After drawing cards, the evil god became my source of吐槽 (tu cao, a form of humorous commentary/criti

Chapter 136 Black Sea Basin (1)

Inside the bamboo house, the almost imperceptible vibrations and notification sounds, as well as the three people's frozen and attempted-to-conceal body language, were like ripples clearly reflected in An Jing's eyes, like pebbles thrown into calm water.

Her hovering fingers slowly lowered, without touching the communicator.

Call for help? No. The agents sent by the research institute are certainly elite, but facing her colleagues in the Special Service who have already shown strange internal instructions, reinforcements might instead get her involved in unexpected sabotage or become a burden that distracts her.

She withdrew her hand without making a sound, as if the pause just now was merely a matter of choosing her words.

His gaze swept calmly over the three of them.

034 tried to remain calm but couldn't hide the glint in his eyes; 035 lay on the ground, his groans subsided; 066 his face was pale, his eyes a mixture of struggle and horror.

“The situation is urgent,” An Jing said, his voice as calm and businesslike as ever, revealing no sign of anything amiss. “Let’s go. We’ll go to the beach to investigate.”

Her tone carried an undeniable force as she turned and pulled open the creaking, dilapidated wooden door of the bamboo house. A damp, salty sea breeze immediately rushed in, carrying with it a deeper chill.

Outside, the sky was overcast, and the sea was shrouded in an unnatural, leaden fog, reducing visibility to less than a hundred meters. The sound of the waves crashing against the rocks was dull and monotonous, as if wrapped in a thick velvet cloth, having lost its usual crisp vitality.

An Jing walked towards the sea first, her steps steady, but her mental energy spread silently forward like the most precise probe thread. The moment she touched the area of ​​gray mist, her brow furrowed almost imperceptibly.

It has expanded.

Compared to the last time it was sensed, the range of that mysterious magnetic field had expanded outward by at least thirty meters, and the energy concentration at its edges had also increased. It was no longer a lurking reef, but rather like a viscous, gigantic maw that was slowly opening.

034, 066, and 035, who had barely managed to get up and was limping behind, also stepped out of the bamboo house area.

Upon reaching the beach and standing behind An Jing, almost simultaneously, the detection devices worn by the three of them emitted sharp beeps, and the energy index bars on their wristwatches instantly turned red and jumped wildly.

"This...!" 034 suddenly stopped in his tracks, staring at the astonishing numbers flashing on his wristwatch, his face turning deathly pale.

He instinctively took a step back, moving away from the seemingly calm but actually turbulent coastline.

"The concentration of mysterious energy here... is too high! It exceeds the safety threshold by far!" His voice was filled with barely concealed panic. He pushed up his glasses, which had slipped off his nose, and tried to find any possible error on the instrument, but the blinding red light on the screen ruthlessly shattered his hopes.

066 also felt that invisible pressure, as if the air had become thick and it was difficult to breathe. She looked at An Jing's back in front of her, which appeared somewhat blurry in the gray fog, but was still upright and steady.

035 immediately shrank back, the wound still hurting, and now his panic intensified:
“034 is right! This is a level we can’t handle at all! We…we should retreat immediately! Report to our superiors and request higher-level support!” He spoke urgently, as if he wanted to turn around and run away right away.

An Jing stopped and turned around. The sea breeze ruffled her hair, and her face appeared particularly stern in the dim light. She didn't look at the three panicked intelligence officers; her gaze was fixed on the gray fog-shrouded sea, as if assessing something.

Then, she turned back, her gaze landing on 034, her brows furrowing, her expression filled with undisguised doubt and a hint of suppressed anger: "How many times have you entered the Mysterious Magnetic Field?" 034 choked under her gaze, instinctively replying, "I...we..."

066 took over, her voice a little dry but still clear: "Report, this is the first time the three of us have been on a formal field mission." The little bit of admiration and longing she felt for An Jing was now chilled by the strange environment in front of her and her companions' retreat.

"the first time?"

An Jing's voice suddenly rose a little, though it remained steady, but the suppressed anger beneath the calm made the surrounding air seem to cool down a few degrees.

"Has the Secret Service gone mad?" Her words were sharp as knives. "Feeding inexperienced newcomers like you to the Secret Service? Do they have a death wish, or don't they have enough cannon fodder?"

She was genuinely surprised.

Although I sensed that the energy and equipment of these three people were weak, I didn't expect them to be this weak.

They're complete newbies, blank slates! Has the Secret Service really sunk to this level? Unable to recruit anyone, they just throw in any Tom, Dick, or Harry, then send them out on these obviously abnormal missions. If they die, they're treated as expendable resources, and then they just keep recruiting?
This is a vicious cycle, an extreme disregard for life, and the most thorough betrayal of the duty to deal with the mysterious!
066's face paled even more from her words, yet she also felt a pang of shame and anger at being called out. Yes, what were they? A few months of crash-training, they hadn't even experienced a real, mysterious energy field firsthand, and they'd been thrown into this godforsaken place.

She bit her lower lip and whispered, "Then... Agent An, since this place is so dangerous, far beyond our capabilities, shouldn't we immediately request an evacuation and wait for headquarters support?"

035 immediately chimed in, "Yes, yes, yes! Let's go! We can still leave now!" He practically wanted to give it his full approval.

An Jing's gaze slowly swept over the three of them, her eyes devoid of mockery, only a cold, almost cruel clarity. She raised a finger to the gray mist, her voice not loud, but each word striking clearly into the hearts of each person:
"Want to leave? It's too late."

She paused, noticing 034's expression, which seemed to instinctively want to refute the instrument's indication that we were still some distance from the edge of the magnetic field, and cut him off abruptly:
“From the moment we stepped out of the bamboo house, no, perhaps even earlier, from the moment we entered this village, we were already inside this magnetic field. It is not a fixed physical boundary.”

"In other words, we may appear safe now, but we are actually already inside a mysterious magnetic field."

She withdrew her hand, turned back to face the sea, and left the three of them with a calm yet oppressive profile.

"Right now, without support from headquarters that has special barrier-breaking capabilities or a sufficient energy level, we cannot get out of this coastal area on our own."

Her words were like a bucket of ice water, extinguishing the last glimmer of hope in 034 and 035's hearts.

034 opened his mouth, looking at the still high but seemingly stable reading on his wristwatch, then at the even thicker gray fog ahead. For the first time, he felt a deep doubt about the instrument he trusted. Cold sweat trickled down his forehead.

035 looked utterly hopeless, clutching his injured arm with a vacant stare.

(End of this chapter)