Alien Hotel.

Chapter 693 Connection

Everything happened in the blink of an eye; the black "stone" floating with eerie light had already fallen into the turbulent light curtain at the center of the Gate of Eden.

In fact, the two high priests and the "Holy Throne" closest to the catalyst had a chance to react and intercept it—for such powerful psionicists, even catching a bullet that has just left the barrel is not a difficult task.

However, they watched helplessly as this scene unfolded—in that instant, the flow of time in everyone's perception seemed to be reversed, the fact that the "angelic catalyst" had fallen into the gate seemed to have happened in the distant past, and everyone's perception of time in front of the Gate of Eden was stretched hundreds or thousands of times in that instant.

A great sage, leaning on a pedestal, slowly raised his head, trying to look at the sky—he felt the entire sky gradually darkening, the clouds covering the Gate of Eden were becoming tainted with a murky and viscous texture, the wind suddenly turned cold, and an unsettling low rumble was emanating from the light curtain at the center of the gate.

Thoughts became sluggish, movements became difficult, the world tilted, and light seemed to transform into some kind of sticky, chaotic curtain.

Something red fell from the sky.

The Holy See looked up and saw that the inner side of the magnificent ring structure was being rapidly stained crimson. The light curtain at the center of the structure rippled like a liquid soaked in blood. Accompanied by a strange, low rumble, the structure at the top of the ring cracked first—blood seeped from the crack, was blown away by the wind in the clouds, and then slowly fell down like in slow motion.

The priests further away from the gate were less affected; they watched in horror at the bizarre scene, and then finally someone cried out, "The gate is going to split open—!"

As they cried out in alarm, the Gate of Eden creaked and groaned as if it were on the verge of disintegration. The entire giant ring swayed between heaven and earth, and strange blood dripped from the top of the ring like a rain curtain. At the same time, the entire power supply system connected to the giant ring was subjected to strong interference from an unknown source. Continuous explosions began to come from afar and echoed between heaven and earth.

The support system for the rift generator is overloaded—this gate standing on the plain is only part of the entire "Gate of Eden System," while its larger control mechanisms and power supply facilities are buried deep in the mountains, some of which are directly connected to the "deep well" that imprisons the Shadowless Skeleton.

Everything is now slipping out of program control—the “intruder” is usurping control of the Gates of Eden.

The high priest standing before the gate struggled to think. In his increasingly sluggish mind, he suddenly felt that the invasion seemed to have happened long ago, and even that it had been going on for centuries.

Just as the world in his eyes was about to plunge into darkness, a powerful spiritual force suddenly swept across the entire platform, and the Holy See's voice reached the ears of every priest present: "Retreat!"

A brilliant pale golden halo suddenly erupted, spreading outwards from the "Holy Throne" in all directions. Wherever the halo reached, the sense of temporal dislocation caused by the Gate of Eden was quickly smoothed out. The priests who had been immobilized due to being too close to the gate found that they had regained their ability to think and move smoothly. Then, they heard the voice of the Holy Throne repeat itself again, this time with obvious weakness: "Retreat—away from the gate!"

The priests, as if waking from a dream, hurriedly retreated towards the plains. Just then, another loud bang rang out, like a thunderclap exploding above everyone's heads.

Some people looked back in horror and saw that the light at the center of the Gate of Eden had completely turned into a blood curtain. The towering dome had cracked with countless terrifying fissures, and blood poured down like a torrential rain, dancing in the wind before the blood curtain. Then, the center of the gate swelled up rapidly, as if something was about to break out from within.

"Something is coming out..." a high-ranking priest cried out in alarm, but his shout was cut short by abrupt silence.

A small figure flew out from the swollen curtain of blood.

Blonde hair, blue eyes, 66 centimeters tall, suspended in the air by several golden threads, swinging back and forth, baring its teeth and brandishing its claws.

The priests who had run too far away couldn't even catch a glimpse of the little figure.

The scene before them was so bizarre that everyone was momentarily stunned—so much so that they didn't even notice that countless tiny figures were rapidly emerging from the bottom of the Gate of Eden.

As the first torrential downpour of scorching beams swept across the earth, a priest cried out in alarm amidst the barrage of fire: "What are these things—!"

Countless black-haired, red-eyed dolls emerged from the Gate of Eden, their eyes vacant, their movements agile, and unfazed by pain, spreading outwards like swarms of insects.

A brilliant halo descended from the sky, and more than a dozen mass-produced dolls, unable to dodge as they ran across the platform, were instantly vaporized by the halo.

The Holy See maintained the gesture of pointing at the puppets, his face gloomy and pale.

