Chapter 522
Anchor Point Connection Completed
"We're trying, but the fjord terrain is too effective at blocking the signal. You have to drive completely out of the fjord entrance!"
"How long will it take to get out of the bay?"
"At the current speed, it will take at least five more minutes!"
Jiang Nian quickly calculated.
Five minutes to exit the bay, then another minute to connect to the satellite and download the password.
Enter the decryption code in the last minute.
The theory is feasible, but only if everything goes smoothly.
"Can the boat go any faster?"
Grey Goose stared at the speedometer on the control panel: "That's the limit!"
An ominous vibration came from the hull, and the engine emitted an overloaded hiss.
“Then hold!” Jiang Nian turned to the rocks. “Check your weapons and prepare for an interception.”
"There's something outside," Bayonet suddenly said, his voice weak but clear.
He had been lying at the bottom of the cabin, but now he struggled to lift his head and stare at the sonar screen.
Three red dots are rapidly approaching from the depths of the fjord.
“It’s a Dawn’s pursuit boat,” Grey Goose gritted her teeth. “It must have been sent by Old Knife.”
"Prepare for battle."
"What?" Manager Wang's eyes widened. "Just the few of us? We're seriously wounded by bayonets, my leg is broken, and Grey Goose has been shot in the shoulder! How are we supposed to fight?"
"Then let them catch up?"
Jiang Nian coldly retorted, "Do you know what the consequences will be if the module and password fall into Dawn's hands?"
Manager Wang opened his mouth, but didn't say anything.
"Grey Goose, you take control of the boat. Rock, come with me to the aft deck."
"Advisor Jiang, your injury..." Yan Shi looked at the wound on his side that was still bleeding.
"Can't die."
The two climbed out of the hatch.
The ice cliffs on both sides of the fjord soar into the clouds, and three white trails are rapidly approaching.
"Two nautical miles away." Rock raised the machine gun at the stern. "They're in firing range."
"Don't rush," Jiang Nian said, squinting. "Wait until they get closer."
The pursuit boats became increasingly clear.
There were three black, high-speed assault boats, each with a twin-mounted machine gun mounted on its bow. The figures on board were already visible, all dressed in black combat uniforms.
“One thousand meters!” Rock shouted.
"Fire!"
The machine gun spat out flames.
The bullets drew dense lines on the sea surface, heading straight for the pursuit boat.
The lead ship immediately turned to evade, but the second and third ships opened fire in return.
Bullets struck the hull and railings, sending up countless sparks.
Rock lowered his body and continued firing.
Jiang Nian didn't move.
He stared at the formation of the three boats.
The lead ship is drawing fire, while the two behind it are flanking from the left and right. A standard tactical arrangement.
“Rock, you’re on the left,” Jiang Nian said. “I’ll take the right one.”
"How could you..."
Before he could finish speaking, Jiang Nian had already leaped into the air.
Instead of jumping into the sea, he jumped towards the life raft hanging on the side of the boat. He grabbed the rope, his body swinging in an arc through the air, while simultaneously drawing his resonant blade.
The blade glowed with a final blue light.
The pursuing boat on the right passed by less than ten meters away. The gunman on the boat turned his gun, but Jiang Nian was faster.
The resonant blade flew out of his hand.
It wasn't thrown at the gunman, but at the engine at the stern of the boat.
The blade pierced the hood precisely, and the high-frequency vibration instantly destroyed the internal structure.
The engine emitted a piercing wail, billowed thick smoke, and its speed plummeted.
Jiang Nian let go and landed back on his own boat, rolling over to dissipate the force.
The wound on his side tore open, and the pain made his vision go black.
"Well done!" Rock roared, while simultaneously suppressing the boat on the left with his machine gun.
But the first ship had already circled around to the rear.
A figure was standing at the bow of the boat.
Even from hundreds of meters away, Jiang Nian could recognize those eyes.
The hilt of the resonant blade was still tucked into his shoulder, but he seemed completely unconcerned. He held a strangely shaped long-barreled weapon in his hand, aiming it.
"Get out of the way!" Jiang Nian lunged at the rock.
A beam of blazing white energy grazed past their heads, pierced the railing of the foredeck, and melted a hole the size of a basketball.
"A plasma cannon!" Rock gasped. "This is a military-grade weapon!"
“He wanted to capture him alive.” Jiang Nian got up. “Otherwise, that shot would have hit the engine directly.”
The second shot came.
This time, the target is the steering wheel room.
The Grey Goose jerked its course, causing the boat to tilt violently. The energy beam grazed the hull and fell into the sea, creating a towering column of water.
"We can't let him fire again!" Grey Goose roared into the communicator. "If he does it again, we're all dead!"
