56. Gene Bank
"Brother Su Lin, the poison has entered the water. Prepare for action."
Su Lin suddenly raised his head, his amber eyes flashing a sharp light in the dim light. He immediately looked at Mu Lin and the anxious A Yan beside him. His voice was very low, but it was full of firm certainty: "Stardust has sent a message. The poisoning was successful. It's our turn."
The atmosphere in the carriage instantly switched from a suppressed sense of waiting to a tense feeling before a battle.
"Finally!" Ah Yan growled, suddenly jumping up from the bunk. The pain in his waist and abdomen seemed to be completely suppressed by the surging fighting spirit at this moment. His golden pupils burned with blazing flames. "I'm going to show those bastards a taste of my power!"
Mu Lin's hand remained firmly on A Yan's shoulder, but his aura had shifted. The gentle, jade-like feeling faded, replaced by a crystal-clear, cold quality. "Follow the plan, A Yan. Chaos, not a fight to the death. Your mission is to attract attention and create an opening." His voice was calm, yet carried an undeniable command.
Bai Yan quickly checked the bandage around Ayan's waist, confirming it hadn't cracked from the violent movement. Then, he silently slipped several small tubes of potent hemostatic and stimulant medication into Ayan's tactical pocket. "Use with caution," he instructed succinctly, his gaze meeting Ayan's through his spectacles, a mixture of the calmness of a doctor and the concern of a teammate.
Ah Yan nodded heavily, took a deep breath, and forced his seething rage into a more concentrated and controlled fighting spirit. He grabbed a modified, flamethrower-equipped firearm leaning against the wall and rushed to the carriage door. His figure blended into the darkness at the edge of the tunnel, sneaking towards the eastern area where he planned to cause chaos.
"Su Lin, Mu Lin, let's go." Bai Yan shouldered his medicine box and looked towards Su Lin and Mu Lin. Su Lin nodded, finally sensing the flow of spatial energy within him. The invisible "pocket" was ready. A faint, almost invisible cold mist gathered in Mu Lin's hands, and the temperature around them seemed to drop a few degrees.
The three of them did not hesitate and moved quickly and quietly towards the Guichen Sect's warehouse area along another hidden path different from the one Lei Qing and his team took.
At the same time, in the huge, gloomy space of the abandoned purification plant, echoing with the sound of dripping water.
Ling Ye slid down the thick main water pipe like a gecko, landing silently. He gestured a confirmation gesture to Lei Qing and Xingchen in the shadows, his eyes sharp—the toxin had been fully injected, colorless and odorless, and was flowing with the water towards the core area of the Guichen Sect.
Lei Qing's resolute face was expressionless, his jawline only tightening slightly. He gestured, signaling to retreat as planned and reunite with Su Lin and the others.
However, just as they were about to quietly retreat along the way they came—
“Crack…clang!”
A metallic friction sound, not loud but extremely harsh in the dead silence, came from a corner deep in the purification plant filled with discarded filter cartridges and rusty pipes!
The three of them froze instantly, held their breath, and all their senses were heightened to their peak in an instant.
Not a patrol. It sounded more like something being accidentally knocked over, or… claws scraping against metal as some creature moved in the darkness.
Ling Ye and Lei Qing exchanged a lightning-fast glance. Ling Ye's hand silently reached for the dagger at his waist. Lei Qing's sniper rifle had already slightly adjusted its direction, aiming at the shadowy source of the sound. Stardust's face, hidden beneath his hood, lifted slightly, his mental power spreading rapidly in that direction like the finest spiderweb, probing.
"The life signals... are weak, but... there's more than one..." Stardust's voice was filled with extreme confusion and vigilance. "It's very confusing... It doesn't look human, but it's not completely mutant either... There's a kind of... suppressed numbness."
At this moment, a faint sobbing sound like the wailing of a baby animal came from the shadow of the pile of waste, and then several thin and dirty figures crawled out from behind the pipe, trembling and using their hands and feet.
They were several children. The oldest looked no more than ten years old, the youngest perhaps only five or six. Their clothes were tattered, barely covering their bodies. Their bodies were covered in dirt and scabby wounds. They were emaciated, little more than bones. Their large eyes were filled with utter fear and a near-numbing despair. They looked at Lei Qing and the other two like frightened rabbits, their bodies shaking like leaves in the wind.
Behind them, several adults crawled out, equally emaciated and with hollow eyes. But they held crude, sharpened metal pieces or broken steel pipes in their hands, and in a protective gesture, they barely stood in front of the children. They were in terrible condition, with abnormal bluish-gray patches on their faces and exposed skin, and their breathing was weak, clearly suffering from long-term exposure to hunger, disease, and some kind of pollution.