The suppression of the turmoil at the Gate of Eden had taken a tremendous toll on his power, but he was still strong—far stronger than these grotesque cursed puppets that were running around everywhere.

The priests who had retreated to a safe distance finally regained their footing. After the initial panic, they quickly recovered and began to organize a counterattack.

As mass-produced dolls positioned merely as ordinary "soldiers," they would not gain much advantage against a priestly corps whose members were all at the "sage" level.

However, at that moment, the Gate of Eden roared once again. Amidst the violent energy surge, the nearby priests instinctively looked up in the direction from which the roar came.

They saw a huge illusion—a ball of silvery-white light descending from the blood-red curtain and slowly “blooming” in mid-air. It was a series of flamboyant fox tails, with eerie blue flames burning fiercely at their ends.

Above the gradually "blooming" fox tail, something seemed to be flowing at the center of the swollen blood curtain. Gradually, the flowing substance completed its reorganization. It converged into a face—a huge face, standing between the mountains and the earth.

The face slowly lowered its gaze, looking down from beneath the clouds at the "Holy Throne" on the platform.

The Holy See raised his head, his robes billowing in the wind, and a colossal phantom of brilliant spiritual power formed behind him. He gazed at the face that appeared above the Gate of Eden, his expression utterly calm: "Who are you?"

“You can call me Yu Sheng,” the face said slowly, the voice echoing through the clouds, “the leader of the inn, the angel hunter of the borderlands, the star guardian of the desolate lands, the patriarch of fairy tales, a friend to many, and—”

"The common living father of every cultist."

The next second, accompanied by a continuous roar, fox tails swept across the sky, spewing fierce foxfire and began to bombard the surroundings...

……

A series of rapid gunshots broke the silence, and the flashes from the particle bursts illuminated the dimly lit corridor, which had been darkened by a power outage. Marines in power armor quickly cleared out the resistance in the corridor and continued their advance.

Occasionally, the sound of explosions could be heard through the thick walls and roof, sounding distant and indistinct. The booming sound was accompanied by slight vibrations inside the building, indicating that the battle in the distance was still raging.

Another sign of life appeared ahead. The power armor's auxiliary AI reacted quickly, marking the enemy's approximate location and most likely direction of movement. The squad commander immediately raised his gun, but before he could fire, the corner at the end of the corridor was tinged with a faded, pale color—this eerie scene flashed by, and the enemy's signal disappeared.

Friendly forces' signals appeared in the identifier.

The squad commander looked up and saw several tall figures wearing heavy deep-sea power armor walking towards them from the opposite side. Walking in the middle of these heavily armored soldiers was a young woman with long gray hair and wearing a white suit.

The commander lowered his gun and nodded in salute: "Director Baili."

Baili Qing nodded, briefly inquired about the situation, and then waved to the heavily armored soldiers who had followed behind her.

A heavily armed deep-sea diver approached, carrying a strange device with numerous pipes, valves, and runes—it didn't look like something from the Borderlands engineering unit.

The squad commander watched this scene with some curiosity. He saw the soldier in charge operate the strange device a few times, and then some components at the top of it started to move. With a slight hissing sound, large swathes of red mist quickly poured out from the device's nozzles.

The fog carried the smell of blood.

As if it were alive, the blood mist did not spread randomly after it emerged, but instead quickly flew towards the nearby walls and rooftops, swiftly "drilling" into them like a living thing.

Baili Qing watched this scene quietly, then raised her hand to her ear: "Section 12 has been cleared. The diffusion device has been deployed. How are the other areas?"

A red voice came through the headset: "Just received news that the Stargate reactor is still facing fierce resistance from the guards—a group of fanatical cultists have occupied the only passage and blocked the corridor with smart turrets. They may be planting bombs into the reaction tank."

"Understood. I'll send a diffusion device over... Our soldiers don't need to charge in. Just get the diffusion device to the section near the power plant. In a little while, those cultists will be beaten up by the power plant they're trying to protect."

There was a few seconds of silence in the headphones.

"Ah Qing, you can now say such very hotel-like things very calmly."

“I’m used to it,” Baili Qing said expressionlessly. “You too, you’ll get used to it.”

As she spoke, she ended the call and turned to look down the corridor.

The blood mist emanating from the diffusion device was rapidly seeping into the nearby building structures, but soon the mist began to decrease on its own. After a while, the diffusion device seemed to receive some remote command and automatically stopped operating.

Immediately afterwards, the character "妥" slowly appeared on the wall next to it.

　Book recommendation time! The book is titled "Endless Cage" and written by Huangmao No. 1. Although it's still short, the opening is good. Everyone can give it a try.

　　
　
(End of this chapter)