Light Fortress Chapter 1757 - 405: Alarm! Extraordinary Life!

The three great generals of the North Continent were stationed separately at the three frontier defense lines: northwest, due north, and northeast.

Even with the Umbrella Line of Defense covering them, the giant walls of the fortresses still had to maintain year-round vigilance. In the vast Old World, besides the Source Material Storms, there was always the possibility of unknown Extraordinary Creatures appearing.

The fact that they hadn’t appeared before...

Didn’t mean they would never appear in the future.

So every major frontier city would be equipped with the highest-level warning systems. In the past, it was the Investigation Corps that was responsible for sending garrisoned personnel to patrol regularly, making sure there was nothing unusual outside the Umbrella Line.

Now that they had Deep Sea, the monitoring work could be handed over to artificial intelligence.

The North Continent had deployed a massive number of "Electronic Eyes" beyond its borders.

Because Source Essence in the Old World was chaotic and the environment harsh, the failure rate of these Electronic Eyes was extremely high... but that didn’t matter. The production cost of the Eyes was low, and Central City allocated sufficient funds every year to ensure the "field of view" of the frontier stayed wide and clear. As the Deep Sea Main System continued to upgrade, the number of Electronic Eyes it could interface with grew larger and larger, and the pressure on visual surveillance outside the frontier dropped sharply.

Back then, the frontier cultivated a large number of Extraordinary sentries who had to risk their lives to scout the safety of the Old World.

Now, those people had been sent to posts where they were needed even more.

As for monitoring, that had become an indoor job.

Deep Sea would transmit the Old World’s visual feeds into the main city through the Spirit Network. All it took was a Spiritual Transcendent of second rank or above to link in, and the images and data could be stably received and processed.

The latest version of the Main System could already draft reports on its own.

Perhaps in a little while, even the monitoring rooms would no longer need to exist.

Of course, that was something that would never happen in Chanyi City—

Silver Fox had never allowed Deep Sea to take full control of the surveillance outside the giant wall. He trusted the subordinates he had personally cultivated more than any AI; compared to machine intellect, the flesh-and-blood companions sharing humanity’s fate were far more worthy of trust.

So in Chanyi City’s Monitoring Room, sentries stood watch in rotating shifts twenty-four hours a day.

Due to the massive amount of information transmitted over from Deep Sea...

This monitoring room typically had more than twenty monitors on duty. These Spiritual Transcendents, via the Spirit Network, oversaw and controlled the scenes outside the Umbrella Line on the northwest frontier.

"Alarm, alarm!"

The shrill sound of the alarm blared inside the monitoring room.

Alarms like this weren’t actually rare.

In the frontier regions, accidents happened all year round. Sometimes a drifting Black Hole would reach the Umbrella Line; sometimes a drifting fragment of Old World landmass would arrive. According to incomplete statistics... Chanyi City had more than ten alarms like this every year.

But this time was different.

"District Eleven, massive ordered Source Essence detected..."

"Repeat, District Eleven, massive ordered Source Essence detected..."

The moment that voice rang out, it instantly captured the attention of every Transcendent in the monitoring room.

Massive ordered Source Essence?

In their monitoring of the Old World, it was common to detect large quantities of unordered Source Essence. That unordered Source Essence would form storms which, if not struck down with Mithril weapons, would inflict huge impacts on the giant wall.

So the monitors had grown used to alarms about "Source Material Storms" bearing down.

But an alarm about ordered Source Essence... in all these years, this was the first time they had encountered such a thing.

The whole monitoring room fell silent for a second.

Then, those Transcendents who realized what the alarm truly implied felt the hairs on their backs stand up.

Ordered Source Essence could only be controlled by Extraordinary Creatures!

Detecting ordered Source Essence... didn’t that mean they had detected the aura of Extraordinary Creatures in motion?

...

...

The Dojo in Chanyi City was packed.

Gu Shen was currently guiding the low-ranked Transcendents who had come here, helping them dispel their doubts.

