Chương 52: The Official Line

When Solly's question fell, the compartment went silent for an instant.

"Where is Grey Raven?" Rowan did not answer immediately. Outside the vehicle, Syringe was checking the records beside the seal array. Adams had returned to the entrance hall to retrieve the remaining backup emergency kit. His footsteps had already been swallowed by the wind, sand, and the hollow echoes inside the warehouse. Only Rowan and Solly remained in the compartment. Solly leaned in the shadows, his face pale as paper. Everything below his waist had been temporarily fixed in place.

The medicine kept him barely conscious, but the injury had not dulled his eyes. Rowan lowered his gaze, one hand still resting on the edge of a preservation box.

"I didn't see him," he said.

"When I woke up, the area around me had already collapsed. The isolation gate was sealed too. I could only find a way around from below." There was not much falsehood in that sentence. Solly stared at him.

"When you came around, you still didn't see him?"

"No." Rowan shook his head.

"I only saw that some doors had been opened. Looked like someone had temporarily taken over the authorization." Solly's eyes shifted slightly. Rowan did not look up. His voice still sounded tired.

"Grey Raven knew this place better than us. He had Blackwater tools, and he had authorization. If he got what he wanted and left on his own, it wouldn't be strange." Only the faint rustle of preservation box labels moving in the wind remained in the compartment. Rowan could still feel Solly watching him. Solly was testing him. Rowan had no storage artifact on him, no extra preservation box, and nothing that could explain the disappearance of the original codex.

More importantly, in Solly's eyes, he was only a somewhat stronger Tier 1 Single-Phase Mage. Grey Raven was Tier 1 Dual-Phase. And behind him stood Blackwater Heavy Industries, Obsidian Magitech Heavy Industries, and perhaps something even more dangerous. Killing Grey Raven? Solly might not believe it. Besides, Solly himself was not clean either. Carl's Source Crystal Core, the original codex, and the things Grey Raven had brought with him were not matters that could be spoken of openly.

The more detailed Solly's questions became, the more it would seem as if he were reminding others that he knew things he should not know. Solly remained silent for a long time before saying in a low voice,"After we get out, don't talk carelessly." Rowan finally raised his eyes.

"All I know is that the core area samples went berserk, the old system isolated the area, and Grey Raven went missing." Solly looked at him. For a moment, their eyes met. Rowan would not volunteer the truth about the deal between Solly and Grey Raven. And for now, Solly would not keep pressing Rowan about where exactly he had gone. At least until they returned alive to the Seventh Abyssal Hive, they needed the same story. Syringe's voice came from outside the vehicle.

"The seal record is done!" Adams also came out of the entrance hall carrying the emergency kit. Rowan let go of the preservation box. The armored vehicle soon started. The entrance of the Fifth Biological Warehouse gradually shrank behind the wind and sand. The light of the Association seal array flashed twice, then faded back into darkness. No one spoke in the compartment. Solly lay at the innermost side. Syringe stayed beside him, one hand still pressing on the damaged terminal.

Adams kept checking Solly's Source Crystal Core reaction and the sealed state of his wounds. Rowan sat near the door. His right hand was wrapped in thick bandages, and the burn on his palm still throbbed faintly. Outside the vehicle was the wasteland. The wheels rolled over gravel and hardened mud crusts. Wind and sand struck the armor plates with a dry rustling sound. After the armored vehicle left the old array coverage of the Fifth Biological Warehouse, the onboard contamination meter jumped.

Rowan raised his head and glanced at it. The reading was not high, but it was indeed rising. Inside the Fifth Biological Warehouse, the contamination had not been this obvious. Although the ruin had been badly decayed, part of the old preservation array was still functioning. Adams had also said earlier that the amount of Tainted Energy seeping inside had been low. The real trouble began after leaving the ruin.

The effect of the Source-Energy Neutralizing Solution only lasted a few hours, and it had long since passed. Inside the ruin, the old arrays had still provided some protection. Now that they had left that layer behind, the wasteland environment outside the wall began pressing down on them again. Rowan soon felt his mana leaking outward into the low-mana environment. At the same time, some strange energy slowly seeped into his body, making the circulation of his Source Crystal Core feel slightly rough.

Syringe's face looked worse than before. Adams also pressed his fingers against his brow from time to time. Solly's wound had been temporarily held shut by earth magic and sealing patches, but an open wound was always the most troublesome entry point. Adams could only check the sealed edges again and again. The armored vehicle had basic filtration. But it was not the wall array. Tainted Energy corrosion would only truly be suppressed once they entered the array range of the outpost.

No one mentioned Grey Raven again. No one mentioned the hollow cavity in Carl's chest either. Everything was temporarily pressed into the same account. Sample outbreak. Old system failure. Help support creative writers by finding and reading their stories on the original site. Grey Raven missing. They did not return directly to the city inside the Seventh Abyssal Hive. The armored vehicle first stopped at an Explorer outpost beneath the wall.

