Alien Hotel.

Chapter 533 Approaching the Border
The eerie intruder was torn to shreds almost instantly by a hail of bullets—its mangled body, propelled by inertia, flew a short distance through the air before landing just two or three meters in front of Zolda Blackstone and the golden-haired elf.

The gunfire stopped, and the hall fell silent for a moment.

They just killed him like that? So easily?
"I thought this was some kind of invulnerable monster..." a security soldier muttered, "How can you kill it with a gun?"

"Don't let your guard down!" a commander-like man quickly reminded him. "This intruder is very suspicious! You two, go and check the body."

"Yes!"

The soldiers began to carefully handle the scene, while the golden-haired elf standing next to the Zolda Black Stone seemed a little dazed.

A slight stinging and dizziness was swirling deep within her mind. Part of this was due to the direct connection with the "Black Stone," but this "aftereffect" was different from usual. Some kind of... discordant "noise" had entered her consciousness, and the noise in her mind had been inexplicably amplified when the intruder made a leaping attack, and it had not completely subsided yet.

The blonde elf shook her head vigorously, feeling her vision suddenly clear and then as if covered by layers of black gauze, with strange black threads appearing in her sight from time to time—a moment later, a sudden unease brought her back to her senses.

That was the innate spiritual intuition of a high-level astrologer. Although she had abandoned the identity of "astrologer" many years ago, she was still an Algerian blessed by the stars.

She looked down sharply at the ground and saw a pool of blood slowly expanding beneath the intruder's corpse, the blood trickling down towards the Zolda Black Stone and her own feet.

When a person is injured, they bleed, and blood flows; this is a normal phenomenon.

But as she watched the blood slowly flow and spread, she suddenly felt a strong sense of unease and vigilance—an overwhelming sense of fear welled up from the bottom of her heart, as if she were looking at some ancient and indescribable monster.

The blonde elf's eyes suddenly changed, and her wheel-like mechanical feet slid backward instantly. At the same time, she raised her finger and pointed to the ground, and a ball of blazing spiritual energy formed at her fingertip in the blink of an eye.

The fireball flew towards the blood, but before they made contact, the flowing blood suddenly stopped and quickly transformed into a line of text in the golden-haired elf's vision—

"Oops, you discovered me."

"laugh--"

The blood was instantly evaporated by the spiritual fireball, leaving only a radial pattern of charred marks on the ground.

A slight chill spread through her heart. The golden-haired elf stood rooted to the spot, momentarily doubting whether she had truly vanquished that bizarre enemy—had the blood really evaporated? Or had it melted into the Zolda Black Stone's binding device at the last moment? Had she truly seen it clearly?

Then she lowered her head and began to quickly check herself, looking for any drops of blood splattered on her.

The soldiers on the black dot nearby had already noticed the anomaly. They quickly collected the intruder's body into body bags and began using flamethrowers to scorch the ground around the body. A commander quickly ordered, "Send the body to the incinerator..."

“No,” the blonde elf interrupted the on-site commander, her eyes fixed on the body bag on the ground. A throbbing pain shot through her temple as her spiritual intuition warned her of danger. In a rapid thought, her brow furrowed. “No, we can’t continue contact, we can’t leave it in the space station… Stuff this thing into the ejection launcher, launch it into space as fast as possible, then follow up with a ‘Falling Star’ missile to burn it up in space—go now!”

"Yes Yes!"

……

Inside the Secret Service headquarters building, in the all-area early warning and monitoring hall, Baili Qing, who had rushed over, frowned as she looked at the images displayed on the holographic projection of the main monitoring system.

On the massive map symbolizing the entire border region, countless spacetime instability points are flashing one after another—including alien realms scattered throughout the border city, as well as various spatial passages and shortcut networks leading to distant places. Around many of these flashing instability points, red light spots representing various levels of anomalies flicker uncertainly.

The last time the monitoring center emitted a sharp explosion was the night someone shattered the entire spatial structure of the border area with a single door, triggering the Secret Service's highest security alert.

Bai Liqing rubbed her temples, trying to shake the unpleasant memories out of her mind.

The head of the monitoring center stood beside her, his sparse hair glistening with sweat from tension: "The first wave of anomalies started about an hour ago. It was irregular; something unseen randomly swept across the spatiotemporal instability points across the entire territory. The intensity wasn't actually high—compared to the commotion when Yu Sheng 'opened the door,' but the situation was very strange..."

"Many affected alien realms experienced brief deep drifts. Several operators and deep-dive teams on missions in the alien realms reported observing alternate-dimensional projections—strange architectural structures and illusions of people appearing out of nowhere in the alien realms, appearing suddenly and disappearing quickly..."

"Most of the projections did not make contact with the witnesses, but in two projections, the phantoms of people seemed to have observed our operators and showed surprised and nervous reactions..."

