**……**
The 28th hour of the black fog invasion.
Inside the sealed metal cage, time lost its meaning, leaving only the monotonous and stubborn hum of the air conditioner, like the final countdown of life.
Xiao Jin remained seated cross-legged, like a cold sculpture.
The tablet had been returned to the space at some point. Even with the air conditioning on, sweat continued to seep out, gather, and flow inside Xiao Jin's protective suit, causing a sticky and uncomfortable feeling.
Just then, Xiao Jin opened his eyes and looked through his helmet at the blue light screen in front of him.
[Player's current erosion level: 8.7%]
Yes, the degree of corruption on Xiao Jin's body has changed.
It began to grow at an extremely slow rate, jumping up by 0.01% every few minutes.
The protective suits ultimately failed to completely isolate the toxins in the black fog.
It is being seeped in, like the strongest dam being eroded bit by bit by the all-pervasive tide of death, creating tiny cracks.
But this slow rise was the limit she could achieve by sparing no expense and arming herself to the teeth.
The air inside the room had already been determined to be highly toxic, so Xiao Jin had already connected the oxygen cylinder tubing.
With an erosion level of less than 10%, she was far from reaching the threshold where she would need to use the purification serum, but the other players were not so lucky.
They don't have the cheating methods that Xiao Jin possesses.
From the scarred, burly man's room came a muffled growl, like that of a wounded wild beast.
His massive body was huddled in the corner, his heavy protective suit torn in several places by his own brute force, revealing black lines on his skin that seemed to writhe like living creatures.
An empty purification serum syringe was inserted into his thick arm. The dark blue liquid was fighting fiercely against the corrosive black mist in his veins, causing excruciating pain, but it had temporarily stopped the rapid increase in the rate of corrosion.
At this moment, the burly player's erosion percentage panel displays a glaring 27.3%.
"Damn, something's not right!" The burly player gasped for breath, his head covered in sweat.
His erosion level had risen to higher values before, but it was never nearly as difficult as this time. Could it be because of the black mist?
At the same time, the burly player wasn't the only one who thought of this.
The Black-Armored Man, Yu Liu, the Mage, the Bandaged Boy, and the Shadow Mouse, along with the other players, all realized something was wrong, and their faces turned extremely grim.
On the other side, the fox woman's room was filled with a strange, sweet fragrance with a purifying aura. It was the smoke produced by the burning of her special props, which barely resisted the pervasive poison gas.
But her beautiful face was now completely bloodless, her exquisite makeup was smudged with sweat, the veins on her forehead throbbed slightly, and her fingertips trembled uncontrollably.
She had just injected herself with her second vial of serum, and the erosion level had been stabilized at a difficult 15.8%, at the cost of the serum stored in the space decreasing at a visible rate.
"No, it's only been a day." The fox woman bit her lip. "It will get harder as it goes on. I'm afraid we won't have enough serum. I have to think of a way."
Shadow Mouse's room was deathly silent, as if no one was there.
However, if a skilled observer were present, they would be able to detect a chaotic and rapid aura emanating from the deepest shadow in the corner, like that of a wounded venomous snake.
Shadow Mouse has almost no physical protection; he relies on his unpredictable movements and some kind of shadow-friendly prop.
At this moment, the item's light had dimmed to its lowest point, and the erosion rate of [22.1%] resembled a deadly will-o'-the-wisp in the darkness.
above.
Despair, like a tangible black fog, not only permeated the public areas of the base but also seeped into the small spaces where every player depended on for survival.
They used every means at their disposal, consuming precious serum, just to prolong their lives a little longer in this ultimate black tide that would annihilate everything.
---
The 36th hour since the black fog descended.
The players' erosion levels were managed to be kept at 50%, and Xiao Jin's reached 30%.
The other players were running low on serum, while Xiao Jin still had quite a bit. The atmosphere around them began to become restless, and some people finally couldn't resist and decided to go out to find more serum.
As for whether the target is a player or an NPC, it's definitely an NPC.
Players will not go to war with each other at such a critical moment unless there is absolutely no other way.
Deep within the base, the air was as stagnant as solidified corpse oil.
The passageway, once filled with cries, curses, and desperate prayers, is now silent—a slow, viscous, deathly stillness.
The NPCs who were still "alive" huddled in their own filthy corners, like skin bags that had been stripped of their bones.
They covered their mouths tightly, their fingernails digging into the festering flesh of their cheeks, using their last bit of strength to suppress the churning, bloody itching in their throats.
cough?
no.
If discovered, it means being dragged away, just like those who never returned.
In the previous 36 hours, critically ill patients were being taken away from time to time.
At first, they thought they were taking people out for treatment, but as more and more people were taken away, the others realized what was going on.
They huddled in the corner in fear, desperately suppressing the coughs in their throats.
It's not that they didn't want to resist, but that they didn't even have the strength to resist.
Some people started to develop fevers, becoming delirious and disoriented. Meanwhile, the isolation room in the warehouse gradually became too full to hold any more people.
The quarantine zone, or rather, that huge warehouse reeking of a strong stench, was already beyond its capacity.
The smell seeping from the crack in the door was no longer that of disinfectant, but a sweet, nauseating stench of rotting entrails, excrement, pus, and despair.
Living people, half-dead people, and people who have just breathed their last were haphazardly stuffed in like tattered sacks, layer upon layer, squeezed together.
The warm corpse clung to the feverish, burning-hot living person, festering wounds stained with the clothes of those around them. This was no longer the human world; it was hell's cesspool on earth.
Finally, with no other option, the base commander ordered it to be disinfected and incinerated.
The flames roared inside the incinerator, and the thick chimney spewed out thick smoke carrying grayish-white ashes and the smell of burnt flesh, like a dying python futilely trying to devour this endless death.
Each time the furnace door opens heavily, it means that another truckload of "garbage" is shoveled in.
The soldiers responsible for carrying the load had blank stares and mechanical movements; the skin exposed beneath their gas masks also faintly revealed an ominous bluish-gray hue.
But just now, something even more despairing happened.
Inside the command room, the air was thick with the smell of illness and the heat of a high fever. The base commander lay on the bed, his once sharp eyes now cloudy and sunken in dark blue sockets.
Each of her breaths was a hissing sound like a broken bellows, her cheeks were covered with a spiderweb of dark purple veins, and there seemed to be something alive wriggling under her skin.
She didn't even have the strength to lift a finger, let alone control the giant ship that was sinking into a swamp of corpses.
The vacuum of power breeds the most toxic mold.
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