“The [Gate]?” Xia Ye asked.

The word carried symbolic weight; Xia Ye wasn’t sure exactly what it meant.

“The [Gate] refers to the point of contact between extraterrestrial organisms and our world,” Chi Zhou explained as he walked. “Usually, it’s a wormhole. They have a way of locking a wormhole’s exit onto our galaxy. The Alliance calls it a ‘contamination source’, but we think [Gate] is a more evocative term.”

Xia Ye fell silent for a moment before asking, “They can control wormholes?”

“Yeah. Hard as it is to believe, that’s exactly how it works.”

Chi Zhou shrugged helplessly and gestured for the others to follow.

“It’s true. Every existing theory tells us that wormholes can’t be controlled. From the very day humanity discovered them, we assessed their unstable nature, concluding that while they were ubiquitous, they were also fleeting—impossible to even capture.”

Xia Ye listened quietly.

Having read extensively, he understood the nature of wormholes well enough to grasp just how insane Chi Zhou’s claim was.

“Thirty years ago, when the research institute ventured deep into the First Contamination Zone, we discovered one of their abandoned [Gates]. Its material composition was identical to that of a wormhole, leading us to conclude that they used the [Gates] to tunnel their way into our world.”

Chi Zhou’s voice rang out with exceptional clarity in the empty corridor.

“The [Gate] is inherently unstable. Areas where one appears are prone to spacetime overlaps.”

He pointed to the chunks of plaster raining down from the ceiling.

“This place is probably going to collapse soon.”

Chi Zhou quickened his pace, and the squad rapidly withdrew from the top floor, heading towards the second underground level.

Xia Ye nodded.

Everything he had witnessed today was utterly absurd—events far removed from the lives of ordinary people—yet he sensed a strange reality amidst the absurdity.

Since meeting Chi Zhou, the truth of the world had finally begun to reveal itself to him, bit by bit.

It gave him a sense of reassurance.

—

“That’s strange. Aren’t you even a little surprised by that [Gate]?”

Once Chi Zhou finished his explanation, Jian Feiyang finally couldn’t help himself and spoke up.

“You’re way too calm, Little Captain. Is this really your first mission?”

Amidst the rustling fall of plaster dust, Jian Feiyang dodged chunks of stone raining down on him while persistently questioning Xia Ye.

Walking through the ruins on the verge of collapse, Xia Ye maintained an uncanny composure; not even the cuffs of his shirt were stained with dust.

“It feels fine. It’s not that scary,” Xia Ye said calmly. “I grew up in District Twelve.”

Jian Feiyang’s stream of questions faltered to a halt.

He understood the implications behind those words. The extraterrestrial contamination that made the entire Alliance pale with dread, the chronic poverty and mutations, the ecosystem that had yet to fully recover…

District Twelve was a place no one wanted to go.

“Uh, I didn’t know. I should’ve checked your file first,” Jian Feiyang stammered, trying to explain. “I didn’t mean anything by it. I was just curious…”

He gave an awkward laugh. “After all, you’re so strong, Little Captain. That move you just pulled was amazing—I was completely stunned.”

The more he spoke, the more wrong it felt. He worried he was reopening old wounds for Xia Ye.

“Alright, that’s enough,” Chi Zhou interjected just in time. “Jian Feiyang, do you think everyone is just like you?”

He pointed at Jian Feiyang and said to Xia Ye, “Don’t let his chatter fool you. He was a total coward when he first joined the Special Operations Department. He was absolutely terrified by the mutated organisms on his first mission.”

Xia Ye nodded. “Is that so?”

“Yeah,” Chi Zhou said. “A lot of people are just like him.”

Xia Ye lowered his voice and asked, “What about you?”

Chi Zhou smiled gently.

“I was just as calm on my first mission.”

Xia Ye tilted his head slightly, stealing a subtle glance at him.

He found it hard to picture what Chi Zhou’s first mission had been like—no mecha, no research institute, nothing to rely on but his own flesh and blood as he faced extraterrestrial organisms.

Had Chi Zhou truly felt no fear?

Xia Ye didn’t know.

By the time he met Chi Zhou, Chi Zhou was already a symbol of the Alliance.

—

The squad members were close together; even when they deliberately lowered their voices, the others could still hear them.

Ying Jiawei was clearly holding back laughter. She hadn’t expected anyone to dare ask Chi Zhou a question like that.

Jian Feiyang, who couldn’t keep anything to himself, immediately exclaimed, “Holy crap, Xia Ye, you’ve got guts. Is that really something you can just ask?”

