Meanwhile, on the other side, at the same time aboard the HEAVEN, Jill Young received a message from Liu Xiaoying: "Ma'am, we've finished scanning the whole ship, but found something strange."
"Something strange?" Strange is good—boring is bad! Jill perked right up: "What kind of strange?"
"In every scan we've run on this big ship, there's a huge area below deck that we just can't penetrate. It's like there's a blackout curtain hanging over it—no way to see inside. My camera's not the fastest, but it's reliable. With barriers this thick, we've never had a total blackout before. Plus, the agent's signal is coming from there, but we still can't pinpoint the exact spot."
"Hmm?" Jill pinched her chin, squinting her eyes.
A blackout zone you can't scan, a signal constantly tempting everyone to investigate—why does this sound so familiar? Isn't this basically the plot of Alien 1? Something fishy is definitely going on here, no question. But...
"Cousin, pull the special ops team back a bit. Rachel, round up the Chosen Ones—you're coming with me to check it out." If something needs checking, you check it! Curiosity killed the cat, but nobody ever said curiosity killed the tiger, right?
"Yes." "On it."
"Xiaoying, did you find the entrance to that place?"
"Found it. Marking it for you now."
Ten minutes later, the group wound their way down the stairs, twisting and turning deeper into the ship, until they found a round steel vault door. Only the captain knew the password, and this captain was a real tough guy—no amount of threats or bribes could make him talk. Even when he did speak, he insisted he'd forgotten and didn't remember a thing.
Charlie, ever the seasoned expert, figured it out right away: "He's not lying. This is forced forgetting—a top-secret trick used by elite intelligence agencies. The moment he's captured, a hypnotist's pre-set command kicks in and erases the password from his memory."
"There's really a trick like that? Mind blown." Everyone stared in awe, then turned to look at Senior Brother Mentor in perfect unison.
"Alright, alright, I get it—my turn again, huh?" Senior Brother Mentor rolled up his sleeves. "But this time it's right up my alley. Leave it to me."
Turns out, specialization matters. After a bit of mind magic, Senior Brother Mentor finally cracked the captain's mental maze and fished the password out of his shattered memories.
Beep beep beep—after punching in the thirty-nine-digit password, there was a thunderous rumble, and the two-meter-wide round vault door finally opened. This wasn't your typical up-down or side-to-side door, but the rolling kind you see in top-tier bank vaults.
If you don't know what kind of door that is, here's the deal: they carve out a giant, almost hemispherical chunk of metal from a wall nearly a meter thick. When you open it, the hemisphere just rolls away. Not for show—it’s just that the thing is so heavy, this is the only way to move it.
Doors like this cost a fortune, seal super tight, and are basically impossible to bust open. Forget regular crooks with explosives—even a main battle tank firing shells at it three or five times wouldn't leave a scratch.
Anything locked up behind a door like that has got to be seriously valuable.
Behind the door, it was pitch black.
Jill strode in first, straight into the darkness. Suddenly, the automatic lights flicked on. Jill glanced around, raising an eyebrow: "Whoa, they really went for the mysterious vibe. This almost looks like sci-fi."
Behind the massively heavy vault door was a square hall, about fifty or sixty square meters, pure white everywhere—so white you couldn't even tell where the light was coming from. The ceiling, walls, and floor all seemed to glow, flooding the space with light from every direction.
From the setup and layout, it was clear this was like a sterilization chamber in a lab—the final checkpoint before meeting the big boss.
Opposite the huge vault door, on a wall nearly seven or eight meters high, was another switch: a sci-fi-looking round disk about a meter across, clearly some kind of lock. Above it, a few letters—also pure white, just barely sticking out from the surface. Unless you had sharp eyes, you'd never spot them.
"E-D-E-N? Eden? First HEAVEN, now EDEN—does the SD Syndicate think they're playing God or something?" Jill glanced at Jonathan Black, who looked a little spaced out in the all-white room. "What's up with you?"
"No, it's nothing." Jonathan shook his head, trying to clear the weird feeling from his mind. "I don't know why, but this setup—the pure white style—feels oddly familiar."