"Please... please... don't... don't tell the guards..." One of the middle-aged men, who seemed to be the leader, said in a hoarse and dry voice, like a broken bellows, filled with pleading and fear. "We... we're just looking for some water... We'll leave soon..."
Ling Ye's expression instantly grew complex. He recognized certain traits in these people, symptoms often associated with prolonged exposure to heavy radiation or chemical contamination. This abandoned purification plant was likely more than just a water source; deep within, it might even house areas where the Guichen Cult processed "waste" or conducted dangerous experiments. These people were abandoned here as "expendable goods," or... "experimental waste" in some sense.
Lei Qing lowered the muzzle of his gun slightly, but not completely. His penetrating gaze swept over the frightened survivors, quickly assessing the risks and intentions. Xingchen's mental perception carefully probed them, confirming the authenticity of their fear and despair, and whether they posed a threat.
"We're not from the Guichen Sect." Ling Ye lowered his voice, trying to make his tone less threatening. "Have you been hiding here?"
His question made the survivors even more nervous, but they also seemed to see a glimmer of hope that they weren't enemies. The leading man nodded tremblingly, speaking incoherently, "Yes... yes... outside... outside is hell... here... a little... safer... but... but we can't stay here for too long... sometimes... there will be 'cleaners' coming down..."
"Cleaner?" Ling Ye caught the word sharply.
"It's... it's... the guards of the church... they will come down regularly... and... drag away those who are motionless, or... have turned into monsters..." The man's face showed a look of extreme fear.
At this moment, Stardust suddenly raised his head and looked towards a broken staircase leading to the upper floor of the factory. A violent fluctuation in his mental force field gave a warning: "Someone is coming! Footsteps, well-equipped... It's a patrol! Coming this way!"
Oops!
It must have been the slight strange noise just now, or these survivors accidentally touched something while moving around, which attracted the attention of those above!
Lei Qing acted decisively and shouted to the survivors, "Hide! Quick!"
The survivors, as if they had heard an amnesty, crawled back into the shadows of the pile of abandoned pipes and filters, not even daring to breathe.
Lei Qing glanced around and quickly locked onto a narrow blind spot formed by collapsed concrete structures behind the massive reactor. "This way! Take cover!"
The three of them moved silently like ghosts, instantly disappearing into the deep shadows cast by the reactor tanks and the gaps between the concrete structures. The visibility from this position was extremely poor, but it was also difficult to detect.
Almost the next second after they hid, a team of four guards wearing the standard black uniforms of the Guichen Sect, armed with weapons and equipped with simple headlamps, walked down the rusty stairs from the gap in the upper floor, cursing.
"Damn it, what bad luck! It's our turn to patrol this damn place again!" a hoarse voice complained.
"Stop talking nonsense and just turn around and get it over with. The smell down there is fucking unbearable. I heard you'll get a strange disease if you stay there for too long." Another voice responded.
Several dim headlight beams swept across the huge space, passing by the rusty pipes, the ground full of sewage, and the place where Ling Ye and the others had just stood.
Ling Ye and the other two held their breath in the shadows, their bodies tense as bows. Lei Qing's rifle, peering through the gap, silently aimed at the guard in front. Ling Ye's fingertips held several willow-thin throwing knives, ready to deliver a fatal blow. Xingchen's mental power was intensely focused, like invisible tentacles, ready to unleash the most powerful mental attack on the nearest target the moment he was exposed.
The beam of light passed through the edge of their hiding spot several times, the most recent one even illuminating the reflective edge of Lei Qing's combat uniform's epaulettes. Sweat trickled down Ling Ye's forehead.
Fortunately, the guards seemed to be extremely disgusted with the environment here and patrolled carelessly. Their attention was mainly focused on the open areas that might hide large mutants or hostile elements. They only casually glanced at the corners behind the reactors, which they thought "could not hide people."
"There's nothing unusual. It's probably those 'residues' that are causing the noise. Let's go, let's go up and report that everything is normal." The leading team leader waved his hand impatiently.
Several lights began to turn, and heavy footsteps accompanied by gradually fading complaints moved towards the stairs they had come from.
In the shadows, the three men slowly relaxed their tense muscles, but they did not relax their vigilance.
Only when the sound of the guards' footsteps completely disappeared overhead and the suffocating silence returned to the purification plant did they quietly emerge from their hiding place.
Those who survived were still hiding behind the waste, not daring to come out.
Ling Ye looked at Lei Qing, his eyes questioning him. Lei Qing shook his head slightly, signaling against further complications. Their mission was complete, and they needed to evacuate as soon as possible to rejoin Su Lin and the others.
