Chapter 218 Meeting in the Tower
The iron chain of the manual elevator creaked under the heavy load, echoing in the narrow vertical passage.
Su Wanqing grabbed the cold railing and let this simple device drag her to the top of the tower little by little.
She was enveloped in darkness and mold, with only the faint light from the core container in her arms casting a swaying shadow on the iron wall.
The elevator stopped with a long "creak". In front of her was a heavy metal door with no handle but only a horizontal groove.
She tried to exert force, but the door didn't budge. She thought for a moment and put the jade bracelet on her wrist close to the groove.
A familiar blue light flashed, and there was a slight sound of a mechanism unlocking inside the door, which slowly slid open to the side.
The scene behind the door made her stop in her tracks. This was not the dusty equipment room she had imagined, but a completely remodeled, futuristic and complex center.
The cold metal walls and ceiling were covered with countless translucent blue optical cables, like the blood vessels of some giant creature, flickering rhythmically and turning the entire space into a deep sea blue.
In the center of the room is a circular platform where all the optical cables eventually converge.
A figure stood in the middle of the platform with his back to her. It was Lin Che.
Su Wanqing opened her mouth, but no sound came out. That was not the Lin Che she was familiar with.
A large number of blue lines similar to integrated circuits appeared on his skin, spreading from his neck to the back of his hands, flowing slowly like a living thing.
From time to time, his body would tremble slightly and involuntarily, as if two completely different consciousnesses were fighting fiercely for control within this body.
He turned around. That face was still Lin Che's, but his posture was full of a calm elegance that did not belong to him.
His eyes were emitting an unnatural glow that came from the same source as the blue optical cable.
“It’s finally here,” he said. His voice was Lin Che’s, but his tone belonged to Night. “It’s seventeen hours and twenty-three minutes later than I expected. I almost missed the final window of time.”
Su Wanqing clenched the core container in her arms and looked at him warily: "Who are you? Ye or Wayne?"
"You can call me 'Night' temporarily," he smiled and pointed at the flowing blue lines on his body. "As you can see, this is the inevitable rejection reaction caused by two consciousnesses coexisting in the same carrier. I need the third core you brought to separate me with its energy.
Otherwise, Lin Che's brain would be permanently damaged due to the unbearable load.
At the current rate of decay, we have less than six hours left.”
"Separation? I don't believe you." Su Wanqing rejected his words, "What is your relationship with the Orion Project? What exactly do you want to do by using Lin Che?"
When he heard the term "Orion Project", his expression did not change.
"What you see is just the tip of the iceberg." He walked towards the equipment in the center of the control room and ran his finger across the console.
Above the platform, a huge holographic projection was activated. What appeared on the screen was not the familiar ruins of the city, but a model of the entire earth.
The planet is shrouded in a strange, constantly distorting energy field.
"Viruses and mutations are just appearances." His voice echoed in the empty control room, "What we are experiencing is a larger-scale space-time anomaly.
This is already the third cycle. Each time we try to use the Time Loom to reset the timeline to correct the initial errors, it leads to new and more serious mutations and distortions.
On the holographic projection, the timeline evolves like a forked branch.
“After the first reset, there were base variants that spread across the world.
The second time, it gave rise to advanced mutants like the Lurker, which were able to simulate and think."
He raised his hand and pointed out the window. Su Wanqing followed his gaze and saw a morbid aurora-like light that had never been seen before appearing on the skyline of the city in the distance.
"This time, the border is collapsing, and fragments of different timelines have begun to merge disorderly. If the final repair cannot be completed within 72 hours, the entire space-time structure will completely collapse, and everything will be erased."
Su Wanqing was not shaken by his grand narrative. She stared at the occupied body. "Lin Che? Lin Che! Can you hear me?"
The moment she called out the name, the body on the platform trembled violently, and the light in those blue eyes flashed violently.
Lin Che's consciousness seemed to regain control in an instant. An extremely painful expression appeared on his face, and his voice was hoarse and hurried: "Wanqing, don't... don't listen to him! The core is not used to separate consciousness... He wants..."
Before he could finish his words, he bent over in pain, and the blue light once again occupied his eyes.
"Ye" forced himself to regain control. He held his forehead, breathed lightly, then straightened up, and his face regained that elegance.
"See? The remaining fragments of his consciousness are just a collection of disordered emotions. They will only interfere with the final plan."
He straightened his collar, walked towards Su Wanqing, and stretched out his hand with his palm facing up.
"Give me the core," he said in an unquestionable tone, "Trust me, Su Wanqing, this is the only way.
Otherwise, everything will happen again like the previous two times, and we will all die meaninglessly. Including you and Lin Che. "
As he spoke, the hand he extended was trembling slightly unnaturally, and his eyes flickered rapidly between calmness and struggling pain.
It's like two souls trapped in the same cage, fighting through the same skin in a way that mortals cannot understand.
Just as Su Wanqing was confronting him and thinking about the truth in his words, the communicator on her waist suddenly made a rapid "beeping" sound.
It’s Xiao Ran’s emergency communication.
"Wanqing! Can you hear me?" Xiao Ran's voice was fast and urgent. "Lu Zhao and I have already broken through and are coming to support you! Xiao Ling's blood analysis results are out. The mutant virus in her body can resonate with the energy core. She is the 'key' to open a certain device! The military obviously knows this and is hunting her down at all costs! What's more troublesome is that the mutants in the entire city are behaving abnormally. They... they are all moving towards the signal tower!"
After hearing the content of the communication, "Ye"'s expression changed subtly. He withdrew his hand and frowned slightly.
"It seems that the plan must be advanced."
Before he finished speaking, he turned around and pressed an inconspicuous hidden button on the console.
The entire signal tower emitted a dull roar and began to vibrate slightly.
Su Wanqing looked out through the huge floor-to-ceiling windows. The camouflaged structure on the outside of the tower was peeling off and deforming layer by layer, revealing the energy collection device hidden underneath, which was like a giant skeleton.
At the bottom of the tower, military armored vehicles and troops were gathering rapidly, with their black gun muzzles pointed at the tower.
And from all directions of the city, on the streets, and between buildings, countless mutants are gathering into black waves, roaring towards the signal tower.
A chaotic three-way melee is about to break out.
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