"Familiar?" Jill was about to ask more when the white disk suddenly started moving. It spun, buzzing like a bolt screwing into a nut, embedding itself in the wall. With a loud rumble, the spinning stopped. Hiss—the sound of pressure releasing, and cracks appeared in the white wall.
The cracks formed a complex pattern, like some kind of crest. Jill instinctively frowned—something about it felt off. Before she could think more, the entire white wall retreated along the lines, sliding away in all directions. The EDEN door was fully open, and everyone braced themselves as the inside was revealed.
What they saw inside was pretty wild.
It was all white, with no extra color anywhere. But it wasn't empty—instead, it was packed with all kinds of cubes, big and small. The biggest were nearly three meters across; the smallest, just twenty or thirty centimeters. Stacked and linked in every direction, they made a maze of shapes and heights, like a miniature city.
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Even the surface of these white cubes had no shadows, no matter which way you looked—not even underneath. It was so strange, it felt almost supernatural.
The material of these white cubes looked exactly like the stuff covering the walls of the whole space.
Liu Xiaoying switched to her "paparazzi macro lens" for a close scan: "It's some kind of unidentified composite material—probably has special physical properties."
Chainsaw Girl stepped up and pressed on the cubes. At first, they felt soft and springy, like sponges—you could easily leave a handprint on the surface. But press a little harder, and the resistance and hardness shot up fast. Push past a certain point and it was hard as steel, impossible to budge.
Lift your hand, and the handprint bounced back instantly, disappearing without a trace.
Meanwhile, in a distant room, the big screen split into more panels. As Chainsaw Girl pressed the cube, numbers flickered rapidly, finally settling on a two-digit figure. The smart software crunched the data and quickly spat out a result. Three people watched the screen in silence, like researchers eyeing a lab rat—no one said a word.
When it comes to serious business, even the hot-tempered young guy could stay quiet and focused—which is exactly why he's cut out to be a big shot.
"This stuff is pretty interesting, but why did SD stash so much of it here? Seriously, what the heck is this anyway?" Chainsaw Girl revved up her chainsaw: "Let me slice one open and see!"
"Stick to the mission. We'll study the cubes later." Rachel Luo stopped Chainsaw Girl, then turned to Liu Xiaoying: "Did you find our team's signal?"
"Found it. Follow me." Liu Xiaoying swapped in a new lens, camera at the ready, and led the way. The group followed, weaving through the maze of white cubes—climbing hills, crossing ravines, squeezing through tunnels. The terrain was complicated and huge.
After a short walk, Jill suddenly sniffed the air, eyes flashing as she hurried ahead. The group quickly followed, twisting through the maze until they reached a relatively open, low-lying area. And in the very center, they spotted the only splash of color in all that white.
It was a patch of crimson—a huge mess of blood and flesh, like someone had spilled a bucket of paint, splattering the area. Broken bones, mangled organs, tangled hair, and burst eyeballs—this was more gruesome than any horror game. Nobody here was a sheltered flower; they'd all fought their way out of hellish battlefields.
But even these battle-hardened veterans couldn't help staring, couldn't help getting angry, couldn't help being totally distracted for a moment.
"Wait—no!" Jonathan Black suddenly snapped out of it, shouting, "It's a trap—"
Before he could finish, a chilling wave of murderous intent swept in. Three red laser dots formed a perfect triangle, about an inch on each side, suddenly lighting up the back of Liu Xiaoying's head.
In that instant, Liu Xiaoying felt every hair on her body stand up, her danger sense screaming in her mind. Dry mouth, pounding heart—she was hit by a wave of pure, impending doom.
The next second, a ping-pong-ball-sized pale blue orb shot toward her head at insane speed. Liu Xiaoying froze up, like a frog caught by a snake—she couldn't move a muscle.
But just then—boom! Li Yuncong unleashed a wave of pure force. At the last possible moment, he showed the power that matched his spot on the Heavenly Ranking. With a roar, he had no time for anything fancy—just threw himself in front of Liu Xiaoying. Pop! The pale blue orb slammed into his chest.