Chapter 540: Sealed Zone (2)

The area, isolated by gates and security, opened wide, revealing the launchpad and the form of the barrier.

It would have been impossible to even attempt if they hadn’t linked the dashboard and the dam’s system to open all the doors.

However, Lennok had not anticipated things would unfold this way from the start of the operation.

“[Barrier opening will last about 20 more seconds…!!]”

Davi, peeking out from within his coat, spoke quickly.

“[We forcibly opened it by creating a security conflict between the Kurbas Multi-purpose Gravity Dam and the evacuation route systems, so it’ll close immediately once the system starts recovering!]”

It felt like Davi’s abilities were getting stronger.

More precisely, it was less about the raw power and more about the growth in skill and technique for handling the Cybernetic World.

This scene, too, was less a result of Davi’s own power and more a forced variable created by crashing two sides of the megacity’s network.

A method of controlling the butterfly effects derived from small variables according to one’s own will.

With a different direction and potential than Lennok, the Cybernetic Spirit was also constantly learning and growing.

In moments like this, it was so fast and intense that Lennok briefly wondered if he should reduce his reliance on Davi’s abilities.

There wasn’t much time to think.

The other team members, noticing the anomaly, also moved immediately.

Whoosh…!!

The bird-headed giant, flung out from the west gate, slid to a halt in front of Lennok.

The moment he gripped the hammer hanging on his back and swung it sideways, a strong gust of wind arose.

Due to that impact, countless bullets raining down from the sky changed their trajectories and missed Lennok, disappearing.

Tat-tat-tat-tat!!

Felix’s sunken eyes scanned the area behind the passage Lennok had emerged from.

Glancing into the passage where blood flowed freely, he raised his hammer and quickly stood, as if blocking Lennok’s path.

“Van, what happened?”

“Things went better than expected.”

Lennok glanced down at the inside of his coat and replied.

“Let’s move before the relief ship is completely ruined. If we don’t get on that before the barrier closes, everything we’ve done so far will be for nothing.”

“Mr. Magat, over here!!”

Ilya, who had by now rushed into the island, pulled out two hyper-vibration spears and swung them.

Ilya swept away the soldiers guarding the relief ship and connected the launchpad’s power.

Felix, too, immediately used his strength to lift and fix the launchpad’s angle, then smashed all of the relief ship’s locks with his bare hands.

Without being told, they knew exactly what they needed to do.

“I’m afraid I’m quite late.”

CRASH!!

Krod Azlan, Purity, emerged with a dazzling pillar of light, and with him, everyone boarded the relief ship.

Beep-beep-beep!!!

Warning lights flashed incessantly inside the canopy.

Felix, checking the dashboard in the cockpit, gasped and clicked his tongue.

“…Unbelievably old-fashioned. It’s a modified old transport plane that’s been in use for decades.”

“They probably had no choice if they wanted to make it fly in Sector 25.”

Ilya, quickly buckling her seatbelt, tapped the communicator.

“Manager Grimes. How do we operate the relief ship…!!”

“[Once the relief ship’s engine is activated, it has an automatic flight system to the destination…]”

Bzzzzzt!!

As the dashboard lit up, a warning message turned stark red.

“[Automatic Flight Sensor Inoperable. Manual Flight Required.]”

“…”

“…”

Lennok and Felix looked at each other. The manager, who was watching the screen via transmitter, was also speechless.

A situation entirely unforeseen at the start of the operation.

“No, no…!! Wait, if it’s like this…!!”

“Hmm, it seems it’s my turn to step in. You see, I’ve had experience participating as a pilot in my youth… ahem.”

Krod, sitting in the cockpit with an air of self-importance, actually tilted his head while looking at the dashboard.

“I’m sure this was the lever for takeoff…”

VROOOM!!

As Purity fiddled with the dashboard arbitrarily, flames burst from behind the launchpad, propelling the relief ship into the sky.

The relief ship soared dozens of meters into the air in an instant.

“Ugh…!!”

“It’s been too long since I’ve flown…!!”

Felix and Ilya gritted their teeth, and Lennok, who had been taking motion sickness medicine, also turned pale.

“To reach beyond the barrier, we need to cross the restricted zone’s boundary with low-altitude flight. If we don’t operate it correctly, it’ll definitely crash…!!”

Automatic flight was almost impossible due to the mana particle radiation exposure phenomenon in the restricted zone.

The food relief ship was a modified airship designed to transport food through such harsh conditions.

