Chapter 216: Crossing the Ruins
Su Wanqing climbed out of the subway's ventilation duct, her boots making a crisp sound as they stepped on the cracked asphalt road.
A smell mixed with burnt, corrupted and some pungent chemical rushed into her nostrils, making her frown.
The sight before her made her stop in her tracks. This was once the city's most prosperous commercial district, but now it was just a reinforced concrete graveyard.
The skyscrapers are like bones broken by giants, leaning against each other at weird angles, forming dark and dangerous passages.
The street beneath my feet was divided by huge cracks, bottomless and deep, like a gaping wound in the earth.
Looking beyond the ruins, on the distant skyline, a towering signal tower stood alone, with the blue light on the top of the tower flickering regularly. It was the only source of light in this dead silence, and it was also the end point of her journey.
She didn't stay for too long and began to move along the edge of a relatively intact building.
Less than 500 meters away, a low buzzing sound came from above her head. Su Wanqing immediately dodged and hid behind a fallen stone pillar, looking up.
Three black military reconnaissance drones were hovering at low altitude in a V-shape, with the probes on their fuselages flashing red lights as they systematically scanned every inch of land below in an interlaced route.
Their goal is very clear, it is themselves, or in other words, the energy core in their arms.
She had to find a place to hide. Her eyes swept around and finally landed on a half-collapsed department store on the left.
The glass of the mall's main door had all been shattered, revealing the pitch-black interior.
Su Wanqing crouched down, quickly crossed a small open space, and entered the mall.
The situation inside was even worse than outside. The ground was covered with a thick layer of broken glass and dust, and every step made a teeth-grinding "crunching" sound.
Collapsed shelves, scattered merchandise and the broken limbs of mannequins are tangled together to form a complex maze.
She carefully avoided the debris that might make noise and walked deeper into the mall.
Just then, she noticed something unusual between the ceiling and the wall.
They were faintly glowing spider webs, as if woven from fluorescent fibers.
They covered most of the ceiling, exuding an eerie beauty in the darkness.
Su Wanqing stopped and remembered a mutant mentioned in the information.
As she was about to retreat, several giant spider-like creatures crawled out from a web above her head.
Their bodies were a mixture of metal and flesh, and the joints of their eight legs glowed red, responding to the slightest vibrations under her feet.
The drones were outside, the mutants were in. She was blocked.
What to do? Su Wanqing leaned against a row of collapsed cosmetics counters and called up the system interface of the jade bracelet.
The remaining points are pitifully few, only enough to exchange for a basic smoke bomb.
She exchanged it without hesitation, and a gray cylinder appeared in her hand.
Throwing it out directly might confuse the spiders temporarily, but it would not be able to deal with the drones outside.
She looked down at the warm core in her arms, then looked at the smoke bomb in her hand.
An idea flashed through her mind. She put the ring of the smoke bomb on her finger, pressed the core container in her arms with her other hand, closed her eyes, and concentrated on directing a trace of energy from the core to the smoke bomb in her hand.
It was a risky endeavor and she had no idea what would happen.
The energy from her core was like a warm current, flowing along her arm to the smoke bomb.
The outer shell of the smoke bomb began to heat up, and the metal texture on it seemed to light up.
Without further hesitation, she pulled the ring and threw the smoke bomb forcefully toward the open space in the middle of the mall.
"puff--"
The smoke bomb did not explode, but instead spewed out large clouds of thick smoke.
But the smoke was not gray, but had a strange lavender glow.
The smoke spread quickly, instantly covering the entire shopping mall hall.
The drone probe outside was immediately disturbed, and the image transmitted back to the operator turned into a snowflake.
The moment the spider mutants came into contact with the purple smoke, they seemed to be scalded and retreated restlessly into the depths of the spider web, not daring to approach.
She succeeded. Su Wanqing took this opportunity, bent down, quickly walked through the mall along the wall, and got out from the gap at the other end.
After getting rid of the pursuit, she continued to move towards the signal tower. After walking for more than an hour, the jade bracelet on her wrist suddenly flashed an unusual light several times, not a warning red light, but a gentle white light, as if guiding the direction.
She followed the guidance of the jade bracelet, turned into an alley, and stopped in front of an abandoned pharmacy.
The basement entrance to the drugstore was carefully concealed by an overturned medicine cabinet.
She slid the cabinet aside with difficulty, revealing a staircase leading down to a small medical station with "Dawnwatch Site 17" scrawled on the wall in red spray paint.
There was no lock on the locker, and inside were several unopened first aid kits and several medicines of different colors. According to the labels, they were used to treat different variants of the virus.
At the bottom, she found a hand-drawn map. The map was very detailed, clearly marking the locations of several military outposts around the signal tower, and even marked a dotted line that was considered a safe infiltration route.
In an empty pill box beneath the medicine shelf, she found a hidden digital diary.
After opening it, there was only one record inside: "This is the third time. After each reset, there will always be a "residual memory" phenomenon among the survivors.
Some people dream of dying in different ways, and some can accurately predict certain small-scale events... The most terrifying thing is that after each reset, the mutants become more adaptable and intelligent, as if they also 'remembered' the lessons of the previous round..."
Su Wanqing closed the diary, and the multiple reincarnations that "Ye" had mentioned before seemed to no longer be groundless.
She put away the map and supplies and continued on her way. When she approached the area where the signal tower was located, a huge obstacle stood in front of her.
A giant crack one hundred meters wide split the city into two halves, and it was pitch black below the abyss.
The only way to get through was a half-collapsed suspension bridge in the distance. The bridge deck had broken, leaving a huge gap that could only be crossed by climbing the tilted steel cable structure.
What's worse, she saw through the telescope that there was obviously a temporary military outpost on the other side of the bridge, and several soldiers were swaying behind the bunker.
It was impossible to force his way in. Su Wanqing found a collapsed building as cover and waited patiently.
Time passed minute by minute until the sun set completely and darkness enveloped the entire city.
She touched the core in her arms and once again connected its energy with the jade bracelet on her wrist.
This time, she tried to create a visual distraction.
An invisible energy spread out from her. In the air in front of her, the light began to distort slightly, like the sun on a summer road.
In the dark of night, this distortion is enough to prevent the naked eye and basic optical equipment from focusing accurately at a distance.
She took a deep breath and stepped onto the crumbling bridge.
The steel structure beneath her feet made disturbing groans in the night wind. She had to take every step with extreme caution, as any loose steel plate could cause her to fall into the abyss.
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