Chapter 104

“Boom—” A furious peal of thunder exploded over Loch City, thunder alone with no raindrops to follow.

The massive skeleton of the Alien spread open, then contracted again, its edges sliced clean.

The suspended medical pod was pushed into the operating room. Outside the operating room, Jia Lan retracted their own half-broken wings and slowly shifted back to humanoid form, their face pale as they sat in the medical room.

The wing injuries had occurred when they carried the others out of the Obelisk; all six wings bore varying degrees of damage. 2.2 seconds had been too short—they had barely squeezed through the contraction window, still a bit late. Fortunately, the Xenomorph Particles gradually repaired the damage, though it might take several days.

Several sets of footsteps hurried over. Han Ya led the way, pushing the door open to ask, “How is it? Has the chip been removed?”

“They just went in not long ago.” Jia Lan answered truthfully.

Ains had no idea that the Alien had implanted a resonance chip in her. You Wenjie suspected her motives for heading to the Obelisk on her own and had her brought in for a full checkup, which revealed a chip in her body that did not belong to the Terminal system.

“She should be fine, right?” Han Ya ran to the doorway and peered inside, but everything was a blur; he could see nothing.

You Wenjie stood behind him and said calmly, “It’s just chip removal, a minor surgery. Ten or twenty minutes, that’s all.”

“That’s good.” Han Ya let out a breath of relief. After all, he had watched over this little girl all the way back from the Red Light District.

With Ains fine and You Wenjie here, he had already checked on Wen Yu earlier. Han Ya then thought of another person. “What about Horne?”

In a room where the desk lamp glowed dimly, Horne checked the cooling device again. The people from Thunder Pavilion said it was new technology they had developed, using light for cooling. Placed by the bedside, it achieved full-body physical temperature reduction, generally suitable for patients with high fevers, and worked very well when paired with treatment.

Looking at the drugs steadily flowing into Hels’s body, and at the cooling device, Horne now somewhat doubted their words. After a full day of internal and external medication, Hels’s temperature had dropped from 40 to 39 degrees. Horne suspected a calibration issue and asked the medical team, only to be told to use the default mode.

From the early hours of the previous morning, when they had rushed into the escape pod, Hels had fallen into a coma and remained so until now.

By rights, Hels’s constitution should not have allowed this. The doctors said it was due to severe lack of rest.

Horne leaned over, gazing at the unconscious man on the sickbed, at the eyelashes that fluttered lightly under his touch. He reached out, pressing the back of his hand to the scorching skin. The heat rapidly melted the ancient ice in his eyes.

Why hadn’t he woken yet?

Horne paced restlessly beside the bed, finally sitting back on the sofa by the sickbed. He crossed his legs, picked up the Thunder Pavilion orientation manual, read for a bit, shifted his sitting position, glanced up at the man lying on the bed, walked over to check again, then sat back down.

Outside, medical personnel occasionally passed by, their shadows flickering across the frosted glass window of the door. Not long after, he heard talk outside that Ains’s chip had been removed—it was a frequency resonance device.

It was something that reacted to specific frequencies, which was why Ains had been uncontrollably drawn there.

Immediately after, noise erupted outside, with many voices speaking. Horne frowned and promptly activated the room’s noise shield.

The breathing of the man lying there rose and fell slowly; he appeared relatively stable, undisturbed.

Horne sat back down, his attention shifting once more to the manual.

Thunder Pavilion had ten levels, several hundred meters below the Red Light District. The zeroth floor lobby that one entered first was the residency level, followed downward by the technical zone and main control zone, where various data archives and offices were located. Negative two was the living quarters and medical zone where they now were.

Further down lay the training camp, laboratories, engineering and energy research, heavy industry facilities. Negative eight and nine housed the reactors, the energy heart of Thunder Pavilion, with the lowest level containing the escape pods and emergency ascent shafts.

A very complete base system.

So, when exactly would he wake?

Horne set the manual aside again and probed Hels’s forehead temperature for the umpteenth time.

He rarely felt this anxious. With that thought, Horne simply sat on the edge of the bed, staring blankly out the window at the blue sky.

Even after two days back, his thoughts still drifted toward the illusion, toward the “lover” gripped tightly in Hels’s hand.

