Hayden said very honestly
"If I were to take on a standard combat squad head-on, I'd be pretty unsure of myself."
He can catch two spells at once and channel his magic to counteract the third. But what if ten of them fly in at once? He doesn't have that many hands. So if he really had to deal with an entire combat squad alone, Hayden would try to sneak up and take out half of them first.
The company security guards, however, had no time to banter with Hayden. The security squad leader had been beaten into a ditch by Hayden, and his adjutant immediately called for backup: "This is Squad Six, we—"
Hayden didn't have the ability to hack into a major company's military communications network.
So he chose to cheat.
Just as the adjutant was about to call for his superior, Hayden also raised his left hand. In his right hand he held a bronze scepter, while in his left he held a small bell slightly larger than the palm of his hand. The bell was made of half gold and half iron, with stone rings, and the stone was inscribed with the names of ancient gods that should not be spoken of or looked at directly.
Then Hayden struck the bell in his left hand three times with the bronze scepter in his right hand.
"Baldal, balal, balal."
As he rang the bell, Hayden recited it three times in the ancient language.
The four security guards flinched slightly, their eyes suddenly becoming somewhat dazed. But the security adjutant continued reporting to his superiors: "—We have encountered a high-risk hostile unit. Requesting backup!"
However, at the same time, his platoon leader and everyone else listening on the communication channel heard: "We've subdued these escaped criminals; they weren't very effective fighters. Take them back now."
Therefore, there will obviously be no further support.
Hayden did not hack the military communications networks of major companies.
But he had confused the language and thought patterns in the minds of these security guards. Their current thoughts and the language they organized based on those thoughts had been muddled by Hayden. Strong became weak, defeat became victory… Hayden couldn't actually control the specifics precisely; he could only say that this was roughly how it worked. This spell was something he had reconstructed from a genuine fragment of an ancient Sumerian clay tablet. He had only reconstructed half of it, and then figured out the other half himself, so the effect was unstable and would wear off within a few hours.
However, this was sufficient to deal with ordinary security guards. They quickly realized that what they were saying and what they were hearing from each other was clearly strange, and they immediately panicked. And what could these four security guards, whose individual strength was already a level below Hayden's, whose combat effectiveness relied half on equipment and half on teamwork, possibly do to him now that they couldn't communicate or coordinate with each other?
So, within two rounds, the sewer corridor was filled with bodies lying haphazardly. Four security guards lay motionless unconscious in the sewage. Hayden, on the other hand, only showed a slight tremor in the green shield surrounding his body and a few beads of sweat on his forehead; otherwise, he showed no signs of fatigue.
"You...how did you end up here?"
Todd's head was still throbbing with pain, but he mustered the courage to ask Hayden. The two students beside him who were still awake were busy reviving their comrades who had been knocked unconscious, so Todd had to handle the negotiation.
Incidentally, Hayden wasn't wearing his usual grey wizard robes, but rather a black, full-body bodysuit with no extra decorations, only revealing his eyes. This bodysuit was essentially a special black slime covering his entire body; it was very lightweight, made no sound, was extremely comfortable to wear, and could even transform to assist in body movements, while also offering decent defensive capabilities.
In reality, these were military-grade bio-magic products launched by Smoke Mirror Life Construction Company a few years ago. Hayden had stripped several of them from Central American mercenaries six days ago. Due to the city lockdown these past few days, he hadn't had a chance to sell his spoils on the black market, keeping them all sealed in his basement. This time, he was going to risk breaking into the encirclement of a large company, so he certainly wouldn't be foolish enough to dress as usual, otherwise the company would inevitably discover his identity afterward. So, he simply wore a slime bodysuit.
Angela didn't need to wear such a thing, but she still needed to conceal her identity. So Hayden transformed her wedding dress into a white version, the same shape as the slime bodysuit. The two of them, one in black and one in white, slipped into the sewers.
Unfortunately, Hayden's words and actions were very distinctive, and Todd had just been beaten up by him twice recently, so how could he not recognize him?
"Does this need to be said?"
Hayden frowned.
"Of course I'm here to rescue you little brats. Enough talk, where's Alastor?"
For a moment, Todd hesitated, worried that Hayden might be a lackey of the big company, trying to trick them into revealing Alastor's location. But he quickly realized that at this point, the big company had no need for that; they might as well try to believe that Hayden was truly a savior. So he quickly repeated what Alastor had told them a dozen minutes earlier. As Hayden listened, his brows gradually furrowed.
