After 3 weeks of preparation and true to the statement they made, the terror unit’s 5 members were prepared to put into action their plan.

Tonight.

Even if they failed or had to retreat, they’d still continue to repeat it for the next week.

However, unlike what anyone would expect or think of before starting a very serious operation, the terror unit was sharing energy-infused juice cups with each other as they waited for the night to fall.

Maybe, nighttime didn’t have the same meaning as before, but even when people didn’t sleep anymore, they still preferred to relax and be at home when it was night.

Of course, this was changing as time passed, but even Rune attributed the nighttime to a more chill and relaxing vibe than daytime, so he could perfectly understand.

“It’s time for you to depart, in a few hours, nighttime will start, and we’ll not say no to additional hours of sensor work,” Arsen gave an order as the planner.

Miki, Rune, and Rei finished what they were doing before standing up and going to the exit.

There, they made sure they had all the gadgets, from the fake window replacement to the energy-compressed network intruders.

And once it was confirmed, Rune started to release cosmic mist.

*Ding* Energy: Specialized Cosmic Mist Element reached Tier 1 Level 74

‘Well, I’ll take it.’

He had already tried its concealment ability multiple times during unexpected urban exploration sessions he decided to make on the fly, and the results were good.

Not only was he invisible to spiritual perception, he also became invisible to sight when he completely discolored the mist.

Anyone looking at him wouldn’t see him, they would only see minute distortions. But it was the price to pay to have his cosmic mist being usable with his 2nd stage intent.

Without pushing his element’s integration with nature properties, it was the most he could do, and it made him think about creating a 5th stage, but it was really something only useful with this idea of infiltration in mind.

After releasing cosmic mist for 5 minutes, the 3 had already disappeared in a mass of distorted air.

But in reality, it was a mass of complete 2nd stage intent-refined cosmic mist, meaning that from inside it, Rune, Miki, and Rei had all their physical senses cut.

Going to a stair, they went to the roof of the building and then started to float using momentum.

Taking the planned itinerary, they went from the east sector to the south one, then above the central sector and directly reached the HQ.

Before reaching it, they stopped using momentum and landed.

At that moment, Rune updated the intent of the cosmic mist cloud hiding them. Now, not all the physical signals were blocked and absorbed, sound started to pass through because Miri needed it

Nearing the HQ, Rune made sure the cloud was as small as it could get to hide them.

The probability of them being detected due to the sounds they emitted unconsciously, like their breathing, their steps, or their beating hearts was infinitesimal considering the ambient sound around them.

Making a slow turn around the HQ, Miki had his ears wide open and had long focused all his awareness on his hearing, mapping the whole HQ from the outside.

After making 3 turns, they entered through the entrance with another group to cover their presence, they made sure to float a bit to not activate the pressure plates.

‘The only way to hide momentum signal is to get my 4th stage chaotic interferences, let’s just pray a n*tjob didn’t take a momentum detection specialization.’

Staying by the entrance for 5 minutes, they then retreated after Miki confirmed it was done.

Once outside, they found the most populated gathering site and, while remaining hidden, Miki transmitted all the info he had gathered to Rhia.

For the next 10 minutes, Miki and Arsen discussed whether the plan could be acted tonight, and the conclusion came fast.

Miki made the retreat signal obvious.

…

“I don’t know what was happening, maybe multiple expeditions returned not long ago? I detected 300 people in the communal workroom of the 2nd floor, and the support rooms on the third and fourth were completely filled,” Miki reported what he detected once they came back to the fake shop.

“Rhia? Anything?” Arsen asked.

“The traffic was normal, probably bad luck if the guard unit isn’t aware of our deadline of course, but it’s too far-fetched for a specific unit to be advantaged. I’d even like to say the situation tonight confirmed that they only know they have to defend the HQ until the event starts.”

Everyone, Arsen included, looked inquiringly at Rhia.

“I have the basic logs of the HQ from one month ago until today, and nothing indicates anything special, so if they’re here, either it’s been more than an entire month that they entered high alert, or they’re included in the normal patrol and doing a normal job.”

“Ok, I’ll discuss this further later, the operation is postponed to tomorrow,” Arsen commented, only to then look at Miki, “Yes Miki, I know tomorrow will probably also be a retreat, but you’ll still go, that’s it.”

After the first day out of seven concluded on a retreat, everyone got back to do their own thing, while not leaving the fake back shop of course, it was the serious week.

Rune polished his 1st and 2nd stage intent, Rei practiced his stealth and distracted Rune, Miki went to a room alone and did his own things, Rhia and Arsen talked for a bit together before ultimately separating.

And so, for the next 21 hours, they did what they wanted before convening again and launching the same plan as yesterday, just with a different initial itinerary.

