Chapter 224 Separate Actions
He paused and added, "It is agreed that whichever team finds the core first must contact the other teams through the public channel as soon as possible. As for the final ownership of the core, we will discuss it after this crisis is resolved."
This plan took into account the urgent needs of all parties, and Lieutenant Cui had no reason to refuse it.
He nodded: "Okay. I will give you access to some military vehicles."
After saying this, he said no more, immediately turned around and gave new orders to the remaining soldiers, preparing to lead the team to evacuate.
While the military personnel were hastily mobilized, the "monk" walked over to Su Wanqing and squatted down to check on Lin Che's condition.
He took out a thumb-sized bottle made of some kind of amber from his wide monk robe, unscrewed the cap, carefully poured out a few drops of golden liquid, and smeared it on the charred wound on Lin Che's chest.
As soon as the liquid touched the skin, it was quickly absorbed, just like water drops on a hot iron plate.
Lin Che's chest, which had almost stopped moving, began to rise and fall slightly. Although his breathing was still weak, it had finally become a little steadier.
"This is the essence of life that has been soaked in time," the monk said in a low voice, "It can temporarily delay the failure of his organs, but it can only last for two hours at most."
He stood up, and before joining Xiao Ran, he said to Su Wanqing alone: "Xiao Ran and I will go after Night, because he is the only one among us who knows the real purpose of that person. Remember, no matter what you see or hear after you find the core, don't believe it completely. This is the third reincarnation, and the rules may have changed."
Su Wanqing thought about the deeper meaning of this sentence, but Lin Che's gradually deteriorating condition left her no time to think about it.
In the square under the signal tower, a military modified off-road vehicle has been started.
Lu Zhao carefully placed Lin Che in the back seat, and Su Wanqing followed closely behind him and reached out to hold Lin Che's cold hand.
Lu Zhao sat in the driver's seat, the vehicle let out a low roar, and quickly drove away from the eye of the storm.
The city scene outside the car window made Su Wanqing feel unfamiliar. Visible to the naked eye, tiny purple particles were floating in the air, flashing strange lights under the street lights.
The metal exterior walls of some buildings were covered with layers of irregular crystals, as if they had been splashed with strong acid.
There were almost no pedestrians on the street. Occasionally there were a few people walking in a hurry, covering their mouths and noses with cloth and walking quickly with their heads down.
Along the way, they passed several temporary checkpoints set up by the military and cordoned off areas.
"After the energy burst on top of the signal tower, the military issued a special martial law order."
Lu Zhao explained as he drove, "Most of the citizens were evacuated to the old air raid shelters underground. But after the three cores were scattered, the speed at which the radiation spread exceeded everyone's expectations, and the mutation was accelerated as a result."
He pointed to the purple particles floating outside the window and said, "Scientists call this 'time dust'. If you inhale too much, the local time flow rate in your body will become abnormal.
In mild cases, it may just be the rapid aging of the skin on the arms or face; in severe cases, the entire person will completely disappear from the flow of time, as if they had never existed. "
At this moment, a noisy electric sound came from the portable communicator that Lu Zhao placed aside. It was Xiao Ran's intermittent report.
"Industrial area... the mutants here... their action patterns have completely changed... they seem to be... building some kind of structure... 'Night' seems to be able to control them... we... we are forced to retreat temporarily and observe..." Violent explosions could be clearly heard in the background of the communication, mixed with the low chanting of the "monk", and the situation sounded very critical.
Then, the channel switched, and Lieutenant Cui's brief voice interrupted: "The subway system has been flooded, the core is at the deepest point, and we are preparing to dive in.
Xiao Ling is in an abnormal state. She can directly touch the core energy without any harm... I repeat, that girl can directly touch the core without any harm. This information is crucial. "
Lu Zhao frowned slightly and turned off the communication. "The three messages can be linked together.
Night controls mutants to build things in the industrial zone, Xiaoling can safely access the core in the subway, and the one we are about to find causes the surrounding plants to mutate. "
Before he finished speaking, the navigation system screen of the off-road vehicle flickered a few times and went completely black.
The sky ahead was like a stretched curtain, with the clouds showing an unnatural distortion.
