Chapter 149 Submission is like a bizarre ritual
Aaaaaah!
Tang Lan had no time to react. The moment it was bitten, BEAM-752-1's body suddenly stiffened, its eyes rolled back, and it began to convulse violently as if it had encountered some kind of invisible electric current.
The snake slid down from half a meter away from Tang Lan's arm and hit the cold ground with a dull "thud".
It sounds soft and squishy.
Tang Lan watched in disbelief as the snake, which should have been tearing at the ground, completely lost its aggression within seconds. It curled up into a ball, its forked tongue weak and powerless, its scales scraping against the tiles with a scratching sound like fingernails, much like a dying moan.
Yu Qi did not hesitate and fired a shot.
Bang!
The bullet exploded through the snake's skull, splattering foul-smelling blood everywhere.
The snake's tail twitched twice, then it completely lost its life.
However, this shot appears to have triggered a chain reaction.
In the dimly lit corridor, the other lurking anomalies simultaneously emitted a low, eerie hiss. As if under the "command" of some ritual, their bodies stiffened, convulsed, and their eyes rolled back. Their movements gradually slowed; their previously frantically biting mouths closed, and their sharp teeth, dripping with black saliva, no longer opened.
Those things, one after another, curled up, knelt down, and pressed close to the ground, as if forced to participate in some ancient ritual.
Then, it stopped moving.
Tang Lan cocked his gun.
But the abnormal beings did not become agitated upon hearing the sound of gunfire.
Suddenly became very... obedient?
Yu Qi took a breath and heard a loud bang as a door was broken down at the end of the corridor.
The next second, the door was suddenly kicked open.
Yu Qi looked up and saw a familiar yet unfamiliar figure.
Sang Li?!
In Yu Qi's memory, she should be a petite and cute girl with crescent-shaped eyes when she smiles, always carrying a bit of childishness and innocence.
But now, she was covered in blood, her long hair wet and clinging to her face, as if she had just come out of hell.
His breathing was rapid, and his eyes were cold.
She stood there in the dim light and shadow of the stairwell, her whole body shrouded in shadow.
The moment Sang Li appeared, all the anomalies in the corridor trembled simultaneously.
A nauseating sound rang out.
Their eyes darted around, fixed intently on Sang Li's location. Their previously stiff bodies trembled violently, as if suppressing some uncontrollable ecstasy and submission.
This scene sent chills down Yu Qi's spine, her heart pounded, and her intuition told her that these things were not "quiet," but were waiting.
"Sang Li." Yu Qi gritted her teeth and almost instinctively raised her gun, naturally shielding Sang Li with her body.
Cold sweat streamed down her back, but she still whispered, "Don't come any closer... it's dangerous here."
At this point, she had forgotten that Sang Li had once been her "target".
Sang Li smiled slightly, her voice light and cheerful as usual, yet it seemed to tear a crack in the bloody and oppressive air: "It's alright, Sister Yu Qi."
His smile was completely out of place with his surroundings. His blood-stained face should have been terrifying, but it carried an undeniable sense of certainty and peace.
Tang Lan and Zhou Fangyang exchanged a glance, both feeling a mixture of doubt and trepidation.
“Sang Li…”
"How are you?"
How could Sang Li possess such a strange aura?
It was a power that seemed capable of suppressing all the monsters in the corridor.
Just as they were about to ask further questions, the man behind Sang Li suddenly spoke up, breaking the brief silence: "You're not going to kiss them too, are you? Those monsters."
Sang Li: "..."
Sang Li: "What do you think?"
Yan Jue: "I hope not."
Sang Li: "Oh?"
Yan Jue coughed lightly and said sarcastically, "Then your ability is a bit too disgusting."
Sang Li glanced sideways, her eyes sharp for a moment before returning to her nonchalant tone: "Don't worry, I won't kiss you again, so you don't need to feel disgusted."
Yan Jue was speechless, turned his head away and said nothing more. He should have known better than to speak up. What was he trying to prove?
Sang Li slowly stretched out a hand, her fingers pale and slender, as if pulling invisible threads in the dimly lit corridor.
In the darkness, low, damp breathing sounds rose and fell.
