69novels Chapter 54 Non-hostile Targets
Chapter 54 Non-hostile Targets
Chapter 54 Non-hostile Target (Please Subscribe)
"The current suppression is only temporary; her mental landscape is collapsing and could trigger a second psionic tide at any moment."
Lilith lifted the unconscious Mary with one hand, her movements swift and efficient.
"I must immediately seal her in a stasis field box to completely sever her resonance with the warp."
"Stay where you are, advisor. Catch your breath. Our conversation isn't over yet."
After Lilith left, Rowe leaned against the deformed metal wall and slowly slid down to sit on the ground.
With each breath, his lungs were filled with intense, stabbing pain.
However, he did not stop panting heavily.
It greedily swallowed the air from the second basement level.
It was murky and cold.
Still alive —
The thought flashed through his mind.
There was no joy, only a cold-blooded sense of relief.
Lowe lifted his heavy eyelids, his gaze passing over the still-sparkling electrical wires, and looked to the side.
Defense Force Commander Buck is currently collapsed on the ground.
Fine lines of blood seeped from his eyes, ears, nose, and mouth, and his chest rose and fell slightly.
Beside him, two fully armed guards were also in a deep coma.
The psionic storm that swept through the entire underground laboratory just now did not have a particularly severe physical shockwave.
It acts directly on the cerebral cortex and the soul.
For ordinary people.
It was like a heavy hammer that slammed into the fragile eggshell called "consciousness".
Of the entire audience, only Lo Wei remained awake.
This is not because he has any special physical constitution.
It's not that he's a time traveler with some kind of heaven-defying mental shield.
He was just a mortal.
In this world full of monsters and demons, he had no psychic talent whatsoever, and even his so-called "inspiration" was pitifully low.
He was still able to stand for only one absurd and tragic reason:
In the instant Mary's mind completely collapsed, she transformed into the core of the psionic storm.
Despite her shattered subconscious, she still judged Lo Wei as a "non-hostile target".
Lowe was certain that when he took Mary to see her husband for the last time.
Mary then realized that the claim that her husband had died in the line of duty, as well as the compensation payment, were all well-intentioned lies told by the new supervisor.
"This is what it means to be a mortal—" Luo Wei said with a self-deprecating laugh.
In the face of a psionicist with world-destroying power.
The life and death of mortals do not require the other party to take deliberate action.
It was merely a ripple effect from when the other party lost control of their emotions.
That alone would be enough to instantly render dozens of elite veterans like Buck incapable of fighting, and even risk turning them into vegetative states.
Luo Wei survived by sheer luck, not because of his wisdom or his strategic planning.
It was purely a handout based on luck.
Or rather, the cause and effect created by a small act of kindness.
This feeling of powerlessness, of being unable to control one's fate, sent chills down Luo Wei's spine even more than the suffocating feeling he had just experienced.
He forced his trembling legs to stand up.
Now is not the time to lament the fickleness of fate.
As a manager, he must conduct an immediate inventory of assets.
Rowe walked over to Buck and checked his breathing.
He then lifted the other person's eyelids to take a look.
The pupils are dilated.
It also reacts to light.
"A concussion, or a protective shock of the nervous system," Lowe judged in his mind. "As long as he doesn't become an idiot, he's a repairable asset."
He breathed a sigh of relief.
Buck is the core pillar of his management team's force system.
If we lose our footing here, the subsequent defense efforts will be difficult to sustain.
"Gu—Advisor—"
Intermittent electronic noises came from the nearby ruins.
It is also accompanied by a distinctive electrical hum that occurs when the sound-producing unit is damaged.
Luo Wei looked in the direction of the sound.
In a corner of the laboratory.
The metal racks that were originally used to store precision instruments have completely collapsed.
Beneath the twisted steel pipes and shattered glass, a section of dark red mechanical robe was visible.
Father Alpha.
This tech priest, who was dedicated to legalizing heretical technologies, was in a miserable state at the moment.
Two of the three mechanical tentacles on its back were broken.
The remaining one was burning, constantly emitting blue sparks.
Luo Wei hurriedly went over and picked up a hydraulic rod that was lying on the ground.
Using the principle of leverage, they painstakingly pried open the metal beam that was pressing down on the priest.
"Father, it seems the Machine Spirit isn't on your side today," Rowe said, panting.
Father Alpha struggled to crawl out of the ruins.
Half of his face, the human part, was mangled and bloody from shards of glass.
Meanwhile, the other half of the metal face was overloaded, causing steam to spray out of the heat dissipation vents.
He ignored his injuries.
The last remaining electronic eye frantically rotated its focus.
It scans the center of the laboratory.
The once indestructible explosion-proof glass wall has been reduced to ashes.
And in the heart of that devastation.
The turbid nutrient solution evaporated rapidly.
Diamond dust-like glass powder.
The remains of a fifth-generation pureblood larva are among them.
It can no longer be called "biological tissue".
It was a pool of meat paste, emitting eerie purple smoke and appearing semi-charred.
Mary's frenzied stabbing when she lost control not only damaged its physical structure.