The modification of an old transport plane was likely because its simple and basic structure was environmentally advantageous.

But precisely because of that, the problem was that there was no room for Davi’s hacking to intervene.

A situation where they had to operate the relief ship purely relying on Purity’s memories.

Realizing that they would crash back to the ground if things continued this way, Lennok sat in the cockpit.

Lennok quickly checked all the units and controls on the dashboard, then immediately turned his head.

“Felix, Ilya. There’ll be thick levers on both walls beneath the relief ship’s seats. Get ready to grab and turn them.”

“Th-these, you mean?”

“Why are there levers under the seats…?”

“They say it’s a backup function for manual operation of the relief ship. It seems you can directly manipulate the transport plane’s wings with it.”

Felix, listening to Lennok’s explanation, muttered in disbelief.

“They didn’t even consider normal human passengers…”

A method of gripping the levers and rotating them like oars to forcibly maintain lift.

Naturally, it wouldn’t budge with ordinary human strength.

It was merely a crude, temporarily added function, modified to somehow maintain altitude in an un-flyable zone.

But now, that was the only way for all four of them to safely cross into the restricted zone.

“I’ll calculate the airflow here, then specify the vibration frequency for the wings and give you instructions.”

As he spoke, Lennok’s left eye glowed with a vivid purple light.

The Demonic Eye in his left eye, visualizing the realm of possibilities through Lennok’s Mind Imprint.

Lennok, quickly checking the relief ship’s launch trajectory above, said:

“If we don’t start within 7 seconds, there’ll be no way out. Choose.”

“…Alright.”

Ilya, firmly grasping the levers protruding from under the seat with both hands, nodded.

Simultaneously, the relief ship’s wings vibrated faintly, and the aircraft began to violently pitch up and down.

“Ready, Van. Give the instructions.”

“In 3 seconds, rotate the left wing for 1.7 seconds.”

“…Huh?”

“In 15 seconds, rotate the right wing for 1.3 seconds. After that, stop both wings simultaneously for 5 seconds. Starting from the left, glide by repeating wing vibrations one side at a time, with 3-second intervals.”

“…”

“Was it hard to understand?”

“No, I can do it…!!”

Felix’s beak gaped slightly at the sudden barrage of instructions, and Ilya gritted her teeth.

While it demanded an absurd level of delicate adjustment, surprisingly, he wasn’t asking for utterly impossible conditions.

What Lennok wanted from the two was not for them to directly maintain manual flight, but to operate the levers with precise timing during the process.

While the sudden instructions were incredibly difficult and precise demands, if he gave instructions down to the second like this, they could somehow execute it.

WOOOOSH!!!!

The relief ship’s direction twisted and undulated as if dancing in place, violently surging up and plummeting down.

SCREEECH!!

“Ugh…!!”

Even Felix, pale from the violent movements, clutched his beak.

The moment Lennok, with his Demonic Eye activated, continuously relayed instructions to Ilya.

From Purity’s mouth, who had been staring intently out the window, a single word dropped.

“We’ve arrived.”

WHOOSH!

The wind, which had been incessantly pounding against the relief ship’s glass walls, split apart as if by magic, revealing a magnificent steel barrier before them.

Its height and grandeur dwarfed the water wall of the Kurbas Multi-purpose Gravity Dam by an immense margin.

The barrier, covered thickly in dark metal, was merely plastered with the number [25] in black and red lettering, like a pattern.

The moment Felix and Ilya’s gazes were involuntarily drawn to the barrier’s imposing presence, Lennok spoke once more.

“In 4 seconds, rotate both wings simultaneously. To the fullest extent you can.”

“Understood…!!”

The moment the two spun the levers wildly, vigorously vibrating the wings simultaneously.

Carried by the airflow, the arriving relief ship surged upwards as if pushed into the sky.

The relief ship, exquisitely riding the rebound created by the collision of two air currents, shot up over dozens of meters in place.

The aircraft, having soared into the air, barely grazed over the dark steel barrier and leapt beyond it.

Screee!!

“…!!”

With a sense of déjà vu, as if their senses had momentarily inverted, they plummeted directly into the restricted zone.

“W-we’re in…!!”

As Felix muttered in disbelief and the exhausted Ilya closed her eyes, letting her arms hang limp.

Lennok and Purity, however, stood up abruptly as if they had been waiting.

Disregarding the rapidly approaching ground, they immediately unbuckled their seatbelts, stood up, and gathered their equipment.