Hels knew that he knew about his illusion, but he did not know about his own “lover” scenario, nor had he asked. Was he worrying about something? Afraid of something?

His thoughts tangled until interrupted by a knock at the door. At the doorway, Han Ya poked his head in.

“Why don’t you go rest? You Wenjie said you’ve been here since we got back.” Han Ya asked, his voice a bit loud. Horne had just frowned when Han Ya lowered it. “Still not awake? Serves him right.”

A box of medicine then flew in from the doorway. Horne caught it deftly. The box had several lines of instructions for a special fever-reducing drug.

“What’s this?”

Han Ya stood at the door and rolled his eyes. “Rat poison, of course. Perfect chance to poison this bastard.”

Horne’s gaze shifted from the medicine box to Hels’s face, then back. He felt very puzzled; he had wanted to ask this question for a long time, harboring a vague worry.

“You two always bickered before; I know that’s just how you get along. But last time he already shot at you—why do you still…”

Still come proactively to deliver medicine and show concern, even if packaged as coming for revenge.

Veins bulged on Han Ya’s neck, his gaze drifting to the window. He “uh”ed, rubbed his nose, then scowled irritably. “Th-that wasn’t—weren’t you the one who had the problem then? You went through that, so I went through it too.”

Horne: “?”

“Ugh, forget it, can’t explain to you.” Han Ya waved it off and jumped topics. “Oh right, Ains is heading to the technical zone soon—did you know? All her equipment is prepped.”

Horne paused for two seconds and followed Han Ya’s topic. “Going now? She was just locked up for a month; saved and straight to work? Has she had psychological counseling?”

He felt Ains’s state in the illusion had been off, but considering she had been held captive by the Aliens in such a place for so long, being off was normal. She needed time to recover, or at least a few hours to sync up.

Han Ya shrugged. “No, Thunder Pavilion’s counselors all came; they were just outside, didn’t you hear? She refused, said she wants to crack it right away.”

So that was what the commotion outside had been about. Horne stood, tucked in the blanket, and tested Hels’s forehead temperature with the back of his hand. Still hot.

Han Ya was extremely displeased with Horne’s behavior and said passive-aggressively, “You like him that much? I’m done. Leaving aside everything else, I just admire how you took a not-fully-socialized orphan and molded him into someone you like. What kind of person are you, Horne Zema Lin? Don’t go falling for someone like that…”

“I’m heading to the monitoring room.” Horne stood directly and walked out, interrupting Han Ya’s rant on the way.

“Me too!”

From Hels’s disappearance in the illusion to confirming he still existed, Horne felt he had endured a grueling, arduous campaign. Even now, recalling the scene of his disappearance brought cold sweat to his palms.

Molded into someone he liked?

He had never before harbored thoughts of monopolizing Hels. Clearly, over these years, Hels had grown into that form himself.

A crowd had gathered in the monitoring room, communicating and debugging the wall-filling screens and equipment. When Horne entered, the people inside looked over in unison; those who recognized him greeted him.

“Colonel Horne.”

Horne nodded lightly.

“Ains doesn’t seem to be here yet,” Han Ya said softly beside him. He sighed as he looked at all the equipment filling the room. “I really didn’t expect her to have this kind of ability.”

As Han Ya spoke, the technical staff up front were also discussing it. “The recon drones ran perfectly for so many years—can that little girl really do it?”

“She can.”

A single word came through the door crack. The door opened again, and in walked a man in neat attire, his brows furrowed with natural creases, looking in his forties or fifties. He strode in and stood at the very front, stating matter-of-factly, “She can.”

The man said seriously to the one who had just asked, “In terms of system programming and code writing, I once thought no human could be more professional than me. When I first heard a girl in her teens had tampered with the holographic game code, I scoffed. I thought it was sheer arrogance.”

As he spoke, a contemptuous look was plainly on his face.

“I just wondered which loser wanted to show off their skills this time. Later, I checked the code she modified—messy and chaotic. Ha, just as expected.” Here, he clutched his forehead and laughed, unclear if mocking others or himself. “But when I really looked closely, I didn’t sleep that whole night. This girl is the most talented person I’ve ever seen in this field, only in her teens, with limitless potential ahead. And I had always thought she was a hopeless waste, as long as she got proper guidance…”

As he spoke, the technical staff all listened intently; no one interrupted.

