Dimensional Hotel-Chapter 641 - 640: The Little Animals Have Arrived

Chapter 641: Chapter 640: The Little Animals Have Arrived

Dark, damp, abandoned, a moldy, decaying smell permeated all around, the air seemed to have turned into some kind of filthy, heavy "gel," settling with a viscous texture at the bottom of this forgotten abyss. The industrial exhaust emitted from the city factories layered above, the toxic gases seeping from abandoned underground tunnels, and the "decaying spiritual energy" released during the exhaustion of the earth’s veins, all these things accumulated in the city’s lower levels, and ultimately turned this place into a certain... heterogenized area.

It’s not an Exotic Realm, but in some sense, it’s just as dangerous.

From any angle, the lower areas of these cities on Gray Dwarf Star are no longer suitable for survival. Luo, with her trusted aides, traversed those decaying, dark streets, sometimes even doubting whether the "bottom residents" mentioned in reports really existed. But the Guard Captain assured her that there were indeed people on this level.

Those "abandoned people" discarded by the great walls, the wanderers and scavengers who couldn’t make it above, and the condemned people exiled by gangs or sentenced to "absolute punishment" by local warlords, they descend through the layers of walled cities and eventually reach this dark district, becoming its "residents."

They mostly gather near abandoned wells or some ancient factories, living in malls and apartment buildings that seem to have nearly turned to ruins. They generate electricity with scrap furnaces or steal power directly from upper floors. They hunt in the sewage rivers or cave areas, occasionally raiding biochemical farms or automated factories on slightly higher floors. Some people living in the lower levels of the great walls tell stories with superstitious and terrifying themes about what happens in the "abandoned district," describing the attacks in the dark as invasions from the Exotic Realm—after all, they haven’t seen a real Exotic Realm or entity.

Luo looked up, gazing at the sky shrouded in thick dust haze. From this position, she couldn’t see the "great walls" formed by the stacking of massive buildings within the city, but she could see countless overlapping shadows and crisscrossing pipes and beams in the air. Occasionally, something falling from the upper districts broke the tranquility in the distance with a loud crash—for the "residents" of this level, that would be a rare supply.

And the Recovery Knight Order established by the planet’s indigenous people, along with their small royal court in a cage, still lingered in the deeper layers of the underground city and mines.

Luo’s mind inevitably drew some associations—she felt like the entire Gray Dwarf Star was a dirty deep sea, the massive cities on the planet’s surface were rotting, collapsing corpses, with nutrients falling from the upper to the lower depths. Beneath the deep sea, no matter how dark, life inhabited. Yet this deep sea itself was also decaying, seeming to have died a long time ago, yet it seemed it could continue rotting forever.

The entire Dark Meteor Domain was caught in this cycle.

"They won’t come near this place," the Guard Captain’s voice came from the darkness. "The impact of the Shuttle crash and the noise from the recent skirmish can be heard far away. Anyone still sensible would stay away immediately—and this layer does have some semblance of order, some gangs can even extend their reach here. Many of the scavengers and exiles in the lower district are their eyes and ears. They will try to avoid getting caught up in the warlords’ conflicts... especially those involving the Black Spot Warlord."

Luo nodded and led the soldiers deeper, occasionally spotting a light at the edge of the district. It could be a tactical squad, or it might be one of those ancient lighting devices still functioning in the abandoned district, or perhaps a "local" brave enough to come out and check the situation. In this darkness, chaos was breaking the long-standing silence.

She casually stuck a piece of card paper decorated with a triangular emblem onto a nearby wall. 𝘧𝓇𝑒𝑒𝑤ℯ𝑏𝓃𝘰𝑣ℯ𝘭.𝘤ℴ𝘮

From afar came faint screams and sounds of gunfire, a flash of fire passed the street corner, and the air carried a faint metallic scent of blood—but in the air already filled with various pungent odors here, the blood smell was hard to distinguish.

Blood oozed from the surface of the rune card paper, quickly merging into the wall. The sound of flesh growing was particularly distinct in the darkness, and veins and nerves began to surface on the wall, gradually forming the outline of a door.

Almost simultaneously, Luo’s spiritual intuition was triggered, her heart tightened, and the living metal and artificial spine on her back began to hurt slightly.

"Old Qiao is here..."

As if to confirm what she said, a burst of hurried mechanical footsteps suddenly tore through the silence on the street. Several lights appeared in the nearby building ruins. Flares were shot into the sky, and in the briefly descending light, Luo and the soldiers’ position was exposed.

"They’re here!"

A tactical squad rushed out from the shadows of the building.

Luo and the soldiers hid behind the nearest cover. The faint light from the emergency shield device illuminated their surroundings. They saw two more tactical squads emerge from the street corner not far away, along with several six-legged tactical walking machines, resembling giant insects, crashing through a partition wall and striding onto the street. The walking machine’s lights made the area as bright as daylight.

