Chapter 65 A desperate counterattack! His blood is the key!
Dead silence.
The sealed room was filled with the pungent, acidic smell of burning chemicals, mixed with the stench of evaporating monster blood, creating an aura that could seep into your very bones.
Lu Zhanting leaned against the cold alloy wall, each rise and fall of his chest accompanied by excruciating pain. Sweat washed away the bloodstains on his face, leaving several shocking white streaks. A drop of viscous black liquid slowly slid down his tightly gripped military knife.
"Don't move."
Su Wanqing's clear, cold voice broke the stagnant air.
She knelt in front of him, deftly cutting open his blood-soaked trouser leg with surgical scissors.
The flesh around the two bloody holes was charred black, exuding an ominous aura of death, and showing a tendency to spread into healthy tissue.
Without the slightest hesitation, Su Wanqing poured out the last bottle of top-grade wound medicine powder from her spatial storage.
"Sizzle—"
The moment the powder came into contact with the rotting flesh, a violent corrosive sound rang out, and a plume of black smoke rose up accompanied by a burnt smell.
Lu Zhanting's muscles tensed suddenly, his Adam's apple bobbed, a muffled groan was pressed tightly between his teeth, and the veins on his forehead bulged.
This excruciating pain, which erodes flesh from the inside out, is far more cruel than any knife or gunshot wound.
"Bear with it. The virus is eroding your tissue. It has to be scraped all off." Su Wanqing's tone was calm to the point of being cold, but as she stared intently at the wound, a pain she herself was unaware of surged in her beautiful eyes.
Her hands were very steady.
The scalpel danced between her fingers, precisely and swiftly peeling away every strand of infected, black flesh until it revealed the bright red, still slightly pulsating life beneath.
Apply a new layer of powder, then quickly bandage with sterile gauze.
After doing all this, Su Wan-qing felt her fingertips go numb, her back felt icy cold, and she was already soaked in cold sweat.
Lu Zhanting leaned against the wall, his tense body finally relaxing slightly. He raised his hand and grasped Su Wanqing's frighteningly cold hand, his hoarse voice carrying a reassuring magnetism: "I'm fine."
He looked up, his gaze sweeping over the mess on the floor before finally settling on the open logbook on the lab table.
As his frenzied fighting spirit subsided, the words on the log became clear again, each word transforming into a sharp icicle piercing his mind.
trap.
The emergency transfer order is fake.
The crisis in southern Xinjiang is a hoax.
The so-called "only he knows the secret here" is actually a bait tailor-made for him, a path to hell.
A chill, a mixture of rage and lingering fear, suddenly shot up his spine.
He was furious at the enemy's wickedness, and even more terrified that he had personally led her into this labyrinth of death.
He turned his head and looked at the soot and bloodstains on Su Wanqing's face. His heart clenched, and even breathing felt painful.
"I'm sorry," he said softly, the three words sounding as heavy as a mountain. "I shouldn't have let you come."
Su Wanqing shook her head and gripped his large hand even tighter.
Her eyes were clear and firm as she looked directly at him: "Lu Zhanting, we are husband and wife, and also comrades who can entrust their backs to each other. Your battlefield is my battlefield. Now is not the time to talk about this."
She stood up, walked to the lab table, and picked up the diary that had determined their fate once more.
"We must figure everything out."
Lu Zhanting leaned against the wall to stand up and walked to her side. The two stood side by side, their eyes both drawn to the messy, frantic handwriting.
“Ouroboros…” Su Wanqing read the name, her brows furrowing. “A snake biting its own tail, symbolizing cycle and immortality. This doesn’t seem like an ordinary overseas organization; it’s more like a mad cult.”
“Scorpion.” Lu Zhanting’s eyes were icy cold. “Head of base security. I don’t recall having this codename.”
“A fake identity,” Su Wanqing asserted, “but that’s not the point.”
Her fingertips pressed heavily on the last few lines of the journal.
"Their real target is Lu Zhanting...his blood!"
"Only the bloodline of a soldier, possessing the utmost masculinity and strength, can serve as the 'key' to truly activate and perfectly fuse the full power of the 'Immortal Heart' in a specific ritual."
key.
ceremony.
These two words instantly plunged Su Wanqing, a top-tier physician, into despair.
She understood the meaning behind it better than anyone else.
It's definitely not as simple as just drawing a few tubes of blood.
The so-called "ritual" and "perfect fusion" may very well require a massive amount of fresh, living blood with strong vitality.
even……
The "key" itself needs to be sacrificed.
The thought sent chills down her spine, and she instinctively gripped Lu Zhanting's arm tightly, her knuckles turning white with the force.
Lu Zhanting felt her trembling, so he pulled her into his arms and enveloped her with his body heat.
"Don't be afraid."
His voice was deep, and the vibration of his chest conveyed power, but Su Buwanqing could clearly feel that beneath his calm exterior, his heart was beating at a frequency that suppressed a raging fire.
He was no longer a hunter.
He became the prey.
For a soldier like him, who stands at the top of the food chain, this was the ultimate humiliation, and it also ignited the ultimate killing intent.
He now understood Professor Chen's final words, "This is a curse."
This is not a matter of ghosts or gods.
This is a vicious conspiracy targeting his bloodline, a conspiracy that has been going on for countless years.
“We’re in quarantine.” Lu Zhanting quickly composed himself, regaining his composure as a commander. “All communications are down. Even if we could make contact, we wouldn’t be able to determine who’s the mole in command. From now on, we have to rely on ourselves.”
