Chapter 457 The Return of Darkness (Part 20)

Xie Tu ignored the word 'ask'.

As a child, she was arrogant and had to be coaxed to do things.

"It doesn't need to cover the entire area. The safe zone is too large, and it will put too much mental strain on you."

Xie Tu paused for a moment, then explained, "Getting out of this contaminated area is probably related to the final outcome of the rescue, so we must try our best to prevent the entire city from falling."

The mental barrier can shield the five senses and isolate dark matter.

To ensure that there were no abnormalities in those years, but those who died due to various accidents during the fall of the country 'survived'.

Xiao Yunzhao blinked. "I've never tried activating a large-scale barrier to protect anything..."

She was only halfway through her sentence.

Suddenly, a misty, rainy street flashed through my mind, with five buses and two SUVs parked in the middle of the road, and wisps of greenish-blue fluorescent light instantly forming a barrier.

Xiao Yunzhao looked down and found that her hands had suddenly become transparent.

But it quickly returned to normal.

Just then, the sentry's voice came through the walkie-talkie, but Xie Tu didn't see it.

"Captain Xie! Three more tanks have crashed."

Upon hearing this, Xie Tu sat up and opened the overhead window. "I'll go out and keep watch. You can stay in the car and play. Call me if you need anything."

He said to Xiao Yunzhao, "It's okay if you don't know. We're currently in the mutation screening phase. You can try it again when we enter the safe zone."

"Oh." Xiao Yunzhao acted as if nothing had happened and continued playing her game with her head down.

In her heart, whether she is the grown-up version of herself or the version of herself now, she is still herself.

It doesn't matter if I become an adult.

Maybe one day he'll regain his memory.

Xiao Yunzhao pulled out her backpack, took out a bunch of snacks, dumped them aside, and ate while playing games.

*

Half an hour later, the sound of artillery fire outside gradually subsided.

Xie Tu and Lai Yannian from the other eight groups entered the car.

Lai Yannian carefully dodged the snacks scattered everywhere and the two spirit entities flying around inside the car, then jumped into the driver's seat and started the car.

Xie Tu stood at the window and gave orders into the walkie-talkie.

"Tank units advance toward the center of the exclusion zone to eliminate the remaining mutants."

"receive!"

The tank slowly drove into the center of the quarantine zone.

The air was filled with a pungent odor, a mixture of burnt, putrid, and acidic smells.

On the ground, a corrosive black slime covered most of the area, and the tracks made a teeth-grinding scraping sound as they rolled over it.

It was pitch black all around.

The searchlights on the roof barely outlined the contours of this dilapidated world.

In just one day, all the once-glorious lights went out, and the city was reduced to a huge, dark labyrinth.

The operation lasted for three hours.

Until it was confirmed that there were no more mutants in the quarantine area.

The troops returned to the border, obeyed orders to disembark and assemble, and conducted another pollution concentration test.

The initial victory thrilled these young soldiers.

Those monsters looked terrifying and powerful, but in reality, they couldn't withstand the bombardment of firearms at all.

At this moment, the soldiers are filled with confidence, firmly believing that the government and the army will surely overcome this disaster.

However, reality quickly taught them a lesson.

Hundreds of soldiers who had completed the tests stepped forward amidst the sorrowful gazes of their squad leaders and company commanders.

Some of them still had the joy of victory on their faces.

But soon, this joy was replaced by unease and fear.

For a moment, the entire assembly area fell into an eerie silence.

Xiao Yunzhao finally got tired of playing.

She climbed out of the chariot to get some fresh air, and her unconsciously scattered mental threads captured an extremely repressed emotion at that moment.

—Fear, resentment, despair, and a sliver of hope.

Xiao Yunzhao stopped climbing.

I don't understand why mutants have such complex emotions.

Not far away.

The young soldier, head bowed, eyes red, choked out, "Squad leader, will I turn into a monster?"

"No way!" His class monitor stood opposite him, his fists clenched at his sides, his nails almost digging into his palms, and he didn't even believe what he was saying.

Another person murmured, "I don't want to become a monster. I want to go home and see my dad. He's not in good health..."

But the soldiers were all enlisted from other places, and his home was in another province, so he couldn't go back.

The others felt the same way, lowered their heads, and silently wiped away their tears.

The officer in charge of leading this army group was a lieutenant general.

Ren, the man, approached Xie Tu, handed him the test results, and asked in a low voice, "Commander Xie, is there really no way to treat this?"

Xie Tu took the report, glanced at the stunned Xiao Yunzhao, and replied, "No."

In the early days of the apocalypse, there were no guides.

Lieutenant General Ren sighed heavily and ordered, "Isolate them first, so that everyone won't be afraid. Maybe everything will be alright in the end."

"Return to the military region's garrison for quarantine. I would like to trouble Lieutenant General Ren to reorganize the troops. We need to rush back to the safe zone immediately to provide support."

His words were very calm, to others, so calm that they seemed almost inhuman.

But no one complained.

At this critical moment, someone is needed to remain rational and analyze the situation to lead everyone to victory.

Xie Tu looked at the handwritten test report.

The hundred soldiers who stepped forward all had contamination levels of around 50%, which was in accordance with the standards for the initial quarantine zone.

The rest are below 30%.

Xie Tu raised his wrist to check, and the communicator still showed a pollution concentration of 90%, which had not changed for a long time.

He and Lieutenant General Ren agreed on a route and returned to the infantry fighting vehicle.

Xiao Yunzhao still had that blank expression, a look rarely seen on her arrogant and stubborn face.

It does resemble what she will look like when she grows up.

Xie Tu reached out and pulled her back into the car, asking in a low voice, "What are you thinking about?"

"Their emotions are so complicated."

Xiao Yunzhao raised her little face, "Don't you want to become a mutant?"

Xie Tu: "Nobody wants to."

"But they are monsters."

Xiao Yunzhao hates mutants. "They're covered in filth and damage everything they go through. Once they ruined my lawn, and the nanny robot couldn't fix it for ages. It made me so angry."

Xie Tu's voice was low: "You must remember, they did not become monsters voluntarily. All mutants are victims."

Xiao Yunzhao didn't say anything upon hearing this, and turned her head to the side.

His gaze was somewhat unfocused, as if he was trying to process Xie Tu's words.

Lai Yannian sat in the driver's seat, listening to the conversation between the 'father and daughter', silently acting as if he were invisible.

Not long after.

After the soldiers assembled, the troops drove back to the safe zone.

*

Safe zone.

The situation is not optimistic.

The five urban districts in the city center cover an area that is one-third the size of the entire city of Nanjing.

In a single day, more than nine million people gathered here.

Almost all large buildings have people inside.

The crowd was too dense.

Every now and then, someone undergoes a mutation, causing panic and riots, and terrified screams travel far and wide through the silent city.

You can't see anything in the dark.

The sense of panic spread rapidly, and the public had no idea whether it had caused any other casualties.

People felt unsafe, and many ignored the volunteers' attempts to stop them and ran out of the building, preferring to stay on the roadside.

At least there were soldiers everywhere on the streets, so there was a way to escape.