What's worse is that the originally wide road was completely blocked by a large number of mutated plants.
The vines were as thick as giant pythons, coiled on the road. The flowers on the vines were as big as human heads. In the center of the flowers was an eyeball-like structure that slowly rotated as their vehicle approached.
"It's too late to take a detour." Lu Zhao suddenly turned the steering wheel and stopped the car on the side of the road.
“The core should be in the central area of the shopping mall in front, but these plants… they seem to be protecting something.”
He turned off the engine, opened the back door, and carried Lin Che on his back.
Su Wanqing also got out of the car and looked at the squirming plants warily.
"Let's go!"
Just as they were about to move forward on foot, a huge vine closest to them suddenly straightened up and whipped towards them with a sound of breaking through the air.
Su Wanqing subconsciously raised her arm to block, and the jade bracelet on her wrist emitted a faint light in response.
An unexpected scene occurred. The moment the fierce vines came into contact with the light, they suddenly shrank back as if they had touched a red-hot iron, and even caused the surrounding plants to retreat, leaving a narrow passage for only two people to pass through.
[Core resonance detected.] [About 350 meters from target.] [Warning: The anchor core energy reserve is insufficient, and the defense function can only be maintained for a limited time.] The light of the jade bracelet opened a passage for them through the creeping plant wall.
Lu Zhao carried Lin Che on his back, followed closely behind Su Wanqing, and stepped into the open door of the shopping mall.
Inside the door, there was no ruin as expected. Instead, it was transformed into a huge biological cave.
The ceiling and walls were covered with moss that emitted a faint green light, making the entire space look mysterious.
The ground was covered with tangled vines, soft yet tough to step on.
The boutiques that once displayed luxury goods have now become huge "flower rooms". Translucent capsules filled with unknown viscous liquid hang from the ceiling and sway slightly as they enter.
Visible spores floated in the air, carrying a sweet, corrupt smell.
Whenever they approached, the surrounding plants would vibrate slightly in unison, as if some kind of silent alarm was being transmitted through the network.
What made Su Wanqing's throat tighten even more was that on some thick vines, there were flowers that looked like human faces, with distorted facial features and slightly open and closed lips, as if they were breathing silently, or whispering some incomprehensible curse.
"These things... are weird." Lu Zhao's voice was deep. He took out a handheld detector from his backpack. Complex bioelectric waveforms flashed on the screen.
"These plants have been completely transformed by the radiation from the core. They are no longer independent individuals, but through their roots and spores in the air, they form a huge collective intelligent network that is purposefully reconstructing the building."
He pointed with his chin at the ceiling, where dense vines were interconnected, and their arrangement was indeed somewhat similar to a complex integrated circuit diagram.
"They're turning this into a... biological computing structure."
Su Wanqing didn't respond, she just raised her wrist and took a look.
Although the light of the jade bracelet can repel plants, the light seems to dim with every few meters it moves forward.
[Warning: Energy reserve reduced to 8%. It is recommended to connect to the core as soon as possible.] The system's prompt sounded in her mind at the right time, making her already heavy heart sink even more.
They carefully went up to the food area on the second floor. The scene here was even more horrifying.
A huge translucent bubble with a diameter of more than five meters was suspended in the air, with more than a dozen human remains floating inside.
Countless tiny, fluorescent vines stretched out from the cyst wall and connected to the skin, joints, and even the heads of the remains, as if slowly decomposing and absorbing them.
Lu Zhao stopped, moved closer to observe carefully, and his face turned ugly.
“They’re not just decomposing the body, they’re reading the information.
You see, these vines primarily connect the nervous system and bones.
These plants...are analyzing the structure of human DNA, studying our makeup.”
He pointed to another row of smaller vesicles nearby. "Look at the arrangement there. They have extracted enough information. I'm afraid they are trying to 'copy' or 'imitate' some biological characteristics of us humans."
Su Wanqing's stomach churned. She looked at one of the remains, and the person was still wearing a security uniform.
At this moment, a human-faced flower next to the vesicle suddenly turned around, and the pair of "eyes" made of petals stared straight at her.
Its lips moved, and a creepy complete sentence composed of friction and airflow came out:
"Anchor...point...come...to..."