“Hmm.” Su Wanqing nodded, her brain also working at high speed. “We’re trapped here, which is tantamount to waiting to die. The zombies outside can’t be cleared out, and the main passage is blocked. The only variable is the ventilation duct.”
Her gaze sharpened.
"'Scorpion's' target is 'The Heart of Immortality' and you. He probably thinks we've already died in the attack. His next step will definitely be to get 'The Heart of Immortality' and then prepare for that so-called ritual."
“So, we can’t wait for him to come.” Lu Zhanting finished her sentence, a murderous glint in his eyes. “We’re going to find him.”
Instead of passively defending, it's better to take the initiative and plunge a sharp blade into the enemy's heart!
"The log says that the 'Heart of Immortality' is extremely active and must be stored in a deep cryogenic environment with special shielding." Su Wanqing flipped through the log and took out the base structure diagram from her backpack, comparing the two.
"Let me see... the structural diagram of the base..."
Her fingers moved quickly across the complex drawings, finally stopping at the bottom layer, in an area marked "Deep Geological Sample Storage Room".
“Found it.” She looked up, her eyes shining. “Three hundred meters underground, the entire storage room was built with lead and special alloys to isolate the ore from radiation, and is equipped with an independent deep cryogenic system. Only this place meets the storage requirements.”
The goal became clear instantly.
“From here to the storage room, the main route passes through three layers of zombie zones; it’s a dead end.” Lu Zhanting’s gaze moved across the pipeline map like a precise scalpel. “The only route is the main ventilation duct. It runs through the entire base.”
It was just as dangerous inside, but compared to the hundreds of zombies outside, it was the only way out.
The two looked at each other and saw a resolute determination in each other's eyes.
"action."
No unnecessary words.
Su Wanqing first checked Lu Zhanting's wound again. The toxins had been cleared, and with the help of the spiritual spring and top-grade wound medicine, it was slowly healing and would at least not affect his mobility.
Then, she began ransacking the laboratory.
She collected all the aldehyde and ether solvents and quickly made a dozen simple "inactivation pills" using the remaining materials.
She even found photosensitive materials and phosphorus powder, and made several simple flashbangs that could cause instant blindness.
On the other side, Lu Zhanting was organizing his weapons.
The rifle ammunition was almost gone, but the pistol had two full magazines left.
He reloaded all the bullets, took out two military knives, carefully wiped them with a strip of cloth, and then evenly applied the "deactivation pill" powder that Su Wanqing had given him onto the blades, causing a strange white frost to appear on the blades.
After doing all this, he took out the last half of a compressed biscuit and a small pot of water and handed them to Su Wanqing.
"Replenish your energy."
Su Wanqing took it and ate it quietly in small bites.
In this sealed room filled with the stench of death and decay, the two leaned against the cold wall, quietly replenishing their energy. Only the sounds of chewing food and their breathing mingled; this moment of tranquility was the last gasp before the storm.
Ten minutes later, the two of them got up at the same time.
Lu Zhanting walked to the ventilation opening blocked by the metal can, his muscles bulging, and used all his strength to move the heavy can away inch by inch.
"call--"
A cold, damp wind rushed in from the dark opening, mixed with faint hissing sounds from deep within the pipes.
"I'll go first." Lu Zhanting turned around, his gaze calm. "Follow behind me, and don't make any noise."
"Take this with you." Su Wanqing handed him a metal piece the size of a matchbox, a miniature light source she had modified from parts. The light was extremely weak, but it could penetrate the darkness. "I will use silver needles to mark the crossroads. Stay close."
Lu Zhanting took it, nodded, and spun around into the darkness.
The pipe was narrower than I had imagined, barely wide enough for one person to crawl through. The walls were covered in a sticky liquid and mold, emitting a nauseating odor.
Lu Zhanting was in front, and Su Wanqing was behind. The two of them, like two silent geckos, struggled to move through the intestines of this steel behemoth.
The beam of light only dared to illuminate a distance of less than one meter in front of it.
The pipeline had numerous branching paths, resembling a maze. With her astonishing memory and sense of direction, Su Wanqing constructed a three-dimensional map in her mind, continuously guiding Lu Zhanting to choose the correct direction.
They could occasionally hear the scraping sounds of zombies dragging their bodies through the main passage below. Each time, the two of them had to hold their breath and press their bodies tightly against the cold pipe walls until the sound faded away.
After passing the fourth fork in the road, Lu Zhanting suddenly stopped.
He made a gesture and flashed the light source very quickly across the pipe wall in front of him.
Su Wanqing looked at him from the side, her pupils contracting slightly.
Several huge, irregular scratches were clearly visible on the pipe wall ahead.
The scratches were so deep that bone was visible, tearing through the thick steel plate, and the metal edges were rolled outwards due to the immense force.
This is something that those mutated monkeys could never have done before.
Something even larger and more terrifying has also turned this place into a hunting ground.
The two exchanged a glance, their vigilance heightened to the maximum.
Lu Zhanting gripped a handful of "inactivation pills" in his hand and continued forward.
After rounding another bend, the sight ahead made both of them stop breathing.
A main ventilation shaft that descends vertically.
Countless pipelines converge here, forming a huge, bottomless steel abyss from which a cold wind swirls upward.
About twenty meters below them, a huge, black body, like a giant python, was coiled on the thickest main pipe.
It seemed to be dormant, its body, covered with a hard stratum corneum, rising and falling slightly with its breathing, emitting a dull "purring" vibration.
A thick tail with barbs is hanging in mid-air, swaying slowly and unconsciously.
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