[100 points deducted! The high-tier protective shield has been stored in the system backpack. Don't worry, Host, this thing has an automatic trigger mechanism. It will pop out and cover you 0.1 seconds before you suffer a fatal attack. We might be a bit poor right now, but we still have the capital to save our lives!]
Jiang Lijin ignored its salesman-like tone, lifting her leg and stepping steadily over the threshold.
The heavy alloy door closed silently behind her, cutting off her retreat.
The space inside the door was much more spacious than expected. Hearing the commotion, the man standing in front of the bulletproof glass wall turned around.
With short brown hair and amber eyes, the astonishment on his face could not be hidden at all.
He never expected that someone would break into this highly dangerous area single-handedly, let alone that the intruder would be a female, and one who strolled in so casually.
Jiang Lijin stopped in her tracks.
She didn't look at the bulletproof glass wall, not even sparing a glance from the corner of her eye for the black python thrashing madly inside.
She stared straight into those amber eyes and threw out three words.
"Where is Baal?"
The astonishment on Gary's face rapidly fermented, turning into a shock as if he had seen a ghost.
He subconsciously raised his hand, pointing at the glass wall behind him. The behemoth inside was slamming its head heavily against the wall, letting out deafening, muffled thuds.
Jiang Lijin frowned. Without shifting her gaze, she stared dead-on into Gary's eyes and asked again at the same pace.
"Where is Baal?"
The shock on Gary's face was quickly and completely reined in, replaced by a fake smile. That smile, paired with the background noise of the giant python smashing against the wall, gave off a creepy and bizarre vibe.
"Ms. Jiang, what nonsense are you talking about?" He pointed at the glass wall, his tone relaxed. "Isn't Commander Baal right here?"
As soon as he finished speaking, the black python in the isolation room went berserk again.
The heavy impacts caused the alloy floor beneath their feet to tremble, and a few more cracks appeared on the wall.
Jiang Lijin frowned, quickly turning her head to glance inside the glass wall. The black python's manic state and the force of its crashes against the wall didn't look fake. The man in the tattered military uniform in the corner was also curled up into a ball in agony.
Every detail was screaming: this was Baal.
A hint of self-doubt sprouted in her heart. Could she have guessed wrong?
But rationality quickly took over. There was a fatal flaw in the logical chain, and it was this brown-haired male right in front of her.
She withdrew her gaze, met Gary's eyes once more, and spoke for the third time.
"Where is Baal?"
Gary stared at her for a full ten seconds.
Then, he suddenly laughed out loud, too lazy to keep up the act. He turned and walked to the control panel, pressing a few buttons.
"Ms. Jiang, please come with me."
Jiang Lijin stood in place, scrutinizing his back.
In her mind, Xiao Yi's voice popped up anxiously.
[Host! What's going on? Isn't Lord Baal right there inside the glass wall? This guy's smile is so perverted, he doesn't look like a good person at all! Are we really going with him?]
Jiang Lijin took a step forward and followed Gary.
[He might not necessarily be a bad person.] She replied in her mind.
Xiao Yi was even more confused: [Ah? What do you mean he might not necessarily be a bad person? Host, stop speaking in riddles, my CPU is going to burn out.]
Jiang Lijin didn't bother answering it again.
She followed Gary around the massive bulletproof glass wall, heading deeper into the core area.
The two arrived in front of a hidden metal door. Gary verified his pupils and palm print, and the door slid open to both sides, revealing a narrow elevator car.
Jiang Lijin didn't hesitate and stepped right in.
The elevator doors closed, and the car descended at high speed.
Gary leaned against the wall of the car, hands stuffed in his military pants pockets, tilting his head to observe Jiang Lijin.
"Are you really this comfortable coming down with me?" he raised an eyebrow. "Aren't you afraid I'm a bad guy?"
Jiang Lijin watched the jumping red numbers on the elevator door.
Of course she was afraid. Otherwise, she wouldn't have spent her newly acquired points to exchange for that high-tier protective shield.
But what came out of her mouth was a different story.
"Baal is 3S-grade. The spiritual energy radiation he produces when he goes berserk is enough to crush this planet. If an ordinary person gets close to him, the blood vessels in their brain would burst on the spot. You, a 2S-grade adjutant, stood less than five meters away from the radiation source without even breaking a sweat. That defies common sense."
Gary did not refute her, listening with keen interest.
"With such an obvious loophole, none of the guards or officers outside, not even the medical department major general who brought me here, found it strange. There are only two possibilities: first, they all know the one inside isn't Baal; second, they don't know the truth, but they trust you absolutely."
The elevator's descent began to slow.
"If they knew the one inside wasn't Baal, they wouldn't have risked sending me here. That major general could barely walk straight, yet he was still desperately leading the way."
Jiang Lijin turned her head, meeting Gary's gaze.
"That leaves only the second possibility, they trust you. As far as I know, Baal holds absolute authority and prestige in the military. For his soldiers to trust you this much means that Baal himself trusts you implicitly. I trust Baal's judgment."
The smile in Gary's eyes deepened.
"Commander Baal mentioned before that Ms. Jiang is a very interesting person." He stood up straight. "It seems he wasn't wrong."
"However," Gary changed the subject, "how did you determine that the one inside the glass wall wasn't Commander Baal?"
"The pressure," Jiang Lijin spat out.
"I have performed spiritual energy purification for Baal, so I know how vast his spiritual sea is. The pressure just now was not even a third of his full strength when conscious, let alone when berserk. At first, I thought your door had some special shielding, but when I stood outside the door and then stepped inside, and felt absolutely no change in physical gravity, I knew."
She turned to look at Gary.
"It was you. You were using your own spiritual energy to forge the illusion that Baal was still in the isolation room."
Spiritual energy levels in the interstellar era never scaled linearly. Between 3S-grade and 2S-grade lay a chasm like an unbridgeable gulf. The combined pressure of ten 2S-grades might not even match a true 3S-grade. But it was precisely because of this that the S-grade officers outside were so easily deceived.
After all, if a 3S-grade really released their full pressure, they would have been dead long ago. Besides her, there were hardly any people in this world who knew just how terrifying a true 3S-grade spiritual sea was.
The elevator let out a soft ding and stopped at the bottom floor.
The doors opened.
A strong stench of blood mixed with a pungent smell of medicine rushed at her face. The air here was much thicker than above, making even breathing a strenuous task.
At this moment, even Jiang Lijin felt a physiological discomfort. Just standing up made her knees want to buckle, as if a massive boulder was pressing down on her spine.
This was the true berserk pressure of a 3S-grade!
Gary took the lead, stepping out of the elevator against the heavy pressure.
"Ms. Jiang, you are indeed very clever." He led the way, but his slightly heavy footsteps and the cold sweat beading at his temples completely betrayed the discomfort he was enduring at that moment.
"But you are only half right."
