The man wiped the corners of his mouth and spoke extremely weakly. With the support of his friend, he sat down at the dining table near the store door to rest.
It didn't take long.
Two waiters in maid uniforms tried not to show their disgust and used mops and buckets to clean up the vomit.
On the other hand, the customers sitting nearby don't pay as much attention to the store's image as the waiters do. It's great if they can hold back from yelling after smelling the disgusting smell.
Fortunately, the air circulation system is quite powerful, and the odor is quickly discharged out of the store, allowing everything in the bar to return to normal.
However, the face of the person who had finished vomiting showed no signs of improvement, and he was now lying back on the seat and fell into a coma.
Seemingly realizing that something was not normal, the friends finally stopped joking and teasing, and tried to wake the man up by gently shaking him.
"Look." From Leon's perspective, he could directly observe the area near the door of the bar.
Hearing this, Ada, who was sipping her wine, turned to look.
"I think it's best to leave here first." At this time, Leon suggested again.
"Yes." Ada nodded in agreement, put down the wine glass, raised her hand to greet a waiter not far away:
"Hello~!"
"Excuse me, what do you have?" The waiter approached and asked.
Ada picked up the mobile phone placed on the table and said: "We want to pay."
"But the set menu for you two is not ready yet." The waiter hesitated.
"We don't want to eat, mainly because..."
Ada didn't finish her words, but she turned her back and pointed in the direction of the store door, while showing a frowning expression of disgust.
"Sorry, please come with me." The waiter suddenly realized and led Ada to the front desk.
Leon, who didn't say anything during the whole process, drank his beer in one gulp, stood up, picked up the satchel placed beside him, met up with Ada who had finished paying, and prepared to leave the bar together.
When passing by the group of people, they smelled the pungent smell again.
The moment Ada held Leon's arm and pushed out the door, she looked out of the corner of her eye and saw that the man's breathing was rapid, his eyes turned white, and green liquid even started to flow from the corners of his mouth.
Get out of the bar.
"Huh~." Ada breathed heavily, looked at the public seats opposite the bar and said, "Go over there."
"Okay." Leon had no objection.
Then the two of them sat down.
Ada continued to observe while pretending to touch up her makeup, and saw more and more customers covering their mouths and noses and fleeing the bar in panic.
Leon took out his mobile phone, looked at the surveillance camera installed above the bar, and whispered to Ada in a low voice:
"Based on the facial scan, that group of people are the maintenance workers responsible for the underground system in Area 04. I have found out the scope of their activities today. We can go there and investigate later.
Also, the nano scan shows that everything is normal in our body and there are no foreign objects in the body, so there is no need to worry about infection for the time being."
"Hmm." Ada closed the makeup box and put it back in her satchel and asked, "What about the company?"
"I have notified the company, but there is a delay in communication, and we need to collect more intelligence. After all, this may also be a phenomenon caused by local parasites." Leon said after putting away his mobile phone.
While the two were talking, three airships belonging to the emergency department rushed to the scene.
The airship unloaded the police officers who were dressed similarly to Earth police officers to maintain order at the scene, while medical staff wearing masks and white uniforms entered the bar.
The public seats were already empty, and the figures of Leon and Ada also disappeared in this street filled with pink and purple.
———————
…
Shortly after.
In the Epsilon Eridanus galaxy, which is at least a hundred light years away from the Arcadia colony, the star Reach, known as the "Forge World", is revolving in its third orbit.
Due to the "solar wind" emitted by the star Epsilon Eridanus and the special magnetic field of Reach, the entire planet is enveloped in aurora-like light, making it seem like a more tourist destination than Arcadia.
Get a closer look at Reach.
It can be seen that in low-Earth orbit, there are many large space stations that look like guns and are more than 1.4 kilometers in length, called "orbital defense platforms."
Each platform is equipped with an electromagnetic gun with a barrel length of 910 meters and can fire 10-ton iron tungsten projectiles, which is more powerful than the 20-ton main gun of the UNSC Marathon-class cruiser.
In addition to these defense platforms, the UNSC's 3rd and 4th main fleets are also scattered in low-Earth orbit. After all, among all the colonial planets owned by mankind, Reach is second only to the Earth.
Every year Reach exports a large number of battleships and ships to the UNSC and UEG.
Inside the atmosphere of Reach.