He hurried forward, circling around to stand in front of Chi Zhou, his eyes wide with surprise.

“Man, Captain, you aren’t mad?”

Chi Zhou sounded genuinely puzzled. “Why would I be mad about that?”

“Really? I don’t think so,” Jian Feiyang muttered. “If it were anyone else asking, it might be a different story. Remember that idiot from the military last time? He insisted on asking if you had ever wavered during a mission, and your face went dark instantly.”

“Is that the same thing?”

Chi Zhou fished a cigarette out of his pocket but extinguished it the moment he lit it.

“You sure talk a lot.”

“That’s not what you used to say, Captain. You said I was the team’s mood-maker—that wherever I went, there was joy.” Jian Feiyang suddenly thought of something. “Hey, Captain, didn’t you go to military school a few days ago? Was it for the matching exchange event?”

The Alliance regularly held matching exchange events to foster bonds between sentinels and guides and improve combat capabilities.

Because of the unique nature of the sentinel-guide bond, choosing to form a bond was essentially choosing to spend the rest of one’s life together. It was often jokingly referred to as an arranged marriage.

Jian Feiyang grinned and leaned in, looking thoroughly nosy. “Don’t tell me you two have already successfully matched and are planning to get married as soon as this mission ends?”

“You shouldn’t joke about things like that.”

Chi Zhou waved a hand.

“Saying stuff like that during a mission—it’s bad luck.”

Noticing Jian Feiyang’s confused look, Xia Ye added, “You would understand if you watched more films from Old Earth. Whenever a protagonist says, ‘I’m going back home to get married after this job,’ they always end up…”

He raised his hand and made a slicing motion across his throat.

In the dust-filled corridor, he tilted his neck back slightly; the graceful curve made him look just like a proud white swan.

Chi Zhou glanced at him casually. “Hmm. You certainly know your stuff.”

“I don’t…” Xia Ye’s voice trailed off. “…know that much.”

For some reason, he felt his ears growing hot.

—

Within a few brief exchanges, they had returned to the ground-floor lobby.

The lobby was a scene of devastation; tables and chairs lay shattered everywhere, crushed by falling masonry.

The moment the director collapsed, the human-faced trees withered away, leaving behind nothing but piles of grey-black ash on the floor.

To battle Chi Zhou, the director had drained every ounce of energy from the human-faced trees, ruthlessly using them as mere batteries.

Several residents huddled beneath a desk, their faces pale, blood gushing from their palms.

Chi Zhou stopped walking.

“Ying Jiawei, you and Jian Feiyang stay here and evacuate the surviving residents.”

Once the [Gate] opened, the entire central hospital would be engulfed by a wormhole; untrained humans could easily get lost amid overlapping space and time.

The consequences of an ordinary person stumbling into the territory of an extraterrestrial organism were too dire to contemplate.

He glanced at the time on his wrist. “We have fifteen minutes at most.”

Ying Jiawei nodded and walked towards the residents alongside Jian Feiyang.

While they were in the director’s office, Fang Sike and Yu Yucheng had already set out to scout the path to the underground dissection room.

Now, only Chi Zhou and Xia Ye remained of the six-person team.

The lift had long since broken down, and even the stairwell had partially collapsed, exposing bare rebar that extended into the depths.

Not a shred of light reached down there—only absolute darkness.

It was as if something had enveloped the entire underground area, forcing even the scorching sun to recoil.

A bone-chilling draft rushed upwards, ruffling the loose strands of hair at Xia Ye’s temple. “There’s something down there.”

Xia Ye’s voice turned cold. “My Mental Domain is being blocked.”

The snow leopard paced uneasily beside him, scraping its claws against the floor as if wary of a hidden threat.

“That confirms it,” Chi Zhou said, standing on the remaining section of the staircase. “The [Gate] is down there.”

He tossed a high-intensity glow stick down the stairwell. Its brilliant glow was instantly swallowed by the darkness, leaving behind only a dull thud.

“This is the territory of a higher-level species—a place that swallows everything, where no light exists.”

Chi Zhou’s voice was chillingly cold. Xia Ye could detect the turbulent undertow beneath his calm tone—a pure, unadulterated hatred for humanity’s natural enemy.

“Zero point three seconds. A depth of one hundred and two metres.”

Chi Zhou made the assessment the instant the glow stick hit the ground.

“It’s powerful.”

Xia Ye gazed into the bottomless abyss below. “Is it because of the territory?”

“Yes.” Chi Zhou’s voice warmed slightly. “The more expansive the territory, the more powerful the extraterrestrial organism. That one-hundred-and-two-metre span is merely the [Gate] it uses for dormancy. Once the [Gate] opens, its territory could expand thirtyfold.”

