The water sample analysis report in Commander Mark's hand was like a cold death sentence.
That strange, self-replicating nanostructure with psycho-resonant properties was precisely the characteristic signature of Taviel's power!
This was no coincidence, nor a natural product!
Those who returned had long been corrupted and modified by the power of the Old Ones; their bodies had become carriers and incubators for these terrifying nanomachines.
Under their seemingly normal exteriors, they were executing the will of the Old Ones.
Collecting intelligence, silently polluting critical nodes like water supply systems, and sowing deadly seeds into the capillaries of the Alliance!
Even more terrifying, this return itself was a psychological weapon, numbing everyone's vigilance and allowing the contamination to spread in broad daylight!
"Allen! Eve! Rudy!"
Commander Mark's voice boomed through the encrypted communication channel, carrying an unprecedented sense of urgency.
"Immediately activate the highest-level emergency plan. All observation teams, lock onto targets, and with the fastest speed and minimal disturbance, control all marked returnees!"
"Attention! They may carry high-risk nano-contaminants. Implement the highest level of isolation measures! During the operation, block all non-essential communications in the target areas!"
"Notify the Council of Elders management area Person in charge that our people will take over relevant areas. The reason... say that a new type of mental infectious disease has been discovered, requiring mandatory isolation and treatment!"
The order was like a thunderclap, instantly awakening the high-ranking officials of the Order Alliance.
Eve and Rudy immediately led elite task forces, like sharpest daggers, to various target areas, while Allen urgently coordinated resources, mobilizing isolation facilities and professional biochemical disposal teams.
However, just as Commander Mark's order was issued, and the Order Alliance's operational forces were still assembling.
Inside the Bedrock Fortress, located at the core of the Iron Wall Fortress star system group and controlled by Trigg's faction, deep purple alarm lights silently rotated.
Trigg stood in his cold command room, filled with various strategic star maps and fleet deployment charts, his eyes fixed on a top-secret report in front of him.
This was intelligence from a secret agent he had planted in Hope City, a Council of Elders management area.
The intelligence detailed Commander Mark's observation team discovering abnormalities in the returnee Kalan and detecting unknown nanostructures!
Trigg's fingers, his mechanical prosthetic arm glowing with a faint blue light, clenched abruptly, leaving five clear indentations on the solid alloy tabletop!
"Commander Mark... his nose is so keen!"
Trigg's voice was low and hoarse, carrying a suppressed frenzy.
"Damn it! They found out so quickly!"
He was not angry for the safety of the Alliance.
He was angry that Commander Mark had touched his deepest, darkest secret: those returnees... those who had disappeared and reappeared... their origin was him!
Three years!
A full three years!
Deep within the top-secret laboratory, while scientists were at a loss with the fragment containing Taviel's power, making slow progress, a Crazy thought grew in Trigg's mind, constantly eroded by the whispers of the Old Ones' fragment.
Live experiments!
Only living beings with complex consciousness and mental fluctuations could truly test the fragment's corrosive properties and truly understand its mechanism for distorting space and corrupting minds.
The low-value populations living in the fringe star sectors, in the chaotic management areas of the Council of Elders, became his guinea pigs!
A secret force, absolutely loyal to him and ghost-like, began to stage disappearances across the Alliance, especially in the weak points of Commander Mark and the Council of Elders' controlled areas, according to specific screening criteria.
These guinea pigs were secretly transported to a laboratory deeper than the one researching the Old Ones' fragment, located deep within the core of a discarded asteroid.
There, they were exposed to the energy field emanating from the Old Ones' fragment, or injected with highly diluted contaminants extracted from the fragment.
The experiments were inhumane, with extremely high failure rates.
Most test subjects suffered mental breakdowns and physical deformities in extreme pain, eventually being completely destroyed.
Only a very small number of individuals, whose minds developed a strange adaptation under the corrosive contamination, and whose bodies were not completely deformed, instead became perfect containers for the nanomachines containing Taviel's characteristics.
These successful test subjects would be implanted with false memory fragments and specific behavioral instructions, such as sampling, infiltration, and establishing mental connection nodes, and then released back into their original societies, like probes and contaminants thrown into a pond.
These returnees were pawns for Trigg to monitor the internal workings of the Alliance, especially Commander Mark and the Council of Elders' movements, to test the efficiency of the Old Ones' power spreading in real society, and even...
To pave the way for future, potentially larger-scale mind control plans!
Now, Commander Mark had discovered it!
And very likely had already locked onto some targets!
"He cannot capture any living specimens!"
"He cannot know that I am the source!"
