The alarm continued to echo.
Beep—
Beep—
Beep—
The piercing sound repeatedly reverberated throughout the enormous underground space.
As if the entire facility were issuing its final warning.
Everyone on the investigation team stood where they were.
No one spoke.
Deep within the ice.
Those ghostly blue eyes quietly watched the outside world.
No movement.
No attack.
Yet they placed an inexplicable pressure on everyone present.
The technicians continuously read the data.
Sweat had already formed on their foreheads.
But the moment the beads appeared,
they quickly froze into ice.
"Pollution index has increased by fifteen percent."
"Temperature continues to drop."
"Containment stability at fifty-eight percent."
The numbers continued to change.
And showed no signs of stopping.
The captain slowly clenched his fist.
He knew very well.
This was no longer an investigation.
It was now a national-level crisis.
If they made the wrong judgment,
the entire eastern mining region would be affected.
It could even spread to the underground energy network.
For the Northveil Directorate,
that would be a disaster.
Management Center
The lights in the conference room remained bright.
A massive screen hovered in midair.
Live footage from the underground facility was being transmitted in real time.
The people in charge filled both sides of the conference table.
No one left.
No one rested.
Because they all knew.
The nation was facing one of the most dangerous events since its founding.
The head of the Energy Bureau spoke first.
"If the pollution spreads into the energy supply layer,
the core thermal facilities will be forced to shut down."
Another person immediately followed.
"The temperature in the underground cities will drop rapidly."
"The winter reserves won't last long."
The head of the Environmental Department added in a solemn voice.
"If the pollution enters the underground water cycle,
the entire eastern region will have to be abandoned."
The conference room fell silent again.
Everyone understood what those words meant.
Decades of accumulated development
could be destroyed by a single accident.
Oksana sat at the head of the table.
Her hands were clasped together.
She quietly listened to every report.
She showed neither anxiety
nor fear.
She simply continued organizing the intelligence.
After a long while,
she spoke.
"Worst-case scenario."
The head of the Environmental Department slowly answered.
"The nation would be pushed back thirty years."
The conference room became completely silent.
No one argued.
Because this was the result of calculations.
Not an exaggeration.
Reality.
The Northveil Directorate had never been a wealthy nation.
They had survived until today
by accumulating resources little by little.
By relying on the knowledge left behind by their ancestors.
By relying on the mining regions.
By relying on underground thermal energy.
By processing pollution in exchange for resources.
If all of those things were lost at once,
the nation would not disappear.
But it would decline.
Many towns would have to be abandoned.
Many people would be forced to relocate.
Countless technologies would be lost.
Their level of civilization would regress directly.
That was more unacceptable to them than death.
Because their culture had always believed in one thing.
Survive.
Then keep moving forward.
Not start over.
Underground Facility
The investigation team was still observing the containment device.
Irina had not left.
She remained standing before the ice layer.
Her palm was pressed against the surface of the seal.
Her ability continued to activate.
Phase Transition Dominion continuously analyzed the structure.
The surrounding ice began to tremble slightly.
Countless tiny ice crystals slowly moved across the surface,
like some kind of complex machine was operating.
Her face grew paler and paler.
The color drained from her lips.
Her breathing gradually became heavier.
The captain noticed something was wrong.
"Stop the analysis."
She did not respond.
"Irina."
Still no response.
All of her attention had already been devoted to the interior of the seal.
Countless pieces of information surged into her mind.
The structure of the ice.
Energy circulation.
Heat exchange.
Pollution fixation mechanisms.
And the method used to maintain the seal.
More and more information poured in.
The neural load began rising rapidly.
The edges of her vision gradually blurred.
A faint ringing appeared in her ears.
Her body began to grow cold.
It was not cold caused by the environment.
It was hypothermia caused by ability consumption.
She was familiar with this sensation.
It happened every time she used her ability at high intensity.
But this time,
it was far more severe than before.
A technician suddenly cried out.
"Her body temperature is dropping!"
Everyone immediately looked toward the monitoring terminal.
Thirty-six degrees.
Thirty-five degrees.
Thirty-four degrees.
The number continued to slowly decrease.
