Dimensional Hotel-Chapter 672 - 671: Delivery Day

The faster-than-light antenna array pointing to the Dark Meteor Domain has been shut down, and the technicians in the communication room began checking the equipment and tidying the scene—the shell of "Old Qiao" was pushed to the corner of the room. It can't be discarded yet; at least not until this matter with the Hidden Monastery is resolved, as this shell might still come in handy.

Luo's mechanical limb was still connected to the console, as she needed to verify all the data recorded during the previous communication process, ensuring that the people from the Hidden Monastery hadn't tampered with the signal. She also had to check if the decoy protocol had been properly activated to avoid exposing the plan unknowingly.

Erin leaned on Yu Sheng's shoulder, watching others bustling in the room. Feeling bored because she couldn't understand a thing, she fiddled with Yu Sheng's hair: "Hey, do you think those cultists will actually come for the 'delivery'? Won't they notice something's off?"

Yu Sheng gave the little creature on his shoulder a weird look: "Don't jinx it, half a Omen Goddess talking about this here..."

The little puppet waved nonchalantly: "Oh, it's fine. It's not like I'm foreseeing bloodshed; I can't be sure about anything else."

Yu Sheng: "…so you can only predict when I'll kick the bucket, huh?"

Listening to their banter while checking the data, Luo couldn't help but chime in: "I don't think those cultists will notice—not because our plan is flawless, but because 'Old Qiao is dead, another Black Spot Warlord is collaborating with the Special Service Bureau to put on a show and even brought out an Angel Catalyst to fish' is just too absurd—reality might be illogical, but suspicion and overthinking demand reason. I doubt even those imaginative cultists can concoct such a bizarre scenario, let alone usual humans."

She paused and glanced at a holographic projection floating above the nearby data terminal.

"Moreover, the 'Gate of Eden' matter is already pressing for those cultists—a lifeline for them, this Angel Catalyst. They'll at least come to check the situation, even if they suspect it might be fake, even if 'Old Qiao's' behavior seems dubious."

The holographic projection displayed scenes from a warehouse in the fortress's lower area.

A group wearing Special Service Bureau uniforms was handing over the "goods" to Luo's trusted aide squad.

...

Guard Captain Laine stood by the shuttle with his men, looking at the Special Service Bureau officers in front of him with mixed feelings.

He never imagined he would one day cooperate with the Special Service Bureau in his current capacity, especially on a project to maintain world peace.

After all, the day he walked out of the Black Dot Group's clone base, he was prepared to follow the dark organization's path to the end. His life plan back then revolved around loyalty—loyalty to the Group, to the mission, to his master; being a diligent and responsible enforcer for a black-ops force.

This held true until he followed a somewhat strange boss—the boss was an unconventional and unwelcome figure within the company, a Black Spot Warlord who was poor compared to peers, with desolate territory. It took half a century's savings to build his own space station and shipyard, and his smuggling business was constantly under scrutiny by the Special Service Bureau, Terra, and Algerde. Only through some tough tech and cautious survival strategies could he maintain some semblance of peace.

With such a leader, the future seemed bleak.

Yet, the boss built a gym for the cloned soldiers, gave bonuses, names, and year-end gifts—she even tried giving them family leave.

No clone soldier liked returning to their production workshop, so during family leave, they just stayed in the dormitory—and gradually, the "threefold loyalty" mindset was unknowingly revised, omitting the Group and the mission.

Then the boss defected.

Everyone followed suit without hesitation.

Most clone soldiers weren't overly concerned about the future, being a group of muscle-brained individuals without plans. Only Laine thought about the future, and on the day he defected with the boss, he resigned himself to the fact that his future had shifted from bleak to utterly hopeless.

A defected Black Spot Warlord, caught and recruited by a group of overgrown dolls to join the Special Service Bureau—with such a background, how much trust and importance could he earn? Probably just enough to be used temporarily, then secretly executed once drained of intelligence value…

At worst, they'd be executed together, and compared to other clone soldiers, he had already lived long enough.

Who the hell could've imagined the boss defected not to the Special Service Bureau, but to a vibrant civilian organization?

It was indeed too vibrant—the new big boss could tear angels apart with bare hands.

Well, no need to worry about being secretly executed anymore, and now they were in a cooperative relationship with the Special Service Bureau.

Container boxes were offloaded from the Special Service Bureau's transport vehicles, with a squad of operatives in Special Service Bureau uniforms carefully escorting the floating container, over two persons high, to the unloading platform, then controlling the container's descent and beginning to input the warehouse access codes.

