Snake Eyes Across the City! Martial Soul Hall Secret Sentries: There Is a Traitor Among Us!

Night fell, and Nuoding City shed the bustle of the day, sinking into silence. Gas lamps on both sides of the street cast dim yellow light, stretching the shadows of pedestrians. Drunken shouting drifted from the tavern, the residual heat of the blacksmith shop gradually dissipated, and everything was no different than usual.

No one knew that a silent revolution was quietly unfolding within the underground veins of this city.

Umbrella Corporation, third underground level, the newly established central control room.

Cold LED lights illuminated the space as bright as day. Qin Feng sat before the main console, facing a massive black screen that covered the entire wall.

"Doctor, it is time for your performance." Qin Feng picked up a cup of hot cocoa and said without looking up.

"Hehehehe..."

Orochimaru let out a sinister, cold laugh.

He walked to a giant glass culture tank in the center of the control room, inside which tens of thousands of tiny, hair-thin white snakes were soaking.

These were his creations, the Synapse Snakes, birthed in the Rapid Gene Editor provided by Grey Wolf by combining gene fragments of the Datura Snake with the nerve cells of various spirit beasts.

They possessed no independent consciousness; their only instinct was to seek out heat sources and transmit all perceived information back to the host through a special type of bio-electric wave.

"Go, my children." Orochimaru pressed his hand against the culture tank. "Turn this city into my field of perception."

A flash of purple light shone from his palm, and the valve at the bottom of the tank opened. Tens of thousands of Synapse Snakes followed the pipes connected to the city's sewer system, like a white torrent, instantly flooding into the dark underground world of Nuoding City.

West of the city, a grocery store.

Old Wang, the shopkeeper, was clicking his abacus behind the counter. He was the owner of this shop and also one of the seventeen hidden sentries of the Martial Soul Hall in Nuoding City, codenamed "Accountant."

He had been lurking here for five years, having seen off three successive bishops of the Nuoding Martial Soul branch, and considered himself to have a firm grasp on every slight movement in this city.

But today, he felt uneasy.

"Squeak."

The sound of a mouse came from the corner. Old Wang frowned and pulled a bag of rat poison from under the counter.

However, he soon realized something was wrong. That was not the sound of one mouse, but hundreds, perhaps thousands. From within the walls of the entire shop and beneath the floorboards, came the dense, faint sound of crawling.

Old Wang's expression changed, and he immediately held his breath.

He was a level 42 Soul Ancestor, and his martial soul was the "Earth-Listening Rat," which was extremely adept at reconnaissance. His hearing was far superior to that of an ordinary person.

He could "hear" that those things were not mice! They were smaller, more numerous, and moved with more purpose! They were following the sewers, drilling into the foundations of every house, crawling onto the eaves of every home, and even sliding through drainpipes to enter the toilets in the wealthy district.

They were weaving a web.

A living, breathing web that covered the entire city!

Cold sweat instantly soaked the back of "Accountant." What was this? A migration of some group-type spirit beast? Or the terrifying spirit skill of some Evil Soul Master?

He immediately reached into his robes and pulled out an inconspicuous bone whistle; this was the emergency communicator for the Martial Soul Hall. He had to report this anomaly!

At the same time, the brothel in the south of the city, the stables in the north, the clock tower in the center... the other sixteen Martial Soul Hall sentries, whether they were Soul Elders disguised as prostitutes or Soul Kings playing the role of bell ringers, all sensed this suffocating anomaly at the same time.

Fear spread silently among them.

They were all battle-hardened agents, but they had never encountered such a bizarre enemy. Invisible, intangible, yet omnipresent.

Inside the central control room.

On the massive black screen, countless tiny white light dots spread out from the center, rapidly filling the outline of the entire Nuoding City. Buildings, streets, sewers... every detail of the city was perfectly outlined by these light dots in a three-dimensional format.

[Ding! City-wide Biological Neural Network Monitoring System, deployment complete!]

[Neural node coverage: 99.7%]

[Data transmission stability: Good]

"A beautiful piece of art, isn't it?" Qin Feng took a sip of hot cocoa, admiring the model of the city made of life on the screen.

"Next, let's start taking out the trash."

