Chapter 35: Second Mobilization Squad: Hidden Dragons and Crouching Tigers
Li Lin was abruptly yanked from the depths of his slumber by the shrill clamor of his phone, a sound that jolted him awake with an instinctive sense of danger welling from within his soul.
As a skilled Special Affairs Bureau Operative, he had long since honed his instincts to react to emergencies. His body moved before his thoughts caught up, springing from the rented bed like a taut spring and landing on the floor. In the same motion, he grabbed his phone from the bedside table and rushed toward the window facing the street.
“This is Li Lin,” he snapped as he answered the call, simultaneously positioning a device with a complex lens assembly toward the street below. “What’s going on?”
Song Cheng’s voice came through immediately, sounding unusually stern. “Have you noticed anything on your end?”
Li Lin glanced at the device’s refracted light patterns and then spared a quick look at his laptop, which was automatically monitoring data on the side. After skimming the monitoring log, he responded swiftly, “Everything appears normal. There was a minor energy fluctuation around 1 AM—just one of the usual periodic surges from the Borderland.”
“Xu Jiali has already set out. He should be arriving at your location soon,” Song Cheng’s tone remained heavy. “Maintain surveillance on the block. No matter what you see, do not leave your post. Report immediately. Remember, under no circumstances are you to move out alone before Xu Jiali gets there!”
“Ah? Ah, got it!” Li Lin hesitated, then quickly acknowledged. Unable to suppress his curiosity, he ventured, “What exactly is going on?”
“The Borderland is experiencing large-scale spatial dislocation and restoration at irregular intervals—every five to ten minutes.”
Before Li Lin could fully process this revelation, Song Cheng had already hung up. Taking a deep breath, Song Cheng lifted his head and stared at the massive screen at the end of the command hall.
The screen displayed a comprehensive map of Boundary City, overlaid with a three-dimensional structure formed from countless curves and symbols. Monitoring data and remote surveillance signals flooded the display in a frenzy.
The command hall was ablaze with lights, black-uniformed Bureau operatives busy at their terminals, their eyes glued to the screens. From time to time, others would enter or exit through the side doors, delivering reports from other divisions or bearing fresh bad news.
“We’ve had a few minor spatial dislocations over the past couple of days, but they were isolated and far less frequent,” muttered a female operative in a sleek black uniform behind Song Cheng. “Borderland’s unique temporal structure occasionally causes anomalies, so the alerts back then didn’t seem significant.”
“In hindsight, it looks more like a probing maneuver before a major operation,” another operative chimed in grimly. “Now it seems like ‘they’ are finally making their move… Damn it, we underestimated them.”
Just then, a voice from one of the terminals rang out, interrupting the conversation behind Song Cheng, “Rift detected! Linked to Charven-12b! Unable to pinpoint the exact location… attempting to trace the source!”
Song Cheng furrowed his brows, silently counting the seconds in his mind.
After a tense pause of several seconds, the follow-up report arrived.
“Rift closed! Trace failed! Spatial structure restored!”
Reports like these had been repeating endlessly in the hall—occurring every few minutes. The intervals weren’t precisely consistent but rarely exceeded ten minutes, and the disruptions never lasted more than thirty seconds. It felt deliberate, yet… what was the purpose? More disturbingly—who had the power to achieve such an absurd feat?
“New rift detected! Linked to White Dragon-4c! Unable to locate origin… tracing!”
“Rift closed! Trace failed…”
Song Cheng’s frown deepened, his mind whirling through countless possibilities when a faint hum broke his concentration. The next moment, one of the nearby screens lit up.
On it appeared a woman who looked no older than thirty, with an elegant, composed demeanor, yet an aura so cold it seemed to drain the warmth from the room. She wore a white skirt, and her long, gray-white hair was loosely tied back in a single ponytail. Her eyes were a pale, almost colorless gray, giving her an unnaturally ashen appearance.
At the sight of her, Song Cheng unconsciously straightened, a trace of stiffness in his forced smile.
“Director,” he greeted, trying to sound composed, “we’re still tracking—”
The woman cut him off with a cold, even voice, “What’s the current status?”
Song Cheng steadied himself, reporting, “Rifts continue to open and close at irregular intervals, but so far, we have confirmed that the phenomenon poses no direct harm to the Borderland itself—spatial integrity remains intact.”
“Intact?”