The outpost was built in the shadow of the massive wall foundation, like a row of gray-black metal boxes growing against the wall itself. Above it, the giant wall stretched up into the mist. Below it were armored vehicles, contamination wash sheds, preservation box transfer rails, and temporary medical pods. As soon as the vehicle stopped, two outpost staff members in gray protective suits walked over. One of them first inserted a contamination detection rod into the edge of the compartment.

The reading at the top of the rod jumped several times. [Tainted Energy residue: moderate.] [Recommendation: high-density mana flushing.] The outpost worker glanced over the condition of the people inside.

"Purification first. Registration after." Only when he saw Solly's condition did his expression change.

"Severe injury! Medical purification pod!"

"Severe lower-limb trauma. Temporary earth-element sealing. Unstable Source Crystal Core reaction. Suspected cutting injury." The outpost personnel immediately transferred Solly onto a floating stretcher. Syringe followed for two steps, but Solly raised a hand and stopped him.

"Submit the records first." Syringe's voice hesitated.

"Brother—""Go." Solly's voice was low, but it left no room for discussion. Syringe gritted his teeth and stopped. Adams followed the medical stretcher into the temporary medical pod. Before Solly was pushed inside, he gave Rowan one last look. Rowan did not respond. Soon, the medical pod door closed, and the emergency lights came on. Rowan and Syringe were not allowed to register immediately either. They were taken into the contamination wash shed. High-density mana flushing was not ordinary washing.

After the cabin door closed, compressed mana currents pushed down from all sides, pressing inch by inch into clothing seams, skin, wound edges, and gaps in equipment. Tainted Energy itself had no color and no smell. During the flushing, nothing visible seemed to be washed out. But Rowan could feel a fine stinging across the surface of his skin, as if someone were scraping grains of sand out of his wounds one by one.

The rough feeling around the outer edge of his Source Crystal Core also eased little by little under the flushing. Syringe supported himself against the cabin wall, his face very pale. He cursed under his breath. The flushing lasted for several minutes. Only after the contamination reading on the cabin wall dropped below the qualified line did the door open again. A cost notification appeared on the screen outside the wash shed. [Contamination testing fee: pending settlement.] [High-density mana flushing fee: pending settlement.] [Medical purification pod fee: pending settlement.] Syringe stared at the lines, his expression worse than before.

"They might as well charge us every time we breathe." The inspector did not even raise his head.

"Personnel and cargo registration can only begin after contamination readings pass." Syringe no longer had the strength to curse. Once the contamination readings passed, the remaining steps were all procedure. The preservation boxes were carried one by one onto the transfer rail for scanning, weighing, and number verification. Syringe connected the damaged terminal to the outpost system and uploaded the remaining local network records. Cold prompts appeared one after another on the screen.

[Mission team: Solly Pioneer Squad.] [Mission site: Fifth Biological Warehouse.] [Team status abnormal.] [Record damaged.] [Member death/missing status pending review.] The outpost worker glanced at them but did not ask many questions immediately. Rowan had seen that look before. Familiar. Flat. A wasteland exploration team returning with preservation boxes while half its members were missing was not rare here. What made them look a few times longer was Grey Raven's missing status.

"The technical consultant is missing too?" Syringe's finger paused.

"Yes."

"Body?"

"Not found."

"Last known location?" Syringe was silent for a moment, then entered the official line they had agreed on. [Lower maintenance direction of the core area.] The outpost worker did not keep asking. He only marked the entry as abnormal. Then came material inspection. The outpost staff did not let them leave directly. Instead, they had Syringe place all preservation boxes, toolboxes, and personal bags on the inspection table. Syringe's expression was ugly.

"We have a severely injured man." The inspector did not look up.

"The injured has already been sent to the medical purification pod. Cargo and personal containers are still inspected as usual." Not far away, another team had just returned. Rowan recognized them. It was the livestream mercenary team they had seen near the city gate earlier. Their livestream orb was still spinning around the captain, projecting streams of comments and reward notifications on its outer light screen. Their preservation boxes were marked with fast-acceptance tags.

The inspector only checked the guild guarantee code and the livestream record number before letting them enter the inner passage. When it was Solly's team, however, it became box-by-box inspection. Damaged records. Two dead, one missing. Captain severely injured. A team like this had no right to talk about trust.

The inspector used a registration probe to scan the preservation box numbers, then opened Syringe's toolbox and checked to make sure there were no unregistered spatial containers or hidden preservation compartments. Several damaged signal spikes were poured out. The broken terminal was also sealed separately. Syringe's face grew darker and darker, but he did not argue. Rowan also placed his waist pouch, weapons, and outer-layer tools on the inspection table. High-Frequency Magitech Tactical Straight Sword.