This lecture was already drawing to a close.

Right now was the final Q&A segment.

Of course... the one actually answering questions wasn’t Gu Shen, but Chu Ling, who had taken over his Spirit; Gu Shen’s true soul had sunk down into the Pure Land World.

During this period, the flesh-and-blood filling of the Fire Spirit had already reached seventy percent completion.

The second domain was now quite full.

Just as Gu Shen was standing beneath the swaying Su-hanging tree, examining his Fire Spirit Domain, an ethereal figure condensed out of the air.

"Gu Shen, we have a serious problem."

Chu Ling’s expression was grave as she spoke in a deep voice: "Outside the Umbrella Line of Chanyi City, unknown ordered Source Essence has been detected."

"Ordered Source Essence?!"

Gu Shen instantly grasped what Chu Ling meant. "There are Extraordinary Creatures outside Chanyi City?"

"Correct."

Chu Ling said in a low voice, "I’ve accessed Chanyi City’s Spirit Network... and captured the Heavenly Eye feeds from beyond the border."

Countless streams of pitch-black Source Essence flowed across the shattered land of the Old World like snakes.

These auras were extremely conspicuous—one could even say dazzling to the eye!

"This Source Essence doesn’t look like it’s being naturally emitted by a ’Black Hole’..."

Gu Shen narrowed his eyes and observed for a moment, then said solemnly, "Did the Heavenly Eye capture any images of the Extraordinary Creatures themselves?"

"No."

Chu Ling shook her head. "That pitch-black Source Essence flashed by in an instant... This information will probably be passed on to you officially very soon."

As soon as her words fell...

Gu Shen’s Spirit Sea trembled lightly.

The rich, mellow voice of the Silver Fox General crossed several li and reached the Dojo.

"Xiao Gu, there’s something I need you to come over for."

Gu Shen’s true consciousness withdrew from the Pure Land, leaving behind a wisp of Heart Flow Power to continue polishing the Fire Spirit. He ended the lecture ahead of time and hurriedly took his leave.

...

...

Gu Shen and Bai Xiu rushed toward the giant wall of Chanyi City at light speed, and by the time they arrived, Silver Fox was already there ahead of them.

He was standing on the ramparts, gazing into the distance beyond the Umbrella Line of Defense.

The land of the Old World connected to the northwestern frontier was extremely cold, and the light outside the Great Umbrella was painfully glaring, so even if a Divine Throne came in person, it still couldn’t see any useful information... but Gu Shen knew that Silver Fox was confirming the position outside the Umbrella Line.

"Mr. Silver Fox, what’s going on?"

After receiving the Spiritual Communication, Little Xiuzi hurried here in a rush; he still didn’t know what exactly had happened.

"Just now, the Chanyi City Monitoring Room captured a very important piece of information."

Silver Fox’s expression was solemn as he said, word by word, "On the northwest side of the Umbrella Line of Defense of Chanyi City, sixty li away, a powerful orderly Source Essence appeared."

He transmitted the detailed information via Spirit into the Heart Lakes of the two.

"..."

Bai Xiu finished reading with a frown, his expression turning somewhat stunned.

Gu Shen had also gone through it; this was exactly the same image data Chu Ling had just sent him.

"You should understand what this means."

Silver Fox said in a deep voice, "At the precise Heavenly Eye coordinates where the incident occurred, there’s a high probability that a living Extraordinary Creature passed by... and that Heavenly Eye was destroyed immediately after it captured the information."

"Intelligent life from beyond the Five Continents is peeping at Chanyi City... have they already found the exact coordinates?"

Bai Xiu muttered.

"Correct."

Silver Fox nodded.

After the battle at the Duolu River, humanity of the Five Continents had already confirmed the existence of an Extraordinary Life form belonging to an extraterritorial race known as the "traveller"... If the Old World was likened to a dark forest, then with travellers appearing, other Extraordinary races might appear as well.

