Alien Hotel.

Chapter 524 Strange Phenomena in Another Land
A bone-chilling coldness instantly swept over him. The next moment, as his teammates exclaimed in surprise, Xu Jiali also felt his steps suddenly slow down, as if something had suddenly bound his hands and feet. A chill that could freeze even the soul caused this powerful deep-sea diver to instantly lose control of his limbs. Only then did he notice, out of the corner of his eye, that wisps of black lines had appeared in the mist.

These imperceptible black lines seemed to have solidified out of thin air, floating in the fog and crisscrossing the streets. Three deep-sea divers had accidentally touched the lines, and the overwhelming cold and stiffness made them freeze in place.

The next second, the power armor started sounding an alarm; the sensor module connected to the umbilical cord detected the user's abnormality—

"Warning, mild dissociation, warning, mild dissociation..."

The psionic servant walking beside her instantly sensed the contracted deep-sea diver's abnormal state. Bell's pupils suddenly contracted into two narrow slits, and the fur on her tail stood on end: "Boss, what's wrong with you, meow!"

As she spoke, the girl named Jibril picked up her mechanical orb, preparing to activate her spiritual energy field to dispel the eerie, spider-like threads.

But Xu Jiali suddenly stopped her: "Wait—retreat and wait for orders. The other unaffected deep-sea divers also slowly retreated outside these threads."

All deep-sea divers immediately maintained their defensive formation and began a slow retreat, protecting the several psionic servants on site within the formation. Xu Jiali and two other affected deep-sea divers remained in the tangled fog.

"Don't resist forcefully, move your hands and feet slowly," Xu Jiali said in a deep voice, while slowly moving her arms to gradually break free from the spider silk. "Don't be nervous, we're not entangled, we've just made contact, but if you move around too much, you might really get entangled... This weird thing gets tighter the more you struggle..."

The other two deep-sea divers quickly followed suit, and a muffled voice came from under one of their helmets: "Captain, do you know what this is?"

Xu Jiali frowned, looking at the spider silk floating in the mist: "...Yes, I've seen them before, but they shouldn't be here."

He recognized it as Eileen's "thread"—but why would the little doll's thread be in this place? And why would it spread out of thin air in the fog like this...

Xu Jiali's mind was filled with doubt. Amidst a jumble of wild guesses, his gaze swept across the streets on both sides. Suddenly, he noticed that the black "spider webs" that seemed to have appeared out of nowhere in the fog were not just the ones in front of him. There were many more spider webs floating higher up, crisscrossing and intersecting. They passed through the warning barriers between the foggy and light foggy areas, and in the areas where the fog was thinner, they could even be seen passing directly through the towering buildings.

Visibility was extremely poor in the fog; he could only make out a small portion of the spiderwebs, but even this tiny patch sent a chill down his spine.

It was as if an invisible net, perhaps woven long ago but never noticed by anyone, was covering the entire city.

The chilling feeling suddenly receded from his body, and Xu Jiali's hands and feet finally broke free from the black threads that pierced his limbs. He instantly took two steps back, and in the next second, he was shocked to find that the spider silk that had just trapped him and his teammates had vanished in an instant.

Even the spiderwebs that stretched out in the thin mist and floated in mid-air had disappeared.

"Captain!" a deep-sea diver who had also just broken free from the spider webs immediately exclaimed, "That thing is gone!"

"I saw it." Xu Jiali waved her hand, then cautiously raised her heavy particle rifle and probed the spot where the spider silk had been floating. After a moment, she reached out to try it again, only to find that the thing was really gone.

Collective hallucination? Very unlikely.

Xu Jiali frowned and immediately turned on the communication device to report the abnormal situation here. Conventional communication equipment could not be used in the alien environment, but the "umbilical cord" device used by the deep divers was not affected. In addition, in recent times, a large number of communication nodes based on "Spirit Fox Xuan Tie" technology have been set up in large alien environments such as Fog City. He and his teammates can contact the Special Operations Bureau headquarters at any time here.

That's how it should be in theory.

There was only a burst of unstable noise in the communication channel.

Immediately afterwards, other deep-sea divers also discovered the anomaly in the communicator.

"Captain, communications have been lost!"

Xu Jiali frowned deeply, then suddenly looked down at her chest.

A "chain" covered with black alloy joints extended from the interface of the power armor. The chain was only a dozen centimeters long and seemed to float slowly as if it were floating in invisible water. Red light flashed between the links of the chain, and the rhythm was steady.

“The umbilical cord connection is normal... but all communication is lost,” he said gravely, then quickly gave the order, “Number two and three, attempt an emergency 'ascent'.”