"Yes, they are all Algerians."

The head of the monitoring center paused briefly to observe Baili Qing's reaction before continuing, "The peak of the anomalies has passed, and the frequency and intensity of abnormal events have decreased, but they still occur from time to time throughout the region. In addition, just fifteen minutes ago, a deep-dive team reported that they observed suspicious spider silk crossing the entire alien realm at 'Windmill Mill'—this is the third reported spider silk sighting in the alien realms, besides 'Mist City' and 'Dark Alley'."

"They all appeared in quick succession within the last hour." Baili Qing crossed her arms, slowly tapping her fingers on her arm, before breaking the silence: "What about the real dimension?"

“The real world remains stable, and that invisible force doesn’t seem to be able to penetrate the L-0 depth boundary—at least not for now,” the person in charge said quickly. “However… we have received several reports from alien inhabitants in the city, all of them Algered or Gibraltars—they say they have sensed ‘an impending danger’ and unstable psionic changes.”

"Given the Algraids' and Gibraltars' keen talent in the realm of psionic energy, it's likely that 'power' has already begun to influence the real world."

Bai Liqing listened silently, and after a few seconds of oppressive silence, she nodded slightly: "I understand—continue monitoring. Also, focus on monitoring the Wutong Road area and the area around the Council Tower. Report any unusual activity to me immediately."

"clear."

After leaving the monitoring center, Baili Qing did not return to her office, but instead took the elevator to a special floor—the Nth floor.

On this special floor where no one would disturb her, she breathed a sigh of relief, then took off one of her earrings and reactivated a hidden passage.

The call was repeated several times before the connection was finally established—the other party's voice sounded noticeably tired, impatient, and resistant: "Listen, I'm very busy right now—our 'relationship' shouldn't be enough for someone as important as you to have nothing better to do than chat with me..."

“I have received clear intelligence that a laboratory within the Black Dot Group is researching a relic that may originate from an ‘extraterrestrial god.’ Its internal name is ‘Zorda Black Stone’—is this your project?”

Bai Liqing's direct and forceful opening question seemed to have caught the other party off guard. There was a silence on the other end of the communication channel for several seconds before a response came through: "We lost a soldier, and now it seems he really did fall into your hands—but the surveillance footage showed that he was captured by an 'artificial saintess.' Your Special Operations Bureau calls us extremists, but when did you get involved with those real lunatics from the Secret Order..."

“We have no cooperation with the Cult of Saints, and these trivial matters are irrelevant to the current topic,” Baili Qing interrupted. “Luo, listen, considering we’ve cooperated a few times and you’ve never betrayed me, I’m giving you a friendly reminder—your project is very likely getting out of control. The border regions can already observe the anomalies on your side. You’re different from your ‘colleagues,’ I don’t understand why you would engage in such dangerous activities…”

“My project is going smoothly—everything is under control,” came the impatient voice from the earring. “There might be a few minor ‘leaks’ within the margin of error, but they’re just small problems… As long as you don’t send a bunch of weirdos to mess with me, everything will be back on track soon. Understand? I don’t want to cause trouble for anyone, and I don’t want anyone to cause trouble for me—let me do my research in peace and quiet…”

The sound from the earring suddenly stopped, followed by some faint, chaotic background noise.

Bai Liqing frowned slightly: "What's the situation on your end?"

Two or three seconds later, a response came from the other end of the communication channel: "For some reason, someone suddenly launched a missile into space—it was probably an accident, and it has nothing to do with you. Listen, I've said all I wanted to say, and I'm really busy right now—and frankly, I don't trust you or your Secret Service. The trade losses you've caused me over the years far exceed any of my experimental accidents, so goodbye."

After a brief burst of noise, the holographic projection above the earring disappeared.

Bai Liqing stared blankly at the now-extinguished crystal earrings, her eyes turning cold.

A moment later, she picked up the earring and slowly applied pressure to it.

With a slight creaking sound, the crystal on the earring was crushed into powder, and the metal was rubbed into a red-hot lump of waste.

"I may have been too polite to her," she said casually.

A pair of enormous eyes silently floated behind her.

"Just because a rat hides too well doesn't mean it's invincible," Baili Xue's voice rang out calmly. "Sooner or later, we'll give her two ships of soldiers..."

“Her lab is located in an illegal area…” Baili Qing rubbed her temples. “Never mind, the most important thing now is to rebuild the spacetime protection of the border area—there’s still a lot of work to be done.”

She let out a soft breath, her gaze falling again on the broken earring in her right palm.

Under her gaze, the dust reformed, and the damaged metal structure began to repair itself as if time had reversed.

Bai Liqing sighed and put the earring back on her ears.

"So, sister, even if you're angry, why did you squeeze it just now? If you break it, you'll have to fix it yourself..."

"Shut up."

"Oh."

(End of this chapter)