“Yes, Director. Although we are classifying these as ‘spatial dislocations’ for now, they don’t actually tear the fabric of space-time. Rather, it’s more akin to…”
He hesitated, struggling to find the right words.
The man hesitated for a long time before finally recalling the description given earlier by the technical expert. He continued, “It feels as if that is the original structure of space-time itself—when the rift forms, it seems as if the Borderland always had a stable path leading far away. And when the rift disappears, it’s as if it never existed at all—no shockwaves, no catastrophic collapse. So far, we haven’t received any reports of casualties.”
The gray-haired woman listened quietly, not speaking for a long time. Song Cheng also remained silent, patiently waiting.
“Any changes at that ‘special location’ you had people monitoring?” she finally asked.
“No, that place is now the most ‘calm’ spot in the entire Boundary City—calm like a black hole,” Song Cheng sighed. “That’s precisely the problem. Everyone knows there must be something wrong, but the biggest issue is that nothing seems wrong at all. I’ve already sent the Second Mobilization Squad’s best Deep Divers there, and I’ve arranged two additional monitoring teams to approach from other directions.”
“What do you think the person doing all this intends?” the gray-haired woman suddenly asked.
“…Hard to say,” Song Cheng thought for a moment before replying cautiously. “At first, I thought it was some kind of attack, but now it just looks like someone is opening and closing one rift after another. It’s been almost a whole night, and no one has interfered…”
“Could it be some new ‘Dark Angels’ phenomenon?”
“Probably not,” Song Cheng immediately shook his head. “Whenever Dark Angels appear, it’s always accompanied by massive Otherworld outbreaks and widespread damage to the present world. Nothing this ‘harmless.’ Besides, we haven’t received any recent reports about those angel cultists. If a new Dark Angel had indeed emerged, those Heretic Cultists wouldn’t be this quiet.”
“If it’s not Dark Angels, that’s a relief.”
“Yeah, as long as it’s not Dark Angels,” Song Cheng sighed. “But then again, if this is man-made… what kind of ‘person’ could do this? With such a commotion, what are they trying to accomplish…”
He muttered the latter half of his words to himself, while the gray-haired woman, after a few seconds of contemplation, broke the silence.
“The world is vast, and many races and ancient beings remain beyond our understanding,” she spoke softly. Despite her youthful appearance, her tone carried a sense of timeless weariness. “Our universe itself is still young, and many ‘theorems’ and ‘laws’ have yet to form… Learn to adapt, Little Song. Our work has never been about dealing with the ‘known.'”
“…I understand.”
The gray-haired woman nodded and suddenly looked up, as if sensing something. Her almost colorless, pale eyes froze for a moment before she broke the silence again, speaking gently, “It has calmed down.”
Song Cheng raised his head, looking toward the hall. No new rift formation reports came through.
…
A distinct rhythmic knock sounded at the door. Li Lin, using his Spiritual Intuition, confirmed the presence outside before stepping aside to open it.
A burly man nearly two meters tall ducked his head to squeeze through the doorway, dragging behind him a massive black box that matched his imposing frame.
“This place is really cramped,” the big man grumbled, glancing back at Li Lin, who stood by the door. “It’s tighter than the landing pod I used yesterday.”
Li Lin rolled his eyes. “Still roomier than your busted ride. You managed to drive that wreck all the way from the bureau, so quit complaining about my place.”
The big man chuckled and pushed the heavy box against the wall before dropping onto the living room sofa with a satisfied groan.
“At least it’s fit for humans. This sofa’s way more comfortable than those rock-hard stones and scorching sand back on Ameyn-IX.”
Li Lin winced as he looked at the man before him—Xu Jiali, the most elite and seasoned Deep Diver of the Special Affairs Bureau’s Second Mobilization Squad.
Li Lin never quite got used to dealing with this powerhouse. His discomfort stemmed from the first day he joined the squad. Upon seeing the name ‘Xu Jiali’ on the roster, he had asked around about the guy—only to have a towering, burly figure nearly two meters tall stride over during orientation, clap him on the shoulder, and roar his self-introduction, nearly deafening him. Ever since that moment, seeing Xu Jiali always made him flinch.
Xu Jiali himself seemed blissfully unaware of this. He had lived with that name for thirty years and had long grown used to it…
There’s a saying: The Second Mobilization Squad of the Special Affairs Bureau—truly a place full of hidden talents and lurking dragons…