Regardless of the circumstances, Su Wan couldn't let Liu Sen's broken leg interfere with the upcoming operation.
Lei Lie, who had been listening to her instructions, was momentarily stunned. “Catch... catch it alive?”
“Of course we’re catching it alive,” Su Wan replied as if it were the most obvious thing in the world.
“How much is a dead one worth? The live ones are where the real money is...” She turned her gaze toward the scarred-face man.
“You said earlier that the Deep Blue Research Institute is offering a bounty for the live capture of a Shadow-Stalker Beast. Is the reward three million Star Coins?”
The scarred-face man nodded vigorously. “Yes, yes, yes! Providing confirmed information alone gets you two hundred thousand Star Coins. If it's caught alive, that's three million. If it's dead, it's only five hundred thousand!”
“Then we catch it alive.” Su Wan waved her hand dismissively.
Lei Lie took a deep breath and stood tall. “Understood, Landlord.”
Su Wan watched as Lei Lie and his group walked out of the building before she returned to her own room.
The gunfire had ceased for over ten minutes. The pariahs, who had been huddled against the walls and trembling in fear, finally dared to lift their heads and look cautiously at the building that had saved their lives.
“It’s over! Everyone, get up!”
Members of the Order Maintenance Team shouted at the top of their lungs, beginning to manage the crowd.
Though their legs were still trembling, they had a job to do—this was what the Landlord had ordered.
“Did you see that just now? This building can stop bullets! It’s sturdier than the walls of the Inner City!”
“If you want to live, line up properly! Don’t push! Stop pushing!”
The pariahs seemed to wake from a dream. The crowd that had scattered in terror during the gunfight began to gather once more.
This time, the look in their eyes was completely different.
If they had previously harbored doubts about the rumors that this building could withstand artillery fire, what they had just witnessed with their own eyes had erased all uncertainty!
Bullets suspended in mid-air! The enemies completely annihilated!
This wasn't just a building; it was a miracle!
News spread through the crowd like wildfire.
Someone pulled out a battered communicator and shouted excitedly to the other side, “Old San! Bring everyone over here! Yes, to that building! A squad of soldiers just came, and they’re all dead! Bullets couldn't even get inside! I’m serious! I saw it with my own eyes!”
Some simply ran straight back into the depths of the ruins to personally fetch relatives and friends who were still hesitating.
“What are you still standing there for?! This place is a godsend, a path to survival! Hurry up and go get Old Zhang and the others!”
Consequently, from all corners of the ruins, pariahs who had been watching from afar, hesitating and afraid to approach, began to converge toward “Terminal Station.”
C1 and C2 worked with extreme efficiency.
Registration, scanning, signing contracts, and assigning rooms—the entire process was seamless.
C5 and C6 also returned to their duties. With four robots operating simultaneously, the long lines shortened at a visible rate.
On the system panel, the progress bar for the Main Quest was jumping rapidly:
【New Tenants +3... +5... +8... +12...】
【Main Quest “Foundation of the Shelter” Progress: 327/500... 351/500... 378/500...】
Watching the numbers climb steadily, the corners of Su Wan’s mouth curled upward slightly.
At this rate, there was a high probability the quest would be completed before she returned to Blue Star from the Apocalyptic Plane.
She instinctively glanced at the time display in the upper-left corner of the system interface:
【Time remaining for this travel: 3 hours and 32 minutes.】
Su Wan frowned slightly.
Three and a half hours.
Catching the Shadow-Stalker Beast would take at least an hour, plus handling the subsequent chores... Why did it feel like time was becoming increasingly insufficient?
As if sensing her thoughts, the system proactively popped up a prompt:
【Detected host’s concerns regarding travel duration.】
【Description: Current travel duration is 10 hours (Basic Autonomous Travel Authority). Upon completion of the current Main Quest “Foundation of the Shelter,” an authority upgrade will be granted—】
【1. Single stay duration in the Apocalyptic Plane increased to 12 hours.】
【2. Post-travel cooldown reduced by 2 hours (from 12 hours to 10 hours).】
【3. Unlock “Emergency Travel” function (limited to once per day, allows a round-trip within one minute, does not count toward regular duration).】
Su Wan’s brow relaxed.
So that was it.
In that case, she needed to hurry and finish everything she could.
She estimated it would take Lei Lie and the others at least an hour to return.
Instead of just waiting here, she might as well—
She turned and walked toward Room 102.
Su Wan sat cross-legged on the bed, holding the potion that flowed with a deep purple light in her hand—
【Mental Condensation Potion (Level 3 Advancement Version)】.
Eighty thousand Points, bought with the life of Severance.
She took a deep breath, tilted her head back, and drained the potion in one gulp.
...
Lei Lie had confirmed the location multiple times.
“It’s hiding right under the foundation,” Lei Lie said with certainty to the group.
“Roughly twenty to thirty meters underground. There should be some subterranean structures left over from the Old Era there, like a parking garage or a utility floor.”
“The survival instinct of this Aberrant is extremely strong. It can sense which places are safe and which are dangerous. When the artillery fire hit, it instinctively burrowed underground. However, the underground wasn't safe either; the vibrations from the shelling were enough to collapse any subterranean structure.”
“But at that moment, it sensed the existence of our Terminal Station building.”
A flash of complexity crossed his eyes. “This building remained completely undamaged during the bombardment. Even the rock and soil layers around the foundation were reinforced by some kind of power.”
“To the Shadow-Stalker Beast, this was the only safe haven in the entire Area A. It used all its strength to burrow into the gaps beneath the foundation to escape that bombing.”
After listening to Lei Lie’s analysis, the scarred-face man nodded. “So, what do we do now?”
“We have to force it out from underground!” Lei Lie said in a low voice, staring at the ground.
He looked at Liu Sen. “Can your Cloak-Breaking Pulse Generator force it out from the depths?”
Liu Sen nodded quickly. “It can! This thing was specifically designed to deal with stealth-type Aberrants like the Shadow-Stalker Beast.”
“Its pulses can penetrate soil and concrete. As long as the beast is within range, it can forcibly disrupt its biological field, making it impossible to maintain its cloaked state.”
“What’s the range?”
“A fifty-meter radius. Penetration depth is... about twenty meters,” Liu Sen estimated.
“If it’s really hiding twenty to thirty meters under the foundation, it should be just within range.”
Lei Lie nodded and began the deployment. “We’ll activate the pulse generator at the point closest to the edge of the building’s foundation. Once it’s hit by the pulse interference, its instinct will be to flee...”
“It will run away from the source of the interference. You lot will set an ambush on the other side. The moment it shows its head, strike.”
Half an hour later, on the eastern side of the Terminal Station building, thirty meters from the edge of the foundation.
Lei Lie crouched behind a pile of rubble, his gaze fixed intently on the seemingly ordinary scorched earth ahead.
The task of activating the Cloak-Breaking Pulse Generator had been given to Liu Sen, who was unable to move easily. Everyone else followed Lei Lie and lay in ambush at this location.
The scarred-face man crouched beside Lei Lie, a hint of nervousness on his face.
“Master Lei, once this thing starts, that beast is definitely going to go berserk.”
He lowered his voice. “It... won’t be easy to catch later.”
Rate on N.U.
