Chapter 710 Who stole my corpse?!
Iron Claw stuck its head into the twisted and deformed driver's cab, its eyes wide, scanning it back and forth several times, even looking under the seat.
It was as if the "missing" corpse could shrink itself inside and play hide-and-seek with him.
No.
There isn't anywhere.
He jerked his head back, the hydraulic rod around his neck hissing softly, and the next second, his furious rage erupted as if it were a tangible force.
"no???"
"My car is still here! But where's my body?!"
With a deafening roar, four pairs of ferocious mechanical limbs behind him slammed wildly into the car in front of him.
The sounds of metal being snapped, torn, and crushed by immense force were incessant.
The roof was completely ripped off, the hood was torn apart, and the chassis frame was twisted into a pretzel with a piercing metallic groan...
In just over ten seconds, the entire car was reduced to a pile of smoky, scrap metal wreckage with parts scattered all over the ground.
They probably thought that this would shake the hidden corpses out.
"Where did my huge corpse go?!"
"I only walked for a short while, how come I only have two arms left?!"
Iron Claw stood amidst a pile of scrap metal, its white armored shell stained with oil and dark red bloodstains.
With his limited intelligence, even after racking his brains, he could deduce a conclusion that he believed to be correct—the body did not wander off on its own!
Because if the body walked away on its own, it would certainly not forget its own arm.
Therefore, there is only one truth!
"Who? Who stole my body?"
He whirled around, his heavy foot crushing the shards of car headlights beneath his feet. His savage eyes swept across the grass on either side of the road and the blurry horizon in the distance, as if a despicable corpse thief were lurking behind a blade of grass, chuckling to himself.
On the empty highway, a lost and angry roar echoed in solitude, but received no response.
The damp wind rustled through the grass, as if mocking it.
All that remained was a white spider-like creature, furiously raging at the empty car, which seemed both bizarre and inexplicably funny and comical.
Is it a lack of humanity, or a decline in morality...?
These days, people even steal a bloodied, mangled, and disfigured corpse?!
It's not like it's some unlocked secondhand bicycle lying on the street!
……
Let's rewind to five minutes ago.
To be more precise, it was 4 minutes and 44 seconds ago.
3.3 kilometers away from the Second Prison, a row of bungalows, half-hidden by waist-high weeds and low, thorny shrubs, lies on the edge of the city like a gray scar—desolate, dilapidated, and forgotten by most.
The outermost bungalow was so dilapidated that it looked like it could collapse at any moment.
The plaster on the courtyard wall had peeled off in large areas, revealing the uneven bricks underneath. Only one-tenth of the windows were still intact, and they were barely covered by broken wooden boards and dirty tarpaulins.
This is the temporary "nest" of the ten-person team from the Problem Solving Studio. The choice of this location was the result of precise calculations by the AI assistant, Xiaoyou.
3.3 kilometers is a delicate safety distance.
This is sufficient to ensure that the team can conduct remote surveillance and observation using high-tech equipment without making direct physical contact with the second prison, thus minimizing the risk of alerting the enemy.
At the same time, this distance is within the squad's rapid reaction radius.
Once a fleeting opportunity arises, the team members can react quickly and launch a precise ambush or interception on the only road leading to the Second Prison.
Inside the bungalow, the light was dim, and the air was filled with dust and a slight musty smell.
The team members each performed their duties, working silently and efficiently, like gears in a precision instrument.
"Environmental scan complete. No abnormal energy source found. No electromagnetic interference signal detected."
Three high-performance laptops were set up side by side in front of Xu Yingyan, their screens displaying constantly scrolling data streams and complex spectrum graphs, reflecting his focused face.
He was both the team's sniper and also served as a data analyst and hacker.
These days, even single-skilled individuals are finding it hard to find jobs, and even professional killers are becoming multi-skilled individuals.
"The drone array is in place, has passed self-test, and is ready to take off at any time."
Another team member in charge of equipment reported in a low voice.
Several drones coated with special radar-absorbing material were neatly arranged on the ground, along with several open metal boxes containing miniature reconnaissance units of various shapes and sizes.
Captain Zhang Shenyi stood calmly in the center of the room and gave the order:
"As planned, release the 'eyes' and 'sentinels'."