On the surface of the northern hemisphere on the sunny side, in three docks of the Umbrella Shipyard, there are Zeus-class heavy aircraft carriers that are undergoing upgrades and modifications.
The three Zeus-class ships are Sui Bian's flagship Anthem of Courage, Corax's Shadow of the Raven, and the flagship of the Umbrella Seventh Legion, the Steel Impact.
Before the upgrade of the three flagships is completed, Reach will have three of Umbrella's legions stationed at the same time, bringing its defense power to "her" peak.
However, the Seventh Legion's Iron Hands (Iron Hands) were originally responsible for defending Epsilon Eridanus, where Reach is located.
Even after the flagship has been transformed, Reach still has the protection of the Iron Hands.
The three current legions are temporarily stationed at Umbrella's exclusive base five kilometers east of the shipyard, which can accommodate half a million people at the same time and is no different from a town.
This base is used to house shipyard workers, and there are more than 10,000 armed security personnel living there, so it will not be too crowded after welcoming three legions with a total number of nearly 90,000.
On the northernmost side of the base, there is a newly built simulation training area.
The scale is equivalent to a city block, with simple buildings of different heights, as well as alleys, intersections and streets.
At this time, a team of six "people" was walking through an alley.
Each member of this team is 2.5 meters tall, wearing black training uniforms and white protective gear for training.
Holding .75cal caliber bolt rifles and the legion emblem on their protective gear, they represent the Astartes of the Raven Guard.
As for the ammunition pressed in the magazine, it is not a standard deuterium-core explosive, but a rubber bullet that does not cause fatal damage to the Astartes.
Just as the team was about to walk out of the alley, the six Dark Crows chose to squat on the ground and remain alert.
"Teng~!Teng~!" Because there was a muffled sound of a bolt gun shooting out rubber bullets from outside the alley.
"Charge! Brothers!" and the battle cry of the Astartes.
The two dark crows who heard this commotion walked forward slowly and probed to observe the main road outside the alley.
On the spacious main road, two Astartes teams with protective gears in dark green and silver were seen abandoning the bolt rifles in their hands and engaging in "point and stop" physical combat.
Dark green is the Dark Angel, and silver is the Iron Hand.
And the so-called "stop when you click"...
An iron hand was kicked away by the Dark Angel, and his body hit a two-story house in a perfect parabola.
Then "Boom——!", the house that had been implicated was suddenly smashed down by the iron hand's body.
But soon, the iron hand pushed away the rubble pressing on him, rushed back to the main road in two steps, and continued to compete with the Dark Angels who were also brothers.
It takes less than a few seconds.
The two teams were like efficient demolition teams, razing nearby simple buildings to rubble, and the protective gear they wore was torn off and destroyed during hand-to-hand combat.
See this.
The Dark Crow Team took the opportunity to rush out of the alley, pointed their guns at Iron Hand and Dark Angel in a row, and pulled the trigger without hesitation.
"Teng!Teng!"
A dense barrage of rubber bullets came out of the gun and hit the brothers who had lost the protection of their protective gear.
…
A high platform outside the training area.
Three primarchs wearing customized military uniforms stood on the edge of the high platform overlooking the "battle situation" on the main road.
On the far left, Corax, who has slightly longer black hair and fair skin, said: "The outcome has been decided, brothers. In this simulated battle, my Dark Crows won."
Leon, who stood in the center and nodded in response, still showed an indifferent expression that could not see through his thoughts.
The original body on the far right looks much more rugged than the two brothers next to him, and he is a typical muscular man.
And he is the original body of the Seventh Legion, the seventh son of Sui Bian, Malus.
"Hmm..." Malus gently pinched his chin with his left hand, put his right hand behind his back, and commented in a low voice:
"The Iron Hands' strength is frontal attack, the Dark Angels are good at assault and melee combat, and the Raven Guard are good at enemy rear lines and guerrilla warfare. If our three legions are mixed together and fight together, they will be perfect complements."
"I hope I can have such an opportunity." Corax agreed.
"..." Leon shrugged wordlessly.
"Leon." Malus asked instead: "You have spent the longest time with your father. Doesn't your father have a battle plan against the alien race?"
The fact that there are various alien races in the galaxy is not a secret between Umbrella and the UNSC leadership.
