Lucrecia returned to the Lost Home to report on the situation, while on the Boundary Land side, the large-scale exploration operation on the other side of the gate, the "Old World," quickly began officially."Check your protective gear, ensure the nebulizer is working correctly, group yourselves into threes to pass through the gate, including accompanying puppets..."
The voice of the senior Commander came from the Power Armor communicator. Fully-equipped deep divers verified their equipment status. Xu Jiali opened the helmet mask and glanced at the Cat-Head Attendant next to him confirming the status of the Spiritual Energy Ball, and at the mass-produced puppet standing idly on the ground not far away with dead fish eyes.
Underfoot was the floating landmass in the Great Void, outside of which was a twisted and strangely familiar "Mysterious Boundary City." The ancient and mysterious triangular giant gate stood on the nearby open ground, and in the distance, the city was covered by a sky curtain formed by interwoven massive roots and vine structures, stretching into the sky and converging from all directions.
A few transport shuttles were hovering at the edge of the Floating Island, Deep Diving Team Two was systematically landing. Besides supplementing personnel, these shuttles also brought large antenna equipment and spare generator units.
In the sky, one could faintly see large signal relay ships hovering in the distant darkness - there wasn't just one such signal relay ship; they were aligned from the bottom of the Fault in the "Boundary City" to the upper Floating Islands, with each ship carrying valuable large Spiritual Fox communication nodes. They forcibly established a signal pathway within the heavily interfered Fault using the brute force method of brick flying.
Xu Jiali withdrew his gaze from the sky and turned to look nearby - at the base of the solemn and impressive triangular gate was a metal security door that seemed out of character with the rest of the architectural structure, roughly the size of a typical residential entry door, facade mottled and old, with some faint signs that might suggest someone once pasted a small ad there...
It must be said, the existence of this old security door even interfered with the judgment of the trained deep divers (the opposing revolving door was a second interfering factor). Many upon landing thought the Angel Sect had infiltrated and damaged ancient buildings, but later it was explained to be a "travel agency" collaboration, making everyone readily accept it...
Now the small door was standing open, small mass-produced puppets were lining up to walk out from it.
After so long a collaboration, various frontline units of the Special Service Bureau were no longer strangers to these seemingly dim-witted little guys. Some people bent over to greet the mass-produced puppets, while others earnestly introduced the group status to the puppets, and some shut their helmet masks and started telling short jokes within the internal channel.
—Lingdang silently recorded those telling jokes, preparing to report them later in exchange for mint sticks.
Local communications brought murmurs from other Deep Diving Team Members—
"Before you really couldn't imagine organizing people so grandly to the bottom of the Fault, even heading for the 'Old World'... What is this door called, the 'End'? Wow... is it really okay?"
"They can organize this many people down; the 'path' must be okay. It's just unclear what to expect once through the door... This morning, the advance team went over and established an exploratory base in the 'hallway' on that side. Reportedly, the environment is quite stable around the hallway."
"Honestly, I'm starting to miss the old missions—how peaceful it was—just fighting cultists, grappling with out-of-control entities, handling rising orphanages, and the like..."
"Don't say, my friend; you really shouldn't. It seems ever since the orphanage stood up, more strange situations began cropping up..."
Xu Jiali listened to the voices coming through the headphones, only smiled and shook his head, seeing no harm in these discussions, nor a reason to intervene.
Lingdang turned her face away and also opened her Power Armor mask, her cat-like eyes shining underneath the helmet, sparkling with some excitement and a bit of nervousness.
"Boss, is this door really Boss Yusheng's previous workplace? Is he really that amazing?"
"Amazing or not, don't go around reciting that," Xu Jiali muttered. "It's not public information..."
Lingdang blinked, hastily nodded: "Oh, oh-oh!"
As one of the first to interact with the travel agency and having early accepted Yu Sheng's "Blood Transfer" ritual, furthermore often wandering around the valley, Xu Jiali and Lingdang naturally knew quite a lot of "inside knowledge," including details about the door.
Lingdang remained quiet for mere seconds before she couldn't resist leaning in: "Hey, boss, is it true that 'the whole Boundary Land counts as Death God's grave shared property'? And Council leaders sold out and renewed the grave lease a few days ago..."
Xu Jiali broke out in a cold sweat: "What nonsense is this? Who told you?"
"Erin!"
"Can you really trust what she says directly? Her mouth's reliability is no higher than an adult potato..."
"But she can help me steal cans from the King's den! We are already soul mates!"