Sample knife. Several ordinary pills. A wrapped toad mana crystal. And some normal exploration consumables. The inspector looked up at him.

"Where did the mana crystal come from?"

"From a Pincer-Eyed Toad corpse in the containment unit," Rowan answered.

"I extracted it after I woke up. I made a temporary supplementary record." Syringe glanced at Rowan, took his personal terminal, and synchronized that temporary record into the team's remaining inventory list. [Outer area of containment unit. Residual mana crystal from Pincer-Eyed Toad. Temporary storage.] The inspector looked at it once and said nothing more. He only scanned it with the registration probe. The probe lit up with several ordinary equipment markers. Then the probe moved toward Rowan himself.

Rowan's heartbeat seemed to pause for the briefest moment. He knew the items were not on him. The original codex, recording crystal disk, Blackwater terminal, authorization card, and scaled sphere had all been buried deep inside a burrow in the other world. He also knew the Möbius Ring was not a storage artifact registered under Terra's detection systems. But when the probe swept past his waist, then slowly moved along his arm toward his wrist, his breathing still slowed unconsciously.

The Crystal-Scaled Pangolin had reacted to the Möbius Ring before. No one could guarantee that Terra's detection probe would not pick up some fluctuation he himself could not sense. The pattern on his wrist remained silent. No glow. No heat. The probe swept over the spot where the Möbius Ring was and produced only a steady low hum. The inspector looked at the screen. [No unregistered spatial container detected.] [No unsealed high-activity sample detected.]"Next." The inspector quickly looked away.

Rowan lowered his eyes and put his things back into his waist pouch one by one. Only then did he truly let out a breath. They were checking registration numbers. They were checking spatial containers. They were checking whether a low-level exploration team had hidden things that the outpost could recognize. And the truly important items were no longer in Terra. Syringe's inspection also ended quickly. He only had a damaged terminal, several broken signal spikes, and the team record chip.

The preliminary inventory list began appearing on the preservation box side. Outer-layer plant samples. Electric-Fungus Rat tissue. Pincer-Eyed Toad tissue. Crystallized bone plates. Preservation fluid. Damaged array-pattern components. Memory crystal chips. If one looked only at the cargo, this mission could not even be called empty-handed. But Syringe stood before the list with no trace of relief on his face. His gaze stopped on the team member status column. [Carl: deceased.] [Logan: deceased.] [Grey Raven: missing.] [Solly: severely injured.] [Syringe: survived.] [Adams: survived.] [Rowan: survived.] He looked at it for a long time before finally turning his gaze away. The outpost personnel had them record their statements separately. Rowan was brought into a narrow compartment. There was no one across the table, only a floating recording orb. A pale silver halo unfolded, recording both his face and voice. [Please state the course of the Fifth Biological Warehouse core area incident.] Rowan looked at the recording orb and paused for two seconds. Then he spoke.

"During outer-ring exploration, we discovered multiple types of residual chimeric samples inside the warehouse."

"Later, when we entered the core containment unit, high-risk samples broke loose, and the old system activated isolation procedures."

"The team was divided."

"Carl was severely injured and died. Logan was confirmed dead after losing contact. Grey Raven went missing after entering the lower maintenance direction."

"I was struck by a collapsing pipeline and knocked into the maintenance interlayer. After waking up, I found a route around, regrouped with Adams, then found Solly and Syringe." All of those statements could stand. At least, they could stand inside a record. The recording orb flickered. [Did you discover any cult traces?] Rowan lowered his eyes.

The ritual dagger, dark red talisman papers, and bone pendant Grey Raven had left behind should have been scattered by the collapse, suppression mist, and later environmental failure. But as long as the follow-up review team entered the core area, they would find at least some of them. That was the blame Grey Raven had prepared.

"I'm not sure," Rowan said.

"I didn't come into direct contact with anything like that." [Can you confirm Grey Raven's death?]"Unable to confirm." [Are you carrying any unregistered ruin items?]"No." The recording orb paused for one second. [Statement recording complete. Please wait for follow-up review notification.] When Rowan left the compartment, the sky had already darkened. Lights beneath the wall outpost switched on one by one, shining across the gray-black metal ground.

In the distance, the medical pod's emergency lights were still on. Syringe sat at the entrance with his head lowered, thinking about something. Rowan did not go over. He walked to a sheltered corner and sat down against the cold wall. The burn on his right palm began to hurt again. Deep inside his mental sea, the Gray Chrysalis lay quiet, as if dead. In the outpost records, this mission had already ended. Samples recovered. Personnel casualties. Grey Raven missing.

Everything now had a version that could be written into a report. Rowan raised his head and looked toward the shadow above the wall foundation. The giant wall pressed silently into the night, like a black sky with no visible end. He slowly let out a breath. The Gray Chrysalis. The lies. For now, at least, everything was still contained. Grey Raven remained inside the two words "missing" in the report. And the true gains had already been hidden in another world.