“Who’s this?” Han Ya asked, his voice very low, but in the room quiet except for the hum of machinery, it was clear enough.

Han Ya instantly looked embarrassed. “Uh.”

The man turned his head, glanced at Han Ya, then shifted his gaze to Horne. He walked over in two steps. “Hello, Colonel Horne, I’ve heard so much about you. Hello, Deputy Han, I’m Homan, head of the technical zone.”

“Hello.” They answered simultaneously.

Homan spared no extra glances for the two, walking back to the equipment to ask, “Any response from the resonance point yet?”

“Not yet.”

The creases on Homan’s brow deepened. He stood amid the countless devices and instruments, staring at the fluctuating waveforms and blanks, muttering to himself, “Can we really find the Hermit this way?”

Hermit? It wasn’t the first time Horne had heard that name.

The technical staff continued their professional work. Han Ya thought for a long while beside him, then suddenly reacted.

“I remember where I’ve seen Homan before.” He slapped his hand. “Isn’t this the boss of Dol Company?”

Han Ya leaned close to Horne, covering his mouth as he whispered, “See? The genius I brought back—even Dol Company’s boss acknowledges her talent. Don’t I look like a talent scout?”

Horne did not call out Han Ya; he figured if he revealed the truth, Han Ya would surely fight Hels to the death.

Horne’s small act of kindness shattered two seconds later.

The door opened once more, and Ains finally arrived. She took two steps in and froze, standing motionless. After a silent moment, she unwillingly called out, “Father.”

Han Ya looked puzzled at Ains, then puzzled at Homan, his gaze shifting to Horne. In an instant, his face flushed red. He gnashed his teeth and squeezed out from between them, “Hels, fuck your whole family.”

Horne couldn’t hold back and laughed.

He had reacted in the illusion when Ains said Hels had always been good to her.

Ains had simply been Hels’s spy placed by Han Ya and Wen Yu, perfectly utilizing her seemingly innocent appearance to gain their trust, then relaying all information to Hels. Hels had grasped their every move.

Unfortunately, Han Ya and Wen Yu were unaware. When Horne had just awakened, they had used Ains to approach him again, guiding him into the holographic game and having her alter the code. Ains had pretended to join their side and cooperated fully. In the end, it was Hels who had tracked everyone’s movements.

Horne had wondered back then why, on his first visit to the Red Light District, Ains had so coincidentally brazenly tried to steal right in the open. In such a vast Red Light District, she had precisely reached out to him and called “big brother.”

Though Ains’s lie about her “mother being gravely ill” had fooled Horne, it had also fooled Han Ya and Wen Yu.

As for Ains herself, she probably preferred staying with Hels since he and Homan were close, rather than leaving her father.

Ains was in a bad mood and said nothing while Homan helped her calibrate the equipment, sulking for a good while. When she saw Homan placing devices in spots she didn’t like, she finally snapped irritably, “Just put them back where they were.”

Homan frowned. “This one here is inconvenient for observing data reception.”

“As long as it’s convenient for me.” Ains grew more impatient. She walked over and moved the device back to her preferred spot.

“How can it be convenient all the way over there? I manage so many subordinates, taught so many people—don’t I know?” Homan was stern.

Ains paused for two seconds, her face dark as she moved the device back to Homan’s designated spot and slammed it down hard on the table with a “bang.” Nearby people looked over, but no one spoke.

“Here, is this okay? Can you stop meddling in my affairs?” As soon as they met, they started arguing. Ains didn’t want to see him at all and didn’t want his assistance either.

Homan looked at the repositioned equipment, sighed, and softened his tone somewhat. “Sigh, you’re always like this. Your progress was slow before precisely because you wouldn’t listen to me. I say these things not to harm you—you need to learn to be more efficient.”

Ains didn’t know what had struck a nerve, but she suddenly broke down and yelled at Homan. “Don’t talk about me anymore! You just want to find a reason to scold me! You’ll never change! No matter what I do, you can always criticize me! I’m always the one who’s wrong!”

She turned and rushed out, slamming the door behind her. This left the room full of technicians and Homan exchanging bewildered glances.

“How so sudden…” Han Ya stared dumbfoundedly at the door, pointing.