The moment Purity snapped his fingers, the canopy opened wide, and the dry air of the restricted zone seeped into the aircraft.

At that sudden movement, Felix and Ilya also rose from their seats and began gathering their equipment.

The very fact that they could stand up and gather their belongings while falling almost vertically was proof of their superhuman nature.

Felix, adjusting his goggles, asked.

“We’ve entered the zone, there’s no reason to rush. Shouldn’t we just land as is?”

“You didn’t hear the manager’s explanation earlier. This isn’t an amphibious plane; it’s just a moving warehouse modified from a transport plane.”

Lennok replied with a chuckle.

“This relief ship isn’t meant for recovery, you see. It seems the items are designed to be dropped before impact. We need to escape too.”

“Wait, you mean…!”

Only then did Felix and Ilya understand what Lennok meant, and they winced.

Purity chuckled and patted Ilya’s shoulder.

“It would be best to escape before getting caught in the explosion.”

“…There’s really no time to rest, is there?”

As Ilya sighed and lowered her stance, the four figures leapt out of the plummeting relief ship and moved away.

Immediately after, the front section of the relief ship, which had plunged vertically into the ground, exploded completely.

On the spot, an unimaginably grand pillar of fire erupted, emitting dazzling brilliance in all directions.

KABOOOOOM!!!

“Ugh…!!”

Ilya, who had crashed into a building resembling an old stable, weakly picked herself up, and Felix emerged from a shabby mansion.

Including Purity, who had been riding on a pristine white spear shaft, and Lennok, who walked out, brushing off his coat while leaning on his staff.

Even though they had made their escape just before hitting the ground, none of the four had a single injury.

Everyone gathered here was a superhuman of Saint-tier or higher, having completed their Hierarchy.

“Indeed, my judgment in bringing you here was not mistaken.”

Purity, descending lightly from the spear shaft he had been riding, spoke with an abashed expression.

“I had often heard you were an excellent wizard, but I never dreamed you’d succeed in manual flight in that situation. It was my oversight.”

“Certainly, a wizard’s intellect and judgment truly stand out in a place like this.”

Ilya also murmured, as if genuinely impressed.

“I still can’t grasp how you sensed the vibration frequency and arbitrarily gave those instructions.”

“We were lucky. If we hadn’t caught the point where the air currents collided at the end, we would have had to find another way.”

Lennok replied, looking back at the colossal steel barrier they had just leaped over.

“However, I don’t like how difficult it is to enter the restricted zone… Will we have to repeat a similar method to get out?”

“Of course, there isn’t no way to break through with force. But you know the reason we didn’t do that, don’t you?”

Purity chuckled and said.

As a team assembled to handle matters in the restricted zone, methods that would attract outside attention or spread to the media were out of the question from the start.

Wasn’t the recent operation to commandeer the relief ship also an incident that occurred entirely within the scope of what the city government, including the manager, could clean up?

“I’m not sure if that low-altitude entry, leaping over a dozens-of-meters-high barrier, was very discreet.”

Felix replied with a sour look.

“Furthermore, it’s highly likely that the relief ship’s explosion just now also leaked beyond the barrier…”

Felix’s words, as he turned his gaze to the location where the relief ship had exploded, suddenly stopped cold.

The others, turning their gaze at his unusual reaction, were also speechless for a moment.

The red ball of flames that burst forth from the relief ship’s explosion, instead of spreading through the air and into the sky,

remained frozen in place.

The scene of the explosion, blooming like a dark red flower, fixed in place as if time had stopped.

Even the melting, shattered fragments of the relief ship were visible intact amidst the explosion.

It was only natural for the others to be speechless at such an illogical phenomenon.

“This is…”

“It’s stopped. How can this be…”

“I knew something unusual was happening inside the restricted zone, but…”

Ilya let out a hollow laugh.

“You mean it was this bad?”

“It’s not completely stopped.”

Lennok’s eyes became cold.

“It’s moving, little by little. It’s become very slow, but the explosion itself is still happening.”

“…”

“Rather than completely stopping time, it’s a method of endlessly stretching it to make it extremely slow…”

It was one of the time-manipulating methods that felt quite familiar to Lennok.

The kind of act frequently performed by monsters who began dabbling in the power of time, endlessly stretching the gaps in consciousness to create new voids within them.

At the same time, it was something akin to the infinitely slowing phenomenon that had manifested around the world’s fissures in Palgung Fortress.

