Chapter 617 Lockdown

The entire Gupu Fortress was being sealed off at an extremely rapid pace!

Lin Lin issued the final orders, then locked himself alone in his study.

He had made a complete eye contact with "Hong Zhong."

It was highly probable... that he had become a vector for the mental toxin. Until the exact route of transmission was clear, he had to isolate himself.

A Liuer arrived at the first possible moment.

The apostle, from afar, directly deployed the power of her relic, and the warm, oceanic "divine power" enveloped the tower.

When A Liuer's domain expanded, the tower seemed to be submerged in a golden ocean. The owl on the relic's emblem "flew" out, condensing into a mental form, standing on her shoulder, head lowered, preening its feathers, lifelike.

Under the golden light, A Liuer's silver hair was coated with a faint, sacred gold.

Under the shroud of divine power.

She pushed open the door and saw Lin Lin, enduring the "mental toxin" alone.

With the blessing of "divine power," she vaguely felt... that Lin Lin's soul seemed to be tainted with a powerful dark force, and after using the "owl's" divine sense, she vaguely saw the answer.

It was a dim firelight from the [Old World].

It was the power of another god!

"Don't worry, I can suppress this power..."

Lin Lin's mental state was very poor.

He was at a rather terrible low point, but what he had just said was not bravado.

He had indeed suppressed the terrifying toxin that had invaded his mental sea, and he was gradually dissolving it in his own way.

He had won a stage victory in this battle.

However, how many people in North Continent were at the same level of mental strength as him?

If it were someone else, even a second-team elite member like "Hong Zhong," they probably wouldn't be able to resist this level of mental toxin!

A Liuer's expression was solemn.

She delivered a very bad news: "The appraiser who did the mental assessment for 'Hong Zhong'... is dead. The cause of death was the erosion of mental toxins."

Lin Lin's heart skipped a beat.

The appraiser was dead...

This meant that Hong Zhong's mental toxin had been spreading for more than ten days... The first infected person was not himself, so where did the toxin on the appraiser go?

"Because of the 'wind pressure warning' outside the Great Wall, the current Gupu Fortress is in a state of emergency with full operation. Some time ago, several soldiers in the Gupu logistics unit experienced symptoms of dizziness, nausea, diarrhea, and vomiting. Because the battle situation was urgent, they overcame their discomfort... and continued to be involved in the war preparations."

Lin Lin had already guessed what A Liuer was going to say, and his expression became even more unsightly.

"Unfortunately... they all had records of contact with the 'appraiser'."

A Liuer's voice was very low: "Gupu acted quickly. When Hong Zhong's mental toxin was discovered, the isolation operation had already begun... Zhong Yuan is in charge of the temporary command task. It is not yet certain whether their symptoms are related to mental toxins, but the number of suspected infected persons alone has grown to one hundred and thirty-one."

With a "bang."

Lin Lin punched the table heavily!

He bit his lip, said nothing, fighting the toxin in his mental sea while regretting his "stupidity."

For more than ten days, his mistakes had led to the spread of "mental toxins" in the Gupu Fortress!

If he had noticed it earlier...

If his reaction had been faster...

He could have been closer to the truth...

A Liuer's eyes flickered. She saw the man's "remorse," but in fact, he had done well enough. If Hong Zhong's body had been taken back by the Investigation Corps, it was hard to imagine what the consequences would have been!

"Hoo..."

The young man, his back soaked with sweat, his hair sticking to his forehead, slowly raised his head, taking a deep breath to throw away all these trivial and complicated thoughts.

Regret and remorse were useless.

Now, the most important thing was how to resolve this "crisis"!

"Gupu's lockdown... means that the reinforcements applied for due to the wind pressure warning cannot enter, right?"

Lin Lin narrowed his eyes.

He said hoarsely, "In other words, the upcoming 'Source Tide' can only rely on the existing forces within the fortress..."

"A total of two thousand seven hundred and twenty-one people."

A Liuer was silent for a while.

She said softly, "Actually, two thousand seven hundred and thirty."

This number was nine more than the combat personnel on the Gupu roster.

The Second Team of the Investigation Corps had seven "responders" left.

Plus Zhong Yuan, the captain of the Second Team, who had just finished the Dolu River disaster mission and rushed here from afar.

Plus A Liuer.

"That's really... encouraging news."

Lin Lin smiled weakly. Because his mental state was too depressed, it was impossible to tell whether the sentence was sarcasm or helpless grumbling: "When the Source Tide arrives, will there be two thousand five hundred people in Gupu who are still able to fight?"

This was a very cruel question.

The spread of mental toxins... may still be continuing.