His fingers swiped across the console, pulling up the personnel files of the Nuoding Martial Soul branch, which contained detailed information and the general activity range of every hidden sentry.

"Brother Wolf, activate the 'Heat Signature' comparison program and drag these seventeen rats out of the map for me."

"Piece of cake!" Grey Wolf, with a grilled sausage in his mouth, hammered away at the keyboard.

The city model on the screen instantly switched to thermal imaging mode. Among the countless green dots representing civilians, seventeen yellow dots representing spirit masters stood out prominently.

[Signature comparison started...]

[Target 1: 'Accountant', level 42 spirit power, martial soul 'Earth-Listening Rat', location locked: West city grocery store.]

[Target 2: 'Hongxiu', level 51 spirit power, martial soul 'Spider Web', location locked: South city Chunxiang Pavilion.]

[...]

[Target 17: 'Pendulum', level 63 spirit power, martial soul 'Gargoyle', location locked: Top of the city center clock tower.]

In less than ten seconds, all seventeen yellow dots turned into glaring red. All their information, including real-time heart rate and spirit power fluctuations, was clearly displayed on the screen.

Under the surveillance of the biological neural network, they had nowhere to hide.

Inside the grocery store, "Accountant" was just about to blow the bone whistle.

Suddenly, he felt a chill on his neck.

He whipped his head around, but there was nothing there.

He looked down and saw a white snake, no larger than a pinky finger, crawling out from his collar and flicking its tongue at him. Its eyes had no pupils, just pure, abyssal darkness.

The body of the Accountant stiffened.

He wanted to scream, but found that his throat could not produce a single sound. He wanted to move, but discovered that his limbs had lost all sensation.

A cold, numbing sensation spread rapidly from his neck throughout his entire body.

He watched helplessly as more white snakes surged from the corners of the walls and cracks in the floor, covering his body like a tide before dragging him into an endless darkness.

The bone whistle fell to the ground without making a single sound.

At the same time, the top courtesan of Chunxiang Pavilion, Hongxiu, was grooming herself when a white "hairpin" slid from her bun and bit into the back of her neck.

Pendulum was vigilantly observing his surroundings from the top of the clock tower when two small white snakes suddenly shot out from the eyes of the Gargoyle sculpture beneath his feet.

The captures were unfolding simultaneously in seventeen corners of the city.

There was no fighting, no roaring, and they didn't even alert a single civilian.

These elite agents, whom Martial Soul Hall took such pride in, were like insects being culled by nature, disappearing from this world without a trace.

"Well done." Qin Feng looked at the seventeen markers on the screen that had turned from red to gray and nodded with satisfaction.

"Qin Feng-kun, they are mine now." The figure of Orochimaru appeared behind Qin Feng, his tongue licking his lips, his eyes filled with irrepressible ecstasy.

"Of course, Doctor." Qin Feng stood up and walked toward the elevator leading to the Biological Laboratory on the fourth underground level. "I hope they can help you cultivate some interesting 'toys'."

[Ding! Main Quest: Establish the first 'Hive' base, Phase One complete!]

[Quest Rating: Perfect!]

[Obtained Shock Value: 30,000 points!]

[Reward Unlocked: T-Virus First Generation Stable Strain!]

Qin Feng looked at the system panel. The T-Virus? This was good stuff.

Just then.

"Beep—beep—beep—!!!"

The entire central control room suddenly blared with the highest-level red alert! The piercing sound caused the grilled sausage in Grey Wolf's hand to drop to the floor.

On the massive screen, fifty kilometers outside the east gate of Nuoding City, a giant purple light point radiating terrifying energy appeared out of thin air!

The data analysis window next to the screen was instantly flooded with a series of explosive values.

[Warning! Ultra-high-spec energy source detected!]

[Energy Index: ??? (Exceeds current detection limit)]

[Spatial Fluctuation Rating: Extremely dangerous! Target is performing a spatial jump!]

[Estimated time of arrival: Ten seconds!]

Grey Wolf looked at the light point, which was a hundred times brighter than a Titled Douluo, and his fur stood on end.

"My... my wolf-granny! What... what kind of thing is this?!"

"Could it be that the Angel God from Martial Soul Hall has come to kill us personally?!"