"Preparing a suicidal, all-or-nothing tactic in this base? Impossible! The enemy is a well-organized unit of Protoss warriors! On a proper battlefield, even a lone combat-type Coordinator would require at least a mortal heavy firepower battalion to deal with!"
Hayden then pointed to the unconscious company security guards on the ground.
"Without heavy firepower, even an entire regiment of ordinary special forces soldiers like these would be wiped out by a single Protoss warrior! Do you really think Alastor has a way to drag a Protoss tactical squad to its death?"
Todd and his companions were speechless.
"You said your map was provided by Alastor? Quickly make a copy for me."
They did so.
Then Todd finally couldn't help but ask a question he had wanted to ask for a long time: "Since a Protoss warrior can defeat an entire regiment, while you can only take on a squad at most, why did you even come here?"
Hayden looked up from the map, narrowing his eyes: "You student brats have been going against the Mitra Corporation, against the most powerful god group in modern times. Why did you do this? I know you're all kids from good middle-class families, your parents mostly work for the Mitra Corporation or its subsidiaries. Wouldn't it be better to just finish college and get a job at a big company? You're not starving, why rebel?"
He added with a sneer, "Don't tell me you guys are against the company just because you think Alastor is fucking handsome."
Interestingly, Todd was taken aback at first, then flew into a rage: "Of course not! Do you think we're idiots?! Anyone can survive if they just want to live! But what's the point of living like that? Working yourself to the bone every day, staying up all night to study and write reports, finally graduating and then working shifts at least twelve hours a day? Anyway, there's no hope in living like that, so we might as well fight back!"
He was stunned after saying that.
"So you understand it too, don't you?"
Hayden raised his eyebrows.
"People live for pride; there's no difference between being worthless and being dead. If I didn't come here today to mess with the company and give you bunch of greenhorns a hand, I wouldn't be living a damn happy life."
In this era, the inability to survive is mostly a relative description, not an absolute one. As long as you have even a little exploitable value, you can always find a way to sell yourself for the rest of your life to a company.
But when everything is stagnant, when the world is a cesspool, and you can never climb out no matter how hard you try, when all you do in your life is be exploited by capitalists from birth to death, leaving nothing behind, and even in death you continue to be a corporate ghost... what is your reason for trying to "survive" in this cesspool? How can you live happily? How do you want to live?
"I didn't come here today to die. I came here to live!"
Therefore Hayden said sternly,
"I'm here to save you little brats, so that we can all survive today!"
Hayden truly never wanted to die. He wanted to live a happy life under Angela's care. He also wanted to develop inexpensive healing potions so that more people could live!
So Todd and the other students were speechless.
They didn't say anything more after that. Hayden pointed out on the map which way they could escape next, after all, he himself had just slipped through the encirclement. Todd bowed deeply to him before parting ways, and the two went their separate ways.
Angela stood obediently to the side and watched the whole thing unfold. She did almost nothing from beginning to end, until the students were far away, then she tilted her head and asked Hayden, "Master, since you were so eager to save Mr. Lastor and the other students' lives, why didn't you just let me deal with all the enemies we encountered along the way?"
"Because we're surrounded by large corporations. Your energy is too strange, and it often reacts oddly with modern arcane magic. If you were to make a direct move here, the Mitra Corporation would immediately discover it. We're here to rescue people; fighting is just a means to an end. There's no need to alert them before we find them."
Hayden shook his head.
“Besides, I wasn’t sure of Alastor’s exact location before, and running around in this sewer system wouldn’t have helped. Now the situation is different. If they want to hold out, they won’t last more than a few minutes against the War Gods. Get back to normal operation and take me straight to our destination!”
Angela immediately smiled and nodded. She walked over, picked Hayden up in a princess carry, and then, enveloped in emerald light, soared through the sewers. Her flight was faster than the speed of sound, yet miraculously, it didn't generate any shockwaves, and her changes of direction and turns were... like nothing at all. In reality, nothing can fly completely without regard to Newtonian mechanics. Even the art of flight must consider the effects of gravity and inertia.
However, Angela flies wherever she is directed, ignoring the limitations of gravity, inertia, air resistance, and all other physical phenomena. She can fly at ridiculously high speeds while turning at will, and when she turns, all the new speed is invested in the new direction, without being affected by the previous momentum.
However, compared to the bizarre things Angela has done so far, this is nothing. The only problem is that Mitra Corporation's surveillance network will likely soon discover that there's a strange thing moving around in the sewers in an impossible way.
