Chapter 58: Evacuation Blocked

The alarms in the core zone scraped against everyone's eardrums like rusted hand-saws. The piercing, high-pitched sonic waves made their teeth ache and their temples throb violently. Crimson warning lights flashed frantically, casting a bloody, purgatorial hue over the entire space through a haze of purple corrosive mist. The fissures on the floor, resembling greedy, giant pythons, expanded at a visible rate, devouring the surrounding metal. Oozing from the cracks was a purple mist carrying a pungent smell of sulfur; as it rolled and billowed, the alloy walls it touched were devoured as if by a colossal beast, revealing pockmarked interiors and emitting a teeth-grinding sizzle. The filtration systems of the coalition force's battle armor operated at overload, emitting a dying buzz. The acrid odor wormed its way through the gaps into their nasal cavities, choking them into violent fits of coughing with tears welling in their eyes; Su Yao could even taste the metallic, bloody tang in her throat.

"Attention everyone, evacuate according to Plan B!" Lin Yu's voice exploded through the comms channel, carrying an undeniable, steel-wrought firmness. Yet, before they could take more than a few steps, the passage ahead was abruptly cut off by a thick alloy blast door, heavy as an ancient city wall. The air pressure stirred up by the falling door flipped the gravel on the ground. Simultaneously, the surrounding walls seemed to awaken like mechanical monsters, with dense muzzle barrels protruding like the holes of a honeycomb. They spat out purple plasma bolts like a torrential rain, carving paths of death through the void. The plasma bolts grazed the surfaces of their battle armor, kicking off chains of sparks. The Entropy-Void Watchers instantly deployed gold energy shields, resembling a brilliant galaxy spread above them. Yet, under the frantic bombardment of the plasma bolts, the ripples spreading across the surfaces of the shields were like a lake in a storm, emitting a groaning whimper of unbearable strain. Every tremor sent tiny cracks sprawling across the edges of the shields, as if they would shatter into pieces the next second.

"It's the elite force of the mysterious organization! They're equipped with new anti-shield weapons!" Old Zhou stared at the frantic red warnings leaping across his tactical eyepiece, his knuckles turning white from excessive force, his complexion instantly turning paler than a dead man's. Where the smoke billowed, a group of enemies clad in black battle armor slowly emerged. On the ferocious masks they wore, ghostly green eyes flickered like ignis fatuus from hell, pulsing with the rhythm of their breathing. The deep purple energy veins circulating on the armor's surface resembled curse chains coiled around demons, every single line radiating a soul-shaking pressure. The bizarrely shaped weapons in their hands continuously spat dark matter particles, and with every sway, they dragged a distortion through space, tearing the surrounding light into eerie fragments. These elite soldiers marched in uniform precision, like sophisticated killing machines. Their cold intent to kill pierced straight through their masks into everyone's hearts, and A-Ken could even feel the hairs on the back of his neck standing on end.

A-Ken raised his assault rifle, the recoil numbing the webbing of his thumb. The tongues of fire spitting from the muzzle illuminated his face, distorted with rage, while the massive recoil violently shook his shoulder, nearly dislocating it. "Let's fight them to the death!" His angry roar was filled with a desperate, do-or-die resolve. The moment his bullets struck the enemies, purple blood flowers bloomed in the void like eerie datura flowers, droplets splashing onto the ground and instantly corroding small, smoking pits. However, the enemy's counterattack was like a surging tide; the plasma bolts fired by their weapons possessed terrifying might, with every hit dimming the golden shield's radiance a fraction, as if devouring everyone's hope. Su Yao wielded her oscillating dagger, her form moving as fluidly as a ghost in the dead of night amidst the rain of bullets. Her eyes were sharp as a hawk's, precisely locking onto the enemies' vital points. Wherever the dagger swept, the enemies' joints snapped in response, and silvery bodily fluid gushed out like fountains, tracing silvery arcs of death through the air. Some of the fluid splashed onto her teammates' armor, immediately sparking a sizzling corrosive hiss.

Amidst the fierce combat, Lin Yu stood like a stabilizing pillar in a tempest, calmly commanding his team members in their resistance. While firing with pinpoint precision—his bullets piercing the enemies' protective armor and bursting into clusters of purple blood flowers upon them—he rapidly racked his brain for a way to break the deadlock. "Old Zhou, can you find the control hub for the self-destruct sequence?" His voice remained clear and forceful amidst the explosions. Old Zhou knelt halfway on the rubble-strewn floor, his knees pressing against sharp metal fragments without him even noticing, his hands typing furiously on his portable terminal. Sweat poured from his forehead like beads with a snapped string, continually dripping onto the operation interface and blurring some of the keys, forcing him to frequently shake his head to fling the sweat droplets away. "I'm locating it now, but their system is set up with eighteen layers of quantum encryption—it's not that easy to crack!" Anxiety laced his voice; every notification tone of a failed attempt struck his heart like a heavy hammer.

By now, the tremors of the base grew increasingly violent, as though it were about to be torn apart at any moment. Gravel rained down from the ceiling like a meteor shower, and massive boulders smashed against the energy shields with dull roars, shaking everyone's internal organs and causing their teeth to chatter audibly. The Time-Space Administration warriors raised their electromagnetic pulse cannons, the barrels emitting a shrill screeching sound as they charged—a noise sounding like a horn blown from hell. A deep blue beam poured out, leaving a searing trail in the air. Yet, the elite force of the mysterious organization was well-trained; they quickly dispersed, utilizing the crumbling ruins for counterattacks. Bullets and plasma bolts wove together into an airtight net of death, trapping the coalition force in the center and plunging them into a bitter struggle. A-Ken's assault rifle ran out of ammunition; he simply swung his rifle butt, smashing it toward an approaching enemy. The butt collided with the battle armor, kicking up a shower of sparks.

As time ticked away, the energy value of the shields drained like fine sand through an hourglass, teetering on the brink of total collapse. Watching the countdown leaping continuously on his tactical eyepiece, Lin Yu felt every passing second like the footsteps of the Grim Reaper drawing closer, burning with anxiety. His palms were slick with sweat as he gripped his pulse rifle tightly, his knuckles turning white. At this critical juncture of life or death, he suddenly remembered that the downloaded data seemed to mention a backup control system within the base. "Old Zhou, try searching for the backup control node!" he shouted aloud, a trace of hope lacing his voice. Old Zhou froze for a fraction of a second, then hammered the keyboard with even madder frenzy, his eyes locked onto the screen, bloodshot veins filling his entire eyeballs as if he meant to burn right through them.

"Found it! At the very bottom level of the base! But we can't possibly break through the enemy's defense line to get there!" Old Zhou's voice was laden with despair, bordering on a roar. His body shook uncontrollably from prolonged, intense tension. Lin Yu tightened his grip on the scalding pulse rifle, the heat from the weapon transferring through his gloves into his palm, burning fiercely. A flash of resolute light crossed his eyes. "We have to try! The Entropy-Void Watchers will provide cover, everyone else charge with me!" With that, he took the lead and charged toward the enemy defense line. The tongues of fire erupting from his pulse rifle illuminated his resolute face like a beacon in the darkness. At this critical moment of life and death, whether the coalition force could break through the encirclement, successfully disarm the self-destruct sequence, and escape this doomed base remained entirely unknown. Meanwhile, the roaring sounds echoing from deep within the base grew increasingly deafening, and the countdown to self-destruction pulsed on everyone's tactical eyepieces like a death warrant.