Chapter 345: Anomalies and Traps
However, as the operation progressed deeper into the Hollow, a strange, unsettling atmosphere began to permeate the air.
The process of tracking down Pearlman's signal source was unexpectedly... smooth. Almost too smooth.
"Turn left ahead. Bypass the collapsed load-bearing pillar area," Wise's voice crackled steadily through the comms channel, guiding them through the distorted architecture. "The signal source is registering in the deeper core hall."
Section 6 followed the designated route, their boots crunching softly against the crystalline Aether corruption coating the floor. They did indeed encounter small pockets of enemies—mercenaries clad in matching tactical uniforms, armed with mediocre, mass-produced equipment.
Yet, their will to resist was exceptionally weak. Often, Section 6 had barely assumed a basic battle stance before the fight ended. In one instance, Miyabi had merely rested her hand casually on the hilt of her katana, 'Tailless'.
Before the blade was even drawn, the mercenaries flinched as if struck by lightning. They fired a few wild, symbolic shots into the ceiling and scrambled over the debris, fleeing like startled rats terrified of being a single step too slow.
"Something's not right," Harumasa's voice rang out over the local channel. He slung his weapon over his shoulder, watching the retreating figures with narrowed eyes. "These guys look fierce enough, but their actual offense... is pathetic. They're practically rolling over for us."
Miyabi stepped past a shattered concrete slab, her gaze sweeping the shadows. "Right-side passage cleared. No decent resistance encountered." Her tone carried a distinct chill of doubt. "It's as if they're just... stalling for time. Or perhaps, putting on a show for an audience."
Yanagi adjusted her glasses, the lenses reflecting the eerie ambient light of the Hollow. She calmly analyzed the data streaming across her tactical visor. "There is indeed a glaring anomaly here. Based on our previous encounters in the Outer Ring, the combat proficiency of these corporate mercenaries shouldn't be this low. This level of resistance doesn't feel like an obstruction. It feels more like... an enticement."
Back in the safety of the Random Play video store, Wise stared intently at the HDD monitors, his brow furrowed in deep concentration. Through the real-time visual feed transmitted by Eous, combined with Fairy's environmental analysis, he could clearly see the immediate, almost rehearsed collapse of the enemy lines.
"The physical obstacles on this route are much smaller than our initial projections anticipated," Wise reported, his fingers flying across the keyboard. "The enemy seems to be intentionally guiding us in a specific direction. They are executing a textbook 'stair-step retreat' tactic, but the performance is incredibly sloppy and obvious."
Miyabi's gaze swept across the empty, cavernous passage ahead, her hand never leaving her sword hilt. "Too smooth," she whispered, her instincts flaring. "Unnervingly smooth. It feels exactly like they're paving a golden path for us, leading straight into a trap."
Despite their mounting suspicions, Pearlman's encrypted signal source was pulsing steadily just ahead. They couldn't afford to halt the mission now.
Under Wise's continuous, precise guidance, the squad pushed further into the corrupted core area of the Ballet Twins Hollow. The architecture around them grew increasingly warped, gravity itself seeming to tilt at odd angles.
However, the tension among the team members only tightened. This unusually smooth progress felt exactly like the suffocating calm before a massive storm, heavily hinting at a deeper conspiracy and unseen dangers lurking in the dark.
Just as Section 6 reached a relatively open plaza—an area littered with equipment that appeared to have been used by the enemy as a temporary forward operating base—Yanagi raised a hand, sharply signaling the team to halt.
Discarded communication terminals, tangled cables, and spent power cells were scattered haphazardly across the cracked floor, creating a cluttered environment perfectly suited for an ambush.
"Proxy," Yanagi transmitted calmly via the secure communicator, her eyes scanning the debris. "The ambient signal interference at this specific location is abnormally strong. Attempt to scan for encrypted communication nodes or hidden data streams nearby. The enemy's highly coordinated retreat indicates they are relying on a dedicated, localized communication network."
"Understood. Initiating scan now," Wise responded instantly from the store's lounge, his hands blurring over the HDD console as he routed more processing power to the Hollow.
The holographic halo of Fairy flickered rapidly beside him, concentrating its immense, cold computing power on the designated coordinates.
