Chapter 356: Death Space and the Unfolding Investigation

Beacon…

Or rather, the stone tablet Sui Bian is observing before him is extremely similar to the "Divine Seal" in Death Space, especially the scythe monsters and aberrations that ravaged the Yudora, which are also identical to the corpse variants in Death Space.

In his previous life, Sui Bian first encountered the game Death Space while he was still in high school, during the early rise of smartphones, and at that time mobile games were flourishing, with many excellent PC game ports and spin‑off titles, including a mobile version of Death Space.

When playing the mobile version, the thing that left the deepest impression on Sui Bian was the "Infant Monster"; it affected him greatly back then, and fortunately he played it in the dormitory, otherwise the teenage him might not have dared to start the game alone.

Later, due to a busy academic schedule, Sui Bian hardly played the rest of the Death Space series, and mobile games, which had once blossomed, "regressed" into the dominance of a few companies.

Moreover, these dominant companies deliberately suppress other studios or small firms with ideas and innovation, then push players to spend heavily; when a game no longer yields revenue, they re‑skin it and relaunch it, continuing to "drain" players' wallets.

Precisely for this reason, the now "power‑holding" Sui Bian ordered Umbrella's entertainment division and other gaming, entertainment, and electronics companies to prohibit excessive spending, for the health of gaming culture; however, this demands that players' "liver" must be strong.

Furthermore, in the vast majority of games, as long as players can grind and are willing to grind, they can obtain sufficiently rare items and skins; UEG law also supports player‑to‑player trading, and there are even dedicated trading websites.

However, Umbrella and UEG strictly regulate such trades, prohibiting the extension of financial tactics like "stock speculation", "short selling", or "going long" into the gaming sphere.

Back to the main point.

In Death Space, beacons or Divine Seals were placed by an advanced race on various planets throughout the universe, including early Earth, and the impact of the Divine Seal on humanity and all intelligent life unfolds in three stages.

Stage one: after a planet's intelligent life gives rise to civilization, a massive demand for energy inevitably arises, so the Divine Seal emits a false signal claiming it is an "infinite regenerative energy" source, luring intelligent life to seek and study it.

Stage two: the Divine Seal releases another inducing signal that induces hallucinations in intelligent life, even worship of the Seal, thereby driving them mad, causing riots and casualties, and distorting and reshaping corpses to "hatch" corpse variants.

Stage three: once the entire planet has become a realm of corpse variants, the Divine Seal notifies the "Blood Moon", a massive planet‑like lifeform that arrives at the planet and devours all corpse variants, completing fusion.

But it is clear that the stone tablet that caused the severe accident on the Yudora is a product linked to an alternate dimension, and its "superior" could not possibly be the Blood Moon from Death Space.

If a Blood Moon truly exists in this universe, Sui Bian wouldn't mind "following the vine to the melon", destroying the Blood Moon and the alien race that created it in one stroke.

However, based on the intelligence currently at hand, the stone tablet appears merely as an "auxiliary" product of the Sokoyang ruins.

At that thought, Sui Bian turned slightly to his right and ordered, "Notify the local intelligence, regulatory, legion auxiliary forces, and UNSC of Sokoyang to fully support Director Lao La Kelaofu's investigation, then inform Artemis to lead a contingent of Grey Knights to Sokoyang, bolstering local defenses against demons or unknown threats."

"Understood, Chairman…" Upon hearing that, Bai Hou, standing at Sui Bian's right, flashed blue light in both pupils, almost a "front‑and‑back" gap, and immediately reported, "It is done. Any other orders?"

"Yes. Tell the Plague Doctor to free up time for a trip to the Oslo Star Region to study the stone tablet that Sarah Kerrygan has stripped of Spiritual Energy threat, then have him rush to Sokoyang to assist Lao La Kelaofu's investigation," Sui Bian added.

"Understood." Bai Hou nodded.

After finishing his conversation with his secretary, Sui Bian brought up another holographic screen to review the Yudora's subsequent operations.

At present, all aberrations on the Yudora have been almost completely eradicated by the Wild Wolf 13th Battalion, and the Yudora itself has been towed by the 13th Battalion back into the gravitational range of the nearest colony.

