157: Chapter 157 Infiltrating the Interior

The LV6-class warship had undergone exaggerated spatial expansion.

Zhou An was responsible for exploring the central section of the flagship, which was the most complex in structure and the most expansive in area.

"The density of the shielding walls is even higher than I imagined..."

In the dim metal corridor, Zhou An narrowed his eyes, his brows knitting slightly. In the vast airspace outside, thanks to the spatial affinity provided by the Void Star Arm, his mental perception could instantly cover a range of one or two kilometers.

However, inside this LV6 flagship, the surroundings were all shielding partitions mixed with insulating Meteor Gold. His spatial perception felt as if it had fallen into thick mud; his detection range was drastically compressed, and it advanced extremely slowly.

"Thump, thump, thump..."

Uniform, heavy footsteps echoed from the corner ahead.

Cormac had evidently raised the security level inside the flagship to the maximum. A heavily armored patrol team consisting of eight Tier 3 Winged clan members was holding rifles, vigilantly scanning every corner.

Zhou An still did not open his eyes. Relying on the subtle outlines fed back from the space, his figure was like a weightless leaf. A second before the patrol team's gaze swept over, he smoothly slipped into the shadow of a recessed pipe.

The patrol soldiers walked past almost brushing his nose, yet they were completely unaware of Zhou An, who was within arm's reach.

Once the footsteps faded away, Zhou An started moving again.

Since large-scale scanning was restricted, he simply kept his eyes closed, fully releasing his body's instinctive perception of the surrounding space. Like a blind man strolling in his own backyard, he walked leisurely through this heavily guarded enemy camp, precisely avoiding wave after wave of guards.

Meanwhile, on the other side, Hila was clinging to the outer edge of the ceiling ventilation duct, silently groping forward like an agile white cat.

Although she used to be a member of the White Feather Guild, she rarely had the qualifications to enter the depths of the main ship.

Fortunately, before setting off, Ivy had shared the detailed map and room layout of this place with her, giving her a rough understanding of those high-privilege confidential cabins.

"The first confinement room, empty... The second dark cabin, also empty."

Hila hung upside down from a ventilation louver and took a look at the empty room through the detector given by Luo Ning, a flash of anxiety appearing in her cold eyes. Every extra second of delay meant another bit of danger.

Just as she was preparing to flip over and head to the next area, a dense wave of energy fluctuations suddenly came from the end of the corridor.

"Keep your eyes sharp! Do you think the Great Elder is paying you to sit around and do nothing?!"

An LV4-class guard captain holding a broad-bladed energy sword walked over, cursing, followed by a full twenty heavily armed elite guards.

Hila's eyes narrowed. She immediately flipped and hid in the shadow behind a huge statue of the Wind God nearby, simultaneously holding her breath and suppressing the psionic fluctuations in her body to the extreme.

However, that LV4 guard captain seemed to possess some kind of olfactory or sensory enhancement talent.

As he passed the statue, his footsteps suddenly paused. His nostrils twitched twice, and he abruptly turned his head to stare at the shadow where Hila was hiding.

"Who's there?! Come out!"

The guard captain let out a furious roar. The energy sword in his hand instantly lit up with a blinding red glow, and the twenty guards behind him simultaneously aimed their weapons at the space behind the statue.

"I've been discovered!"

Hila's heart tightened, but she did not panic. If she were to engage directly, although a Tier 5 could instantly kill a Tier 4, once these twenty-plus people opened fire, it would inevitably trigger the area alarm.

In the blink of an eye, not only did Hila not retreat, but she kicked off the ground and darted out from the shadows like white lightning!

"Enemy attack—!"

The guard captain's pupils constricted, and he was just about to press the alarm button on his communicator.

Hila flicked her wrist. Instead of using her long spear, she accurately threw two small silver-gray spheres at the guard captain's feet.

"Bang! Bang!"

There was no violent explosion, only two soft thuds. Immediately after, a colorless and odorless special mist instantly enveloped these twenty-plus guards.

"What the... ugh..."

The guard captain only felt as if his brain had been struck hard by a heavy hammer. His vision went black instantly, and before he could even shout a single word, he collapsed like a noodle. The rest of the guards fell like wheat being harvested, silently collapsing in a heap, all falling into a deep coma.

Looking at the elites who had passed out on the floor, Hila stepped out of the mist and let out a long sigh of relief.

"This special high-concentration anesthetic smoke bomb that Ms. Shen Xingyue gave me is really useful..."

Hila couldn't help but mutter, a newfound sense of awe for that always cold-faced doctor growing in her heart.

She nimbly dragged these people like dead pigs into a utility room behind the statue and locked the door behind her.

"Searching like this is not a solution."

Hila brushed the dust off her hands and looked toward the thick metal door at the end of the corridor that was flashing with a red warning light.

"It seems I have to go directly to those core high-security areas to take a look."

On the other side, as the former ace guard captain of the White Feather Guild, Ivy knew the internal structure of this LV flagship like the back of her hand.

