Ging, You're Such a Humblebragger

A deathly silence blanketed the Collection Room.

The chaos of roaring mechanisms and trembling earth seemed to still echo in their ears, but now, everything had stopped. This sudden calm was more chilling than any noise.

Everyone's eyes were fixed on the enormous holographic map hanging in midair, staring at the dim gap that had been "cut" into the outermost sealing ring.

"Are they... running?"

Milluki was the first to break the silence, his voice slightly dry. Ignoring the others, he rapidly stacked layers on his terminal screen.

Red lines and markers appeared one after another, perfectly landing on several glowing nodes of the holographic map.

"Fuck." Milluki cursed under his breath. "Those people never planned to fight us head-on from the start. They're checking in, collecting permissions one point at a time."

List strode to the map and crouched down, bringing his eyes level with those nodes. "The ranging spikes they left behind all cleverly avoided the core load-bearing structures. That means they have a route map. It may be incomplete, but it's enough for them."

Ging's gaze fell on the dim gap in the sealing ring, and the casualness vanished completely from his face.

"They know how to open the mechanisms here," Ging said slowly. "But they may not know exactly which door they've opened."

The words were like a block of ice dropped down the backs of everyone's necks.

An amateur messing around with explosives might blow up a house at worst. But if a professional bomb disposal expert pressed the wrong button on a nuclear warhead's code panel... no one dared imagine the consequences.

"That teleporting sniper," Bai Zhu suddenly spoke. Rather than looking at the map, he looked at Milluki. "What are his limits?"

"Gait?" Milluki immediately pulled up new data, projecting every location where