…

As they expected, the second day of operation was a retreat as well, the number of people was still not reduced to its normal level again.

Fate also played a weird hand as on this day, the cultural event announcement took place for the next day, and Arsen wasn’t stupid enough to believe the guard unit would weaken their defense due to wanting to go relax.

So the third day, they didn’t even go out, this failure was accounted for before it happened so no one was disgruntled.

Departing the fourth day, the 3 were used to traveling like that by now.

As soon as they arrived, they didn’t lose time and made 3 rounds around the HQ before entering, waiting a few minutes, and exiting to join a noisy gathering.

And Miki made the ok signal.

‘Finally…’

The time had come.

The next moment, Rune and Rei received an update on their tactical lenses, which were custom-built connected lenses.

[Rhia: Infiltration, main stairs, itinerary 4, weird gathering in the middle of the 2nd floor]

Concise but amply sufficient for the duo.

Miki then left the cover of Rune’s cloud and joined the loud gathering of people, which he would soon leave to enter the HQ and go to the place with the best coverage of what was happening above.

Arsen would also soon arrive, as he should have just departed from their fake back shop.

Leaving on their own, Rune’s and Rei’s gait completely changed, not only did Rei activate his own spiritual stealth, the cloud of cosmic mist surrounding them also changed to its maximal anti-perception and anti-signals variant.

Then, they took the first step through the HQ entrance.

It was a figurative step as they were floating, but they successfully passed the entrance and were in the entrance hall, where 3 waiting lines and 3 different areas were.

Walking along the walls, they waited until Miki entered, and then the duo cut off their perception sphere completely, making it retract within themselves.

Being able to detect the perception spheres of others was something so basic that they wouldn’t allow it to be the reason they failed.

Now, everything became black for Rune, and after Rei’s hand touched his, he controlled his cosmic mist cloud to unveil the slightest bit of the spiritually stealthed Rei.

And that was it, now, Rune was a cosmic mist generator and he had to use Rei’s hand to know when something was happening and he needed to cover him again or he needed to land on the ground.

Rei started to move slowly, creeping towards the main stair, preying on a group of people being escorted by probably a supporting staff.

Being led like a kite, Rune didn’t feel any shame, he was only an amateur, and letting the pro do their job was obvious.

Climbing the main stairs, they ended up in a corridor Rune knew very much, but he couldn't see anything.

With a hand message, Rei made him understand that it was time to connect the network intruders, and for this, considering they took the main stairs, one room had everything they needed and was easily accessible.

The communal workroom.

More than a hundred employees worked there, and would the guard unit expect anyone to kidnap a random staff member or attack this room?

Rune clearly felt when Rei paused multiple times over the long corridor they needed to walk through, even making them pass before their target’s office.

Rei even requested multiple times a complete cover, completely cutting his own senses before moving blindly in a certain direction.

Clearly, Miki was doing his job from below.

Reaching the electronic door leading to the open communal workroom, they had to wait until a staff member decided to enter or leave before rushing in.

Only 5 minutes were needed for that to happen, they now had free rein.

In their pockets, they had 5 network intruders each, just so that they didn’t need to use energy to pick from a pocket dimension, dimensional detection specialization existed after all, and his cosmic mist didn’t yet reach the 4th stage intent capable of touching on this subject.

The moment Rhia got connected, Miki had to vacate the place, too many suspicions would be brought otherwise, so he joined Arsen outside.

Repeatedly placing concealed network intruders, they stopped at 10, then evacuated the communal workroom.

It was now Rune’s turn, he had to cover the target’s office in delayed cosmic mist bombs, then the assault would begin.

Being led by the hand, they waited until the two neighboring rooms were opened by someone to enter and place lots of charges.

With his experience in creating various fireworks, Rune knew how to direct an explosion of energy in a certain form, and he learned recently how to make sure his cosmic mist penetrated through solid matter, in this case, cables.

Then they placed the final charges all along the corridor, preparing for the general chaos they would beget.

*Ding* Energy: Specialized Cosmic Mist Element reached Tier 1 Level 77

‘Is it a sign that luck will be on our side?’

Synchronizing with Rhia, they confirmed she was ready to suppress any electronic signals that had a chance of passing through, then they just had to wait another 5 minutes for the charges to silently explode.

Rei was getting jittery, being the neutralizer put great pressure on him, and despite his burning will to succeed, he wasn’t above self-derision and knew himself the best.

When the charges all went off, they would only have a few minutes before it dissipated around and sensors realized Aengus had disappeared.

When the countdown reached zero, the door to Aengus Finley’s office was blown away by a combined kick from Rei and Rune.