The combat suit's optical camouflage perfectly blended Ivy's figure into the shadows of the metal passageway.

She moved extremely quickly, without the slightest hesitation. At every intersection and every cabin door, as long as there was no extremely high-intensity psionic reaction inside, she wouldn't even stop, passing right by.

"Thump, thump, thump..."

At the corner ahead, four inner guards holding heavy electromagnetic rifles were walking over, chatting and laughing. This was already a high-privilege area, and they clearly didn't expect that any foreign enemy could silently infiltrate this far.

Ivy's eyes turned cold. Although the newborn wings on her back could not engage in high-intensity combat, combined with the kinetic propulsion of her Tier 5 combat suit, they still endowed her with terrifying explosive power.

"Swish!"

A jet-black afterimage flashed by.

Before they could even let out a cry of alarm, the two inner guards walking in front felt a pain in their necks, and their vision went black as they slumped down. The remaining two were just about to raise their rifles when Ivy's legs swept out like sharp battle axes. Accompanied by two dull sounds of bone cracking, all four inner guards were taken down within a single second.

Ivy nimbly dragged these four people into a blind spot near the ventilation duct, then skillfully rummaged through the body of the leading guard captain, tearing off a high-level identity access card that was flashing with purple light.

"With this, those internal isolation doors will be much easier to handle."

Ivy spun the identity card on her fingertip, tucked it into a groove in her combat suit, and then, like a nimble black panther, continued to sneak deeper into the flagship.

However, just as she used the identity card to swipe open the next access door—

"Woo—woo—woo—!!!"

The ear-piercing blood-red alarm lights suddenly flashed wildly without any warning, and the sharp siren instantly tore through the deathly silence inside the flagship!

Immediately after, the sound of heavy, dense metal combat boots hitting the floor surged from all directions like a tide...

"Great Elder! Something has happened!"

The intelligence officer reported, his face deathly pale.

"We have discovered a large number of patrol guards unconscious on the ground in the starboard officer area and the central conduit area! Someone not only didn't run away but has infiltrated the interior of our flagship!"

"What about the surveillance?! There are tens of thousands of cameras on the ship; are they all just for show?!" Cormac roared.

"The surveillance footage... is completely normal."

The intelligence officer swallowed his saliva, his voice trembling.

"No footage of any suspicious personnel was captured. The other party must be carrying some kind of shielding device; even infrared and thermal imaging have been wiped out!"

"Bastards! They are making a monkey out of me!"

Cormac completely lost it. He turned his head abruptly and looked at a burly Winged clan member standing in the corner, exuding the terrifying aura of a mid-Tier 5, clad in heavy armor.

"Flynn! What are you good for as the Captain of the Inner Guard?! Immediately take your men and activate the indiscriminate life-sign scan for the entire ship! Drag those rats hiding in the dark out for me; I want to skin them alive!"

"As you command, Great Elder."

Captain Flynn struck his chest armor heavily, a bloodthirsty glint flashing in his eyes, and turned to stride out of the command room.

As the alarm sounded, the number of guards in the corridor instantly increased several times over. The laser defense grid on the ceiling also entered the highest level of standby status.

Zhou An was hiding behind the shadow of a huge load-bearing pillar, watching teams of nervous-looking guards run past him.

Just then, in the tactical earpiece that had been silent, Ivy's lowered but hard-to-suppress excited voice came through:

"I found it! There is a secret confinement room here, and the energy threshold is terrifyingly high."

"Report your location." Zhou An responded immediately.

"It's in the innermost part of the second level of the bottom deck. Spatial coordinates show that this is exactly underneath the first command and control hall!"

Ivy's voice was accompanied by faint static, "The security level outside is extremely high, all heavy energy locks above Tier 5. If Guild Master Grace wasn't being held inside, Cormac would absolutely have no need to waste such vast amounts of energy in a place like this."

"Innermost part of the second level, right under the command hall..."

Zhou An closed his eyes, and the 3D structural diagram of the warship instantly appeared in his mind.

"You hide first, don't alert the enemy. Cormac's Inner Guard battalion has already started indiscriminate searching. You can't open those locks on the outside; once exposed, we will fall into a passive position."

"Wait for me to get there."

"Received, I am also moving toward your side." In the communication channel, Hila's cold voice also followed.

Zhou An cut the communication, spotted a visual blind spot where a team of guards was changing shifts, lightly tapped his toe on the ground, and the energy of the Void Star Arm wrapped around his whole body. His entire being turned into a faint starlight invisible to the naked eye and instantly disappeared.

At the end of the silent metal corridor, a dark gold sealed door that was outrageously thick was tightly closed.

There were no conventional door handles or combination locks on the door.

"Swish."

Space twisted slightly, and Zhou An, like an incorporeal ghost, appeared out of thin air in the blind spot in front of the sealed door.

Ivy, who had been in a state of optical camouflage, immediately deactivated her disguise and appeared from the shadows.