Perhaps the power of the "toxin" would weaken, but it was likely to cover the entire Gupu.

At that time, Gupu would be a "toxic city" internally.

And the other support troops on the Right Wing Front could not provide assistance due to the lockdown!

Once the Source Tide broke through the Great Wall... what followed would be an extremely complex inland battle!

North Continent had carried out a series of war preparedness exercises.

People who grew up under the Great Wall were born with a sense of crisis.

If the Great Wall shattered... what should they do?

The biggest trouble after the Source Tide poured into the interior was the large-scale breeding of black spots and the collapse of the North Continent's interior. Once a gap was torn in the battle line, it would become an impossible task to repair the Great Wall.

Unless the Source Tide completely receded.

If life were left to illusory "luck," the human race would have perished six hundred years ago.

The legion commander of North Continent once proposed a final inland battle plan called "Project Ember." Once the Great Wall was broken, the North Continent's Right Wing Defense Line would adopt this extremely mysterious and extreme plan before the Source Tide reached the real interior!

"A Liuer, send this letter to Central City."

Lin Lin opened the drawer and took out a crumpled piece of letter paper. The ink on the letter paper had not yet dried. He blew it slightly, and then put it into a brand new envelope.

His previous voice contained helplessness, melancholy, and a faint sense of relief.

The special power of the apostle ensured that she would not be attacked by "mental toxins."

In other words.

She was the safest person in this city.

A Liuer's expression was complicated: "This is..."

"This is a letter to my sister, but please give it to Zhu Xue."

"The people of North Continent are very nostalgic. Correspondence is a long-standing tradition of the Lin family, and it was also an important agreement between me and my sister. Before I ran away from home that year, I promised her that after settling down, I would write a letter to report that I was safe. You should know what happened later. Central City wanted to catch me back more than once. He fully monitored everything here, and once I showed 'wavering,' he would have enough reason to let me return."

"So the letter agreement back then was put on hold for a long, long time. It's not that my sister and I were sulking, but that it was really impossible to write."

"I've thought about it for many years, and it doesn't seem so difficult to actually write it... From the moment I put pen to paper to finishing it, it seemed to take only ten minutes just now."

Lin Lin lowered his eyes and smiled, mocking himself: "Sure enough, what does face matter anymore? Maybe I'm poisoned, so I'm so crazy?"

His mental state was now in another strange "extreme."

Lin Lin's pupils radiated a fusion of black and gold.

His voice was sometimes calm.

Sometimes trembling.

This unknown mental toxin did indeed show a "stimulating" side in Hong Zhong!

Perhaps this was the power at work now.

Lin Lin pinched his wrist and said sincerely:

"Please take my letter there, and then tell Zhu Xue that if he is willing to solve the current difficulties in Gupu, I am willing to compromise on those matters concerning the Lin family."

"..."

A Liuer wanted to say a lot, but in the end she stopped herself.

She accepted the letter.

Three minutes later.

The warm sea of divine power that enveloped the tower study suddenly dissipated, and all the divine power was gathered.

The golden waves no longer sheltered the tower.

A slender, silver-haired figure rose into the sky at the last moment of the disappearance of the golden sea, jumped onto the source energy boat, steered the boat out of the Gupu Fortress, broke through the clouds all the way, and sped towards Central City in the south!

……

……

The road back to Gupu was particularly desolate.

The laughter and joy on the way here were now only a few scattered exchanges, all about data and road information... After experiencing the heavy maze mission, everyone in the investigation team seemed to have a stone pressing on their hearts.

They didn't know how to face those "comrades" in Gupu.

Hong Zhong was not a hero.

On the contrary, this was a "scourge" who made an extremely wrong decision in a crisis.

Gu Shen felt the low pressure in the team.

He hadn't told the team about the "mental toxin" on Hong Zhong's body.

As a member of the same team, he shouldn't know this kind of information. If he said it now, Gu Shen's and "Jin Suihua's" secrets would not be able to be hidden.

Besides... the morale in the team was already low enough.

This news would be like a second heavy hammer.

Gu Shen narrowed his eyes, calculating the time required for the return trip. A rather bad warning emotion surged in his heart.

A small pebble hit the mask that had already turned on the sound insulation function.

His thoughts were pulled back.

This time, the pebble didn't make a muffled, ethereal sound.

Instead... it was a bit harsh.

"Brother Gu..."

Li Chen's confused voice came from Gu Shen's private channel.

"Do you feel like the road back is not quite right?"

Li Chen's [Source Eye] slowly rotated.

He captured the source energy flow in all directions and murmured, "It's like... the wind is rising?"

……

……

(There will be another chapter before 12 noon tomorrow)