However, just as they were about to move out again, the leading survivor, seemingly summoning all his courage, emerged halfway from the shadows. His voice trembled but with a hint of urgency as he spoke hoarsely in Ling Ye's direction:
"Wait...wait! You...you are going to deal with those demons, right?"
Ling Ye paused and looked back at him.
A light mixed with fear and a final hope flashed in the man's cloudy eyes. "I... I know a way... an abandoned maintenance passage that leads directly to... to a very important place underneath them... There... there are a lot of strange machines... and... and 'cans'... There are few guards, but... it's very strange..."
Ling Ye's pupils shrank slightly. A strange machine? A jar? Few guards, but strange? This description...
Lei Qing also stopped and looked at the man with sharp eyes.
Stardust's mental power focused on the man again, sensing the authenticity of his emotions - an almost desperate desire to grasp at a life-saving straw, and a deep-buried fear of the core secret of the Guichen Sect.
"Where?" Ling Ye's voice was low and clear.
As if grasping a lifeline, the man gestured with his hands, pointing deeper into the purification plant, to an inconspicuous corner buried by more rusted pipes and collapsed debris. "That... over there... there's a shaft covered with iron plates... Down there... down there is a passage... No one has been there for a long time... but... but it should still be passable..."
The information he provided was invaluable. If what he said was true, it could be a shortcut to the heart of the Return to Dust Sect, perhaps revealing secrets more important than the warehoused supplies—for example, the true source of the "holy meat" or the core area where the Return to Dust Sect performed its sinister rituals.
Risks and opportunities coexist.
Lei Qing quickly weighed the options. The poisoning mission was complete, and the chaos operation was about to begin. They had the opportunity to use this passage for rapid reconnaissance. However, deep within this unknown passage lay a huge uncertainty.
"Take us to the entrance." Lei Qing made the decision, his voice unquestionable.
The man and the survivors behind him displayed a mixture of hope and fear. Following the man's guidance, Ling Ye and Lei Qing quickly cleared the obstruction in the corner and discovered a thick iron plate with rusted edges but signs of movement in the center.
Prying open the iron plate, a colder wind, carrying the scent of stale mold and rust, blew up from below. Below was a bottomless vertical shaft, with a rusted metal ladder fixed to the wall, extending downward into a thick darkness.
"We...we won't go down..." The man looked at the shaft in fear and backed away repeatedly.
Lei Qing glanced at them, took a few pieces of the compressed rations he had brought with him, and tossed them to them. "Hide them well. If this goes well, perhaps we can find a real way out for you."
The survivors clutched their rations tightly as if they had found a treasure, expressed their gratitude repeatedly, and retreated back into the shadows.
"I'll go down first." Ling Ye didn't hesitate. He checked his climbing gloves, grabbed the cold ladder first, and slid down silently like a cat. His figure was quickly swallowed by the darkness below.
Lei Qing followed closely behind, his huge body moving extremely steadily in the narrow shaft.
Stardust took a last look at the faint light from above and the direction where the survivors were hiding. His mental power extended downwards like an early warning radar, and then he grabbed the ladder and sank into the unknown darkness.
The shaft wasn't too deep. After descending about twenty meters, my feet touched solid ground. The flashlight flickered again, illuminating a narrow, low, circular tunnel barely wide enough for one person to pass through while bending over. The tunnel walls were made of rough concrete, covered in cobwebs and thick dust. Condensation dripped from overhead. The air was murky, carrying a strong smell of earth and the odor of old, rusted metal.
This place has obviously been abandoned for countless years.
"This way." Ling Ye identified the direction the man was pointing to. He once again took on the role of vanguard, cautiously exploring the path ahead, alert for possible traps or landslides.
The tunnel twisted and turned, extending underground like a maze. After walking for about ten minutes, a fork appeared ahead. One path continued forward, while the other turned left and sloped slightly downward.
Just as Ling Ye was about to explore the fork in the road, Xingchen suddenly raised his hand to stop him. He closed his eyes, frowning, his mental power like a sharp sonar, capturing the faintest fragments of information lingering in the air.
"This way..." He pointed to the passage that turned left and went slightly downwards, his voice filled with uncertainty and solemnity. "There's... a very strange residual energy... It's very faint, but... it makes me very uncomfortable. And... it feels like... I'm being watched by countless pairs of eyes..."
This description instantly reminded Ling Ye and Lei Qing of the rumors Bai Yan had mentioned about some forbidden research institutes in the old times.
Lei Qing looked at Ling Ye. Ling Ye carefully sensed the airflow and scent of the two passages, pointing to the left passage. "The air is more 'dead,' with a stronger smell of dust, but... it does have an indescribable 'cleanliness', unlike the other side, which shows no signs of biological activity." This kind of "cleanliness," in some cases, often means an extreme environment where even microorganisms struggle to survive, or... it has been "cleaned" by some force.