Even more fatally, the violent psychic energy she unleashed as she broke down was like strong acid splashed onto a delicate circuit board.
At the microscopic level, every single cell of this body was completely burned away.
The originally perfect Tyrannosaurus double helix gene chain has now been forcibly dismantled and distorted by the chaotic energy from the subspace, and then melted into a pile of disordered waste full of radiation and pollution.
It has no activity.
There are no residual gene fragments.
It doesn't even have value as a basic form of biomass recycling.
"Gone—all gone—"
Father Alpha wailed mournfully.
This was an even more painful wail than when he was crushed by a heavy object.
He trembled as he reached out his mechanical arm, trying to touch the mass of flesh.
It was as if it were some kind of sacred relic.
"My sample, my perfect living bio-armor core!"
The priest turned again, grabbed Lowe's sleeve, and asked, "Advisor, where is that woman? Where is the mother? Is she still in her uterus? Can't we help her get pregnant again? Even if it's a clone!"
"As long as we have her genetic sample, plus a little bit of stimulation from Tyrannosaurus Rex —"
The priest's words grew increasingly urgent.
The core logic is clearly in a state of confusion, to the point of being incoherent.
"We're just one step away. Once we extract the shell genes from the larvae, I can transform the Gluttony Wall into true bio-armor! This is a divine artifact that will allow mortals to fight against plagues!"
Luo Wei stared blankly at the research fanatic who had fallen into a trance.
In the world of Warhammer 40, the priests of the Cult of Mechanics are sometimes more difficult to understand than the aliens.
They abandoned physical weakness, but retained an almost greedy obsession with knowledge.
For a possible technological breakthrough, they wouldn't mind feeding the entire planet's population as fuel.
"Wake up, Alpha."
Lowe raised his hand and patted the priest's cold, metallic cheek.
"Look around. Our defense system is 30% crippled, and my guards have been almost completely wiped out. And you, you almost turned into a pile of scrap metal."
Lowe stated the harsh truth.
"If Mary hadn't retained a shred of humanity during that psychic burst, we would all be murals on the wall, unspeakable chunks of flesh. This isn't your petri dish experiment, Father. This is a catastrophe."
Father Alpha was taken aback.
The red light in the electronic eye flickered a few times.
Initiate a complex logical self-check.
Several seconds passed before the frenzy gradually subsided.
The cold, rational flow of data began to surge.
"Logic — Correction."
The priest released his grip on Lowell's hand and lowered his head dejectedly.
"The sample was destroyed, and the experiment was terminated. This is a huge sunk cost."
"You would say this is a necessary stop-loss measure," Lowe corrected. "At least we're still alive. As long as we're alive, there's a chance."
Just as the two were talking, steady and powerful footsteps came from outside the broken laboratory door.
A silver glint pierced the darkness.
Lilith is back.
The governor's chief bodyguard didn't look relaxed either.
His lips were pale, and fine beads of sweat glistened on his forehead.
And behind her.
Two guards carried a rectangular metal box.
Static force field box.
A static force field is projected inside the box, causing time and motion within it to completely stop.
The contents are isolated from reality, forming a "psychic dead zone".
It is usually used to imprison extremely dangerous alien creatures and heretics.
Through the translucent force field, Rowe saw Mary curled up inside.
Her eyes were closed, her expression peaceful, as if she were asleep.
Her neck and wrists were bound with shackles engraved with suppressive runes.
"Is she still alive?" Rowe asked.
"Alive for now."
Lilith pulled a nutrient solution from her waist and tilted her head back to gulp it down.
"I injected her with three times the dose of the Emperor's Tears sedative, and combined it with a stasis field, barely managing to lock down the subspace channels in her mind that were about to boil over."
As she spoke, Lilith looked Luo Wei up and down, somewhat surprised.
"You're still conscious? It seems that for a mortal, the absence of soul fluctuations can sometimes be an advantage."
"I'll take this as a compliment."
Luo Wei straightened his slightly disheveled collar and resumed the poker face befitting a clerk.
"Your Excellency, although I am very grateful for your help, I have a question."
77
Luo Wei pointed to his pocket watch and asked, "From the moment the psionic energy erupted to your appearance, no more than five minutes had passed. Even the Governor's rapid response force couldn't have flown that fast. Were you already nearby?"
"You guessed right, advisor."
Lilith did not hide anything.
"Your report about the Star Child Mutual Aid Association, which you submitted via the encrypted channel, although only a few pages long, has attracted the Governor's high attention."
Lilith glanced at the remains of the purebloods on the ground, her eyes showing disgust.
"For the Governor's Office, the massive plague invasion was just a festering sore that could be treated by simply removing the rotten flesh."
"And the gene-stealing cults are like malignant tumors that parasitize the bone marrow, a death sentence that is more insidious and deadly than the plague."
She further explained, "The reason I led this team here was to conduct a surgical cleanup. Through our intelligence network, we identified several high-value targets and are preparing to close the net."
"A few targets?" Lowe keenly caught the quantifier. "Are they just low-level nobodys, worth the head of the guard making a personal trip for?"