The sound was not loud, but it was like a stone thrown into a calm lake.
In an instant, the plants in the entire shopping mall produced a violent chain reaction. The brightness of the fluorescent moss on the walls increased sharply, the density of spores in the air suddenly increased, and there was even a violent flash of purple light coming from the direction of the central square in the distance.
The entire plant network was activated and entered a state of high alert.
"Oh no! They recognized you!" Lu Zhao growled immediately, "We must act immediately. If we delay any further, we may not even have a chance to get close to the core!"
They no longer hesitated and quickened their pace to rush towards the circular corridor on the third floor.
From there, you can overlook the central square of the entire shopping mall.
When they looked down while holding the railing, they finally saw the destination of their trip.
A fist-sized crystalline core emitting a steady purple light was suspended five meters above the square, rotating slowly.
And the scene directly below the core was even more speechless. Countless of the thickest vines extended from all directions, coiling and weaving below the core, forming a "throne" with an extremely complex structure and full of precise geometric beauty.
The throne rose and fell slowly as if it had life, but there was no one on it.
The entire structure is like a huge transformation device waiting for the arrival of the monarch. Every few minutes, some of the vines that make up the throne will adjust their positions and change their angles on their own, as if they are adjusting invisible parameters.
Just as Su Wanqing and Lu Zhao were thinking about how to get through the fully activated plants below and approach the core, she felt the temperature of Lin Che's hand dropping rapidly.
She suddenly lowered her head and saw that Lin Che's skin had turned a lifeless gray. She hurriedly placed her fingers on his carotid artery, but the pulse there was so weak that it was almost unnoticeable.
[Warning: Host's vitality has dropped to 7%. Estimated survival time is less than 15 minutes.] The system's prompt sounded as cold as a needle, piercing Su Wanqing's brain.
"We don't have time." Lu Zhao obviously noticed Lin Che's change. His voice was decisive and urgent. "They have set up a dragnet. It will be too slow to force our way through."
He carefully handed Lin Che from his back to Su Wanqing, then took out several palm-sized flat metal devices from his backpack.
“I will divert the main attention of this plant network. You must take this opportunity to rush directly to the core with Lin Che.”
He activated the devices one by one, and blue indicator lights lit up.
"According to my analysis, these plants have a special reaction to you, most likely because of your identity as a 'human anchor'. This is a risky move, but we have to take a gamble, otherwise Lin Che will surely die."
He stuffed one of the devices into Su Wanqing's hand.
"These are military-grade electromagnetic pulse bombs. They should temporarily disrupt their bioelectric signals and create chaos."
"Get started!" As soon as Lu Zhao's voice fell, several dull explosions came from where he was.
A dazzling blue light flashed in several corners of the second-floor corridor, and then the entire shopping mall's huge network of plants seemed to be thrown into boiling water and instantly fell into a violent spasm.
The bioelectric light that had been flickering regularly became chaotic, countless vines twitched randomly, and those human-face-shaped flowers made a harsh friction sound.
Lu Zhao successfully attracted their main force.
Su Wanqing no longer hesitated. She hugged Lin Che, whose heartbeat was almost imperceptible, and pushed the last rays of light from the jade bracelet on her wrist to the extreme.
A soft but firm light curtain opened in front of her, pushing the madly squirming plant wall open to create a narrow passage that was only wide enough for one person to pass through.
She rushed down the railing and headed straight for the central square.
The vines under his feet twisted and rolled under the pressure of the light curtain, making hissing sounds in protest.
The liquid in the suspended translucent vesicles on both sides began to boil violently, and some vague human-shaped outlines struggled and took shape in the mucus, as if this huge biological network was trying to urgently create a "stand-in" to intercept her.
[Warning: Energy reserve is critical, the jade bracelet protection will be completely ineffective in 30 seconds.] The cold system prompt sound flashed in her mind. Su Wanqing gritted her teeth, hugged Lin Che in her arms tighter, and walked a little faster.
Twenty meters, ten meters, five meters...the floating core emitting a stable purple light was right in front of him.
Just as her fingertips were about to touch the cold surface of the core, a cold voice came from above.
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