The abnormal beings became restless, their bodies twisting and writhing, their eyes fixed intently on her movements.
Despite their instinctive urge to pounce and tear apart the humans before them, at the moment of approach, they seemed to hit some invisible barrier, unable to control their bodies. All the noise abruptly stopped, their mouthparts trembling with a mixture of longing and fear.
An even more orderly and eerie scene appeared.
Their necks bent down little by little, as if they were being forcibly suppressed by a force.
Then, they all knelt down and prostrated themselves.
The blood-soaked corridor instantly transformed into a twisted pilgrimage ritual.
Tang Lan and Zhou Fangyang felt a tightness in their chests and could barely speak.
Yu Qi's breathing quickened, his knuckles turning white from the force, the muzzle of his gun already locked onto the head of the nearest aberrant creature. The monster lay prostrate on the ground, trembling like a slave, yet ready to retaliate at any moment.
Sang Li turned to the side, blocking the gun barrel from the monster.
He pressed his finger down on the muzzle of the gun.
“Stop it, Sister Yu Qi.” Her voice was clear. “They are innocent. They don’t want to be controlled.”
The corridor fell silent for a moment, save for the low, suppressed roars of the anomaly.
Tang Lan stared at Sang Li and couldn't help but ask, "Do you know what exactly happened here?"
Upon hearing this, Sang Li slowly raised her hand, her fingertips pointing to the top of her head.
A flashing camera silently watches the corridor, its red dot glowing coldly in the darkness.
Sang Li looked up, a mischievous smile curving her lips.
“Qian Rujun,” she enunciated clearly, each syllable like a bullet, “you’re finished.”
In the monitoring room, dim lights illuminated rows of screens.
Cold air rushed in through the vents, but it couldn't stop the cold sweat on Qian Rujun's back.
At that moment, he stared at the screen and almost forgot to breathe.
Sang Li.
She should have been an insignificant test subject, confined in a cultivation chamber as part of the "materials." But now, she stands in the middle of a blood-stained corridor, leading a group of abnormal beings who should have been rampaging and slaughtering, being worshipped like a monarch.
All the monsters and all the test subjects bowed down and prostrated themselves under her aura.
This kind of scene should never have happened!
Qian Rujun's eyes twitched suddenly, and he slammed his hand firmly on the table.
"Impossible, impossible..." he muttered to himself, his voice low and hoarse, filled with disbelief and fear.
"……no."
"This secret must never be taken out of the country."
He trembled as he pulled out the security key and inserted it into the control panel.
We'd rather destroy it all than let anyone see this.
Twist it hard.
Accompanied by a piercing alarm, a dormant, destructive program was activated deep within the experimental building.
Deep inside the laboratory building.
The alarm suddenly blared, sharp and piercing, and red warning lights flashed wildly on the walls.
In an instant, countless petri dishes began to vibrate, the glass containers made a crackling sound, and the biological tissues inside writhed wildly.
Bang bang bang bang!
It burst open.
The putrid stench and blood-like liquid splattered on the walls, from which incompletely formed anomalies writhe, howl, and struggle before being engulfed in the flames of the explosion.
In the monitoring room, Qian Rujun stood up; it was time to leave.
As long as he can get out, even if he only has one breath left, he will still be BEAM's top-tier "asset".
These secrets must go with him.
He possesses this information and is qualified to negotiate.
However.
The alarm only blared twice before abruptly stopping.
The red light went out, and the self-destruct program on the display abruptly stopped, with the progress bar stopping at 88%.
Qian Rujun froze, turned around abruptly, and stared at the screen in disbelief.
"...How could this be?!"
On the other side, the side corridor of the experimental building.
Three minutes ago.
Lu Jin's aura was calm and steady, his gaze sharp. His fist landed heavily on the head of an aberrant creature. The sound of bones cracking was like a firecracker exploding. The monster's body instantly collapsed to the ground, twitched a few times, and then became completely still.
Around them, the battered young team members struggled to stay afloat.
They were ordered to capture Lu Jin, but they proved utterly ineffective against these crazed anomalies.
The armor was torn apart, leaving a bloody mess. Several survivors huddled in a corner, their faces pale and their eyes filled with despair.
"Don't move."
