The cold, phosphorescent blue light illuminated Trigg's face, which was slightly distorted with excitement.
His bionic hand hovered over the activation button of the silver briefcase containing the Mind Key, his fingertips trembling slightly.
The chief scientist's fervent and expectant gaze burned into his back like a physical presence.
The Great Old Ones fragments pulsed silently within the containment field; their continuous whispers were no longer background noise, but had transformed into clear and tempting urgings.
"Power... Control... Erase... Obstacles..."
"Press it... You will become... The new... Order..."
"Release... Your true... Self..."
The few almost imperceptible black threads in Trigg's eyes writhed like living things, becoming deeper and denser.
He felt an indescribable heat rising from the depths of his soul, mixed with an extreme craving for power and a deep loathing for Mark, for the Council of Elders, and for the entire world that obstructed his will.
The last dam of his sanity, under the dual assault of the Great Old Ones' whispers and his own ambition, teetered on the brink.
"Chairman Warren... And those two old foxes..."
Trigg's voice was hoarse and full of malice; the chairman's hypocritical smile and the elders' greedy eyes appeared in his mind.
"The committee you want will soon... become your eternal prison!"
His finger, with a desperate resolve, slammed down on the activation button!
Buzz—!
A very faint, yet abnormally high-pitched hum emanated from inside the briefcase.
Three black Mind Key prisms instantly lit up, the flowing light within them suddenly accelerating, their color changing from phosphorescent blue to a heart-stopping, soul-devouring dark purple!
An invisible energy wave, carrying strong mental induction and forced assimilation properties, spread out like ripples!
Under the cold, phosphorescent blue light, Trigg's eyes were fixed on the Great Old Ones fragment from Taviel in the containment field.
Inside the fragment, the distorted phantom of a door slowly rotated with unprecedented docility, emitting faint but stable mental fluctuations, as if cooperating.
The chief scientist's voice trembled with ecstasy.
"Regent, sir! A miracle! Truly a miracle of the universe! The fragment's energy field... has stabilized!"
"The Mind Key's resonance frequency perfectly matches the fragment core's mental guidance wavelength! The rejection reaction... has vanished!"
Trigg's tightly clenched bionic hand slowly relaxed, and a barely perceptible, smug smile crept onto his lips.
It succeeded!
He had finally tamed the power of this abyss!
The violent backlash and the intense pain in his mind when the Mind Key was activated earlier felt like merely the tail end of a nightmare, completely dispelled by this ultimate success.
The continuous whispers of the Great Old Ones, which had sounded like dangerous temptations to him just moments ago, now sounded like... a hymn of surrender.
"Power... Control... Your... Era... Has come..."
The whispers echoed in his consciousness, bringing a sense of affirmation that Trigg found immensely gratifying.
"Proceed with final encapsulation immediately! Activate the highest-level stealth field!"
Trigg's voice regained its usual coldness and authority, but beneath it surged the fanaticism of impending absolute control.
He personally took the specially treated silver briefcase, its surface etched with flowing energy patterns.
Inside the case, three Mind Key prisms lay quietly on their energy base, emitting a dim, restrained purple glow, like dormant vipers.
He could clearly feel the immense power contained within, enough to twist wills!
This power was about to be his!
"Chairman Warren... All the elders..." Trigg sneered inwardly, "And those annoying Order Alliance members... Your value will soon be redefined."
He left the laboratory with the briefcase, escorted by his tightly-guarded personal retinue, leaving behind the scientist's ecstasy and the abnormal energy readings lingering on the laboratory instruments.
He did not see that, as he turned to leave, countless tiny door phantoms inside the Great Old Ones fragment flickered in unison, eerily, as if countless pairs of cold eyes in the darkness were silently mocking him.
Trigg thought he was the controller, unaware that he was merely a deliberately empowered chess piece on the Great Old Ones' board; the key in his hand was the master wrench that would open the door of destruction within the Alliance.
...
In the depths of the universe, a colossal vortex formed by twisted spatial structures was directly before them.
Mark's Ark was like a small boat in a raging storm, torn by violent spatial turbulence, its shields emitting a piercing overload alarm.
The space here was no longer a stable structure, but like a shattered mirror, filled with dimensional rifts and gravity traps that could tear him and his ship to pieces at any moment.
Intense mental pollution, like viscous oil, clung to the ship's hull, attempting to corrode its interior.
"Warning! Spatial structure stability below critical value! Ship structural integrity approaching limits!"
"Detecting high-intensity mental pollution source! Located at the vortex core!"
"High energy signature detected behind us! Space is... locked down!"
Space, as if kneaded and torn by an invisible giant hand, formed a massive and bizarre spatial bubble, a separate, miniature universe forcibly cleaved from the Main Universe.
Mark's Ark was not thrown off, but at the moment it touched the vortex core, it was forcibly swallowed by an irresistible spatial power!
