Chapter 148: Chapter 138: The Shadow Infiltrating the Base
Chen Na lay in her room, her eyes closed, pretending to take a nap.
She knew that by using a [Communication Secret Scroll] to communicate like this, she wouldn’t be noticed. Otherwise, even if the conversation was happening telepathically, the dazed and delayed expression on her face would still draw attention.
Pretending to be asleep eliminated that worry.
Ever since hearing what Gu Fei had said last time, she had been suspicious. Was Han Ling lying to her? Were the people creating her custom challenges being forced to do so against their will?
Over the past two days, she had noticed the base teeming with people, many of whom were returning from the outside.
She knew they were the ones responsible for gathering supplies. Chen Na used her ability to "casually" get close and eavesdrop on a few conversations, all of which mentioned "the officials."
It seemed the officials had finally freed up their hands. They were deploying armed forces to sweep the wilderness, cracking down on various gangs of thugs and organizations that forced Ascenders to create challenges for others.
Hearing this, Chen Na understood. The organization she was in was likely one of them.
She had been willing to follow the organization’s orders and participate in their operations, but only to repay them for the life-saving medicine they’d given her mother. But if this organization was fundamentally evil, constantly exploiting and killing others, then her actions were just helping a tyrant oppress the people.
’I don’t want to become a murderer,’ she thought. ’I know it would disappoint Mom.’ But she was powerless to do anything. She’d even considered dying, but she worried her mother would face retaliation after she was gone.
Just when she felt most helpless, she suddenly remembered a friend on her personal terminal—an older girl, two or three years her senior, whom she had met while taking her mother to the hospital. Neither of them had ever added a friend on their terminals before, so they had added each other just to try it out.
After her mother was diagnosed and left the hospital, they hadn’t contacted each other again, but they had remained friends on their terminals, never deleting the connection. This made Chen Na immediately think of the [Communication Secret Scroll] she had bought from the Sublimation Store. With it, she could contact the outside world!
So she immediately contacted her friend, Qing Jin, telling her everything. She hoped Qing Jin could spread the word so the officials could find this place and rescue all the exploited people—the "slaves" Gu Fei had mentioned.
Qing Jin agreed and subsequently went to the highly influential Ascender’s Home website to post about it...
Chen Na waited silently for a response.
Qing Jin had just told her that the webmaster of Ascender’s Home would help her personally, and that she should just wait.
From Qing Jin’s tone, Chen Na gathered that this webmaster was someone impressive. However, since they weren’t normally allowed to go online, she didn’t know anything about the "Ascender’s Home" website, nor did she have any idea who the webmaster was.
"Chen Na."
Just then, a strange woman’s voice suddenly echoed in Chen Na’s mind, startling her.
"I’m the webmaster of Ascender’s Home."
"Hello, Miss Webmaster..."
Chen Na knew the webmaster was using a [Communication Secret Scroll] to contact her and replied with her thoughts. At the same time, she was a little surprised; the webmaster’s voice sounded like that of a young woman in her twenties.
"Chen Na, I’ve learned about your situation from your friend, Qing Jin," Guan Tong said. "I need to know the exact location of your base."
"I... I don’t know the exact location... Only that it’s in a mountain somewhere. We always travel by car when we go out..."
Hearing this, Guan Tong thought for a moment before asking, "The custom challenge they made for you was located in Nanlin Village. Even if you don’t know the base’s location, you should remember the direction you traveled from the base to get to Nanlin Village, right?"
"I remember that! I remember on the day I went to complete the challenge, the car drove east for about an hour and a half after leaving the base before we reached the challenge site."
"Excellent."
Even without a precise location, he could determine a rough, general area based on the challenge site, the direction of travel, and the driving time.
Since he could confirm the base was inside a mountain, all Guan Tong had to do was search for large mountains within that general area. Then he could have his incorporeal Shadow phase through the mountain to find the base’s location.
"Chen Na, I’ll find your base as soon as possible. Until then, don’t do anything unusual that might arouse suspicion from the people there, understand?"
"Mhm! I know... Um, Miss Webmaster, if you’re coming to rescue people, please be careful. And you’ll need a lot of people. There are many people in the base, and a lot of them have guns..."
’They have guns?’
Guan Tong asked, "What kind of guns? Handguns?"
"All kinds. And really long guns, too. There’s also a big garage. The last time we went out, we saw an armored car driving out."
’Long guns? Armored cars?’
Guan Tong was shocked. North Star Country was a nation with strict gun control!
Even in the era of the Apocalypse Rules, with all the chaos, and even accounting for some weapons getting out due to lax security, it was unthinkable that so many automatic firearms, let alone armored cars, could fall into private hands.
’Just what is this organization...?’
Guan Tong frowned and said to Chen Na, "Okay, I’ll be careful. Is there anything else you can tell me? For example, who is the leader of the base, and are there any powerful Ascenders under their command?"
A Communication Secret Scroll allowed for a maximum of 15 minutes of talk time. Guan Tong wanted to get as much information as possible within that period.
