Preparing to Enter the World Beneath the Planet's Core

November 27.

The surface of the Shield World.

At this moment, the landing zone where the alien had first touched down in a disposable drop pod had already been developed into a surface base by Fleet Zero's Engineering Team.

It had a fully sealed cluster of buildings, as well as an airfield for parking various transport aircraft, carrier-based aircraft, and MSs, and...

From the 21st until now, Catherine had continuously maintained the Divine Barrier, preventing the Flood on the Shield World from entering the area within the barrier.

After all, no matter how powerful the Flood's infective abilities were, they still required physical contact. That made them physical attacks rather than the more fantastical psychic attacks.

Therefore, the most effective isolation measure at present was the Divine Barrier cast by Catherine.

Fortunately, Catherine could maintain her barrier even while sleeping. She only needed to replenish the calories her body required at suitable intervals.

Otherwise, she could never have held out until now.

As for the Flood blocked at the edge of Catherine's barrier, after confirming that they could not enter, they stopped their futile attacks on the barrier and merely lingered at its edge to keep watch.

It seemed that even the Gravemind, formed from the combined races of millions of Lekgolo, Grunts, Gnolls, and others, had no way to deal with Catherine's barrier, which could reject physical attacks, at least not in the short term.

It was also possible that the intelligence of these Covenant races was not high enough. Otherwise, why would wild-stage Flood favor using humans to assemble primitive Graveminds?

Like Captain Keyes in Halo: CE, or the Flood in the animated comic Evolution: Mona Lisa, which dragged a pilot who knew how to fly a Pelican into a primitive Gravemind.

Of course, that was merely a