The setting sun, like blood, stained the exposed steel and concrete outside the safe house a rusty color. Lu Zhaoming's tactical boots crunched over broken glass, making a teeth-grinding sound. He moved close to the mottled concrete wall, his left hand resting on the hilt of the high-frequency particle knife at his waist—a knife he had traded for three doses of anti-radiation medication on the black market in District Seven three months ago.
The red light at the entrance to the safe house pulsed like a living thing, casting flickering light on the scattered gas masks and bullet casings. Lu Zhaoming suddenly noticed that the metal surfaces, which should have been rusted, were covered with fine ice crystals, which refracted an eerie purple glow under the red light. His Adam's apple bobbed, and as he swallowed, he tasted a metallic metallic flavor rising in his throat, unsure whether it was the smell of radioactive dust or cold sweat soaking through his radiation mask.
"System, initiate full-band scan." His deliberately lowered voice muffled within the mask, and twelve flashing green dots lit up the edge of the tactical goggles—those were electromagnetic mines buried three hundred meters away. When the red light flashed for the third time at a specific frequency, the goggles suddenly burst open with a glaring red warning frame.
The retinal projection began to pulsate wildly, and Lu Zhaoming felt a throbbing pain in his temples. He saw the energy reading leap from the safe zone's blue to a blinding crimson within three seconds, the monitoring curve fluctuating violently like a madman's electrocardiogram. "This is impossible..." His knuckles turned white from the excessive force, and the fibers of his tactical glove made a faint tearing sound. "The radioactive dust storm in Sector Seven only subsided last week, this level of energy..."
"Warning! Biomorphic electromagnetic field resonance detected." The system's mechanical voice unusually carried an electrical noise. "Referring to Chapter 4, Rule 7 of the 'Doomsday Survival Handbook,' immediate evacuation to a Level 2 shelter is recommended."
Lu Zhaoming's pupils suddenly contracted. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw the ice crystals eerily suspended in the red light, assembling into a three-dimensional structure resembling a neural network. Memories flashed through the fog like lightning—the holographic projection he had seen three months ago in the underground laboratory of District Six, those forbidden creations known as the "Seeds of Cthulhu," were emitting the same sweet, metallic scent.
"Qin Wan'er, you poisonous woman!" He kicked a metal can at his feet, sending it crashing against the wall with a sharp, mournful sound. Cold sweat trickled down his spine and soaked into his bulletproof vest, chilling him to the bone. "They said 'the safe house has three months' worth of supplies,' they were just using me as a sacrifice!"
A strange tremor suddenly came from the ground. Lu Zhaoming staggered and grabbed the wall for support, discovering that the concrete his palm was touching was transforming into some kind of tumor-like tissue. The AR interface of his tactical goggles began to distort, and he saw black noise suddenly appear on his vital signs monitoring bar—something that had never happened even at the epicenter of a nuclear explosion.
"System! Activate electromagnetic pulse..." Before the words were finished, the entire wall suddenly exploded. Lu Zhaoming was thrown three meters by the blast wave, his back slamming heavily onto the rusty armored vehicle. He heard that he had broken at least three ribs, but the surge of adrenaline temporarily masked the pain.
In the chaos, he saw red light condense into a vortex five meters in diameter. The suspended ice crystals transformed into billions of eerie blue pupils, constantly opening and closing on the surface of the vortex. A whisper beyond human comprehension exploded directly in his brain, and blood began to flow from his nose.
"The judge... has finally... found the container..."
Lu Zhaoming struggled to pull out the electromagnetic pulse generator, only to find that the drops of blood dripping from between his fingers had congealed into an inverted cross in mid-air. He roared and ripped open the collar of his protective suit, revealing a dark red ouroboros tattoo on his neck—a mark that had mysteriously appeared last month when he hunted the mutated giant lizard.
"Want a container, huh?" He grinned maliciously as he pressed the pulse switch, blue-white arcs of electricity exploding around him. "Try this!"
The moment the electromagnetic storm collided with the red light, the entire space resembled a photograph thrown into a shredder. Lu Zhaoming saw his left arm begin to pixelate, and the shattered lenses of his tactical goggles floated in front of him, each reflecting a golden vertical pupil slowly opening from the depths of the vortex.
"Biomagnetic field synchronization rate 92%...95%..." The system alarm sounded intermittently, "Immediate shutdown recommended..."
"Shut up!" Lu Zhaoming rolled away from a spatial rift that grazed his ear, tearing off the Glory Bullet hanging on his chest. "If I'm going to die, I'll take some souvenirs with me!" His fingers trembled as he bit open the safety pin, but not from fear—those golden vertical pupils were injecting a kind of fanatical fighting spirit into his veins.
The vortex suddenly contracted into a singularity like a black hole. Lu Zhaoming heard his bones groan as if they were about to burst under the strain, and saw his shadow stretched into a monstrous form with twelve tentacles. In the instant before his consciousness faded, he vaguely saw Qin Wan'er standing on the ruins a hundred meters away, the hem of her scarlet cheongsam covered with the same nerve veins as the vortex.
"So you're one too..." He coughed up blood and laughed, slamming the grenade into his tactical belt. "Then let's go to hell together!"
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