?287 Chapter 287 – Suppression
The Crimson Sea was not a sentient Specter, which meant that it hadn't kept its ability to produce acidic red mist a secret.
And since the red mist hadn't been there since the beginning, it meant that the Crimson Sea hadn't had the ability to create the red mist before.
Specters generally only gained new abilities when they advanced a level.
The Crimson Sea had become an Adult.
"Sir, this is not our fault!" Kallum Sondur immediately shouted with helpless frustration. "Someone sabotaged us!"
"I don't care about that right now," the governor said with a solemn tone. "I want to know the status inside the building!"
Kallum took a deep breath.
"The entire building is covered by the Crimson Sea," Kallum explained. "We dug through the megastructure to get here. Everything below the hole is lost."
"What about the Containment Units?" the governor asked. "Can the Crimson Sea corrode Containment Units?"
Kallum grimaced.
That was all the governor needed to see.
"I want Theresa and Stark to stay on standby near the other exit," the governor told one of the guards. "I don't want any surprises to happen. They are to kill every Specter that they see. I don't care about the potential lost profits."
"Sir!" one of the guards shouted with a salute before jumping away to inform Theresa and Stark.
Then, the governor turned back to look at the Crimson Sea.
"How many of your people died?" he asked Kallum without looking at him.
Kallum looked at his friend for a bit, and the two of them conferred for a bit.
"We don't have the specific numbers, but it should be something like 15 to 20 level one Extractors, 10 to 15 level two Extractors, between 30 and 50 normal people…"
"And John Keyweather," Kallum said with a heavy tone.
The governor furrowed his brows. "John Keyweather died? How?"
"It was the saboteur," Kallum said. "It was a human, completely covered by black cloth. I saw them killing John with my own eyes."
The governor continued looking at the building as he kept thinking about some things.
By now, the two Newbies had died in the red mist, and the Crimson Sea expanded a bit more.
But then, it stopped expanding.
It had already killed everything inside the building.
A huge crowd of people had gathered, and among them were the employees from the Spartans who hadn't been on duty.
They just looked with horror and shock at their workplace, which was now being submerged in red acid.
If they had been on duty…
The thought was terrifying.
"Sir, the two majors are in place!" a guard told the governor.
The governor nodded.
"Start the suppression!" the governor ordered.
The guards answered with a collective shout, and the next moment, several Experts gathered near the machine that created the barrier.
On the other side of the megastructure, the same thing happened.
Naturally, someone had also created a barrier on that side.
The next moment, all the guards started to push forward.
As they advanced, the barrier shrunk.
From a radius of 100 meters, it shrunk to 90 meters.
Over the next minutes, the barrier shrank to a radius of 30 meters.
Surprisingly, the steel that had been submerged in the Crimson Sea didn't show any kind of rust or damage.
In fact, it looked like it had been cleaned.
Naturally, since the Crimson Sea was a Specter, its acid wasn't the same as traditional acid.
When the barrier reached its current size, its speed of shrinking slowed down.
That was because there was now no more air left inside the building and the barrier.
Everything was covered by the Crimson Sea.
"Start extermination," the governor commanded.
The guards answered and took out several big contraptions that looked like gigantic machine guns.
A moment later, they put the heads of the contraptions through the barrier, and moments later, the heads began to spin.
"Ready!"
"Ready!"
"Ready!"
The governor noted that everyone was ready.
"Fire!"
BANG!
An explosion of blue lightning came out of each of the contraptions, each destroying several meters of water.
An instant later, the barrier shrunk by about a meter.
The guards using the contraptions let go and stepped back.
The power source that the contraptions used was their own Zephyx.
Other guards approached the contraptions and pushed them into the barrier again.
"Ready!"
"Ready!"
"Ready!"
"Fire!"
BANG!
More water was destroyed, and the barrier shrunk even more.
After a couple of minutes, the barriers tightly encased the building in the wall of the megastructure.
The Crimson Sea was now contained within the Spartans' building.
"Is there access to the sewers inside the building?" the governor asked without looking away from it.
"No, sir," Kallum answered.
The governor nodded. "That means things aren't as bad as they initially seemed."
Then, the governor turned to one of his guards. "Have there been sightings of any Specters on the other side?"
"I will check, sir!" the guard said before he ran towards the Outer City.
After that, the governor turned to the guards near the barrier again. "Secure the barrier and expand it. I don't want any holes to suddenly appear outside the barrier!"
Several guards left to do just that.
For the next couple of minutes, not much happened since everyone was busy preparing for the push into the building.
The barrier couldn't extend through solid matter, which was why the barrier had to be manipulated and reshaped with a lot of work.
"Julius."
The governor turned to his right and saw an older man looking at the device creating the barrier.
"Yes, George?" the governor asked.
It was George Meander, aka. Ghosty.
Apparently, he had also come here, even though he wasn't working for the city guards.
"The Zephyx consumption of the barrier has increased," Ghosty said.
"That's to be expected," the governor answered. "The barrier is smaller, and the Crimson Sea's power is more concentrated."
"I know," Ghosty answered with furrowed brows, "I took these aspects into account. I meant that the consumption of Zephyx has increased suspiciously much. Even after considering all of this."
The governor looked at the red entrance of the building.
"Maybe a Specter is attacking the barrier from within the Crimson Sea."
"Maybe," Ghosty answered.
"Or the Crimson Sea advanced to being an Early Adult."