A paranoid, destructive thought roared in Trigg's mind, overriding the last shred of possible guilt he might have felt for the fate of the test subjects.
The continuous whispers of the Old Ones' fragment amplified the ruthlessness and lust for power already present in his heart, viewing any existence that hindered his acquisition of power as a threat that must be eliminated!
"Order!"
Trigg's voice, like a chilling wind from the netherworld, was directly issued to the highest commander of the squad via an encrypted channel.
"Operation Root Removal, execute immediately!"
"Target: all marked test subjects, including any secondary contact points they may have established. Eradicate them completely, cleanly, leaving no trace!"
"Disguise it as... an accidental incident, or a terrorist attack by remnants of the Old Ones' forces. All executors will be fringe squads, and after the mission is completed, the squads will be silenced on the spot!"
The order was ruthless and cold, yet astonishingly efficient.
Just as the Order Alliance task force led by Eve had arrived in the outer airspace of Hope City, piercing alarms and flashes of explosions suddenly erupted in different corners of the city!
A pipe explosion occurred in an apartment building near a water supply node, and dozens of people, including the target Kalan, unfortunately perished. The scene was completely destroyed by high temperatures and shockwaves.
A returnee working at a trade station was accidentally caught in heavy machinery during operation, leaving no remains.
A community activity center on the edge of the settlement area, marked as a potential mental connection node, suffered a sudden circuit fire. The fire spread rapidly and strangely, and all electronic records were incinerated...
Even several ordinary people who had only had frequent contact with returnees, and were identified as secondary contact points, also died in various bizarre accidents on the same day.
The operation was swift, ruthless, leaving no survivors!
All traces were meticulously disguised or completely erased!
When Eve and others rushed to the scene, they were met only with a chaotic ruin, charred bodies, and official accident investigation reports.
They couldn't even catch a single member of Trigg's squad.
The fringe squads executing the mission either died in pre-set traps or were silently eliminated by cleanup teams that arrived later.
...
On the vast observation deck of Bedrock Fortress, one could overlook the busy starport and the beehive-like residential areas of the entire fortress star system.
Trigg stood with his back to the entrance, his robe gently swaying in the artificial airflow, his mechanical prosthetic arm clasped behind his back, fingers unconsciously trembling slightly.
Commander Mark's figure appeared at the platform entrance. He had changed into the dark gray commander's uniform of the Order Alliance, his tall physique standing straight like a pine, his molten-gold eyes calmly observing Trigg's back.
A silent tension filled the air.
"Trigg..."
Commander Mark's voice broke the silence.
Trigg slowly turned around, his face having regained its characteristic coldness and authority, his eyes meeting Commander Mark's without a ripple.
"Commander Mark, it's rare for you to voluntarily come to my territory. Is it for the few... unfortunate incidents in Hope City?"
His tone carried a hint of appropriate detachment and professionalism.
"Incidents?"
Commander Mark took a few steps closer, his gaze sharp as a knife.
"The timing of those incidents was too coincidental, just before my people were about to control the targets. Moreover, the methods were clean and decisive, leaving no survivors, erasing traces... This doesn't look like an accident; it's more like professional cleanup."
A faint curve appeared at the corner of Trigg's mouth, and his mechanical prosthetic arm lightly tapped the alloy railing of the observation deck, making a crisp clicking sound.
"Oh? Is Commander Mark accusing me of killing your people in your territory?"
He deliberately misinterpreted Commander Mark's meaning.
"Those places are all management areas of the Council of Elders or your Order Alliance. My hand, Trigg, isn't that long, nor am I that idle."
He changed the subject, his tone carrying a hint of mockery.
"On the contrary, you, Commander Mark, mobilized troops without a sound, blockaded areas, causing widespread panic, all because of a few civilian accidental deaths?"
"Are you overly sensitive, or... have you discovered something special that you want to monopolize?"
Commander Mark looked at Trigg, trying to find a flaw in his cold expression and words.
But Trigg concealed it extremely well. That politician's facade, willing to do anything for power, even creating chaos to suppress opponents, perfectly hid the madness deep within him and the secrets entangled with the Old Ones.
Commander Mark's intuition told him that things were not that simple, but Trigg's explanation—that he deliberately created chaos and preemptively eliminated targets to seize influence and undermine Commander Mark's reputation—
Was logically sound and consistent with Trigg's usual style.
"I discovered traces of Old Ones' contamination."
Commander Mark said in a deep voice, deciding to reveal part of the truth to probe.
"Those so-called returnees had dangerous nanomachines implanted in their bodies, creations of Taviel's power!"
