Chapter 35
The sound of the helicopter's rotors, like the drumbeat of death, rumbled in from the sky, tearing through the eerie silence of the swamp. The air currents pressed down, blowing the scorched earth, still warm after Chu Li's departure, and also stirring Chen Mengzhou's messy hair.
Shen Mengzhou lay unconscious, his consciousness drifting in endless darkness and excruciating pain. Shattered internal organs, a drained power core, nearly scorched skin... the aura of death was as thick as substance.
Yet, amidst this utter silence and devastation, a cool, strangely vital energy, like melting snow in early spring, silently seeped into her nearly extinguished life. This energy, gentle yet unstoppable, precisely nourished her most fundamental spatial power core, stimulating a startling surge of vitality.
The broken parts began to itch, new flesh sprouted under the eschar, and the dried-up meridians were refilled with a weak but tenacious flow of energy.
Is it the residual effect of the blue crystal? Or...
Before I could think about it, an even stronger stimulation came from my chest!
It was not a healing energy, but a cold, sharp, pulling feeling that seemed to pierce the soul!
"Well--!"
Shen Mengzhou suddenly inhaled a breath of scorching air, choking and coughing, as she was forcibly pulled back to reality from her deep coma! Intense pain instantly swept through her body, but even more distinct than the pain was the familiar feeling and throbbing brought by the hard object in her chest, which almost made her heart stop beating!
She lowered her head with difficulty.
Blurred vision and difficulty focusing.
But the ancient compass lying quietly on her charred combat uniform, spinning madly and emitting a deep black light, was engraved in her eyes like a brand!
This is……? !
The brain felt like it was hit by a sledgehammer, with countless broken, chaotic, and deeply buried fragments of memory surging wildly!
[…A cold laboratory…a flickering data stream…a figure in a white coat…took the compass from her hand…"We need it for timing calibration…it's for the greater good…"…cold restraints…helpless anger…] […"The Key of Kronos"…it guides…it also locks…] […standard equipment for the "Anchor Point"…sadly…you no longer need it…"]
Her head felt like it was exploding with pain! Those fragments of memory were like shards of glass, cutting her nerves!
This thing... this thing is...!
She stretched out her hand suddenly, trying to grab the compass, but her fingertips were too weak and trembling to hold on tightly.
Just then!
Buzz——!!!
The spatial ability that had just revived within her body seemed to be strongly attracted by some characteristic of the compass, and it actually boiled uncontrollably! It resonated violently with the madly spinning needle!
At the same time, a helicopter was hovering in the sky, and the huge searchlight beam suddenly locked onto him like the Eye of Judgment!
"Target S-07 detected! Life signal weak! Repeat, target detected!" "Ground forces surround! Prepare to capture!"
A loudspeaker roared from above. Ropes were dropped, and the fully armed scavenger soldiers began to rapidly descend!
It’s over!
Shen Mengzhou's heart sank! She had just woken up and was completely powerless to fight against an entire scavenger team!
In this desperate moment——
The black compass on her chest seemed to be stimulated by the energy resonance between the two sides and the imminent threat from the outside, and suddenly burst out with an unprecedented dark light!
The distorted symbols on the compass surface lit up one by one, and the madly spinning needle suddenly stopped! It wasn't pointing in a certain direction, but straight... at herself!
No! It wasn't directed at her! It was directed at the boiling spatial energy within her body!
Buzz!!!
An extremely tiny, yet extremely deep black hole-like singularity appeared above the compass without any warning!
The irresistible and terrifying suction force erupted instantly!
Instead of absorbing matter, it madly devours the surrounding space itself!
The light was distorted, the sound disappeared, and even the beam of the helicopter's searchlight was pulled and sucked into that tiny singularity!
The scavenger soldiers who were gliding down were horrified to find that the space around them had become sticky and stagnant. Their movements slowed to a snail's pace, as if they were stuck in an invisible quagmire! The helicopter's rotors also began to swing erratically, as if being pulled by an invisible giant hand!
"Space-time anomaly! Gravitational distortion! Retreat! Retreat quickly!" The helicopter pilot screamed in terror.
Shen Mengzhou, who was directly below the singularity, felt the strongest sensation! She felt like she was about to be torn apart by this terrifying force!
But just when she thought she was about to be completely annihilated, the compass suddenly changed direction!
The devouring power instantly transformed into a violent thrust! A projectile force that distorted time and space, pointing to an unknown distance!
"No--!"
Chen Mengzhou only had time to let out a short cry of surprise before she and the scorched earth fragments beneath her were instantly "ejected" from the spot!
It's not high-speed movement! It's spatial displacement!
At that moment, her body seemed to be stretched into an infinitely long line, and then compressed back to its original shape in an instant!
The scene before my eyes flickered, shattered, and reassembled wildly!
Swamps, scorch pits, helicopters, scavenger soldiers... everything disappeared in an instant!
Bang!
She fell heavily on the hard ground. The huge impact made her spit out blood again and almost fainted.
The world was spinning, and all my internal organs seemed to have shifted.
There was dead silence in my ears.
The roar of helicopters, the shouts of soldiers, the hiss of energy...all disappeared.
There was only the rustling of wind through some kind of hard leaves, and... the smell of dry, dusty air.
She struggled to raise her head.
What was before my eyes was no longer a radioactive swamp filled with the smell of corruption.
Instead, it was a boundless, deadly desert that glowed palely under the blood-red moonlight.
The endless sea of gravel and sand, the twisted dead trees like ghost claws reaching towards the sky, and the dark silhouettes of mountains in the distance.
Where is this...?
That compass...actually teleported her to such a distant place?!
She sat up with difficulty and looked around. It was absolutely desolate, with no trace of human activity.
Safe...for now?
She lowered her head and looked at the black compass that she still held tightly in her hand.
At this moment, the compass has returned to calm, the dim light is restrained, and the pointer is motionless, as if the earth-shaking distortion of time and space just now has nothing to do with it.
But the hand that Chen Mengzhou held it in was trembling slightly.
Fragments of memory still clash in my mind.
The Key of Kronos... a standard item for anchor points... once belonged to her... and was taken away again...
Chu Li...why did she have this? What did she mean by "returning the property to its original owner"?
This compass, is it the "gift" she mentioned?
A "gift" that can detonate time and space and conduct random teleportation over ultra-long distances?
Chen Mengzhou looked at the strange compass, without any joy of being rescued in his heart, only deeper cold and fog.
Chu Li's identity, her relationship with Kronos, her complicated attitude towards herself... everything seems even more confusing.
And what kind of past and future does the familiarity and throbbing between me and this compass, which comes from the depths of my soul, indicate?
She took a deep breath of the dry, cold air and forced herself to calm down.
Whatever the truth, she is still alive and has temporarily escaped her pursuers.
That's enough.
The most urgent task was to deal with the injuries, adapt to the sudden increase in strength (Chu Li's mental nourishment had a significant effect), and figure out where he was.
She carefully kept the strange compass close to her body. This thing could be a life-saving trump card, but it could also be a deadly bomb.
She identified the direction and chose to walk towards the silhouette of the distant mountains. In the Gobi Desert, mountains often indicate the possibility of water sources or shelter.
His steps were still weak, but the new strength in his body was quickly supporting his broken body.
New wilderness, new unknowns, new mysteries.
The hunter's journey never stops.
But this time, there was a mysterious "gift" from her "daughter" in her bag.
As for the distant ruins of S-114, the Foundation and the scavengers probably won't give up.
The storm is still gathering.
Continue read on readnovelmtl.com