The team members near the window immediately took action. With a slight "buzzing" sound, several drones, like black manta rays that had been given life, nimbly slid out of the window one by one.
As soon as it takes off, the special coating on the surface of the fuselage interacts with the surrounding light environment and quickly enters "optical stealth" mode, making it almost invisible to the naked eye.
Unless it passes right in front of you at close range, an observer might only be able to see a fleeting, watermark-like ripple in the air.
Almost simultaneously, another team member dumped dozens of mechanical leeches, about the length of a finger joint and mottled with yellow and green, onto the mottled windowsill.
The mechanical leech's multiple pairs of segments began to sway with minimal amplitude, bouncing one after another like a real insect, and gracefully burrowed into the dense, messy grass outside the window, instantly blending into the natural environment.
Everything seemed to be proceeding according to plan, cautiously, efficiently, and professionally, fully reflecting the consistent style of the Relief Studio.
However, unsurprisingly, an accident occurred.
Before the swarm of stealthy drones even reached the airspace above the Second Prison, their high-definition wide-angle lenses captured a sudden and violent scene on the highway below.
"Captain! Something's happened!"
Xu Yingyan's voice suddenly rose, and his fingers flew across the keyboard, rapidly zooming in on one of the images on the screen.
Instantly, all the team members' eyes, including Zhang Shenyi's, focused on the screen.
On the screen is a live feed transmitted from a drone, viewed from an angle above:
On a desolate suburban road, a black limousine was parked crookedly, its front end severely caved in, and its hood twisted and warped, resembling an open, grotesque mouth.
Large splatters of dark red blood, not yet fully congealed, were sprayed on the car window, standing out starkly against the gray backdrop of the highway.
The scene seemed to freeze for a moment.
The next second!
"Bang—Boom!!"
The passenger-side door suddenly bulged out from the inside, deformed, and then spun out, crashing heavily onto the road in the distance, kicking up a cloud of dust.
Immediately afterwards, a strange white figure burst into the frame with a striking presence.
Its figure is roughly humanoid in shape, but the multiple pairs of arthropod-like mechanical auxiliary arms extending from its back make its overall shape resemble a... giant spider?
Humanoid torso + spider-like robotic arms + pure white body = white spider-human?!
The white spider's feet were planted on a person's chest. The two were thrown out of the wrecked car together, as if on a skateboard, and crashed heavily onto the asphalt road. They slid forward for a considerable distance, leaving a trail of blood.
The incident happened extremely quickly and abruptly; the drone didn't even have time to adjust its focus and angle for precise tracking and capture.
The white spider lifted the man, who seemed to be dead, with one hand, and then used its spider claws to tap the ground repeatedly, unleashing an astonishing jumping force. In a few leaps, it transformed into a blurry white shadow and quickly disappeared from the drone's field of vision.
From the moment the anomaly was detected to the moment the target disappeared, the entire process took no more than 3 seconds.
Throughout the entire encounter, the members of the Relief Studio were unable to see the white spider's front clearly; all they could see was its back, which resembled a steel spider.
The Relief Studio is certainly not naive enough to mistake this white spider for some kind of supernatural monster.
With just a fleeting glimpse of its back, they were able to tell that it was not a biological mutation, but a well-designed, complex, and powerful full-body exoskeleton armor.
Moreover, it is a very special design with a strong biomimetic appearance.
Generally, armor with such a highly realistic design is not a standard piece of equipment mass-produced on a production line; it is more likely a custom-made, privately manufactured piece.
The technological strength and resources behind it should not be underestimated.
Therefore, based on the images on the computer, all members of the Relief Studio were able to easily reconstruct the truth.
The story involves a cosplayer dressed as a "white spider" who attacked and killed people in a car on the highway, and also took away one of their "corpses".
Originally, the Relief Studio was not the type to meddle in other people's business.
The problem is that, coincidentally, the highway where the attack occurred is the only route from the city center to the Second Prison.
The crime scene was extremely close to the Second Prison.
It's so close that it's impossible not to make connections.
Given the cautious attitude and high level of professionalism demonstrated by the Relief Studio, it would be difficult for them to ignore a murder case that occurred "right at the target's doorstep," with unclear motives and unknown participants.