The umbilical cord devices on the chests of the two deep-sea divers flickered a few times before returning to stillness.

"Report, ascent failed - no response received from 'dive port'."

"Bell, try to break free."

"Boss! We can't get out, meow!" The girl, Jibril, fiddled with the arm guards of her light power armor for a few moments, then looked up and blinked. "The psionic link is broken too." After contact with the black spider silk, all communication was lost. The umbilical cord was still connected, but everyone was unable to float, the psionic servants couldn't return to reality, and the psionic link was severed…

These conditions may recover over time, or they may not.

"Continue moving towards the target area as planned. There are fixed communication nodes and safe houses near the next fog barrier," Xu Jiali ordered without much hesitation. "In the meantime, continue to try to call 'Port' and the other deep-sea teams in Fog City—Team Three. Deploy relay drones to try to contact the walking drones we left behind and see if their communication devices work. If they do, bring one over. Bell, be on guard. Those things we can't see are your responsibility."

"Received." "Okay, boss!"

After quickly completing the setup, the deep-sea diving team continued to move through the fog-shrouded streets.

They crossed a crossroads where the road always sloped, and then passed a building that stood on the edge of the thick fog, swaying and bending like thin paper cutouts. The lights in the distance appeared increasingly hazy and indistinct, and the towering buildings seemed to stand silently in the fog and shadows, as if they could never be reached.

Xu Jiali suddenly slowed down.

Everyone stopped right behind him.

A smooth surface appeared in front of the deep-sea diving team—the surface had a silvery-white texture, as if it were made of some kind of alloy.

"...Boss, the roads in the city don't seem to look like this, meow." Bell widened her eyes and muttered softly.

Xu Jiali gripped her weapon tightly and led her team forward cautiously for a while longer.

The sight ahead caused even the seasoned deep-sea divers to stop in their tracks in astonishment.

They saw a wall—a towering, slightly curved wall, like the outer wall of some kind of large spatial facility, standing in the fog, tilted at about a thirty-degree angle to the ground. One end of the wall was buried directly in the ground, while the other end rested on a nearby shopping mall building. There were also some mechanical structures extending from the wall, which seemed to be "integrated" into the surrounding buildings.

Xu Jiali: "...?"

What is this thing? Why would there be one in Jiecheng?
Fog City is an "alienated copy" of Boundary City. Everything here is a shadow cast by the real Boundary City. Even though the projection of the foggy streets would appear more distorted and chaotic, Xu Jiali had never seen such an outrageous sight in all the times she had led her team here. Moreover, this was not a foggy street at all. Where did this thing come from?!

In the blink of an eye, just as Xu Jiali was feeling a bit bewildered, he suddenly noticed that the "wall" in the distance had moved.

The massive alloy wall, resembling the outer wall of some giant space station, "flickered" in the fog, and then began to move crookedly along the street toward this place, and at an increasingly faster speed—it was like a mountain crashing down on us!

"Holy crap—get out of the way!"

Xu Jiali's hair stood on end on the spot. She shouted and led her people to dodge to the side, while also grabbing the nearest psionic servant.

The sudden overload noise of the powered armor joints shattered the silence of the foggy street, and the flash of the booster rockets abruptly illuminated the surroundings.

Bell was being dragged sideways through the air by her boss, and she let out a loud meow and started chattering away: "Boss, there's something I've been wanting to tell you. I used the allowance you had in your account to buy catnip. I'm really good to you in this life, and I want to be with you again in the next. Do you want to learn how to smoke catnip and bite your tongue with me too, meow..."

The next second, the overwhelming alloy wall suddenly accelerated again. Even with the deep-sea divers' speed, they couldn't dodge it. Everyone could only watch helplessly as this gigantic structure, which seemed capable of crushing an entire city block, crashed down upon them.

Then watch it pass through the entire street unscathed, like a phantom.

Xu Jiali stared in disbelief at the scene, watching the towering alloy wall, which was nothing like a phantom, silently pass through the city in the fog. He could even clearly see the structure behind that alloy wall—vast supports, complex pipes and cables, unrecognizable mechanical cabins, corridors and gates…

Immediately afterwards, he saw a huge cabin—it looked like a canteen, with many people dressed as researchers and others in combat uniforms sitting together eating.

He and his deep-sea diving team quickly passed through the middle of the "canteen," and then two researchers seemed to suddenly see something, and jumped up from behind the table, pointing in Xu Jiali's direction and exclaiming.

Xu Jiali didn't hear what the other person was shouting—because the whole process was silent.

Then, the alloy wall, the canteen, the Algerians... everything vanished into thin air.

(End of this chapter)