, the seat opposite Chen Chen in the conference room flickered in the air and a blurry black figure appeared on the seat.
“05, why did you contact me?”
01 remained in his seat, unperturbed, as he tapped the table with one hand and asked.
“Give me George.”
Chen Chen did not beat around the bush either. He put his hands on the table and went directly to the point. “This boy may be a huge threat. You have no experience in dealing with all this.”
“If I have no experience, I can acc.u.mulate experience.”
01 chuckled lightly, lying back in the seat, and said calmly, “On the contrary, it’s you — didn’t you say that you won’t be able to partic.i.p.ate much in the Lilith a.s.sembly in the future? How come you can’t sit still when you hear about what happened in Northern America now?”
“I’m not asking for George because of his psionic potential.”
Chen Chen’s frown lines deepened. “To tell you the truth, George may be related to the subs.p.a.ce and among our five major forces, only our Blacklight Biotechnology has come into contact with the subs.p.a.ce. It’s a different world full of madness and destruction. If you insist on studying George alone, I’m afraid that the entire human race will fall into disaster because of you!”
“Oh?”
Hearing Chen Chen’s warning, 01 hesitated slightly. “Is the subs.p.a.ce so terrifying?”
“Terror is only secondary. The key is the continuation of human civilization.”
Chen Chen said resolutely, “01, you can make a request. If the request isn’t excessive, I can use that to exchange for this boy.”
Hearing the determination in Chen Chen’s words, 01 could not help falling silent.
Chen Chen did not rush him but waited on the spot, staring at the other side. He knew that 01 at this time was discussing with his own personal think tank.
About ten minutes later, 01 spoke again but these words darkened Chen Chen’s expression completely. “05, although your offer is somewhat attractive, it’s far inferior to George, a natural Alpha-level psionicist.”
01 continued. “So, I can only refuse your request. We won’t exchange him for anything, so give it up.”
Hearing the answer from the other party, Chen Chen took a deep breath. He silently glanced at the black shadow in front of him but said lightly, “You’ll regret it.” After saying that, he directly shut off the contact.
Only the ignorant would be fearless!
Chen Chen snorted coldly. He understood that 01’s choice was not wrong because there were ten task forces in the Blacklight Foundation, of which three were commanded by Northern America and four were commanded by Chen Chen. Of these four, two were psionic task forces.
In addition, the only three Alpha-cla.s.s psionicists in the world all obeyed Chen Chen’s orders. Whether in terms of the Foundation’s strength or its internal influence, Chen Chen could crush the other four continents.
The four continents were naturally displeased about this. Now there was George, a psionic who practically violated the natural order. This was a good opportunity to increase their influence and their power to speak. Of course, Northern America was unwilling to give him up.
“Then, what should we do now?”
Little X could not help asking, “In fact, if we use the black slate, we can easily get that boy.”
“This is-n’t necessary yet.”
Chen Chen shook his head and pondered aloud, “The black slate has the ability to temporarily control human behavior, but once I halt its control after using it, the other party will wake up and it will be more difficult to explain things then... Not to mention all of this is mere conjecture. Since they don’t want to hand him over, let’s just wait and see how things unfold.”
With that, Chen Chen added again. “If there’s a situation that spirals out of control, I’ll get involved myself.”
Little X a.s.sented, silently evaluating Chen Chen’s decision without persuading him otherwise.
In her estimation, even if the child named George was dangerous, he was only a psionicist. To someone like Chen Chen, psionicists and ordinary people were the same. They could be considered as beings that posed no threat.
...
Detective Sean was transferred to the Blacklight Foundation.
He had no say in this. He was picked up by a few people at the airport and then boarded a special plane that had already been prepared and flew to the location of the Blacklight Foundation’s Northern American headquarters.
This was an unknown small township under the jurisdiction of Washington. It looked like a poor rural area, but no one knew that this was the Northern American headquarters of the most mysterious organization in the Earth Federation, the Blacklight Foundation.
From the outside, the headquarters appeared to be just an ordinary large farm. When Sean came to the only house on the farm, he looked around and saw that the place was very simple. The most eye-catching item was the dining table placed in the center of the house.
“Are we going to have a rustic meal here first?”
Sean whistled and then naturally sat down at the table.