Although Sarah Kerrygan removed the Spiritual Energy from the stone tablet, rendering it inert, Sui Bian decided, to be safe, to temporarily keep it stationary to avoid re‑entering Rift Space and encountering another Yudora incident.

That is why he had Bai Hou tell the Plague Doctor to "go on a mission", first to the Oslo Star Region for an on‑site investigation of the stone tablet, then to rush to Sokoyang in the Temple Star Region.

Finally, the casualty figures…

The Yudora carried a total of 40,014 people; after the 13th Battalion completed the purge, the counted survivors numbered 407, with 40,607 having perished in the incident.

Those 40,000‑plus were elite members of the regulatory department, hand‑picked from Umbrella's hundreds of millions of employees as specialists against alternate dimensions.

Although such a loss is not hard for Umbrella to accept, Sui Bian still retains a considerable degree of "humanity"; even though he is accustomed to sacrifice, he still feels sorrow for the human compatriots who died.

All he can do is, according to the company's welfare system, take care of the families of these deceased employees.

In contrast, Leon and Ada.

Honestly, whether in his past life or this one, over all these years Sui Bian's subconscious and conscious mind have believed that Leon cannot die, and if Leon can act together with Ada, there is even a déjà vu feeling that they could "turn the world upside down."

Back then, Sui Bian even dispatched Leon to run across the entire Earth, and wherever anomalies were most likely to exist now, the most dangerous areas, that was Leon's operational zone.

The purpose was to have Leon discover, then eliminate or control anomalies to earn points.

In the early days, Sui Bian could afford to "buy" items and technologies like the Mjolnir hammer and TPS Power Armor, which were also inseparable from Leon.

However, when the Yudora disappeared for nearly twelve days, Sui Bian finally realized that in this universe full of demons and monsters, even though Leon possesses "three‑light" traits, he cannot truly be "three‑light" as in the Resident Evil games.

"Give him and Ada a long vacation; it's time they both get a result." Sui Bian thought.

Actually, another point worth noting is that Leon and Ada and others think everything that happened on the Yudora only spanned sixteen hours, but in reality Leon and his team have been missing for nearly twelve days and have inadvertently crossed 7,000 light‑years, directly indicating that the flow of time differs between the alternate dimension and the material universe.

As for the Stalker…

Recalling this early Umbrella weapon, Sui Bian pulled up the latest video file uploaded by the 13th Battalion.

Open.

Play.

The video shows a first‑person soldier's perspective, depicting a Wild Wolf captain leading his squad and auxiliary combat platoon, arriving in time at the Yudora's cargo bay to provide absolute fire support for Leon, Ada and other survivors.

Just two rounds of sweeping fire wiped out all aberrations in the cargo bay; after all, when dealing with such dismemberable foes, explosive arrows are the most effective.

Moreover, explosive arrows are "non‑discriminatory", capable of handling all sorts of alien and heretical creatures.

However, after the Wild Wolf captain and his team cleared the cargo bay of aberrations and rendezvoused with Leon and others…

"Sir! There's a situation here!"

Hearing a report from an auxiliary soldier, the Wild Wolf captain walked toward the far left end of the cargo bay, and the video feed shifted accordingly.

Soon, the captain arrived beside the auxiliary soldier, closely observing the "status" the auxiliary reported.

"Roar… roar… kill… kill the enemy…"

That "status" was the Stalker, now reduced to just a head and a bit of upper torso, mind clouded, muttering to itself.

It turned out the Stalker, swallowed by endless aberrations, had not died; as a biological weapon, "it" should have perished long ago, so conventional dismemberment, cutting, and other so‑called fatal wounds could not truly kill the Stalker.

Seeing this.

Sui Bian then told Bai Hou, "Dispatch a Mother‑Hive biological team to accompany the Plague Doctor to the Oslo Star Region, so they can restore the Stalker to optimal condition as quickly as possible."

"Understood." Bai Hou replied.

"Hmm."

Having given the orders, Sui Bian continued browsing the files concerning the Yudora and the Sokoyang ruins.

———————

…

May 22, 2126.

Twenty‑six Earth days later.

Noon.

Temple Star Region, near the equator of Soko Yang.

