Chapter 29

The searchlight swept across the tightly closed doors, and after those words were spoken, everyone felt as if a pair of eyes were watching them from behind those doors.

This place makes me feel very uncomfortable.

The underground parking garage is a closed, dark environment. The reinforced concrete overhead forms a sturdy cage, and once trapped inside, it is very difficult to escape.

Yue Ning stepped forward and touched the door. It was cold and hard. Nowadays, these kinds of doors all have electronic locks, and it's very difficult to break them open from the outside if the power is off.

"Let's take another look ahead," Xiao Shengyun said. They realized that forcibly breaking down the door would have had a similar outcome to the other party releasing the contents, and besides, there were so many rooms here; they couldn't just dismantle them one by one.

Further ahead, there was a large open area, which was probably the church's research base, with a bunch of experimental equipment set up.

The other party retreated in a great hurry back then. The various medicines left on the operating table had long since dried up, the test tubes were scattered, and there were some glass fragments on the ground.

Xiao Shengyun noticed that Zhou Zhi's gaze lingered on an instrument, whose display screen was completely black due to the lack of power.

"What's wrong? Is there something wrong with this thing?"

Zhou Zhi's fingertips swept across the back of the instrument, where the metal nameplate of the equipment was usually affixed, but it was empty at this moment.

"This equipment is used to detect foreign substances. Currently, only five research institutes directly under the state in China are able to apply for it, so it shouldn't be here."

The others understood the implication: clearly, there was a mole within the research institute.

The experimental equipment currently used for this research has only been developed for less than ten years, and the manufacturing process is strictly confidential, making it impossible for private institutions and enterprises to produce.

These instruments are very rare, and each one has a serial number and information. The person who was able to transport this out must be of a high rank.

According to the current records of the Operations Department, the church is only a terrorist organization that spreads pollution, but it now appears that there are many other things involved behind the scenes.

Zhou Zhi was not surprised. People are willing to die for money. As long as the price is high enough, there will always be people willing to take the risk.

"It's a pity that all of these things are damaged," Yue Ning said.

"Not necessarily. Generally, the measured data is automatically saved, but some things may not be completely deleted."

Instruments like these have multiple ways to recover data, and it's very difficult to completely delete it.

This machine is definitely not going to be used now; we'll have to wait until the site is cleaned up, if they're still alive by then.

The group passed through the laboratory, and further ahead was an iron gate.

The stench wafted through the cracks in the iron gate, hitting my nose directly.

"The smell of pollutants and corpses," Zhou Zhi warned.

He had smelled this odor countless times at the research institute, so much so that it had become a reflex.

Even though they were mentally prepared, everyone still felt like vomiting when the door opened.

A giant frog without eyes, with an exaggerated mouth, and a cluster of short pink antennae growing where it should be a nose.

It has streamlined, long horns growing from its head, and its soft, gray body resembles an elongated, giant pouch—an unidentified creature.

The octopus had more than a dozen tentacles, and its body was covered with mucus that had not completely dried.

...

A pile of contaminants of various shapes was stacked together, with heads, claws, tails, and torsos scattered everywhere.

Due to the low underground temperature and good ventilation, the contaminants only decomposed slightly, but even so, the stench still filled the small room.

Clearly, these were all failed experiments.

Next to this pile of pollutants were seven or eight human corpses.

The corpses all had wide-open eyes, as if they had experienced something extremely terrifying before they died. They had huge wounds on their bodies, and one of them may have been parasitized by an octopus, with several huge tentacles growing from his spine.

"These things didn't exist when we were here. What are these lunatics trying to do?" Yue Ning's cold voice was mixed with anger and a trace of guilt.

If she had passed the message out back then, would these people have survived?

When I was in church, every time I saw a victim, my guilt deepened.

"A cage experiment," Zhou Zhi said, glancing around the room.

"What experiment?" Xiao Shengyun asked, puzzled.

"An experiment conducted by early humans to explore the causes of talent. In the beginning, shortly after the emergence of pollution, awakened individuals with talent appeared among humans. In order to combat pollution, humans began to study the causes of talent, but no results were found for a long time. Later, people discovered that ordinary people affected by pollution had a higher probability of awakening talent than frontline enforcers. It seems that strong human emotions are the key to awakening talent, and the most profound despair and pain can catalyze powerful forces."

"In order to obtain more awakened individuals, the cage experiment emerged. This experiment was very popular about a decade ago, where humans and pollutants were locked in a room together. The intense emotions generated by the fighting and struggle greatly increased the chances of awakening talents. Moreover, even if they were unfortunately contaminated, the confined environment could be quickly quelled with firepower, making the problem very clean. However, a gentler method was later developed, and this experiment was eliminated."

