Ye Li sat in the command room, facing a dozen or so separate surveillance screens.
He was not nervous in the slightest and even had the leisure to brew himself a cup of hot tea.
To him, this intrusion was more like a fully realistic combat exercise.
The perfect stage to test how well the various technical teams worked together since the Strategic Development Department's establishment.
Friends from Team Magma, welcome to your one-day tour of Team Rocket's high-tech theme park.
Admission is free, but getting out won't be so easy.
Ye Li raised his teacup and gently blew on it.
"Lin Feng, start your show."
"Roger."
Lin Feng's voice came through the communicator, tinged with excitement.
Almost simultaneously, he took full control of the base's internal network.
Piercing alarms suddenly blared through the earpieces of the Team Magma squad that had infiltrated the duct area.
"Alert! Intruders detected in sector A!"
"Alert! Sector F's power supply system has been sabotaged!"
"Alert! The door to sector G's breeding room has been forced open!"
The string of false alarms made Tabitha, who was leading the team, blanch.
Had they been discovered?
And how had the other side acted so quickly, already starting to cause chaos throughout the base?
"Don't panic! This is a diversion to distract us!"
Tabitha was experienced and immediately made his assessment.
"Everyone, stick to the original plan and keep moving toward the core research area!"
He switched on the tactical tablet in his hand, which displayed the layout of the base's ducts they had stolen long ago.
However, he had no idea that, under Lin Feng's control, this map had already become a complete fraud.
Several Team Magma members ran to a junction marked on the map, only to find a cold wall in front of them.
"Captain, the map is wrong! It's a dead end!"
"How is that possible?"
Tabitha looked at the clear route on the tablet, then at the dead end before him, his brows tightly furrowed.
Like a herd of blindfolded donkeys, they were led around in circles by a faulty map.
Every time they thought they had found the right way, they ended up back where they had started.
Their increasingly hurried footsteps and panting echoed through the labyrinthine ducts.
"Engineer Wang, your turn."
Ye Li took a sip of tea and gave his second instruction.
"You got it."
Engineer Wang sounded like a child who had just received a new toy.
He pressed the first in a row of red buttons on his workbench.
A Team Magma member running around a corner suddenly felt something stick beneath his feet.
Looking down, he discovered that a layer of transparent, extremely tough superglue had somehow stuck to the soles of his shoes.
The more he struggled, the tighter the glue held, until he was firmly stuck to the floor.
"Watch out! There are traps on the floor!"
The team members behind him immediately grew alert.
They carefully skirted their unfortunate teammate and continued forward.
They had just passed through a narrow passage when a soft click suddenly sounded behind them.
They looked back and saw that two thick alloy walls had somehow descended at either end of the passage, trapping them in a cramped space.
The walls were still slowly closing in, creating an immense sense of pressure.
"Quick! Use Fire-type moves to melt through the walls!"
Tabitha hurriedly gave the order.
Just as their Pokémon prepared to attack, the ceiling above suddenly opened, and a massive round boulder, specially polished to move without a sound, dropped down and wedged precisely between the two walls, startling them into a cold sweat.
All kinds of mechanisms that Engineer Wang had secretly installed throughout the ducts kept appearing one after another.
They were not lethal, but they were extremely humiliating.
"Dr. Anya, wrap it up."
Ye Li set down his teacup.
"Understood."
Dr. Anya's voice was calm and professional.
Through the command system, she activated the ventilation ducts' particle-release devices.
A colorless, odorless gas silently spread through the vents scattered throughout the duct area.
This was her latest development-"concentrated drowsiness pollen."
Extracted from Vileplume pollen and highly concentrated, this substance could rapidly numb the nerves through the respiratory system, inducing intense drowsiness.
The Team Magma squad being toyed with in the maze began to feel their eyelids growing heavier and heavier.
"What's going on... so sleepy..."
One member yawned, then went limp and fell asleep against the wall.
The domino effect began to show.
A second, then a third...
Without seeing a single enemy or hearing a single gunshot, this elite Team Magma squad fell into a deep sleep one after another amid the eerie silence.
Tabitha was the last one still awake.
As the squad leader, he possessed willpower far beyond that of ordinary people.
He bit down hard on the tip of his tongue, the sharp pain temporarily driving away his drowsiness.
Looking at his teammates sprawled across the floor, sleeping like logs, he felt an unprecedented chill well up inside.
What on earth was going on?
He raised his head and warily surveyed his surroundings.
Only then did he discover that dozens of palm-sized miniature robots had silently surrounded him at some point.
The robots' cameras flashed with a cold red light, like a flock of silent vultures quietly watching him, their last remaining prey.
Drowsiness surged over him again like a tide, and Tabitha's eyelids felt impossibly heavy.
Before his consciousness sank completely into darkness, he only had time to let out a desperate cry in his mind.
This wasn't an infiltration operation at all.
This was a one-sided game at their expense.
Before you continue