However, in the next second, Sean suddenly felt a faint vibration from the ground. He looked at the stoic task force member by his side and quickly stood up. Then, he only saw that the table in front of him suddenly split in the middle, revealing a deep chasm below. The chasm continued to widen and a platform rose from it, unfolding in front of Sean.
The captain of the task force gestured in invitation and led everyone to stand on the platform first. When Sean saw this, he followed them.
When he had stood firmly on the platform, the platform began to slowly descend.
They descended about forty to fifty meters and the sunlight was completely replaced by incandescent lamps. After that, an alloy door slowly opened, revealing a vast hall inside.
“This is the headquarters of the Blacklight Foundation in Northern America.”
The task force captain led them through the doors and began to bring Sean into the depths of the headquarters. Along the way, he saw that everyone here seemed to be in a rush, with faint anxiety apparent on their faces.
It took about twenty minutes for Sean to reach his destination. This was a dormitory similar to a military camp’s, but at this time, several other dormitories in its vicinity were tightly guarded and the surrounding area was full of armed personnel in the task force’s uniform.
“Mr. Sean.”
At this moment, several researchers came up. They first greeted the task force captain in front of them and then looked at Sean. “I heard that you have the ability to look back in time. This is a power that we need now. I believe you have also received a transfer letter and learned about what happened here, so I won’t say any more.”
As he said, the researcher took the lead in walking in. When Sean followed, he found that the barracks dormitory was in a mess. At the same time, there were humanoid silhouettes drawn in white and red strokes on the ground and the beds.
Sean was no stranger to this kind of human silhouette. This was only seen after a murder case had happened.
“This is Barracks 1 where task force five had stayed.”
The researcher explained, “Just last night, task force five died collectively, including the captain and two deputy captains. At the same time, some of the researchers at the headquarters were killed. The total number of casualties is as high as 153.”
“Did you find anything?”
Sean looked around and asked, “Apart from the fact that their internal organs and blood were all drained, what clues are there?”
“Sleeping state and range.”
Before the researcher had time to speak, the captain of task force three interrupted. “We found that the deceased were all people who had fallen asleep. Not only that, the locations where the deceased slept were less than 100 meters away from the detained George, which is just the distance of a few rooms.”
“What about surveillance?”
Sean turned his head to look at the surveillance camera above his head. “Are there any pictures on this thing? For example, something like an octopus monster.”
“It’s a shame, but not at all.”
The researcher replied, “Nothing was photographed in the surveillance, but we found signs that the dead didn’t seem to have died at the same time, but died one after another in their sleep, in order of distance. The closer one was to the place where George was detained, the earlier one would die, and vice versa.”
“Sure enough...”
Sean’s heart sank and he stated again, “I can be sure that this phenomenon isn’t due to anything else, other than the monsters in his dream that came out after the boy entered a deep sleep state. And now we know this kind of monster cannot be photographed by surveillance but that’s not surprising. After all, those monsters aren’t real. They are just the manifestation of the boy’s psionic powers.”
“We’ve guessed some of what you’ve mentioned, but that’s not the question now.”
The researcher shook his head. “The problem now is that the surveillance in the room where the psionicist George was detained suddenly failed after four o’clock in the morning. At the same time, the lights in his room also died out.”
“This is also a normal phenomenon. The power of some psionicists can indeed interfere with electrical equipment.”
Sean replied.
“So, we hope you can enter the room where George was and rewind to what happened at that time.”
The researcher continued. “We’ve seen your records. You’ve explored the situation twice before. The first time you fell unconscious, the second time you succeeded and saw octopus-like monsters. So, we hope this time, you can further refine what we know.”
“Yes, I can try.”
Sean nodded. He knew he had no power to refuse.
Thus, Sean was then taken to the room where George was detained yesterday. At this time, George had been transferred to another place and Sean did not see George.
With the activation of his psionic powers, Sean immediately saw the scene that happened yesterday. At four o’clock in the morning, wisps of yellow mist once again hovered around George, who was in a deep sleep state. At the same time, four octopus-like monsters wandered out from the mist...
“Four?”
Sean’s pupils shrank. He even discovered that these four octopus monsters appeared to be different from the ones he saw yesterday.
“Could it be that... The monsters in the dream can exist in reality for a long time?”
At once, an alarming speculation arose in Sean’s mind.