"Those people must have volunteered to do these experiments, right?" Xiao Shengyun felt that this was beyond his imagination; all the sacrifices had been replaced by a light "erasure."

They thought only the church would conduct such experiments, never expecting that the research institute would do the same.

"Huh? Why is there so much water on the ground?" Huang Yu broke the silence. He moved his leg, and the sole of his shoe felt like it was coated with a thick layer of glue.

And the amount of water is increasing.

He looked up and saw that the water seemed to be flowing from under the pile of corpses.

"careful."

Xiao Shengyun pulled Huang Yu away and kicked the attacking alien away.

No one expected that there would be a living creature inside a pile of meat.

It's the person with octopus tentacles on their back, but now they're only half human.

The skin on his back split open, revealing a grayish-white spine covered by an unidentified creature. Several enormous tentacles grew from his back, supporting his movement.

After being kicked away, the alien species stood up again using its tentacles, making the human's legs seem redundant.

He crawled forward quickly with all ten legs, like a real octopus.

Bang-

Huang Yu fired a shot at the spine, but it was dodged.

The thing was climbing upwards, like a spider climbing a white pillar.

Taking advantage of the parasite's escape, Xiao Shengyun used black threads to wrap around the ten tentacles. The black threads tightened quickly, and the tentacles were severed by Qiqi.

The humanoid creature wriggled on the ground a few times, and a lump of red flesh crawled out from it.

The baby octopus had its wrists cut off, leaving only its enormous head.

"What? It's just an octopus." Huang Yu fired another shot, smashing the octopus's head.

The octopus had been there for an unknown amount of time and had entered a state of suspended animation due to lack of food. It had originally intended to fight back with all its might, but it was killed cleanly and efficiently.

Now, the group felt a deep-seated fear as they looked at the pile of meat, afraid that something else might suddenly appear.

"How can this person still move when he's dead? Why don't we just burn this place down?" Huang Yu felt his heart was a little weak; was this really too frightening?

"If I burned your mission report, it would probably go from 3,000 words to 30,000 words," Xiao Shengyun complained.

Snap—

The light vanished instantly.

"What's going on? The light seems to be broken." Huang Yu patted it, and the searchlight obligingly made two beeps before going out completely.

"No, why does this thing fail at the crucial moment? Should I put some fire in front of it to light it up?"

"No, I'm afraid we'll be dried up soon, or they might scatter some flammable or explosive stuff, and we'll all end up in the underworld together." Xiao Shengyun said speechlessly.

They didn't dare open the door again; after this ordeal, it seemed like something terrifying was lurking behind every door.

The further you go in, the colder it gets, especially after the lights go out, the more intense the chill becomes.

Yue Ning was somewhat disappointed. She had hoped to find some clues about the church or awaken her past memories, but this place was completely different from where she had been before.

After her identity was exposed, she went from being a manager here to a test subject.

Those people didn't kill her; they just locked her up.

Confined in a cage, the concepts of time and space gradually become blurred, and the pollution in the body gradually spreads, slowly eroding the little consciousness left.

Is it because of pollution, or because that memory is too painful, that she can't remember the past?

They walked through the long passage and continued forward.

The empty passageway echoed only with the sound of footsteps.

Yue Ning walked at the front. Her talent could effectively eliminate dangers ahead. In the past, when going on missions, she always protected her team members like an older sister, with the others following behind her.

"Sister Ning, what's wrong?" Xiao Shengyun suddenly realized that something seemed amiss, not from what he had sensed, but from some kind of intuition.

Yue Ning remained silent.

"What's wrong? What happened?" Huang Yu asked.

He shook Yue Ning's shoulder, but there was no response. The other person's face was blurry in the darkness, and his expression was unclear.

Yue Ning led them ahead, but at some point, she found herself being controlled.

They got infected? When? Were they on the right track?

Xiao Shengyun pulled Huang Yu behind him, fearing that the other party might be controlled and launch a sudden attack.

"It's not so much like being controlled, but more like being hypnotized or trapped in some kind of illusion," Zhou Zhi said at the end.

"How do you know?" Xiao Shengyun asked. He was suspicious because it was clear they had fallen into a trap, and there was likely a traitor among them. Zhou Zhi's talent could completely control Yue Ning's movements and lead them elsewhere.

“Because I can control her now.” As soon as Zhou Zhi finished speaking, Yue Ning raised her arm and waved it a few times.

Just as a person can only have one brain, there can only be one person sending control signals.

Therefore, it was not under control.

Xiao Shengyun: "..."

He was so annoyed by Zhou Zhi's occasional bursts of humor that he wanted to curse.

He wanted to say something more, but suddenly realized that Zhou Zhi's gaze had fallen on what was behind him.

Turn around.

At the end of the passage, a figure slowly emerged.