From a bird's‑eye view, this is an endless, scorching desert scarcely touched by humans or civilization, almost devoid of any green; the sky and ground are warped by heat waves.

Soko Yang was originally a colony of the Titanium Pu, whose planetary terraforming technology lags far behind humanity's and cannot turn their colonies into oases.

After the Expeditionary Force seized it, it was not until four years ago that the Anbu Lei La Engineering Department allocated resources to install terraforming devices at Soko Yang's north and south poles.

Thus three to four years is still insufficient to make Soko Yang fully a spring‑like, summer‑like colony perfectly suitable for human habitation.

Moreover, the Holy Shield Star Region can constantly uncover various things, including the pyramid ruins of Soko Yang.

In the desert, within an artificially excavated depression, stands a massive three‑sided pyramid structure, taller and more spectacular than the Great Pyramid of Khufu.

Its outer walls are smooth and tidy, having suffered little weathering, and scattered, novel "auxiliary" structures surround it.

These structures were erected by the Umbrella Archaeology Department to facilitate ongoing excavation and on‑site research and analysis.

Hovering above the pyramid is the Stealth‑class warship Round Moon, docked and engaged in Optical Camouflage mode, its wings spread.

On the ground, to the east of the pyramid ruins, atop a sand dune about three to four hundred meters from the entrance, stands a simple sunshade; beneath its shade are Artemis and four Grey Knights.

Artemis, wearing a white dress with a green waist belt, reclines on a beach chair with her eyes closed, resting.

The four Grey Knights beside her also wear olive‑branch crowns and white robes.

However, the four Grey Knights are not as "lazy" as their mentor; instead, each sits cross‑legged on the ground, holding paper copies of 'Human Truth' and rereading them to reinforce their already steadfast faith.

As for why Artemis "slacks off," she simply does not favor desert surroundings; after all, she is the hunting goddess, whose domain belongs in jungles, forests, and lakes.

If not for Sui Bian's order, she would never have come to such a place; but in the Temple Star Region, aside from OriginalBody Governor Leon, she has the highest combat power, so she had to rush to Soko Yang to boost the archaeological team's defenses and ensure they can handle any emergency.

At that moment, Artemis raised both hands, stretched lazily, slowly opened her eyes, and turned her head to the right, as if sensing something rapidly approaching.

Soon, the four Grey Knights tucked away their copies of 'Human Truth', stood up, and likewise gazed toward the bright blue sky.

Before long, a transport aircraft named Fish Europe appeared in the line of sight of the gathered "people", slowed its speed, descended, and finally, under Artemis's and the Grey Knights' watch, landed on the makeshift landing pad set up by the archaeology department.

As the rear hatch opened…

"Oh—my heavens, this place is unbearably hot. Had I known, I would have put on my sun‑protective suit. No, I'm even starting to regret the business trip! Hmm… the company needs to provide more D kids as test subjects, hmm, right!"

Always dressed in a black robe and beak mask, the plague doctor, inseparable from this attire, could not help but rant at the soldiers escorting him as soon as he stepped out of the cabin.

Having waited for a long time, his skin tanned dark, Lao La Kelaofu, wearing desert‑colored combat pants and a black short‑sleeve, stepped forward, raised his hand in salute and said, "Hello, Doctor, honored to receive your assistance."

"No trouble, lower your hand, kid. I'm not those respectable soldiers or officers; no need to salute me. All right! Let's get to work quickly! Hurry!" the plague doctor said impatiently.

"Good, follow me." Lao La Kelaofu, of course, had no objection and led the plague doctor toward the pyramid.

On a distant sand dune.

Seeing the plague doctor and others enter the pyramid, Artemis frowned slightly, then stepped out of the sunshade, looked up, and waved her left hand at the Round Moon in the sky, signaling it to dispatch a transport to retrieve them aboard, and said to the four Grey Knights beside her:

"When we return to the Round Moon, have your brothers immediately don power armor and stock up on ammunition."

"Is something happening, ma'am?" a relatively younger Grey Knight asked.

"No, but as your father once said, it never hurts to be prepared at all times," Artemis reminded.

"Yes, ma'am."

(End of chapter)