"Go left." Lei Qing made his choice. The more unusual it was, the closer it was to the core.
The three of them turned to the left passage and moved forward more cautiously. The passage gradually became wider, and the walls changed from rough cement to a metal-lined structure. Although it was still heavily corroded, it showed the technological content it once possessed.
After walking nearly a hundred meters, the passage reached its end. A heavy, tightly sealed metal door blocked the way. There was no keyhole, only an electronic lock panel that had long been powered off, and a manual emergency switch next to it.
On the door, a faint, dusty sign could be seen. Ling Ye brushed away the dust with his hand and deciphered the faded words and patterns.
The pattern is an abstract spiral structure entangled with thorns. The text is the common language of the old times, vaguely discernible:
“Gene Sample Repository – Area B7 – Highest Authority”
A genetic sample repository?!
Ling Ye and Lei Qing exchanged a glance, each seeing the shock in the other's eyes. How could the core area of the Guichen Sect be connected to a genetic sample library from an ancient era? Could it be that the "holy flesh," those strange rituals, and even the origins of the Guichen Sect itself, were all connected to this forgotten facility?
Stardust's mental power sensed that there was a vast space behind the door. The residual energy was more obvious than in the passage, and the feeling of being spied on became stronger, but he still did not detect any obvious signs of life.
"Can it be opened?" Lei Qing looked at Ling Ye. Ling Ye checked the manual emergency wheel. Although it was rusted, the structure seemed to be intact.
"You can try, but it might make quite a noise." Ling Ye whispered.
At this moment, a faint, dull explosion sound, accompanied by faint noise and alarm sounds, was transmitted extremely weakly through layers of soil and rocks into the deep underground passage!
It's A Yan! The chaos he created on the east side has begun!
The time has come!
"Take action!" Lei Qing gave the order decisively.
Ling Ye no longer hesitated. He grasped the cold emergency wheel with both hands, took a deep breath, tensed his muscles, and began to slowly apply force. The sharp sound of metal rubbing against metal echoed through the silent passage, making one's teeth ache. The rusted wheel was extremely heavy, but with the combined force of Ling Ye and Lei Qing, who had joined in, it finally gave a crisp "click" sound, and the locking tongue inside was forcibly turned!
There was a gap in the heavy metal door.
A colder, drier air, mixed with the sour smell of expired disinfectant and some indescribable smell of preservative fluid, similar to formaldehyde but even more eerie, poured out from the crack in the door.
The flashlight beam pierced into the darkness, illuminating the scene behind the door—
It was a large circular hall. In the center were neatly arranged rows of metal shelves, like library bookshelves. However, these shelves didn't hold books, but rather cylindrical, transparent containers—"jars."
These jars, roughly the height of a person, were filled with a murky, pale yellow preservation fluid. Within this fluid, soaked were various indescribably distorted, inhuman specimens of biological tissue! Some looked like enlarged organs or bizarre limbs, while others were simply pulsating masses of flesh riddled with blood vessels and unknown protrusions. Some even vaguely resembled a horrifying fusion of human and other biological features!
All the specimens were connected to the complex equipment under the brackets through some thin tubes. The screens of those devices were dark, but some indicator lights were strangely flashing faint lights of different colors, as if they were still performing some low-power, automated maintenance work.
On the walls surrounding the hall were a circle of monitoring terminals and control consoles whose screens had long been black, covered with dust and cobwebs.
This is a specimen library of genetic experiments from the old times that has been forgotten by time!
The contents of those "jars" exuded a creepy, eerie aura of neither life nor death. The feeling of being "watched by countless eyes" that Stardust had described reached its peak at this moment—as if the twisted pieces of flesh soaked in the jars were silently watching the uninvited guests through the murky liquid.
Even the battle-hardened Lei Qing and Ling Ye couldn't help but feel their stomachs churning and a chill running down their spines when they saw this scene that looked like a hellish exhibition hall.
Could the "holy flesh" of the Guichen Cult originate here? Are they utilizing this genetic waste from a bygone era? Or... are they conducting even more horrific, ongoing experiments?
The answer may be hidden deep within this eerie and silent gene pool filled with echoes of the past.
The explosions and sirens outside heralded the beginning of total chaos. They had to find the key clues and evacuate quickly before the chaos subsided.
Deadly toxins spread in the water, the flames of revenge ignited in the east, and in this ancient facility beneath the foundation of the Return to Dust Cult, a dusty and horrifying truth that is enough to subvert cognition is waiting to be revealed.
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