The violent spatial transition made the ship groan with twisting metal; all instruments instantly failed, and the alarm abruptly ceased.
When Mark crashed through the twisted bulkhead and landed on the ground, he found himself in a realm of absolute silence, utterly incomprehensible.
There were no stars, no nebulae, only a uniform, viscous, deep gray sky that seemed to absorb all light.
The sound of air movement was gone; there was no hum of the ship's engines, he couldn't even hear his own heartbeat or breathing—sound seemed to be completely stripped away.
The sense of space was extremely chaotic; up, down, left, and right lost their meaning, and the gravitational field twisted erratically, sometimes pressing him to the ground, sometimes seeming to throw him into the void.
Even more deadly, the source of his power, which resonated with stars, was like being thrown into an absolute zero ice chamber, its operation becoming extremely sluggish and slow!
Here, all radiant energy from stars was cut off!
His power had become water without a source, a tree without roots!
As far as his eyes could see, there was an endless, barren plain of twisted, grotesque black rock, stretching to the edge of the deep gray sky.
Oppressive, despairing, suffocating.
A pocket universe!
Taviel's silent prison, tailor-made for him!
Here, there was no energy replenishment, only endless consumption!
However, the silence was not eternal.
The moment Mark landed, this absolutely silent land came alive!
The seemingly rugged and strange black rocks suddenly opened countless compound eyes, oozing vile mucus.
The flat ground split open with huge fissures, revealing giant claws covered in thick chitinous armor, ending in razor-sharp bone blades!
From the deep gray curtain of the sky, countless slimy, suckered, pallid tentacles descended!
In the air, twisted energy phantoms, composed of pure malice and mental pollution, condensed out of thin air!
There were no roars, no howls, only the teeth-grinding friction and energy hum that came from their movements stirring the viscous air!
The highest-grade minions bred by the Great Old Ones.
The Silent Slayers had awakened!
They varied in form, but their commonality was that they were pure physical killing machines!
Their sole purpose was to tear apart any prey that fell into this place in silence, draining every last bit of its strength!
Mark's molten-gold pupils suddenly contracted; he instantly understood Taviel's sinister intentions: to use this endless, purely physical killing machine, in an energy-isolated environment, to slowly drain him... to death!
No hesitation, no retreat!
Only battle!
Mark's figure instantly vanished from its original spot, a burst of speed driven by pure physical strength leaving an air ripple like a sonic boom cloud in its wake!
Bang!
His fist, like the core of a supernova explosion, struck with pure, ultimate force, slamming into the head of a Slayer that had just emerged halfway from a ground fissure, resembling an armored giant scorpion!
The hard chitinous shell, as if struck by a meteor, instantly covered in spiderweb cracks, then exploded with a deafening roar, foul blood and shattered tissue splattering like a rainstorm!
The massive head, along with half of its chest cavity, was utterly pulverized by that single punch; the headless torso twitched and collapsed.
Mark, like a humanoid beast, charged through the horde of monsters!
His fists, elbow strikes, knee strikes, and roundhouse kicks—each attack condensed pure power capable of crushing a planetary core; the Silent Slayers' proud thick shells were like paper in front of him!
Where his fists struck, shells dented, shattered, and flew apart!
Foul blood and shattered internal organs splattered all over him like spilled ink!
Razor-sharp bone blades tore through the air with deadly shrieks; Mark's figure dodged and weaved like a ghost through the gaps between countless blades.
He narrowly avoided cleaves that could sever a battleship, simultaneously seizing the brief pauses in the Slayers' attacks to close in, his heavy punches like battering rams striking their joints, waists, heads, and other relatively vulnerable connection points!
Every dodge and counter-attack was like dancing on a knife's edge!
But the Slayers were not mindless beasts; they coordinated perfectly, ground units charging with brute force, forcing Mark into direct confrontations, tentacles descending from the sky like venomous snakes, seeking to entangle and bind, while energy phantoms released mental shocks from a distance, interfering with his will.
Mark pushed his combat skills to the extreme!
He used shattered rocks as springboards, twisting and turning in mid-air, using the remains of slain Slayers as shields or throwing weapons, anticipating the trajectories of energy phantom attacks, and at the moment of mental impact, he forcefully resisted with powerful willpower, while his body continued to move without pause toward another target!
The battle offered no respite!
The Silent Slayers seemed endless!
Kill one, and more immediately emerged from the rocks, from fissures in the ground, and even from the void!
Mark's strength was rapidly depleting; each extreme burst made his muscle fibers groan under the strain, each heavy blow he endured caused his bones to vibrate and his internal organs to churn!
Blood seeped from his cracked tiger's mouth and wounds cut by bone blades, appearing starkly against the absolute silence.
Without energy replenishment, he clearly felt the stellar core of power within him, its light gradually dimming!
Fatigue, like a cold tide, began to erode his will and body!