Now that they knew Alastor's location and that he planned to fight a positional war against the War Gods, Hayden felt that revealing his own position was the only option. He even worried that by the time he arrived, Alastor and his companions would have already been killed by the Vajra God or simply self-destructed.
So when Angela carried him and finally arrived at the scene, the situation before her was truly unbelievable.
At the end of this underground waterway, in that huge abandoned underground warehouse, Hayden had expected to see the students being brutally ravaged by the company's troops.
The situation is quite the opposite.
What he saw was a real battlefield.
The scene here had reached a fever pitch. A dozen or so students, led by Yolanda, were waving cell phone-shaped combat magic devices. Some were raising blue shields, while others were screaming out all sorts of combat arcane spells that could actually kill. Flashes of magical energy of various colors flew wildly through the huge underground warehouse.
Their enemies were more than twice the number of company security guards, similar to those Hayden had just knocked unconscious. Although the students were equipped with military-grade magical artifacts that Smoke Mirror Company had secretly sold them, it was clear that the Mitra Company security guards were better equipped. However, the situation here was strange. At least one platoon of company security guards were being suppressed by these students on the battlefield. Because there was no cover nearby, they had to huddle together to erect shields, firmly pinned behind them and unable to move, relying only on magical protection and firefights—a pure war of attrition.
However, students should not have been able to gain the upper hand in a war of attrition against large companies.
Hayden looked around but couldn't find Alastor anywhere.
Instead, Hayden felt a strange magic.
Angela was flying too fast for him to sense on the way. However, at this moment, Hayden realized that an incredible energy was flowing and gathering in this underground warehouse, in the sewers of this abandoned industrial city. Even a small portion of it amplified the students' magic; the immense power pressed down like a tidal wave, allowing their combat arcane spells to suppress twice the number of company security guards.
Needless to say, this situation is obviously very strange.
Moreover, what's most puzzling to Hayden right now is—why aren't the Mithra Group's warrior gods here? Why are only ordinary company security guards fighting the students?
As for the Mithra Group, they were certainly worried that the trouble caused by [Marsh] might escalate and lead to unforeseen complications. Since they had already sent a small team of [Vajrapani] troops, the company had no reason not to act quickly.
...unless they have some reason not to rush to deploy Protoss warriors.
An indescribable sense of crisis surged into Hayden's heart at that moment.
"Back off!"
He issued the order without hesitation.
Angela obeyed immediately. She could not only turn freely, but even fly backwards at full speed in an instant. Fortunately, what happened the next second didn't involve them.
The air in the underground warehouse exploded.
051: They are fearless
An overwhelming sense of crisis surged through Heden's heart. At the same time, Angela pulled him back instantly, creating distance between them. Silently, without even a vibration in the air, the two were suddenly outside the battlefield.
The next instant, darkness spread across a corner of the battlefield.
The company security guards, who were standing in the center of the underground warehouse, suddenly found the ground around them churning up as if being rolled into a ball by a tremendous force.
The company security guards immediately realized something was wrong, but it was too late to escape. An incredibly powerful force, impossible for ordinary people to resist, grabbed them, pulled them together, and held them tightly.
A chilling scream rang out. Centered on the point where darkness spread, the dozens of company security guards were all swept in, sucked together, and formed into a giant sphere of flesh and blood in mid-air, as if a pair of giant hands had grabbed them all and kneaded them into a ball. Even their full-body armor and magical artifacts were squeezed in, becoming a small part of this sphere.
Hayden was quickly pulled away by Angela and thus escaped the blast, but he was still stunned. Any mortal within the range of this dark gravity, no matter how sturdy their armor or how strong their barrier, would likely be sucked in and mashed into a pulp, certain to die.
Speaking of which, how are the students doing now? Hayden quickly looked over and found the group of students cheering loudly, clearly unharmed. Although a fierce battle had just taken place in the huge warehouse, the black gravitational field had perfectly avoided the students' location.
"A highly precise arcane technique involving gravitational manipulation."
Even Hayden's expression changed after reading it.
"With this level of precision, if the radius were twice as large, it could be used as a tactical-level spell."
Even if a large company were to tear itself apart, it wouldn't easily release tactical-level magic into the market (although there will always be a small amount circulating in the black market, making it difficult to completely eradicate). Where did [Bo Xun] get such a thing from?