Xu Jiali: "..."
He secretly turned his head to glance at the mass-produced puppet standing nearby. This little fellow with dead fish eyes sensed his gaze but merely looked back dazedly, driven by simple thought threads, without further reaction.
It seemed Erin's main Mind was not focused on the activity over here.
Xu Jiali took a deep breath, checked the time, and knocked on Lingdang's helmet.
"The time's up, our Group 1—others follow the queue!"
The deep divers started acting per orders, Xu Jiali led Lingdang towards the revolving door first. He had already shut his Power Armor's mask, the armor's built-in nebulizer activated automatically, various mental defense drugs and spiritual energy enhancers were injected into the life-support cycle.
A faint scent of blood lingered in the familiar inhaled gases.
But the smell disappeared in an instant, most deep divers didn't even notice its presence.
Xu Jiali bent down, casually picked up the mass-produced puppet that was following at her feet.
"Everyone else, learn from this, when passing through the gate, take the mass-produced puppets with you like this, don't let them walk by themselves..."
A voice from a team member came through the headset: "Captain, why?"
Xu Jiali was silent for half a second: "...just do it, don't ask so many questions."
"Huh? Oh, wait, I get it, it's because the puppet's legs are short and they can't walk fast, so they might get swept back by the gate... Ah ooh! Whoa whoa whoa..."
Xu Jiali turned around and looked at the team member being headbutted in the knee by a mass-produced puppet: "You deserve it, don't you! Think you're so smart?"
"Help! Captain, help! My joints, my joints are overloading, shit, how is this little thing so strong..."
Xu Jiali, expressionless, passed through that door named "Reincarnation" with Lingdang.
On the other side of the gate was an endless dense fog, towering giant trees, and a mirror-like rift standing above the distant forest.
The edges of that rift were jagged and cracked, showing a vague landscape in the distance.
Around the triangular gate, in an area about the size of half a soccer field, was a temporary base established by the advance team— here were several simple tents, two sets of frontline communication equipment, some small power units, and a micro drone hangar.
Due to the limited size of the "gate" leading into the Old World, large equipment couldn't be sent into the "gate hall," making this temporary base look somewhat shabby.
Yet, looking at this shabby temporary base, facing the vast, eerie forest cloaked in endless dense fog, and the incredible huge rift in the distance, instilled the explorers who stepped through the gate with an indescribable sense of ambition.
"It truly feels like entering a new world..." Xu Jiali couldn't help but mutter softly.
"It's the Old World, boss," Lingdang's voice came through the communicator.
"...No mistake there," Xu Jiali laughed, casually placing the mass-produced puppet she brought on the ground, "Let's begin then, first clean the fog surrounding the 'gate hall'."
...
Meanwhile, at No. 66 Wutong Road,
"The exploration action on the Old World side has started," Erin (Ou) climbed onto the coffee table, blinking her crimson eyes, "So far, it seems like several teams are going smoothly. They brought several sets of 'diffusion devices' over, and also quite a few blood grenades for individual use..."
"Hmm, I can feel it," Yu Sheng, sitting on the sofa next to her, squinted slightly, sensing the blood connection coming from the other side of the gate, "Using diffusion like this is indeed quite efficient..."
"It's getting more and more like spreading fungal mats," the little puppet swayed, "Even fungal mat tumors are being used this time."
Yu Sheng thought about it but held back the urge to poke this guy over with his finger— the noise was secondary, mainly because this little thing's bite really hurt.
"Let them slowly explore over there in the Old World," Yu Sheng said while casually opening a door, "I'll first study this thing."
Erin widened her eyes, watching Yu Sheng as he pulled something out of the storage room.
It was a blood-red spear, the spearhead like two thin flames entwined and growing together, with faint red lines slowly undulating on its surface, as if possessing life.
"Oh oh, this is what you swiped from..."
"What swiped! Spoil of war, specialty item, at worst you could call it a weapon—a tool of crime, after all, this thing did stab me to death once," Yu Sheng glared at the little puppet but then his gaze fell on the blood-red spear, his expression gradually becoming serious, "Speaking of which, hasn't this thing gotten a bit more 'lively' these past two days? I remember when I first swiped it, there weren't these moving red lights on it."
Erin immediately shouted: "You yourself said it was swiped—"
Yu Sheng pretended not to hear, but thoughtfully placed his hand over the blood-red spear.
Then, with a thought, wisps of thin red threads extended from the spear, slowly merging into his palm...