Chapter 367: Into the Heart of the Site

People, by their very nature, were complex.

Under different circumstances, they inevitably held different thoughts.

Sometimes, they couldn’t even articulate what they truly sought.

What right did she have to judge?

She only knew one thing: Pandora had indeed given them considerable help.

Help whose value far exceeded anything they had offered in return.

Those debts, she ought to remember clearly.

Whenever the chance arose, she should repay them in kind.

Whatever kind of person Pandora was, it didn’t change the objective goodwill she had shown them.

After clawing her way to Rank-3 in a place like The Dead City, Poppy had long understood that stances and allegiances mattered far less than one simple question:

Who was involved in the incident, specifically?

Who was a friend, and who was an enemy—that was the most instinctive truth.

Pulling herself from her thoughts, Poppy gathered her focus and offered a small smile to the three figures approaching.

A greeting, nothing more.

Pandora and Elsa returned the gesture with nods and faint smiles of their own, their expressions perfectly composed.

Only Phoebe, the moment she saw Poppy, flinched ever so slightly.

She ducked behind Pandora on instinct, her fingers tightening around the hem of Pandora’s clothes.

Clearly, she still remembered the terrifying sight of that red-haired woman, speaking so coldly about killing her.

The memory had cut too deep—over a year’s time hadn’t managed to wear it away.

A flicker of resignation passed through Poppy’s mind.

She didn’t dwell on it, nor did she make any deliberate effort to mend things.

There were far more urgent matters demanding attention.

That sinister construction site.

That black stone pillar, the one responsible for so many deaths…

Anomaly cleanup came first.

“Let’s hope this ends quickly.”

“Get back early. Still time for a hot shower before crawling into bed for a proper sleep.”

Poppy sighed inwardly, brushing past the three of them.

The steel returned to her eyes as she strode toward the base’s exit.

………………

A nondescript light van pulled to a stop in a narrow alleyway.

The engine cut.

The chassis dipped slightly.

The door slid open, and several figures spilled out in quick succession.

Poppy swept her gaze across the scene before her.

The construction site was larger than she’d anticipated.

A roughly twenty-story commercial complex loomed at the city’s edge, its gray-white concrete skeleton stark and cold in the morning light.

The scaffolding hadn’t been fully dismantled yet—steel pipes crisscrossed in every direction.

From the outside, it looked practically finished.

Barring any accidents, it would have been ready for official handover in a few months, half a year at most.

Shops would move in.

Offices would open.

Crowds would flow through its doors.

But now, the perimeter was ringed with crude barriers, keeping out anyone without authorization.

The blue corrugated metal fencing stood just above head height, plastered with signs reading: CONSTRUCTION HALTED. NO UNAUTHORIZED ENTRY.

The paper had already curled at the edges from the wind, the lettering smudged and faded.

It flapped noisily in the breeze.

No one stood guard.

Clearly, in the eyes of the local police, this was nothing more than a workplace accident.

Structural collapse due to shoddy construction.

Localized subsidence from geological shifts.

Those were the explanations they could conjure.

Nothing more.

To all ordinary people—except that single “survivor” who’d been coaxed into revealing a fraction of the truth—the bizarre deaths of dozens could be neatly explained away by common sense.

The cleanup squad understood this all too well.

Bound by the limits of their cognition, the ordinary humans of this Fragment World couldn’t fully perceive these horrifying incidents tainted by Anomalies the way “outsiders” like themselves could.

Things that defied common sense—even laid right before their eyes—were instinctively rationalized.

Not unseen.

Simply uncomprehended.

“This way,” the support squad leader murmured, gesturing them around the fencing and into the site.

Along the path, they passed excavators and tower cranes, frozen in place.

The hulking machines sat silent, their cab windows filmed with a thin layer of dust.

No one had come to operate them.

The air carried a faint scent of dry earth, laced with a subtle, almost imperceptible note of something rancid.

So faint it was nearly negligible—but Poppy caught it.

Her nostrils flared slightly.

Her gaze darkened.

They stopped at last before a temporary shed, just outside the main structure’s footprint.

A makeshift warehouse of steel sheeting, maybe a dozen square meters.

The paint on its walls was peeling, the door hinges rusted.

It let out a piercing shriek when pushed open.

The space was cramped and confined, but its saving graces were seclusion and proximity to the main building.

Poppy stepped inside.

Someone had already cleared it out in advance.

The desk was wiped clean.

The floor swept.

Chairs, lighting—everything they needed was in place.

Structural diagrams of the building were taped to the walls, marking the functional zones and load-bearing framework of each floor.

Primitive, yes.

But as a temporary command post, it would suffice.

The support squad dispersed with practiced efficiency.

Some moved to inspect the building’s perimeter.

Others began setting up small-scale ritual arrays.

Everything proceeded in orderly fashion.

Poppy set her equipment bag on the table and unzipped it.

Her eyes swept over the contents within—each item neatly slotted into its designated place, no searching required.

A hand could find anything by instinct alone.

“From this point on, we split into two tracks,” Poppy announced, her voice crisp and efficient.

“Track one: ritual lockdown. Deploy small-scale dispersal arrays at the building’s four corners. Ensure no ordinary civilian can approach during the operation. Coverage must extend at least thirty meters outward.”

“Track two: external containment. Reach out to the contacts we’ve cultivated. Under the pretext of municipal utility inspections, impose temporary traffic control on the two surrounding blocks. Pedestrian diversion. Vehicle rerouting. Time window… estimate twenty-four hours for now.”

The support squad leader nodded sharply and turned to carry out the orders.

Before long, four small ritual arrays rose silently at the four corners of the structure.

They were uncomplicated things—a handful of rune-etched metal stakes driven into the ground at precise angles and intervals, connected by fine threads.

Once activated, invisible ripples of Ether pulsed outward from each nodal point.

Like an intangible barrier, they shrouded the entire building.

Any ordinary human who strayed too close would feel an instinctive unease, a primal urge to turn away.

At the same time, a few support squad members leveraged the connections they’d established at the banquet—and carefully cultivated ever since—reaching out to key figures within both the police and municipal departments.

A few phone calls, combined with the arrays’ effects, further refined the lockdown.

Poppy stood at the shed’s entrance, watching the morning traffic begin to divert down distant streets.

Her gaze was steady.

The dawn light grew brighter.

Yet the building before her seemed cloaked in an invisible pall of shadow.

“Ma’am. Lockdown confirmed.”

The support squad leader approached to deliver the report.