"He's charging up!" Rock roared. "This shot could blow us all to smithereens!"
Time seemed to slow down.
Jiang Nian could see the light from the plasma cannon muzzle getting brighter and brighter, and he could see Lao Dao's finger on the trigger slowly applying force.
He could hear his own heartbeat, the bayonet's panting in the hold, the grey geese's curses, and Supervisor Wang's prayers.
"Jiang Nian!" Old Qin's voice suddenly boomed in the earpiece, "The energy reading at the Greenland anchor point has exceeded 80%! It's actively releasing a summoning signal!"
Almost simultaneously, Jiang Nian felt a violent throbbing deep in his chest.
It was stronger than ever before.
It felt like a hand reached into his body and gripped his heart.
He knelt on one knee, clutching his chest. His vision began to blur, and all he could hear was a buzzing, resonant sound.
“Advisor Jiang!” Yan Shi helped him up.
The anchor point is being forcibly activated.
Once fully activated, the three anchor points will form a resonance field, automatically locking onto the coordinates of the Ruins.
At that point, whether there are modules or passwords will no longer matter.
The triangulation is almost complete automatically.
"Elder Qin," Jiang Nian said breathlessly, "if the anchor point is forcibly activated, how much time do we have left?"
"Judging from the energy curve, it will take at most two hours." Old Qin's voice was dry. "After two hours, the resonance fields of the three anchor points will synchronize, and the spatial channel will open."
"Can it be stopped?"
"Unless all three anchor points are destroyed at the same time, or the key is destroyed."
silence.
The only sounds were the roar of engines and the howling of the sea breeze.
"Then two hours it will be."
Jiang Nian raised his head and looked at Lao Dao, "Tell your people to cease fire. We have a common goal now."
Old Dao stared at him for a few seconds, put down the plasma cannon, and said something into the communicator.
The three pursuit boats simultaneously slowed down, maintaining their distance but ceasing fire. "Are you crazy?" Rock's eyes widened. "Cooperate with them?"
“It’s not cooperation,” Jiang Nian said. “It’s a temporary truce. Once the anchor point is fully activated and the Ruins open, whatever’s inside will escape and no one can control it. What Dawn wants is the technology inside the Ruins, not the end of the world.”
How do you know they'll listen?
"Because they're not stupid."
Sure enough, Lao Dao's boat slowly approached and ran alongside him at a distance of ten meters.
"Jiang Nian," Lao Dao's voice came through the loudspeaker, "Give us the module and the password. We have the best decryption team; we can crack it within two hours."
"And then?" Jiang Nian countered, "You activate the anchor point and rush into the Ruins of Return?"
"It's better than letting the organization get it."
How do you know the organization can't get it?
Jiang Nian stared at him. "You're in Greenland, and they're in the South China Sea and the North Atlantic. Do you have enough time to get there in two hours?"
Old Dao fell silent.
“I have a suggestion,” Jiang Nian said. “I can give you the module and the password. But the decryption must be done under my supervision. After it’s cracked, we’ll share the data.”
"and then?"
“Then we’ll work together to find a way to destroy the anchor point,” Jiang Nian said. “The Ruins of Return cannot be opened, at least not now.”
What makes you think I would agree?
“Because you didn’t fire that shot just now.” Jiang Nian pointed to the resonant blade on his shoulder. “You wanted to kill me, but you wanted to stop the organization even more. We have the same goal, just different methods.”
A long silence.
The light at the fjord's exit drew ever closer, and the sea gradually opened up.
“Alright,” Old Knife finally said, “but you have to get on my boat. Just you alone.”
"No!" Rock roared.
“Okay,” Jiang Nian said calmly, “but my companions need to leave safely. You will provide them with a good boat to go to the rendezvous point.”
"Advisor Jiang!"
“This is an order.” Jiang Nian looked at the rock. “Take the bayonet and Supervisor Wang and go. I’ll take the module and the password.”
"But……"
“No buts.” Jiang Nian interrupted him. “This is the only way to save everyone.”
Rock gritted his teeth and finally nodded.
Five minutes later, the two boats came alongside each other at the fjord's exit.
Jiang Nian, carrying the module and tablet, jumped onto Lao Dao's boat. Grey Goose, Rock, Bayonet, and Supervisor Wang transferred to a high-speed boat provided by Dawn and headed in another direction.
"You'll regret this," the grey goose said before leaving.
“Perhaps,” Jiang Nian said, “but at least you’re alive.”
Old Dao's boat changed direction and headed deeper into the fjord.
"Where to?" Jiang Nian asked.
“Our temporary base.” Old Knife sat opposite him, with two Dawn Guards standing on either side at gunpoint. “It’s not far from here, about a ten-minute walk.”