"We currently have too little information, but one thing is beyond doubt. We must not overlook any trace of Extraordinary fluctuations."

Silver Fox said in a low voice, "If there really is an Extraordinary race that has dispatched something like a ’vanguard’ or ’sentry’ to scout the Five Continents... then we have to cut it down and absolutely must not let that information be transmitted back."

"I’ve already reported this matter to Her Majesty."

Silver Fox took a light breath and said, "But the incident came too suddenly, and right now every single minute and second is extremely precious."

The Empress resided in Central City.

Even if she set out right now and used authority to hasten the journey, it would still take a long time to reach Chanyi City.

"So... you’re planning to strike immediately?"

Gu Shen raised his eyebrows.

"Exactly!"

Silver Fox said, "Judging from the Source Essence Breath transmitted back by the ’Heavenly Eye’, the strength of this Extraordinary Creature should not be considered strong; at most, it may only be fourth tier. Of course, no matter what level of Extraordinary existence it is... we can’t take it lightly. I plan to launch immediately and intercept and kill the owner of that Extraordinary Essence aura."

Boom—

Before his voice had even landed, a vast wave of air energy surged forth.

A medium-sized Source Energy Boat slowly hovered to a stop above the giant wall and opened its belly hatch.

In fact, the moment Silver Fox sent out the Spiritual signal, Gu Shen and Bai Xiu had already guessed what this General intended to say.

"In theory, this operation isn’t considered dangerous, but since we’ll be leaving the North Continent, there’s no way there won’t be any risk at all."

"So, I want to ask you two..."

Silver Fox didn’t hurry to board. He looked seriously at Gu Shen and Bai Xiu and said, "For this mission, are you willing to come with me?"

He had been together with Bai Xiu and Gu Shen for three months.

During this time, they were together day and night.

Silver Fox had treated these two young men as his Disciples, teaching them with meticulous care and holding nothing back.

He genuinely admired these two young geniuses from the East Continent, but after all, the two of them were not Transcendents within the North Continent Army system; even with Silver Fox’s rank as General, he couldn’t just mobilize them at will.

He had to ask for Gu Shen and Bai Xiu’s consent.

"Of course I’m willing."

Bai Xiu didn’t hesitate in the slightest. He agreed hurriedly before Silver Fox had even finished speaking.

"You’re still treating us like outsiders."

Gu Shen said with a smile, "Next time, if something like this happens... you should call us onto the ship first and take off before we talk. The time we’ve wasted now—is it going to cause us to miss the owner of that Source Essence aura?"

"Of course not."

Silver Fox was taken aback for a second, then smiled and shook his head. He stretched out both arms to pull the two youths close, and his figure flickered. Driven by Origin Power, Gu Shen didn’t even catch the change in the surrounding environment before he found himself already inside the spacious cabin.

"Don’t worry about not catching up to the enemy... are you ready to accelerate?"

Silver Fox spoke as he crouched down, pressing his palm against the floor of the Source Energy Boat.

Gu Shen and Bai Xiu both simultaneously sensed that something was wrong in their hearts.

"???"

The bottom hatch of the Source Energy Boat sealed shut, and in an instant a torrent of air blasted out.

A tremendous sense of being pushed back erupted in the void.

Even Gu Shen and Bai Xiu almost failed to keep their footing.

"Rumble!"

Silver Fox directly employed his Origin Power, merging the Source Energy Boat with his arm into one. In the next instant, the massive airship vanished from the city head of Chanyi City, and like a meteor, it roared for nearly twenty li, appearing almost as if by Instantaneous Movement twenty li away!

In the very next moment!

This Source Energy Boat broke straight through the Umbrella Line of Defense and crashed directly into that snow-white, dazzling, icy sun of the Old World beyond!

...

...

(PS: Asking for some monthly tickets~ The outline couldn’t quite keep up because the updates were so frequent and dense before. I completely revised it over the last few days; personally I feel in great shape now, and from here on out it’s going to be pedal-to-the-metal all the way~)