This was a war of attrition with no end in sight; Taviel had trapped him here to use this silent universe and its endless minions to utterly grind down this star... him!
...
Alliance Headquarters, Crown of Stars Hall.
The festive atmosphere reached its peak amidst alcohol, lights, and deafening music.
People laughed, danced, and embraced, as if the darkness had truly receded.
Chairman Warren, his face flushed, was clinking glasses with several core elders, celebrating the imminent spoils of victory: the division of the Order Alliance's territory.
They chatted and laughed, planning how to use the name of the Reconstruction Committee to gradually sideline Allen and others, and bring those wealthy liberated planets into their grasp.
Trigg's figure appeared at the hall entrance.
He had changed into a more opulent and dignified imperial ceremonial suit, a cold, self-assured smile of absolute control on his face.
He carried the unassuming silver briefcase in his hand, as if carrying the entire Alliance's future; his appearance immediately drew all eyes, and the cheers grew even more fervent.
He nodded slightly, enjoying this false adoration, his gaze sweeping over Chairman Warren and the others, as if looking at prey about to fall into a trap.
"Regent, sir, you've arrived just in time!"
Chairman Warren, holding a wine glass, enthusiastically came forward to greet him.
"We were just discussing your far-sighted committee plan!"
"Come, let us toast to a more efficient and united future for the Alliance!"
Several elders also gathered around, their faces full of fawning smiles.
"To the future of the Alliance."
Trigg raised a glass of wine offered by a server, the curve of his lips holding a deeper meaning.
His finger seemingly casually brushed the briefcase's handle; an extremely faint mental fluctuation, almost undetectable by any instrument, like an invisible ripple, precisely swept over Chairman Warren and the core elders.
They were completely unaware, still immersed in the fantasy of fine wine and power.
The infection had begun.
The Great Old Ones' minions, lurking in various parts of the hall, received the signal like the most precise instruments and began their silent operations.
A waiter, carrying a tray filled with dark purple liquid, moved through the crowd; he wore a standard smile, but as he poured wine, he very discreetly flicked a tiny bit of dark purple powder from under his fingernail into specific wine glasses.
These powders were highly concentrated Great Old Ones mental spores, capable of subtly amplifying the target's inner dark desires and weakening their will's defenses.
A technician responsible for the sound system, seemingly adjusting equipment, typed a series of extremely complex, non-standard commands into the control panel with his fingers.
In the dazzling projected images on the hall's dome, a set of geometric patterns, too brief to be caught by the naked eye but containing specific mental induction frequencies, flashed by.
This pattern, like a virus, acted directly on the subconscious.
A guest near the main control panel for the ventilation system, pretending to adjust his tie, lightly brushed his finger over the panel's sensor area.
A faint but continuous inert gas, mixed with specific pheromones, was quietly introduced into the central air conditioning's ventilation system.
This gas itself was harmless, but it could relax the mind, lower vigilance, and make people more susceptible to suggestion.
Their actions were silent and seamless, perfectly integrated into the celebration's clamor.
The wine contaminated with spore powder was drunk by the targets; guests swept by the mental patterns felt an inexplicable exhilaration or irritation; those who inhaled the pheromones found the atmosphere in the hall more comfortable and pleasant, their vigilance unknowingly lowered.
Eve stood beside Allen, her delicate brows slightly furrowed.
Her perception was much sharper than ordinary people's; when Trigg appeared just now, she seemed to catch an extremely faint but fleeting mental fluctuation, intensely unsettling, coming from the box in Trigg's hand.
Immediately after, the atmosphere pervading the hall also seemed to undergo some ineffable, extremely subtle change.
But when she focused her senses, everything seemed to return to normal, with only the deafening music and the crowd's clamor.
"An illusion?"
Eve rubbed her temples, muttering softly.
"Or is it just too much stress lately?"
She looked at the reveling crowd around her, at Trigg conversing intimately with the elders, at the seemingly normal waiters and staff...
The hint of unease in her heart was like a stone dropped into a deep pool, stirring only a tiny ripple before being quickly swallowed by the tide of the celebration.
She attributed this doubt to her own excessive tension.
No one noticed that after Chairman Warren drank that glass of wine, a very brief red glint flashed in his eyes, and the smile on his face became more exaggerated and... greedy.
Nor did anyone notice that after inhaling the mixed gas, the elders' opposition to Trigg's proposed committee authority division plan significantly weakened, and they even began to actively agree.
And no one noticed that some ordinary guests, under the influence of the mental patterns and the atmosphere, had slightly glazed eyes, and their movements began to show a hint of imperceptible stiffness.
Corruption, like a colorless, odorless poison, was silently infiltrating and spreading at the Alliance's grandest, most arrogant celebration, right under everyone's noses.
The Great Old Ones' minions, like spiders in the shadows, were weaving a web of destruction that would engulf the entire Alliance.
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