"They are infiltrating and contaminating! Trigg, whatever our differences, the Old Ones are our common mortal enemy!"
"Eliminating these sources of contamination is an urgent priority! But your people, you acted first and cut off all the clues!"
"Taviel's contamination?"
Trigg showed a hint of surprise and solemnity at just the right moment, then it turned into a sneer.
"Indeed, I knew the Old Ones' evil intentions wouldn't die! Commander Mark, is this the consequence of your so-called proactive strike?"
"Your expedition plan blundered everywhere, awakening a sleeping viper, but you led the viper to your doorstep. Now, the contamination has even infiltrated the Alliance!"
He successfully pushed the responsibility back onto Commander Mark and reinforced the correctness of his fortress defense strategy.
"As for cleanup... Hmph, when my intelligence network captured abnormal signals, my people, out of responsibility for the Alliance's safety, merely dealt with potential threats a step ahead!"
"Should we wait for your red tape to go through the process, allowing the contamination to spread?"
"In extraordinary times, extraordinary measures must be taken. For the greater good, necessary sacrifices and decisive cleanup are essential!"
His words were filled with righteous assertiveness, as if he were the leader who saved the day and acted decisively.
Commander Mark looked at Trigg's self-righteous demeanor, and his doubts slightly lessened.
He knew Trigg's desire for power and his ruthless methods. To suppress him, to maintain the absolute security of his fortress plan and his own authority, preemptively eliminating sources of contamination that might cause panic or expose his surveillance network, and then blaming Commander Mark for slow action...
This indeed seemed like something Trigg would do.
Although the methods were extremely cruel, in Trigg's logic, this might be a necessary sacrifice.
"Eliminating sources of contamination is correct, but it requires a method, it requires knowing where they come from and how they operate!"
Commander Mark's voice carried suppressed anger.
"Your crude method of silencing them will only make the true source hide deeper, making the next infiltration even harder to detect!"
"Source?"
Trigg scoffed, his mechanical prosthetic arm pointing to the vast star sea.
"Of course it's the Old Ones! It's the crippled Taviel! It dares not appear directly, it can only use these gutter rat tactics!"
"My method is to build an absolutely secure fortress, leaving these rats nowhere to hide, and then with an iron fist, crush every single one I see!"
He took a step forward, his eyes fixed on Commander Mark, with undisguised ambition and a subtle, almost imperceptible, mad obsession.
"Commander Mark, put away your savior's compassion and indecisiveness. This universe needs iron-clad order and absolute power!"
"My fortress, my power, is the future. Your running around will only bring chaos and... more contamination!"
He deliberately emphasized the word "contamination."
Their gazes collided in the air, like tangible sparks.
One was a redeemer concerned about the source of contamination and insistent on pursuing the truth; the other was a strongman who believed in an iron-fisted fortress and violently eliminated all threats.
The clash of ideologies and the struggle for power intensely collided over this false Old Ones' contamination incident.
Commander Mark finally gave Trigg a deep look, his eyes filled with disappointment, vigilance, but more so a coldness that saw through the other's true nature of power.
"We walk different paths, and cannot conspire together, Trigg. Take care of yourself. The Old Ones will not stop their erosion because of your fortress. I hope that when you face a true crisis next time, your iron clunk won't trip you up."
With that, Commander Mark did not linger, turning and striding away from the observation deck.
He did not perceive the cracks of madness, born from the Old Ones' whispers and already spreading deep into Trigg's soul, beneath his cold exterior.
Trigg watched Commander Mark's retreating back until the figure disappeared at the end of the corridor. The forced coldness and toughness on his face instantly faded, replaced by a deep weariness and... a twisted sneer.
He slowly raised his mechanical prosthetic arm, a faint blue light flowing at his fingertips.
During their conversation, to suppress the increasingly loud, tempting, and destructive whispers of the Old Ones' fragment in his mind, he had almost exhausted his willpower.
"Power... I need... more power..."
He murmured in a low, hoarse, and sickly voice.
"Commander Mark... what do you understand... Only by controlling the power of the abyss... can a truly... new order be established..."
He turned and looked out at the seemingly impregnable fortress star system from the observation window, but his eyes reflected the constantly shifting Old Ones' fragment deep within the laboratory.
--+--
T/N: While I am an inexperienced Translator, I have a Patreon! While it may seem empty as of now, webnovel will get 2 Chapters Every Day, and advanced chapters will be uploaded on Patreon.
It may not seem worth it now, but maybe in the future. Who knows!
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If you guys wanna check it out.