Chapter 076: The Ancestral Hall Barrier

With his current speed, Bai Yuxi circled the entire Iron Pavilion Village along the looping path in just a few minutes, rushing back to the position where the duty vehicle should have been. But to his surprise, the vehicle that was supposed to be stationed at the rear for support was nowhere to be seen. This made Bai Yuxi anxious, and he turned back, charging into the heart of the village once more.

Clearly, this mission was the result of faulty intelligence from LDH. While outbreaks of mutated creatures on such a small scale were not individually highly dangerous, their combined threat far exceeded an F4 danger rating. At the very least, this should have been classified as an F9 major mission, or even an E-level team eradication task, not something assigned to a rookie F-level squad like theirs.

The personal information terminal’s communication device had been disrupted by the electrostatic field of the plasma toads, severing contact between team members. Yet the Seventh Squad had failed to send reinforcements for so long, and now even the duty vehicle had vanished, which was truly strange.

The modified duty vehicle, after all, possessed bulletproof, explosion-proof, and anti-magnetic features, with insulation against electricity among its many protections—perfectly countering the plasma abilities of the toads. Even under dire circumstances, retreating into the vehicle should have offered some defense against plasma attacks. There was no reason for them to abandon him, the newest member, and drive away without so much as a word.

The only plausible explanation was that the other two search teams had likewise been surrounded by the plasma toad swarm, and the remaining members, Jason and Su Xiaoke, had driven the vehicle in to provide support.

Iron Pavilion Village, with a population of about a thousand, was not large, but in Jiangcheng, where even the most remote locations commanded over ten thousand per square meter in housing prices, the buildings were densely packed despite the village’s out-of-the-way geography. Old private houses crowded every inch, creating a chaotic environment and narrow paths barely wide enough for two small vehicles to squeeze past each other.

Ordinarily, this would have been the village’s busiest time of day. But after numerous “supernatural incidents,” even the residents who once stubbornly clung to their homes in hopes of compensation had long since moved away, leaving behind a ghostly, silent village that sent chills down one’s spine.

Bai Yuxi sprinted through the village, only to discover in horror that there was not a trace of life—no roar of engines or flash of headlights, not even the sounds of Seventh Squad’s battles.

He activated his detection radar and scanned several times, but found no living creatures within Iron Pavilion Village. Not even a single rat, let alone the strong energy signatures of mutated beings. Was this a haunting? Had the Seventh Squad really abandoned him here? That made no sense.

Willie had left the fight and returned to look for his teammates barely ten minutes ago; even if faced with danger, it wouldn’t justify such a hasty retreat.

Knowing that something was amiss, Bai Yuxi stubbornly continued searching, circling the small village several times. It was only when he approached the very center that he noticed something unusual.

Villages like Iron Pavilion, though expanded and renovated through the ages, always preserved their oldest buildings at the core. There stood an ancient clan ancestral hall, its roof’s once dark tiles now faded to gray, smothered with moss, weeds, and scattered low shrubs. Around the hall, broken and weathered earthen walls enclosed a sizable grain-drying yard. The packed earth had been replaced by cement, but a six-sided well with a pulley still remained, its frame wrapped with hemp rope and an old bucket nearby—a relic of the past, but evidently still functional, though seldom used.

Everything seemed perfectly normal, the ancestral hall’s silence evoking the atmosphere of a horror film. Yet beside the main entrance, along the stretch of earthen wall, was a half-charred tire mark—what was this?

Had Bai Yuxi not worn his ultra-high definition data visor, he might have missed this detail. The blackened tire track was clearly the result of a vehicle braking sharply. But how could a vehicle leave its mark right up to the base of an intact wall, unless it possessed the ability to pass through obstacles?

Unless that vehicle could move through walls.

Bai Yuxi was stunned for a moment before realizing: this must be what they called a “boundary barrier,” as seen from the outside.

Cautiously, he reached out to touch the wall. Before his hand even made contact, he felt an invisible resistance; his touch sent ripples through the space in front of him, as if a “mirror-water wall” stood before him.

A strange look appeared on Bai Yuxi’s face, for he realized he had brushed against a layer that was not hard, but extremely flexible—if he pressed lightly, it would yield slightly.

Theoretically, a “boundary barrier” isolates a layer of space—impenetrable and impervious to normal force. While individuals carrying extraordinary pheromones could sense its existence, and those with supernormal energy could forcibly break it by channeling their power, it was never supposed to be “soft.”

Yet his touch gave him the feeling that he could push right through if he tried—much like the previous night, when he had inadvertently entered the battlefield of Maya and Jason.

Could this be the “frequency resonance effect” between his “biological strong magnetic field” and the “multidimensional spatial force field,” bestowing him with the ability to “ignore boundaries,” as the female scholar had suggested?

Something didn’t add up for Bai Yuxi. The night before, he had breached a boundary barrier before he assimilated the “multidimensional spatial rift.” If the “frequency resonance effect” was due to his fusion with that rift, how had he managed to enter the boundary before that?