Almost instantly, the AI returned the result in her signature clinical tone: "High-intensity encrypted data stream detected. Attempting to decrypt... Decryption successful. Successfully accessed the enemy's local tactical network."
The next second, a burst of noisy, hostile radio chatter, accompanied by clear data reports, was filtered, translated by Fairy, and simultaneously piped directly into the earpieces of Section 6 and Wise's monitoring channel.
"...Zone A bomb in place, remote detonator signal stable."
"Zone C jamming device operating at maximum capacity. Confirmed multiple exits in the target area are fully sealed."
"...They're almost here. Stick to the plan. Wait for the signal, then bury them and that Bangboo alive!"
The fragmented audio snippets, combined with Fairy's rapid telemetry analysis of multiple high-energy explosive reactions suddenly registering within the Ballet Twins structure, outlined a brutally clear and malicious plan.
The enemies had already set up an inescapable kill box here. They had rigged the structural supports with a massive quantity of military-grade Aether explosives and deployed heavy jamming devices to seal off most of the known safe extraction routes within the Hollow.
Their primary objective was never to capture Pearlman. It was to detonate the entire core, burying Section 6 and Pearlman himself beneath thousands of tons of collapsing Hollow architecture.
"Damn it!" Soukaku bared her teeth, gripping her weapon tightly after hearing Wise and Fairy's brief, grim explanation. "These guys are just plain evil! Who blows up a whole building just to hide a secret?!"
A cold, dangerous glint flashed in Miyabi's eyes, though her posture remained as relaxed and perfectly balanced as it always was during combat. "Now is not the time for emotional outbursts," she said, her voice a placid pool of ice. "Yanagi. The operational parameters have shifted. How do we proceed?" She smoothly handed the tactical decision-making over to the team's strategic brain.
Yanagi pushed up her glasses once more, her gaze behind the lenses sharp as a scalpel. She stood perfectly still for a moment, her mind racing at a blistering pace, dissecting the bizarre logic behind this setup.
'The enemy has deployed a massive, structural-collapse bomb trap, clearly intending to annihilate us here,'Yanagi thought rapidly.'But their intelligence network should know that with Miyabi's combat power as a Void Hunter, the mathematical probability of actually killing her with conventional Aether explosives is extremely low. At best, it would cause us some severe inconvenience and bury our extraction route.''Knowing this, yet still going to such immense logistical lengths to set this up... what is their true endgame? Are they simply trying to stall us so someone else can escape?''Or... are these bombs not meant for killing us at all, but rather to trigger a secondary, more covert objective that we haven't detected yet?'
This wasn't Yanagi displaying blind arrogance in Miyabi's combat prowess. It was a cold, rational judgment derived from years of operating together and a deep, intimate understanding of the Void Hunter's monstrous strength.
However, with the limited data currently available, no matter how many variables she calculated, it was impossible to definitively pin down the enemy's true intentions.
"I cannot fully fathom the deeper strategic purpose behind their actions," Yanagi finally spoke, choosing the most practical path forward.
"But regardless of their secondary motives, recovering Pearlman remains our absolute highest priority. Only by ensuring his personal safety and extracting the encrypted evidence in his possession can we expose the ironclad proof of Bringer's direct involvement in the Vision Corporation scandal. We must do this before he concludes his campaign for Chief Security Officer and secures his ascension to power."
She paused, looking directly at the lens of Eous. "Proxy, can you use their compromised network to pinpoint the exact physical coordinates of all the explosive devices?"
Wise's voice returned quickly, heavy with gravity. "Fairy is running a full-capacity search, but the situation isn't optimistic. Currently, we've only managed to reverse-locate roughly sixty bomb placement points by scraping their comms chatter and equipment logs."
"Based on the sheer volume of data traffic and our analysis of their encrypted file structures, at least half of the bomb placement coordinates haven't been synchronized to this local network we just breached. They are likely using physical air-gapping or secondary offline security measures to hide the rest."
Yanagi's brow furrowed slightly. This was undeniably bad news. Unknown explosives meant unpredictable, cascading risks, transforming the already dangerous Hollow into a literal minefield where a single wrong step could trigger a catastrophic chain reaction.
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