Several Black Spot Soldiers across from them opened fire, but the brief skirmish quickly quieted down, as if it were merely a probing pressure. Luo, behind the shield, stared intently at those war machines. Electronic scanning results told her that Old Qiao was inside one of those walking machines—even in such a situation, he insisted on hiding in the iron shell surrounded by his soldiers’ protection.

"Luo!" Old Qiao’s hoarse and unpleasant voice came from the loudspeaker of that walking machine. "I never wanted things to escalate to this point. You should know, I’m not one for endless slaughter."

"Too bad, that joke doesn’t amuse me anymore, Old Qiao," Luo grinned, shouting towards the opposite side, "My sense of humor is much higher now than before!"

The walking machine raised its gun, its six legs skittering restlessly on the ground, like a real insect: "You still have a chance, listen, all I want now is the raw data from that Rift Laboratory of yours. I can leave everything else to you—your trade routes, factories, ports, and mining centers—all of it can stay with you. You won’t find a fairer deal than this, girl. Some experimental data useless to you in exchange for your safe departure from here. I can even guarantee your return to the company..."

Luo laughed, as if finally confirming something, his voice filled with glee: "Just as I thought, you were only after Zolda Black Stone’s test data from the start, and the other conditions you mentioned before were just a ruse. Who’s demanding these things? Surely not you, you idiot—it’s those ’trading partners’ behind you? The Hidden Monastery Sect?"

"It has nothing to do with that..."

"It’s because their Rift device is about to collapse! Those morons got the method wrong, and there’s a problem with the critical irradiation parameters when they activate the Rift!" Luo exclaimed joyously, "Soon, a huge rift will tear open in the middle of the Dark Meteor Domain—enough to allow the Angel Descent—they messed up, hahahaha... Old Qiao! You’re going to mess up too! Next, countless people will want you dead, and the corporation won’t spare you either—"

Old Qiao suddenly fell silent, and the words "Angel Descent" even sparked a little commotion among those cloned soldiers.

Two seconds later, an ominous and hoarse voice came from inside the large walking machine: "Looks like I can’t let you leave alive today."

A slender hand rose behind the cover, flipping a middle finger: "You talk like you really intended to let me go from the start."

"Blow her and her ridiculous cover sky-high."

A cold order echoed from the walking machine, simultaneously lifting the grenade launcher mounted on the machine gun platform’s side. The other walking machines and Black Spot Soldiers raised their guns instantly—the deafening roar was instantaneous, flattening the spot where Luo and the Guard soldiers were hiding.

But at that very moment, another strange whistling sound suddenly came from above, as if something was plummeting rapidly from high altitude.

Some Black Spot Soldiers busy pulling the trigger heard the sound overhead, but before they could look up to confirm, they were swept by a terrifying heatwave!

Fire, fire everywhere, incendiary bombs materialized seemingly out of nowhere, covering the entire street like an apocalyptic rainstorm. A few unlucky soldiers were directly hit by the flames, their bodies enveloped in inextinguishable blazes. The Light Power Armor’s shields on standard infantry gear were weak and lacked sufficient high-temperature resistance, burning through the protective layer after several struggles, leaving them to fall to the ground with agonized screams.

The roar of fire explosions echoed from all directions, soldiers scattered in panic, dodging while the sensors on the tactical walking machines blared incessantly, commanders searching for the source of the attack amid Old Qiao’s panicked shouting: "What’s happening? Who is it..."

A particularly massive fireball exploded among a team of Black Spot tactical units, and from the rapidly expanding sea of fire, a figure stood atop the raging flames, long hair flying wildly, laughing loudly: "Ahahaha... Want a Fire Stick, sir? How about a Fire Stick for just 40,000—hahaha—Fire Stick’s here!!"

The large tactical walking machine frantically spun its gun barrel, unleashing a barrage targeting the maniac standing in the flames. However, the latter’s figure almost instantly became part of the flames, the bullets merely passing through her Illusion.

A new sense of danger arose in Old Qiao’s mind, the sensors detecting another rapidly approaching high-energy reaction. He hastily maneuvered the walking machine to turn, only to see a massive shadow charging straight through the sea of flames.

In his haste, he fired a few shots, hitting merely a shimmering Protective Spirit Qi, and the shadow immediately lunged forward—a startling Giant Snake, over ten meters long, standing three stories tall.

The upper half of the Giant Snake was a beautiful woman.

This Giant Snake Demon wrapped around one of the walking machine’s combat arms upon approach, her terrifying demon strength shoving the war machine backward several meters. Amidst the horrifying creaking sounds, she laughed excitedly while slowly lifting the heavy machine.

The walking machine struggled futilely, with frantic voices blaring from its loudspeaker: "Who are you! Where the hell did you come from!?"

"It’s a kindergarten animal, duh!"

The Snake Princess shouted excitedly, then lifted the tactical walking machine and smashed it into the ground!