"You're here."

Ivy lowered her voice, her tone revealing an undisguisable tension.

Zhou An looked up and examined the sealed door, which didn't even have a crack, then turned to look at Ivy and asked in a low voice: "Why are you so sure that Guild Master Grace is being held here? This door doesn't even have an air vent."

Ivy pointed to the shadow under the ventilation duct not far away, where several Winged clan medical personnel in white protective suits were lying in a heap.

Ivy's eyes were icy, "The carts they were pushing were full of epic-grade life-support fluids used to keep someone alive, as well as large amounts of painkillers and tools for removing necrotic tissue. There are no other wounded personnel on the flagship who could use this level of medical resources."

She gritted her teeth, looking at that door with some unwillingness, and added: "This door has been fitted with the highest-level LV6 bloodline recognition lock. Only Cormac himself or someone with his direct bloodline can open it. Forcing a hack will instantly trigger the destruction program inside; I can't get in."

"Is that all."

Zhou An chuckled, his tone as relaxed as if he were strolling through his own storage room. He stepped forward and reached out to grip Ivy's shoulder: "Bloodline recognition can stop physical infiltration, but it can't stop spatial traversal."

As soon as he finished speaking, the [Void Star Arm] on Zhou An's right arm suddenly lit up with deep starlight.

"Hum—"

Ivy felt her vision twist and pull intensely. In less than a thousandth of a second, the suffocating sensation of passing through thick metal instantly vanished.

When the two regained their footing and saw the scene before them, Zhou An and Ivy were both stunned.

Completely different from the dark and oppressive metal corridor outside, behind this sealed door was a pure white laboratory that was blindingly uncomfortable.

The walls, floor, and ceiling were all a stark, unblemished white, and the air was filled with an thick, inseparable smell of medical preservatives and high-concentration nutrient solution.

And in the very center of the pure white room stood a huge transparent cylindrical glass tank three meters high.

The tank was filled with a light cyan nutrient solution, and hundreds of tubes of varying thicknesses were densely inserted into it. And in the center of those tubes and nutrient solution, a miserable woman was floating.

That was Grace, the Guild Master of the White Feather Guild.

Grace had her eyes closed, her face pale as paper. Her body, which should have been proud and full of explosive power, now looked like a rag doll that had been cruelly dismantled.

Her left hand and right leg were completely missing, and the stumps hadn't even healed; instead, they were forcibly connected to thick metal tubes.

The wings, which were the symbol of the Winged clan's power and dignity, had been cruelly torn out by the roots! Only two huge, bloody holes remained, with pale flesh curling in the immersion of the nutrient solution.

The tubes inserted into her body were, on one hand, forcibly injecting life-sustaining nutrient solution into her broken body, maintaining her extremely weak vitality.

On the other hand, they were constantly draining the core psionic energy that she, as the binder of the LV6 flagship, possessed!

"Guild... Master..."

Ivy stared fixedly at the woman in the glass tank who had almost lost her human form, her eye sockets instantly filled with tears. She was trembling violently, suddenly covering her mouth tightly, afraid that she wouldn't be able to control herself from letting out a shrill scream.

That was the belief that had led them to carve out a bloody path in this cruel world! Cormac, that beast!

"Get her out, we..."

Zhou An just wanted to speak to tell Ivy to get ready to receive her when a burst of ear-piercing static and the sound of weapons colliding suddenly came through the tactical earpiece.

After receiving the specific coordinates from Ivy, Hila immediately gave up on covert searching and rushed toward the bottom deck at full speed.

However, the density of guards inside the flagship had reached a terrifying level because of the alarm sounding.

When Hila, like a white ghost, rushed out of the corner of a cross-corridor, she ran head-on into a thick "wall of steel."

"Who goes there?!"

A deafening roar exploded in the corridor.

Hila slammed on the brakes and looked up. She saw that directly in front of the corridor, a Winged clan general over two and a half meters tall, wearing heavy dark red armor, was holding a giant axe, blocking the path. Behind him were a full hundred heavily armed inner guards waiting in battle formation!

It was the captain who had been ordered to search, the mid-Tier 5 powerhouse—Flynn.

This was a direct confrontation with no room for maneuver.

Flynn's bloodshot eyes stared fixedly at the woman who had suddenly appeared before him.

Because Hila was wearing the electronic distortion jammer specially made by Luo Ning and was wearing a full-coverage combat suit, Flynn couldn't see her true appearance for a moment.

But he recognized at a glance that the streamlined combat suit in front of him, which exuded astonishing energy fluctuations, was definitely not a product of the White Feather Guild!

"No matter who you are, if you dare to trespass on our turf, you will die here today!"

A cruel, ferocious smile curled on the corner of Flynn's mouth. He swung the vibrating giant axe in his hand, bringing with it a shrill sound of wind-breaking, and directly issued the kill order.

"Heavy Guard! Hack her into minced meat for me!"