Something similar to those two phenomena was now occurring within this restricted zone.

Felix summarized the conclusion beside Lennok.

“If the relief ship we arrived on is in this state, it means that even things not originally from within the restricted zone are affected.”

“You mean we could have fallen into a similar state if we were unlucky?”

Ilya chimed in, supporting Felix’s words.

“The problem is that it’s hard to guess the conditions for this phenomenon. What if one of us falls into a similar state?”

“It’s significant that we couldn’t confirm the moment the explosion stopped. If we had been aware of the mana flow at that time, we might have found a clue…”

Lennok, who had been listening silently to the two, spoke.

“The conditions themselves might not be as complicated as they seem.”

“What do you mean?”

Instead of answering Ilya’s question, Lennok raised his staff and touched a fragment of the relief ship that had stopped nearby.

“As Felix said, the relief ship wasn’t something that existed inside the restricted zone. If the power is strong enough to even contain the explosion of such an object in time…”

The moment the relief ship fragment, following the tip of the staff, moved little by little and completely left the explosion’s radius.

WHOOSH!!

The fragment, having whizzed past Lennok’s face at immense speed, slammed into the collapsed wall behind him.

A sudden, rapid acceleration, as if the time that had been virtually stopped was a lie.

But Lennok merely gestured with his chin at the spot where the fragment had swept past, his face expressionless.

“It’s more accurate to assume that such power is applied to specific spaces themselves.”

“You think there are areas within the restricted zone that trigger phenomena like this…”

“How about we explore the surroundings a bit more first?”

Felix, looking at Ilya who was deep in thought, turned his gaze.

“If Van’s words are true, then it’s possible that similar traces or phenomena exist all over the restricted zone. And if there’s a direction or place where such phenomena occur with unusually high frequency…”

It’s highly likely that’s where the particle power plant is located.

After that, the group scattered, each surveying the terrain near the barrier where the relief ship had fallen.

As each possessed excellent mana sensing abilities, they could explore a radius spanning thousands of meters even while spreading out in all directions.

Lennok was the first to discover an anomaly.

“Come to the abandoned market 400 meters ahead. I think I have a general idea of what’s happening in the restricted zone.”

Lennok, having called the other three via communicator, pointed to the shabby appearance of the market.

A commercial building that had aged exactly as it was, likely unused by people for decades.

Not only was all the paint peeled off, but various foodstuffs and tools were rotten and crumbled, strewn across the display shelves.

However, among them were unusually intact sections of wall and fresh-looking foodstuffs, as if just made.

A bizarre phenomenon where old and new wall sections were mixed together like stains, and unusually new-looking items were visible among the collapsed display shelves.

Felix picked up one of the chocolate bars that remained new-looking on a display shelf and chewed it crunchily.

“The taste is no different from a regular chocolate bar. The contents themselves seem to be fine.”

“…Are you really going to eat food that might be contaminated with radiation?”

“Demi-humans generally have tough digestive systems. This much should be fine.”

Felix quickly turned the wrapper to check the manufacturing date and nodded.

“In terms of time, these were made decades ago. For such foodstuffs to still be preserved in perfect condition…”

Given that they’d found traces similar to the relief ship’s explosion freezing, it was hard to dismiss it as a coincidence.

The entire restricted zone hasn’t been completely isolated for decades.

Rather, some specific areas or spaces have remained precisely in the time period when this zone was isolated, still preserving those memories.

“I’d been wondering what the cause of the mana particle radiation exposure phenomenon in the restricted zone was, but this makes perfect sense.”

Lennok said so, sweeping his gloved hand across the painted wall that still looked new.

“Mana particles that were trapped in specific spaces for decades, upon leaving those areas, are unable to withstand the altered flow of time and are rapidly disintegrating.”

Mana particles that previously existed with the same properties in the same space,

are disintegrating atom by atom due to the shock when crossing the barrier of differing timelines.

The resulting mana particle radiation, through this process, is bursting forth beyond the steel barrier at an immense scale, difficult to dilute even with the water from the Kurbas Multi-purpose Gravity Dam.

“The conclusion is clear. The mana particle radiation isn’t originating from the power plant in the restricted zone. It’s merely a side effect of a phenomenon occurring at the power plant.”

Lennok stood up, running his fingers over the flaking paint powder on his glove.

“The project being carried out at the Sector 25 power plant appears to be related to spacetime research.”