Jiang Nian noticed that besides Lao Dao, there was also the short-haired woman on the boat. She was sitting in the corner, wiping the two dark red curved blades, without even glancing at Jiang Nian.
“Her name is Ying,” Old Knife said. “She’s my second-in-command.”
"Not bad," Jiang Nian said.
“You’re not bad either.” Ying finally looked up and gave him a cold look. “Next time I’ll cut off your head.”
"I'll wait."
The boat entered a hidden tributary where ice cliffs on both sides converged, forming a natural cave.
Inside the cave is a man-made dock, brightly lit.
When they docked, Jiang Nian saw at least thirty fully armed men standing on the pier.
"Welcome to the Dawn of the Arctic Outpost." Old Knife was the first to disembark. "It's simple, but it has everything you need."
Jiang Nian was taken into a renovated ice cave.
The interior space is vast and divided into multiple areas. There are living quarters, an armory, and a data center that looks quite advanced.
A dozen technicians were busy at work, with encrypted data streams scrolling across the screen.
“The decryption team,” Old Knife pointed to those people, “are all former elites of the organization, defectors.”
Does the organization know about this risk?
"They know, but they don't care."
Another female technician chimed in, "They believe that there is technology in the Ruins of Return that can control the cracks, so they can open them first and then control them."
"gamble."
“Yes, gambling with the fate of all humanity.” Old Knife sneered. “That’s why we defected. We need to get the data from the Ruins of Return, but not to open it, but to find a way to safely close the anchor point.”
Jiang Nian stared at them for a few seconds, then placed the module and tablet on the console.
"The password has four minutes remaining."
“That’s enough.” The middle-aged man quickly connected the equipment. “Our satellite link has been on the whole time. Connect to the organization’s server immediately! Download the latest password… Done!”
A string of complex characters popped up on the screen.
"enter."
The technicians' fingers flew across the keyboard.
The indicator light on the module started flashing, changing from red to yellow, and finally to green.
"Decryption successful!" the female technician exclaimed excitedly. "Reading data... My goodness, this volume..."
A waterfall of data began to appear on the screen.
“There’s something even worse.” The female technician pulled up another document. “Look at this, the real function of anchor points.”
A complex structural diagram is displayed on the screen.
The three anchor points are arranged in a triangle, but each anchor point contains a substructure, a huge energy harvesting array.
“This isn’t just a simple location beacon,” the female technician said, her voice trembling. “This is a harvester.”
"What do you mean?"
"Once the anchor point is activated, it will not only open a passage to the Ruins of Return, but also draw some kind of energy from the surrounding space."
She zoomed in on the image, "Look at these patterns, it's a typical energy channeling design. They gather the extracted energy to the center, and then..."
"And then what?"
“Transfer to somewhere,” Lao Dao continued. “We suspected before that the organization wasn’t building anchor points simply to go to the Ruins. Now it’s confirmed, they want to steal something.”
"Steal what?"
“I don’t know.” The middle-aged man pulled up the data analysis. “But judging from the energy type, it’s a high-dimensional spacetime energy. Simply put, it’s the nourishment for ‘space itself’.”
Jiang Nian felt a chill.
"If they succeed..."
"The surrounding spatial structure will be weakened."
How long will it take for it to collapse?
The middle-aged man entered a few parameters: "If all three anchor points operate at full power, after seventy-two hours, the strength of the spatial structure will drop below the critical value. Then..."
He didn't finish his sentence, but everyone understood.
“So we have to destroy the anchor points,” Jiang Nian said. “All three.”
“The question is how to destroy it.” Old Dao walked to the main screen and pulled up a global map. “The South China Sea anchorage is in the center of the organization’s controlled area and is heavily defended. The North Atlantic anchorage is in the deep ocean and is surrounded by at least twenty frigates. The Greenland anchorage is right under our feet.”
“The Greenland anchor point is the easiest,” Jiang Nian said. “It’s not fully built yet, and it just went through an explosion, so the structure is fragile.”
“But it’s 300 meters underwater and has its own power system.” Shadow spoke for the first time, his voice icy. “To destroy it, we would need to dive deep and plant a sufficient amount of explosives. We don’t have that time, nor do we have the equipment.”
“I have a way,” Jiang Nian said.
Everyone looked at him.
“The anchor point needs a key to be fully activated.” Jiang Nian pointed to the bio-modification report on the screen. “And the key can interfere with the anchor point’s energy field in reverse.”
"What do you mean?"
“I can go inside, into the anchor point, and disrupt its resonant frequency with my marking system,” Jiang Nian said. “Once the frequency is disrupted, the three anchor points will be unable to synchronize, and the spatial channel will not open.” (End of Chapter)