It's like another hunter, also armed and of unknown identity, suddenly barging into their carefully prepared hunting grounds where they were lying in wait.
It's difficult to guarantee that the other party's actions won't overlap with your own mission objectives.
Potential variables must be identified, assessed, and incorporated into tactical considerations as early as possible.
As the team leader, Zhang Shenyi immediately issued a series of clear instructions:
"Hawkeye, check the license plate information of that car first. I need to know who it belongs to."
"yes!"
Xu Yingyan responded immediately, his hands moving like afterimages across the keyboard as he hacked into the traffic management database.
"Chen Zhen!"
Zhang Shenyi turned to a lean, sharp-eyed teammate beside him and said,
"You are the fastest. Head to the scene immediately, check the situation inside the vehicle, and stay concealed to avoid encountering the target."
Chen Zhen, who was singled out, is the team's heavy firepower specialist and assault soldier. He is decisive and highly capable of taking action.
Without uttering any unnecessary words, he simply nodded and replied succinctly, "Understood!"
Before he finished speaking, he had already flipped over the outer wall like a wildcat, barely stirring up any dust when his feet landed.
Without pausing, he crouched low to the ground and sprinted toward the crime scene several kilometers away, his figure quickly disappearing into the swaying grass.
Less than a minute.
While Chen Zhen was still halfway there, Xu Yingyan had already obtained preliminary results. He looked up and reported quickly:
"Captain, we've found the license plate information. It's registered under the name of someone named Zhao Lu."
Preliminary investigations indicate that Zhao Lu is an employee of the government, but his specific position and department are protected by a high level of confidentiality.
Cracking into our portable devices will take time; it requires accessing deeper databases.
As he spoke, his fingers flew across the keyboard, quickly bringing up a new window on another screen.
"I simultaneously hacked into the external monitoring system of the Second Prison and found a record confirming that the car had parked at the main entrance of the Second Prison about seven minutes earlier."
This is the retrieved recording footage…..”
The government's internal system still has a fairly tight firewall, unlike the firewall of the Second Prison's network system, which is almost as flimsy as paper in front of Xu Yingyan, and is practically useless.
A surveillance video immediately popped up on the screen, with timestamps showing it had been playing just a short time ago.
In the footage, two men wearing the same work clothes can be clearly seen walking out of the gate of the second prison. One of them glanced back at the camera above the gate.
He had a somewhat gloomy look on his face. Then the two got into the car, started the engine, and drove away.
By quickly comparing facial features, it can be confirmed that the person who turned around was Zhao Lu, the vehicle's registered owner.
The timeline is so tightly connected that Zhao and Lu had just left the Second Prison and had driven a short distance when they were attacked by the "White Spider" on the highway.
The timing was too close, and the location was too sensitive.
While it cannot be definitively concluded, based on normal logic, the bloody attack that occurred "at the doorstep" of the Second Prison, targeting individuals who had just left the prison, is highly likely to be related to the Second Prison itself.
The attack may not have been carried out directly by the Second Prison, but the motive for the attack is very likely related to people or events within the Second Prison.
Almost simultaneously, Chen Zhen's deep voice came through the communication channel:
"Captain, I have arrived at the scene. No danger has been found. I am inspecting the vehicles."
Inside the bungalow, through live footage transmitted by the drone, everyone could see Chen Zhen cautiously approaching the wrecked car and then sticking his head into the car window.
The scene inside the car was even more horrific and bloody than what could be seen from above.
In the cramped space, there was splattered dark red blood everywhere, and the strong smell of blood seemed to be able to be smelled even through the screen.
The driver's and passenger's seats looked as if they had been soaked in blood, their leather surfaces a mess.
Two arms severed at the shoulder, and a severed hand, lay on the deformed leather chair, like carelessly discarded trash.
The only potentially valuable intelligence source inside the vehicle seems to be the male corpse in the driver's seat... his face smashed to pieces, his features disfigured, and both arms missing.
Observation and intelligence gathering were not Chen Zhen's forte. He did not dwell too much on the details of the scene, but instead unbuckled the body's seatbelt, swung it over his left shoulder, and carried it.
He didn't know if the body was valuable, but he decided to take it back first so the rest of the team could study it.
(End of this chapter)
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