Xia Ye walked down the stairs in silence.

In a world where no light could penetrate, he could only make out the blurred silhouette of Chi Zhou ahead of him.

Sharp, angular features; a tall, commanding posture; long, strong fingers.

Xia Ye had seen this silhouette in countless promotional videos and fully understood the immense power it embodied.

Yet, on this long staircase enveloped by a biting, cold wind, he found himself inexplicably recalling the first time he had ever seen Chi Zhou.

A massive, gruesome wound had torn across his back.

Only now, after all these years, did the fear finally hit him.

At the time, he hadn’t even considered just how terrifying it had been.

“Chi Zhou.”

Xia Ye suddenly called out his name amidst the endless darkness.

“What is it?”

Chi Zhou seemed to halt; the sound of his military boots striking the floor ceased.

He waited for Xia Ye to approach, then grasped his wrist.

It was a slender wrist—one that felt as though it might snap under a firm grip.

The skin felt smooth yet cold, beaded with a light sheen of sweat.

“Xia Ye,” Chi Zhou said, “you’re afraid.”

The strange environment had no effect on him; his voice remained gentle and steady, unwavering.

Xia Ye’s racing heart began to calm. He stood there, looking somewhat vexed.

“I’m not scared.”

“You don’t need to put on a brave face in front of me.” Chi Zhou led him down the stairs, step by step. “The territory of a higher-level species exerts a powerful mental contamination effect. Any human who enters will be affected.”

“Is it the same for everyone?” Xia Ye asked softly.

“Mm,” Chi Zhou replied. “Sentinels, guides, ordinary people—it makes no difference.”

“The same goes for you?”

Chi Zhou fell silent—a rare occurrence for him.

Most of the time, he preferred not to recall the first time he had stepped into the territory of an extraterrestrial organism.

Yet, faced with Xia Ye’s question, he answered.

“I’m the same.”

Chi Zhou stepped off the final stair and stood with Xia Ye before the entrance to the dissection room on the second basement level.

He said, “Xia Ye, I am not a god.”

—

The dissection room was sparsely furnished, a stark contrast to the director’s lavish office. The flimsy wooden door stood slightly ajar, a sliver of light spilling through the gap. A red emergency light flashed incessantly, and water—dripping from an unknown source—pooled into a shallow puddle at Xia Ye’s feet.

The two team members who had gone ahead to scout the area were waiting there; they stepped forward as soon as the pair arrived.

“Captain,” Fang Sike said in a low voice, “we can’t get in.”

He pointed to the gap in the doorway.

“It won’t open. Something is blocking it.”

“It’s waiting for me.” Chi Zhou gave a cold laugh. “An old acquaintance.”

The long blade Heaven’s Way gleamed coldly in his hand. Bone-Eater on the hilt emitted a low, mournful hum, which Chi Zhou silenced with a single palm.

“Break the door,” Chi Zhou ordered. “Don’t worry about it.”

He swung the long blade down in a swift arc; the flimsy wooden door burst open, revealing the full expanse of the dissection room.

Even though it had become the territory of an extraterrestrial organism, the room still retained the original appearance of Longgu Town Central Hospital’s dissection room.

The tiled floor took on an eerie hue under the red glow of the emergency lights.

The white walls bore the painted slogan, [Respect Science, Love Your Work]. The red paint looked startlingly vivid.

Countless shelving units stretched out before them, each one reaching all the way to the ceiling. The shelves were lined with glass jars that exuded a pungent odour of formalin.

“What kind of experiment is this?” Fang Sike asked, pinching his nose.

Xia Ye walked toward the jars, wanting a better look.

In this dissection room, the range of his Mental Domain was severely restricted; he no longer possessed an omniscient view.

The glass jars held various internal organs. At first glance, the scene seemed no different from a standard hospital dissection room. But on closer inspection, one could see the organs embedded with tiny seeds, resembling those of a tree.

“Contamination source,” Chi Zhou said. “Those are seeds from the human-faced trees.”

Xia Ye merely hummed in acknowledgement; his attention had already shifted away from the jars.

He took a few steps forward, venturing deeper into the room.

Behind the towering shelves stood rows of experimental chambers, each two metres tall. Filled with an unidentified liquid, the chambers were connected to overhead piping that continuously supplied oxygen and nutrients to the experimental subjects.

Xia Ye stood before one of the chambers, gazing at the ‘person’ within.

That ‘person’ possessed a face identical to his own.

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