Lu Jin took a step forward, raised his hand, and easily knocked away an attacking monster as if crushing a piece of paper. Blood mist exploded in the air; the movement was cold and decisive, without the slightest hesitation.
One punch, one kill; they're practically human weapons.
The surviving team members stared at him blankly, their eyes filled with complex emotions.
One of the technicians, covered in blood, spoke in a trembling voice: "...Why did you save us? We came to...arrest you..."
"Enough with the nonsense." Lu Jin picked up a fallen monster and slammed it into another anomaly.
The blood splattered on his cheeks did not cause him to show the slightest change in expression.
"If you want to live, keep up."
The technician gritted his teeth; it was terrifying.
They were no match for Lu Jin.
But Lu Jin seemed to have no intention of harming them at all; on the contrary, he saved them.
at the moment……
There are too many things that are not right now.
They didn't even know where to begin asking questions.
There is no signal here.
It's not a building that's usually marked with BEAM logos.
They need to contact headquarters.
Lu Jin flicked the remaining blood from his fingertips and coldly swept his gaze over the people in front of him: "What are you standing there for?"
His eyes were sharp, and his status as BEAM's most formidable captain sent chills down one's spine.
One of the team members, who was still bleeding, hesitated for a moment before speaking up: "We need to report your whereabouts."
He gritted his teeth, seemingly a little guilty, "But there's no signal here."
As soon as he finished speaking, the surrounding air became so quiet that only the stench emanating from the monster's corpse remained.
Lu Jin raised an eyebrow, his tone frighteningly calm: "Of course it needs to be reported. There should be a backup signal system here. Can't you find it yourselves?"
The team member was taken aback and stared at him suspiciously.
Shouldn't we stop it?
They hadn't even registered this area, but Lu Jin seemed to know it very well.
Lu Jin clearly thought these people were a bit stupid. How could they communicate with other experimental islands without a signal?
The team members dared not make any rash moves and remained still for a while.
If Lu Jin is truly a traitor, if he really intends to kill someone here to silence them...
None of them will escape.
But the next second, he remembered the scene from just now: this man had torn apart the abnormal creature with his bare hands and saved them.
If he really wanted to kill someone, there was no need to waste time.
That's the top captain in BEAM.
Their once proud captain.
The team member swallowed hard, tasting the blood, and whispered, "Then wait for me."
He lunged at a half-destroyed terminal, his fingers rapidly tapping on the dusty keyboard.
Inside the dilapidated shell, residual energy was still flickering.
Two minutes later, the screen suddenly lit up, the green light so bright it was blinding.
The technician's eyes lit up, and he couldn't help but exclaim in a low voice, "It's connected!"
He frantically performed a series of operations and successfully grasped the internal network's structure.
"Sure enough, there is another backup system here."
Lu Jin joked, "Then why don't you report it?"
The moment the screen stabilized, the technician's raised hand suddenly froze.
"……Hold."
Instead of a red warning on the screen, a series of automatically popping-up file directories appeared.
Black background with white lettering, as neat as a tombstone.
...
Immediately afterwards, a large number of video windows were automatically retrieved.
The image shows countless transparent culture tanks, with indistinct "human-shaped" figures floating in the liquid.
Some people were put on breathing tubes, their limbs were nailed down with steel nails, and their eyeballs were hollow.
Others were cut open, exposing their internal organs and blood vessels to cold light, and then connected to mechanical tubes.
“These…they are all people…” A young team member’s voice trembled, and he almost vomited.
"Signal link established, data transmission begins."
The next second.
A piercing alarm sounded, and a bright red warning suddenly appeared on the terminal screen: [Intrusion detected. Self-destruct mechanism initiated.]
The entire underground space trembled, the lights hummed, and dust fell in clumps, as if a colossal creature was awakening.
"Damn it!" The technician's face changed. "It's a self-destruct protocol! What the hell? Someone else is controlling the backend and has the key!"
Lu Jin narrowed his eyes: "Can we stop?"
"Yes! Be quiet!" the technician roared, his eyes glued to the screen, his hands pounding away. "I'll try. It can intercept. This system is basically unmaintained, so it should be easy."
"Okay, then let's do it." Lu Jin said calmly.
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