Furthermore, all powerful magic requires a large supply of magical energy; the only thing a spellcaster can optimize is the efficiency of their magical energy utilization. This is one of the fundamental principles of magic, and Hayden had only ever seen Angela disregard this rule in his life. Where did these students get so much magical energy?
...It goes without saying that it must be related to the mysterious energy that is constantly flowing and gathering in the sewers.
What on earth is Alastor up to?
"Hey you guys who just flew over, stop hiding! I know you weren't sucked in! Come out! Or we'll do it again!"
Hayden heard Yolanda, a little girl, shouting threats from among the students in the distance.
This wasn't unexpected for Hayden. After all, he knew that letting Angela fly so fast through the sewer system would definitely attract the attention of both sides. It wouldn't be surprising if the students noticed their arrival; rather, the gravity spell they just cast might have been intended to suck Hayden and Angela in and kill them as well.
That said, Yolanda only made a loud threat and didn't actually unleash another gravity spell. What does that mean? Does it need a cooldown period? Or is it because her mana consumption is too high?
Hayden wouldn't mind beating those students up again, but the Mithra Group's next attack could come at any moment, and he couldn't afford to waste time and energy. So, he suddenly had a brilliant idea and started spouting nonsense: "I'm an envoy from the Smoke Mirror Company! I want to speak with your [Bo Xun] leader! Let me in!"
You ask why he didn't just give his name? The Mitra Corporation is monitoring this area. If he shouted it out and they heard it, wouldn't Hayden be incredibly stupid? Besides, these students have a grudge against him, Hayden. It's easier to see the devil than his minions; rushing things would inevitably waste more time.
Sure enough, the students, led by Yolanda, were easily fooled. Seeing Hayden and Angela appear in their bio-combat suits from the Smoke Mirror Company, they were actually quite convinced, quickly aiming their magical devices at Hayden and Angela while contacting Alastor to report the situation. In less than a minute, they had broken through the encirclement and various barriers, letting Hayden and Angela in. A student led them through the warehouse and quickly into a strange little room.
The room's floor and all visible horizontal surfaces were covered with stacks of optical fibers and metal circuit boards that spewed out like Medusa's hair. These haphazard wires converged in the center of the room, connecting in a way Hayden couldn't fully comprehend to form a strange shape that looked like a giant black lotus.
Alastor was in this room.
He sat atop the "black lotus" made of circuit boards, fiber optics, and computer components, in a perfect lotus pose. But his face was paler than in the previous video call, and he appeared much thinner, with most of his muscle and fat gone from his face.
That's strange. How could he have weakened so much in such a short time, less than an hour?
“Comrade Hayden, you shouldn’t have come. Especially not in this way, in this image.”
After the student who had led the way had left, Alastor finally spoke.
“Now that you’ve entered here using the image of the Smoke Mirror Company and claiming to be their envoy, you’re bound to develop a ‘connection’ with them. That would make it just as difficult for you to escape the sympathetic tracking as Yolanda and the others.”
He wasn't that stupid after all; he recognized Hayden at a glance.
"Sympathy magic... I always have a way to solve problems related to fate."
Hayden glanced at Angela, who was following behind him, then shrugged and continued,
"Besides, I'm here to blast those gods' asses to pieces. With so much debt, what's there to fear about sensory tracking?"
These words left Alastor speechless for a long time.
“Thanks to the bad habits of those big companies,” he sighed after a few seconds, “we can barely hold off the attack here, thanks to our advantageous location.”
"Speaking of your so-called advantageous location..." Hayden frowned, looking around, "What exactly have you been up to here?"
Hayden wasn't blind. The moment he entered, he saw that this room, or more precisely, the black lotus made of wires and mechanical parts under Alastor's buttocks, was the source of that strange, flowing, and gathering magic. Drops of filthy magic were flowing from one drainpipe after another, converging here to form the dark force that had just been used to instantly kill an entire row of company security guards.
Hayden understood now: this room, this black lotus throne, was the central hub where Alastor gathered and manipulated this magic. But where did this magic itself come from?
“This used to be an abandoned industrial area.”
Alastor explained calmly,
“The Mitra Group once built a large factory here. They used to extract energy from the earth for mechanical production, and after the natural energy here was almost depleted and polluted like sludge, they abandoned the entire area.”
These words made Hayden immediately realize: "But the earth's energy here hasn't completely dried up. It's just... the cost of continuing production here... has become too high for the company."
Following behind Hayden, Angela did something unexpected. She bent down, gently patted the ground, and revealed a rare expression of sadness: "The earth here is almost dead."