Otherworld Advance Team
Chapter 697 - 690: Storm is Coming

Chapter 697: Chapter 690: Storm is Coming

"Dean Shariya, I have heard much about you. I am Li Si, the commander-in-chief of the Airboat Headquarters. I would like to take this opportunity to thank you for your kindness towards my team members in the past," Li Si said, stepping forward with a respectful demeanor.

"Oh, you flatter me. Please forgive my boldness, I am truly sorry for not noticing you immediately," Shariya replied with equal respect.

Li Si waved a hand dismissively, then his face became serious. "Dean Shariya, if there’s anything you need, feel free to ask. We stand on the same side with you in ending this disaster."

"I appreciate your help, Chief Li Si," Shariya said.

"Yue’er, I’m going to help with Tangmo, can you take care of Feng for me?" Tangmo handed Feng’s hand over to Shangguan Jiu.

"No problem, leave it to me!" Shangguan Jiu responded happily, pulling Feng to her side and hugging her.

"Ah, first Luo’er, now Feng, you seem to always find a way to draw Yue’er’s attention, I’m having a hard time..." Witnessing their intimate interaction, Wu Tairan couldn’t help but lament.

"It seems that Feng is even more liked by the girls. After all, who wouldn’t like a cute and well-behaved little sister?" Hu Daoke commented, shrugging his shoulders.

After inspecting for about ten minutes, Li Si returned to his airboat. As the commander of the Airboat Headquarters, he should not take risk himself by directing operations on the ground. Even though the Church Court’s forces have temporarily stopped the creature’s onslaught, absolutely no one could guarantee their safety. Therefore, it is best for him to go back to the airboat.

With Carter’s accompaniment, Luo’er inspected the defense works constructed by the Purification Army, providing them with relevant guidance based on the actual situation. Tangmo and Baiyue stayed behind in the tent, busying themselves with a group of mages whose average age was over sixty, trying to close the Door of Annihilation.

There aren’t many ways to close the Otherworld Gate, some of the possible methods include: either isolating the magic power to shut it off due to the lack of power, or reverse-engineering the Rune pattern of the Otherworld Gate, akin to virus implantation, stopping its operation.

Alternatively, the most primitive method was to physically close the gate, such as using explosives to blast a point of the Otherworld Gate. All elements - top, bottom, left and right - of the Otherworld Gate were perfectly aligned, so detouring a side or a point by even a micron, causing it to misalign, would close it completely. But this way, the door would become totally dysfunctional, never to be opened again.

Although the third method seems simple and brute, it’s actually the most difficult one. Throughout the history of the Otherworld, this method has only been used once. The rest of the times, the two aforementioned methods have been adopted.

Because the Otherworld Gate is extremely robust, ordinary weapons were unable to damage its structure, not even Kedal metal and diamond, known for their penetrating capabilities.

The only physical closure in the history of the Otherworld was actually achieved using magic as well. Ten Archmages exerted magical powers together, summoning a Forbidden Curse destructive magic comparable to a nuclear bomb with their lives as the price, which twisted the frame of the Otherworld Gate and completely sealed it.

But, the remaining two methods require a lot of work, there are hardly any high-ranking mages in the entire epidemic area except for Shariya, who was also injured when closing the Otherworld Gate of Lipei and temporarily unable to control a large amount of magic.

The Church Court clearly doesn’t attach enough importance to the Otherworld Gate. They are not willing to send Forbidden Curse mages to deal with it, instead, only Dean Shariya was sent here with a group of mages in a makeshift manner.

Despite the long-lasting plague and countless deaths, the Church Court thought little of it. To them, the war reparations payable to Earth’s military are a greater headache.

Left with no other choice, Shariya opted for the most roundabout method - reverse decoding, something that is similar to programming. Once the pattern of program execution is figured out, a virus can be created and implanted into the system, causing it to collapse.

In fact, people from Earth have always treated the Rune designs as programs, just as they treat magic as natural science for study. They are always accustomed to converting the concepts of the Otherworld into concepts acceptable to Earthlings for further study.

The biggest difficulty with this method lies in the analysis and calculation of the Rune designs. For Earthlings, this problem is not an issue at all. As long as a computer is casually applied, the calculation can be instantly completed. Regrettably, electronic devices in this Otherworld are impossible to operate.

In fact, the Otherworlders have other calculation options. After all, Earthlings were originally from their stage, how could they not have encountered their problems?

Since electronic computers cannot operate in the Otherworld, the most primitive mechanical computers, also known as the famous differential machines, can be used.

However, for Earthlings, the differential machine is considered a strategic level technical material. They would rather let it rot in the archives than hand over the blueprints to the Otherworlders.

Since there are no computers, they have to rely on humans for calculations. Regrettably, these mages generally lack a solid foundation of knowledge and have poor computational capacities. After Baiyue joined, their computational power was instantly increased by more than tenfold, as her computational capacity equated to the sum of ten mages.

With the intervention of Tangmo and Baiyue, significant progress was made in the decryption work. Baiyue’s knowledge of magic theory may not be as profound as Tangmo’s, but she has superior computational abilities. The Earth coordinates of the Otherworld Gate, originally presented by Lipei, were the result of her relentless calculations.

Atop the defense fortress, Luo’er looked at the Purification soldiers below carrying weapons and ammunition, and couldn’t help but look up at the sky.

At this moment, dark clouds have blocked out the sun. If nothing unexpected happens, after closing the Door of Annihilation, a heavy rain would cleanse away the scars of the ground.

Regardless, the final battle is imminent, the virus research is ongoing, and soon this disaster will come to an end. There will no longer be infections, no more people eaten by the Exotic Beasts, and no more displaced people.

And Headquarters will gain sufficient reputation from this operation to fulfill their previously set plans.

The higher-ups at the Headquarters are eagerly awaiting the development of the antibody. The day the antibody is developed will be the day they discuss with the Church Court about the jurisdiction over Lipei.

To satisfy the urgent demands of the Headquarters, the research center decided to proceed with research work on two types of antibodies simultaneously. One is a genuine antibody against the virus, and the other is an antibody extracted from Feng, specifically used to deceive the virus.

The research center plans to prioritize the development of the decoy antibody and hand it over to the Headquarters as a bargaining chip for negotiation. After that, they can focus on researching the virus-killing antibody, thus optimizing both sides.

The biggest difference between the decoy antibody and the killing antibody lies in their treatment of the virus. The killing antibody would instantly kill all the viruses and spores that enter the human body. Conversely, the decoy antibody would make viruses believe they have entered the wrong body, prompting them to stay as spores waiting to be excreted.

The expelled virus spores could very likely infect other people, causing an epidemic. That is why Luo’er insisted on Feng wearing a gas mask.

Because she is indeed immune to the virus, but her body cannot kill the virus. After the viral spores are excreted from her body, they will continue to infect people without protection, causing new infections. Consequently, she could become a living carrier of the virus.

Tomorrow is fast approaching. No matter what happens, everybody has to brace themselves. If the monsters from the Door of Annihilation do not counterattack, that would indeed be perfect, but if they do counterattack, they must be fully prepared to face the imminent troubles.

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