Within five hundred light-years outside the borders of humanity, there is a Celtic home planet that even the top UNSC officials don't know about, and the iron-blooded home planet to which Lone Wolf belongs. Umbrella has also detected galaxies with suspected activities of other alien races.
But when Leon heard the inquiry, he shook his head and replied coldly: "No, father said that now is not the best time to announce our existence to the galaxy."
…
While the three original bodies were talking, the office building in the central area of the base.
Inside the top floor office.
Sui Bian, who was sitting behind his desk, was checking various information and files compiled for him by two artificial intelligences through several holographic screens displayed on the desktop.
While checking it, he released his spiritual energy, which continued to cover the entire planet, secretly protecting the 800 million humans living on Reach, and allowing the 800 million humans to slowly improve their resistance to alien spaces.
Although Sui Bian's current spiritual power is far from the level of "exploding" a star with one hand, it is still easy to envelope an entire planet in an instant.
In conjunction with the "vaccine" that the Plague Doctor has gradually perfected, the earth where he has lived the longest, as well as the colonies in the solar system, with a total of about 14 billion humans, have become very resistant to alien spaces.
Since the destruction of the colonists' home planet, the total human population has grown to 27 billion people today.
There are 63 exocolonial star systems, and there are 54 planets that have completed terraforming, such as Reach and Arcadia.
13 billion humans live in areas outside the solar system, and 80% of them, from birth to adulthood, can only learn about the Earth and the solar system through classes, the Internet, and the media.
Moreover, these 13 billion people have also been injected with the "vaccination", but they have not received Sui Bian's spiritual protection, making their resistance to alien spaces inferior to the 14 billion people in the solar system.
Therefore, Sui Bian, who provides shelter for Reach, is considering whether to wait for the Hymn of Courage to complete its transformation and then regularly cruise and station in human territory for a period of time to release psychic energy to enhance the overall "resistance" of humanity.
Aside from his psychic powers, Sui Bian's physical condition also underwent "some" changes.
Because after another twenty years of development, Umbrella's current total number of Astartes has successfully exceeded 20,000, reaching more than 24,000.
The ability of "Father and Son Connection" not only strengthened Sui Bian's physique, but also allowed each legion to finally have the appearance of a legion. It survived the "poor period" when there were only a few hundred Astartes in one legion.
”.
Moreover, most of the recruits are no longer orphans, but are selected from all adaptable human beings.
Company intelligence officers will contact adaptors with normal families, and only with the consent of their parents and guardians will they recruit these adaptors who are only fifteen or sixteen years old.
Of course, these parents and guardians need to sign the corresponding confidentiality agreement. If they do not agree, the intelligence agent will directly use the memory eraser to make them forget all information related to the Astartes.
Rebecca was originally responsible for the training of Astartes recruits, but due to the increasing number of recruits year by year and the increasing pressure, Alexia is now assisting her in taking charge.
Moreover, Alexia, who had been the teacher of the Primarchs, was even more skilled at training new recruits.
As for the Göbekli Research Center, it has actually stopped carrying out new research projects long ago and has now become a base for maintaining the body of God.
"..."
At this time, looking at the numbing numbers, Sui Bian pondered for a moment and said:
"Red Queen, you can start to pay attention to which warships and crew members in the UNSC fleet meet the conditions for being incorporated into the legion's auxiliary army. Sort out the selected list and send it to me. It's time for the legion to have their own fleet."
"Yes." The Red Queen responded.
"How long will it take to complete the transformation of Hymn of Courage?" Sui Bian asked again.
"It is estimated that it will take another 12 Earth days. Sir, please wait patiently."
Queen Bai, who was standing on the right side of Sui Bian, responded to his inquiry and proactively said:
"Also, sir, I just received Agent Kennedy uploading intelligence about anomalies in Arcadia."
After Empress Bai finished speaking, she displayed the information uploaded by Leon on her desk for Sui Bian to browse.
Lyon?
Sui Bian knew that Leon and Ada were going to Arcadia to perform a mission, but he did not ask about the specific details. After all, in such a large company, it was impossible for him to personally intervene in every aspect.
After quickly browsing the information.
Sui Bian frowned slightly and said: "Queen Bai, inform Artemis and ask her and her Full Moon to rush to the Arcadia colony. After arriving, they will secretly monitor Arcadia and do not take the initiative to expose their existence."