——By the way, this transport vehicle drove directly from the underground parking lot of the Special Service Bureau to this space fortress: the big boss opened a door, and the car just drove through.

As for the principle? Even someone as smart as the boss couldn't figure it out, let alone the clone soldiers.

Let's just say it's the magical Black Spirit Ability at work, or the omnipotent Subspace power.

"Such a big box?" Laine muttered instinctively as he looked at the large cargo container in front of him.

"The box is big, but the core 'cargo' isn't actually large. Most of the space is reserved for various security devices and monitoring equipment," Li Lin, who was in charge of leading the escort team, said with a chuckle.

He wasn't actually qualified to carry out such a high-level field mission, but this time's "Hidden Monastery Fishing Plan" was special. The intention from higher-ups was that the fewer people who knew about the whole thing, the better. The performers of the plan should be as closely related to the "travel agency" team as possible to minimize any leaks—plus, Li Lin did have experience from the Angel incident (referring to facing the orphanage on the night of Anka Aela's awakening), so he was pulled in for this "Angel Catalyst" escort mission.

Also, it was somewhat professionally relevant, given that Li Lin was indeed responsible for receiving and sending packages at No. 66 Wutong Road, so delivering the Angel Catalyst to the Space Cult was considered part of the logistics chain.

As for why the other employee of the "Wutong Road Pickup Point" didn't come, the reason was obvious—considering the importance of the cargo, losing it or the person halfway would be quite bad…

The cargo container door opened, and Laine saw the situation inside—it was practically a mobile laboratory remodeled from a cargo container. A dizzying array of monitoring and security devices almost filled the entire space. In the center platform of the box floated a semi-transparent blue "cube," which was a Force Field Shield Box. The blue force field's center was the actual "core cargo" being transported this time.

A seemingly unremarkable, approximately one-foot-long black crystal stone—much smaller than the Zolda Black Stone, but its texture, form, and even the unstable aura it emitted were almost identical.

The moment Laine saw this thing, he got goosebumps on the back of his neck, and the accompanying guard soldiers around him also took a synchronized breath.

Having been with the Zolda Black Stone on Black Stone Station for several years and personally witnessing its moment of loss of control, it was clear that everyone had a bit of PTSD.

Li Lin looked at the reactions of these few people in front of him and felt confident in Yu Sheng's plan.

"...Looks so real," a female guard soldier standing behind Laine swallowed and muttered quietly, "How is it made…"

"I don't know either. Anyway, the technicians in the bureau are quite impressive; I heard it involved real Angel remains or something… Anyway, Brother Yu indeed has quite a few of these," Li Lin said offhandedly, handing a data screen to Laine, "This thing is unstable—this 'instability' was intentionally created to perfectly reproduce the 'pollution characteristics' of the Angel Catalyst, so during transport it must be kept with the Force Field Box and inhibitor. The precautions are all on here."

Laine raised his eyebrows and looked up again at the enormous cargo container.

He noticed that the entire setup was intentionally stripped of any identifying marks, and the structure of the box and equipment inside were in the Black Dot style or simply original components produced by the Black Dot Group.

…The source of these components probably doesn't need questioning.

"Everything is arranged very meticulously." Laine nodded lightly with genuine praise.

"Thanks for the compliment," Li Lin nodded modestly, but couldn't hold back a smile, his tone proudly, "Professional tasks must be handled by professionals."

"Back then, when our boss had two shipments intercepted near the Torrent X-3 Star Gate by an enforcement team disguised as Black Dot merchants, was it done this way too?" 𝚏𝗿𝗲𝐞𝚠𝕖𝐛𝗻𝗼𝐯𝕖𝚕.𝚌𝗼𝗺

Li Lin remained expressionless, "How would I know, I'm just a courier."

…

Two days later, the agreed delivery date with "Old Qiao" from the Hidden Monastery arrived.

The cargo container holding the "Angel Catalyst" had already been transferred onto a large shuttle—a specially customized container that almost filled the shuttle's already small cargo hold, leaving not enough space to fit even two Special Combat Soldiers.

In fact, no Special Combat Soldiers were needed this time—Yu Sheng didn't plan to arrange any escort personnel for this "transport."

After all, flying into the perilous Morona Fault to the Gravity Collapse Point to make a deal with a bunch of cultists, with this environment and process, in movies, it would be a series of flags planted like swords in a tomb. If any popular backstabbing event were to occur, even a battalion of interstellar soldiers on board wouldn't be of much use.

Similarly, due to the above reasons, Yu Sheng decided to personally pilot the shuttle for the delivery this time.