"The leader of the base... I don’t know. I only know that the manager is Han Ling. As for powerful Ascenders, the ones I know are on my team: Gu Fei, Jiang Ming, Chu Xiaoyuan... Their abilities are..."
After the 15 minutes were up, Guan Tong analyzed the situation.
’This base has armed personnel, armored cars, and is even built inside a hollowed-out mountain... Their background must be extraordinary. They’re on a completely different level from your average wilderness group.’
Before speaking with Chen Na, Guan Tong had considered notifying the officials and letting them handle the rescue. But after the call, he dismissed the idea.
He reasoned that for an organization with this much power, its mastermind must be incredibly resourceful. Furthermore, he learned from Chen Na that her base had already suspended operations two days ago.
Combined with the news of the officials’ large-scale sweep of the wilderness, it seemed this organization knew about the operation in advance and had made a strategic withdrawal.
This led Guan Tong to suspect that the organization’s mastermind might have a channel to obtain official intelligence ahead of time.
If that was the case, he definitely couldn’t inform the officials. The moment they knew, the mastermind might know too, and they could react simultaneously or even preemptively.
After deep thought, Guan Tong made his decision. ’I’ll handle this alone.’
He could neither allow such a massive "feeder" organization to continue operating, nor could he remain indifferent to Chen Na’s safety. Therefore, he decided to try and resolve the matter with his own power.
But this was different from dealing with small-time thugs like the ones at the Skytop Mountain camp or Gao Xinjian. This time, he was facing a large, well-equipped, and fully-staffed base. He absolutely could not afford to be careless.
’First, I’ll find the base’s location and have my Shadow infiltrate it for a thorough reconnaissance. Once I find an opening, I’ll make my move.’
With his plan set, Guan Tong immediately summoned his Shadow, transformed it into a Shadow Line, and sent it to Nanlin Village first. Then, following Chen Na’s directions, it headed straight west from the challenge site in Nanlin Village.
As he controlled the advancing Shadow, Guan Tong felt a sense of unease. He realized the base was most likely located within the Yongzhou Mountain Range Group.
And this Yongzhou Mountain Range Group was only a little over a hundred kilometers from Capital Yong’an.
’Hollowing out a mountain to build a base so close to Yong’an, without being discovered?’ Guan Tong found it unlikely. Even if all the construction workers had Invisibility, their efficiency couldn’t be that high.
He believed the base in these mountains had existed long before, and had only been repurposed by certain people after the Apocalypse Rules descended.
After the Shadow entered the mountain range, it began to phase through and infiltrate the terrain.
Guan Tong knew this kind of base would be in a restricted area. He didn’t need to investigate the mountains that had been developed into scenic spots; he focused only on the mountains in closed-off zones.
He continued like this until evening, when Guan Tong finally found the mountain where the base was located.
From the outside, the mountain looked completely unremarkable, but the inside was almost entirely hollowed out, transformed into a multi-story artificial structure.
Guan Tong maneuvered the Shadow along the seams where the structure met the rock, being as careful as possible not to be discovered—through the visual feed from his Shadow, he could already see the base was filled with high-definition surveillance cameras.
’Such tight security...’
Guan Tong’s Shadow phased downward from the upper levels, getting a look at each floor. Offices, supply depots, weapon lockers, a large garage, communal dormitories... it had everything.
But as the Shadow continued deeper, reaching the subterranean levels, a horrifying image was sent back to Guan Tong.
There, in the base’s underground, was a massive prison facility. Countless Ascenders were locked away in densely packed cells, while heavily armed guards patrolled outside.
Every Ascender wore a gray uniform with a placard on their chest. The placards didn’t even have names—only the Ascender’s maximum Psychic Power and a serial number.
This meant these people had been completely stripped of their human dignity, treated purely as prisoners, or even as objects.
The sight was so shocking that even the usually level-headed Guan Tong felt a surge of furious anger.
He suppressed his rage, refraining from rashly using his Shadow to act. Instead, he continued his investigation, determined to get a complete picture of the entire base first.
Over the next hour, Guan Tong used his infiltrating Shadow to scout the base from top to bottom, inside and out, getting a clear understanding of its entire personnel situation.
The situation was even more complex than he had imagined.
The entire base was divided into three tiered sections: upper, middle, and lower.
The upper level was the residential, office, and recreational area for the management. Guan Tong found the manager who was likely "Han Ling," and also located Chen Na’s dormitory, where he saw her lying down.
What also surprised him was that he saw several prominent entrepreneurs who were famous before the Apocalypse Rules, such as Wang Zixiang and Liu Yuqiang. Why were these people serving as managers in this base? It was undoubtedly strange.
The middle level of the base mostly consisted of living quarters for the armed personnel and storage areas for supplies. There were about two hundred armed personnel, most of whom were gathered together playing games, cards, or drinking.
The bottom level was the prison area that had so enraged Guan Tong. After a quick count, he confirmed that nearly two thousand Ascenders were imprisoned there, with about eighty guards on patrol.
Having grasped the situation, Guan Tong’s next move was obvious: to completely eliminate these despicable dregs of humanity.