The captain's expression changed.
"Stop immediately."
Irina finally spoke.
Her voice was slightly hoarse.
"Wait a little longer."
"It's too dangerous."
"I'm close."
She still did not remove her hand.
Because she knew.
The information she was obtaining now
could determine the future of the entire nation.
More structures gradually appeared.
The containment device was not a single-layer structure.
It was composed of hundreds of circulation nodes.
Each node was responsible for fixing the pollution,
transporting it,
then compressing it,
before finally sending it toward the central region.
The scale of the entire system far exceeded modern technology.
It had even approached the level of a civilization-scale engineering project.
For the first time,
Irina felt genuinely shaken.
Because whoever had built this place
had never intended it for short-term use.
They had designed it to operate for decades.
Perhaps even centuries.
However.
No matter how magnificent an engineering project was,
it would eventually reach its limits.
And this place
was already approaching its limit.
Suddenly,
she saw a new flow of energy.
That force was spreading outward from the containment core.
It was neither pollution
nor heat.
It was more like some kind of maintenance mechanism.
She followed the structure and continued tracing it.
A moment later,
her pupils contracted slightly.
She finally understood the truth.
"So that's what it is…"
The captain immediately asked,
"What did you find?"
She slowly withdrew her hand.
Her body swayed slightly.
She almost lost her balance.
The person beside her immediately supported her.
She paid no attention to them.
She simply raised her head and looked deep into the ice.
Those ghostly blue eyes were still there.
Quietly watching her.
"It isn't the thing being sealed."
Everyone froze.
"What?"
Her voice was low.
"It is part of the seal."
The air instantly fell silent.
Even the technician forgot to record the information.
The captain frowned.
"Explain."
Irina took a deep breath.
Then slowly spoke.
"The pollution here cannot be eliminated."
"So the people of the old era created a vessel."
"An existence capable of carrying the pollution for a long period of time."
Everyone remained silent.
She continued.
"The containment facility fixes the pollution."
"The ice layer isolates it."
"And the existence inside the core…"
"bears the pollution."
No one spoke.
Because the answer was too shocking.
In other words,
that thing was not imprisoned inside.
It had willingly remained there.
For decades.
Perhaps even longer.
Continuously enduring the corrosion caused by the pollution.
Continuously maintaining the entire seal.
That was why this place had not collapsed.
That was why the pollution had not spread.
That was why the Northveil Directorate had remained safe all this time.
The technician's voice was dry.
"Then why did it awaken?"
Irina was silent for a moment.
Then slowly answered.
"Because it is reaching its limit."
The air became completely silent.
It was the most reasonable explanation.
And the most dangerous one.
The containment facility had not failed.
The one actually approaching failure
was the existence maintaining the seal.
Like a person continuously carrying a heavy load.
After decades,
even they would eventually become exhausted.
Eventually,
they would be unable to hold on.
And the moment it stopped bearing the pollution,
the entire seal would collapse.
Just then,
another sound came from the ice layer.
Crack—
It was clearer than before.
The fracture continued to widen,
stretching downward from the top.
Large amounts of ice fragments fell.
They struck the ground
with dull, heavy sounds.
Everyone looked up at once.
The technician stared at the terminal in horror.
"Stability at fifty-three percent."
"The rate of decline is accelerating."
"Estimated…"
His voice stopped.
No one urged him to continue.
Because they already knew
it would not be good news.
Several seconds later,
the technician forced himself to speak.
"Estimated containment failure…"
"within sixty days."
The entire underground space fell silent.
Sixty days.
Not years.
Not decades.
Sixty days.
For an entire nation,
that was far too short.
Too short to prepare.
Too short to accept.
Irina stared at those eyes.
For a long time,
she said nothing.
She could feel it.
The other party was watching her.
There was no hostility.
No warning.
It was more like scrutiny.
As if it were confirming something.
Or perhaps waiting for something.
And at that very moment,
for the first time,
a thought occurred to her.
Perhaps
what they needed was not to continue investigating.
Perhaps
they needed to find a way to make contact with that existence.
Because now,
the entire Northveil Directorate
had no second choice.