Shrouded Seascape-Chapter 1142. Conversion

"Don't kill 315! We just need to hold her down! Remember, our target is that Asian boy, Gao Zhiming!" A woman with rimless glasses and a commanding presence shouted the order across the comms unit to the IMF members on the frontlines.

Her name was Golia, and she was the overall commander for this trap operation of the IMF.

Right from the beginning down to the end, this operation had been a trap. A trap targeted at Anna. To achieve their goal this time, the IMF had made tantamount sacrifices.

Golia had no choice but to offer every colleague of hers based in this city as bait.

It was a sacrifice that had to be made.

Having been through the past few months and suffering so many losses, the IMF was stretched thin on every end. Besieged on every front, they could only react instead of taking any sort of initiative.

The only solution to getting rid of this chaos was to cut off the tumor, the origin of it all—315. She was the visionary leader of the opposing forces.

If the IMF managed to take her down, the rebels would lose their motivation.

After all, they were just a bunch of rogue factions, each fighting for their own purposes. Without a leader, they were nothing more than a mob.

"Release Variant 431-2! This is our last chance!" Golia commanded.

In the heart of the warzone where the fight was the most intense, corrosive emerald flames surged around Anna to form a blazing wall, stopping the mobile task forces from advancing.

Using the brief reprieve, Anna shouted at Gao Zhiming, "Now! Use what I gave you!"

Gao Zhiming nodded without a word and pulled out a small golden sphere from his pocket.

He was just about to activate it when he felt a searing pressure on his chest.

His eyes opened wide in horror as he watched his shirt being easily shredded by something coming out from within his chest.

It was a deformed infant with a bald head and sharp, pointy ears. An eerie smile surfaced on the infant's face. The next instant, it raised a sharpened finger and slashed down.

Blood sprayed, and Gao Zhiming's right hand, which was holding the golden ball, was severed.

Adrenaline rushed through Gao Zhiming. Before the pain could catch up, he fiercely kicked off the ground and lunged at the fallen sphere on the ground.

Seeing that Gao Zhiming had been attacked, Anna's figure vibrated at a high frequency in an attempt to assist him.

However, the IMF had already rehearsed this scenario thousands of times before. The operatives immediately closed ranks to block her path.

Swish!

Several of Gao Zhiming's outstretched fingers were cleanly severed.

The sphere was slipping further away. Desperate, Gao Zhiming threw himself forward and tackled the creature on his chest to the ground.

Veins bulged across his face as he opened his mouth wide and clamped down on the golden sphere to swallow it whole.

"Initiate Reality Override Protocol!" Golia's calm voice echoed through the command channels. "Redirect Anomaly 864 to seize control of all spatial jump anchors in the vicinity. 434, lock onto the target's trajectory. Once he leaves, deploy our backup orbital unit to pursue."

The entirety of the IMF was united for a single mission, so their sheer might was simply staggering.

They had sacrificed too much for this sneak attack. They had accounted for everything and prepared themselves for every possible scenario... except for what happened next.

It was out of their anticipation. Gao Zhiming wasn't teleported away. Instead, he began spasming violently.

"Big...Sis...Anna...?" Gao Zhiming choked out, as violent spasms coursed through him. His eyes widened in disbelief at his beloved sister as his figure began to slowly dissolve.

Chunk by chunk, his flesh disintegrated until all that remained was a pool of blood. The crimson liquid continuously expanded its range and devoured the nearby corpses until it eventually filled the space the size of a basketball court.

Anna then poured in a swirl of eerie green pigment. The pool of blood churned and bubbled violently. It stretched downward to merge with the darkness below. From its depths, something began to stir, growing, forming, and incubating.

Anna watched it all unfold. Then, she turned to the chest cam of a nearby task force operative and flashed a smile.

"You didn't really think I'd bring my weakness onto the battlefield, did you?" Anna taunted, her voice laced with apparent mockery. "With my abilities, it's all too easy to manipulate someone into thinking that they're Gao Zhiming."

As soon as her words fell, bloodied, grotesque creatures clawed their way out of the pool. They immediately pounced on anything that moved, regardless of whether the target was an ally or enemy.

And with the IMF forces making up the majority on-site, the victims of these creatures were clear.

The tides of battle had abruptly turned.

This was an Uncontrollable Anomaly, and its presence usually indicated extreme danger.

"Mission failure! Adjust objective! Contain 315!" Golia commanded remotely, her face marred with solemnity.

Before they could clearly understand how Anna had returned from the dead, they had no intention of killing her.

Just for this day, they rehearsed many times and trained hard. Every one of Anna's abilities had been recorded, analyzed, and simulated through countless drills.

Although an unstable variable, a wild card, appeared and threw the battlefield into chaos, the IMF had not lost!

And that was thanks to the sacrifices of all the mobile task force members.

When she saw the hole being blasted through the chest of the traitor Roy and heard Li Lu screaming Roy's name in anguish, Golia allowed herself to ease up a little.

That Gao Zhiming had been a decoy, but the others, including Anna, were real.

The IMF only had to deal with them. Their mission hadn't failed yet.

However, the thought had barely entered her mind for a mere fraction of a second when a violent shudder suddenly rocked the underground command center. Dust and ash rained down from the ceiling.

A monitor flickered and switched to the feed of one of the perimeter cameras. A fully armed soldier appeared on screen and shouted, "General Golia! We're under attack! They can phase through walls and are almost—"

Before the man could complete his sentence, the feed cut to static.

Golia reacted instantly. She turned to the council of the IMF's command and instructed, "Everyone, the situation has changed! Evacuate! Board the Leviathan and return to the space station at once!"

"Well, well... Here I was thinking, what's going on? So all of you were hanging in the skies. No wonder I searched for so long and couldn't find you." A taunting voice echoed through the chamber.

"Good thing you finally came down," Anna said, her lips curled up into a sweet smile as she stepped through the stone wall by the side. Behind her, an army of grotesque abominations, their flesh twisted and armored with embedded crystals, followed.

"315?! How is this possible!" Golia stared in disbelief, her gaze darting between the Anna before her to the Anna still on screen.

Including the corpse of 315 that had been preserved as a specimen, there were now three identical 315s.

What was she?! Could she possibly replicate herself endlessly?

Anna's gaze slowly swept across every face present. Most of them were elderly, and they numbered sixteen. Each of them bore distinct Roman numeral tattoos on either their hands or faces.

Compared to those fake council members in the city, these individuals were undoubtedly the true deal.

And if she could consume them all, she would have achieved her objective for this attack.

Anna turned her gaze back onto Golia. Her eyes glinted with a malicious glee, and she said, "Take a guess."

Of course, Anna wouldn't explain anything to her enemies. The truth was that she had never intended to forsake the human body that Charles had gifted her.

She also knew that to bait these cunning IMF foxes, she had to use herself as bait. Otherwise, they would never fall for her trap. Thus, Dioite Anna had created another Anna, and she had been controlling the decoy at the same time.

Back on the battlefield, the mobile task forces were engaged in an intense fight when they received the distress signal from the HQ. They immediately mobilized back to assist.

However, it was way too late.

Anna raised one finger. The crystal-flesh abominations behind her burst forth from the walls and pounced on the enemies.