No sounds or signals escaped this room despite some trying to, a camera detecting a violent movement, a detector signaling intruders, pressure plates making their presence known…

But it didn’t matter.

In this room, only Aengus Finley, already in a defensive posture and having started emergency measures, was present. It was made sure before they started their assault.

Rei the neutralizer and main actor rushed directly through the desk and subjugated Aengus in a few seconds, piercing through his energy armor in a single second and cutting his brain access to his body the next instant.

He was a professional neutralizer and had studied everything about his target prior to this moment, so he knew what to do.

Rune rushed after him and got a blood test done, confirming the target’s identity, then he looked at the large window, before turning his head away from it and covering himself, the target, and Rei again and evacuating the room the normal way.

On the way out, Rei cleaned the room with an energy sweep and condensed a fake energy door as they started to make their way towards an employee-only stair.

With the target on his back, Rune once again became a cosmic mist generator and a baggage carrier, being led around by Rei, who didn’t rush at all.

What they did was bound to be detected in a few minutes at most, so they could take their time to remain careful and silent.

…

In a security room on the 2nd floor, 5 people were gathered. Those 5 people were members of a newly created unit of the Cell, the guard unit, they were the sensor team.

The atmosphere in this room was between friendly and professional, there were 3 sensors, 1 cyber-officer, and 1 observer, whose role was simply to cover all the regular forms of detection that didn’t deserve a specialization by themselves.

“Entrance hall, suspicious activity by a group of 4,” a sensor reported.

The cyber-officer checked them, “They are doing something, I’m reporting it,” and confirmed something was going on with this group.

A security officer was then dispatched to manage them, and the conclusion was that they were expelled for 1 week and couldn’t enter the HQ again during that time.

“If this job didn’t pay that much, I wouldn’t be there waiting for something that will not come, it’s already been 2 months since we got the intel that another unit was planning on assaulting this building, are they really that cowardly?”

“Maybe it’s a fake intel, they just want to test us and see how many small problems we can detect, and look at our hit team, they’re so bored they jump at every occasion of making trouble for other trouble-makers.”

Discussing professional subjects like that between them was normal, they had 2 months to get to this level.

“A prospect has started to act weirdly since a few minutes ago, he’s down to the second floor and is moving pretty hastily.”

The cyber-officer brought up an image of him from the nearest camera available, “Send a hitter to accompany him, we can’t exclude he’s also part of a test.”

One of the hitters from the guard unit was dispatched to follow the prospect acting weirdly, and they joined together as the prospect was intensely looking at a certain door.

From the camera attached to the hitters, the sensor team only saw the door leading to the office of Aengus Finley.

“Nothing to signal about this room, no sensors or problems have been encountered, he stopped working a few minutes earlier and is probably taking a break for-”

The next instant, a program he launched to make sure everywhere he checked, all the electronics were reset suddenly froze, as a small red dot flashed and started to beep.

And dumbfounded at seeing this, he only watched on as the prospect that got down from the 9th floor suddenly exploded the door leading to Aengus Finley’s office.

From the camera attached to their hitters, the inside of the room was completely different from what they expected, the desk was ripped in two, cracks had appeared on the floor at the entrance, and a trail of energy could still be seen floating around.

One of the sensors behind reacted faster than the others and pushed a big button at the side of the security room, engaging a strident alarm in all of the Adventurer’s Society headquarters.

Even the prospect who forced his way into the office was dumbfounded by what he was seeing, and only the hitters behind him, who knew something like that could happen, reacted immediately and reported to the hit team’s leader.

With the alarm breaking the normality, this nighttime was starting to transform into something else.

The sensor team had pulled themselves together and went into overdrive, with the cyber-officer re-establishing all his defensive protocols and trying to find an intruder.

Which he found directly once he knew what to search for, as he just had to follow the trail left behind by Rhia, and started to fight intensely while finding out what was compromised.

“Path 8! Detectors are compromised on path 8!”

The sensors behind him had already stopped talking, and most of their awareness had gone towards where they needed it to be, as they started to report anything and everything that seemed suspicious.

“3rd floor fluctuating room, the A6 one.”

“2nd floor 5th corridor.”

“Entrance area, someone suspected to be doing a diversion, he reacted immediately when the alarm started.”

The observer went further and started to compare all the data, “Send someone to survey the office, it’s still unscannable! Maybe they’re still inside!”

“Too many people are suspicious at the entrance, ignore them all, someone has been kidnapped! And he’s being continuously suppressed!”

“Prospects have started to come down! They’re scanning around, some people have been suppressed and brought to interrogation!”

And as the guard unit started to act up, Rune, Rei, and the kidnapped target, Aengus, finally made their way back to the 1st floor.