Chapter 155: Silhouette in the Rain 17
White fog gathered, huge waves towered to the sky. Blood and gunsmoke mixed in the fishy cold sea wind, forming a cruel smell unique to war. The fire ignited in the coconut grove still hadn’t extinguished. Charred tree trunks broke in succession like dominoes. Pungent thick smoke wrapped around the entire island, lingering for a long time.
“Can the passage to the Lullaby Island rule zone be reopened?” Zhuang Ningyu asked, pressing his earpiece.
“Yes.” He Mo answered. “We’ve entered Little Pegasus Amusement Park and are attempting large-scale brute force decryption. The time is uncertain, but we’ll be as fast as possible.”
“Good.” Zhuang Ningyu briefly agreed, dodging sideways to avoid a giant monster charging head-on, casually firing to declare its death. After multiple exchanges of fire between both sides, the number of monsters on Lullaby Island had significantly decreased. No new transmission passages were being opened. Regardless of whether Liam still had the next round of “inventory,” just in terms of current battle damage, his strategic reserves had definitely suffered heavy losses.
In rule zones, compared to letting monsters fight opponents head-on through slaughter, using rules to solve problems all at once was the more cost-effective choice. The sun hovered in the sky, casting light on the already dilapidated tower, the radiance somewhat glaring. Zhuang Ningyu squinted slightly. The world also shook momentarily with his movement, then… the shaking didn’t cease.
Ye Jiaoyue loudly warned: “Mental contamination!”
The display values on protective bracelets were instantly pulled up. Action team members could still accept it, but the researchers couldn’t resist this extremely high concentration of contamination erosion. The severe pain of brain matter being extracted made Nathaniel cough violently. His pupils dilated, blood gushed from his nasal cavity. In just a few short seconds, he lost consciousness.
“Send them to W8 passage, west side of Tower One!”
Qinggang heard his colleague’s voice in the earpiece. Without a word, he hoisted the old researcher, person and wheelchair together, and ran toward Tower One. Thick smoke blurred his vision. Suddenly, a ball of fierce fire exploded before his eyes! Qinggang was forced back two steps, temporarily putting down the wheelchair in his hands. Several blazing monsters crashed sideways like cannonballs. Seeing flames about to lick the old researcher’s trouser legs, Qinggang was trapped on all sides, unable to move. At the critical moment, from the corner of his eye he glimpsed Zhuang Ningyu running this way, so he quickly raised a foot and heavily kicked the wheelchair toward the captain!
Zhuang Ningyu caught the wheelchair in one motion, glanced at Qinggang, saw he still had strength to deal with the monsters, so didn’t linger further and continued running toward Tower One with the barely alive Nathaniel! According to several other researchers, Liam often arranged for monsters to supervise experimental progress, using mental contamination to punish them. Beside the W8 passage was a high-level purification room.
“Beep—” The purification room used a biometric system. The ceiling was full of dark gun muzzles. An action team member and a researcher entered simultaneously, but the action team member was quickly forced back by dense bullets. There was indeed no mental contamination here, but Liam’s intention was also obvious—he wanted to forcibly recall all the researchers.
One researcher clearly didn’t want to return to Liam’s control. Even though he was suffering extremely painful mental contamination, he still stopped. The action team member escorting him applied force with his hand and pushed the person inside in one motion.
The mental contamination across the entire island came and went irregularly. Although the values were high, they weren’t too high. Liam must have learned the lesson from Zeus Grand Hotel, not wanting to give Zhuang Ningyu another chance to absorb large amounts of mental contamination, lest he in turn affect the rule zone’s stability. There were now six researchers in the purification room. The Nathaniel in Zhuang Ningyu’s arms was the last one. Because he was unconscious, he couldn’t enter on his own. A teammate from another country beside him reminded: “Zhuang, after sending him in, you need to leave within three seconds.”
Nathaniel spat out another mouthful of fresh blood. Zhuang Ningyu had no time to ask more and rushed into the purification room with large strides.
“Boom!”
With his entry, a huge crash suddenly came. The world became pitch black. The heavy blast-proof door deeply inserted into the ground. The entire purification room was instantly completely isolated from the outside world. Then everyone in the room clearly felt the ground moving downward. The sound of mechanical metal came continuously and stopped after about five seconds.
Lights “snap snap snap” turned on. One side’s wall was also opened, connecting to a long, bottomless, empty passage. Wind sounds were muffled. The researchers looked at each other in shock. Someone fed Nathaniel a pill. Without mental contamination, the old man’s breathing had already returned to stability.
Based on the descent speed just now, Zhuang Ningyu judged this should be the underground first floor.
“Is there still mental contamination outside?” he asked the person in the earpiece.
“No.” Yi Ke answered. “The value is 0.”
On one hand, perhaps because Liam had already obtained what he wanted. On the other hand, perhaps also because in this short half hour, Gao Weicheng had already rushed into monster-dense areas three consecutive times, using his ability to infinitely explode mental contamination concentration, causing monsters in the area to fall into an extremely painful maddened state, beginning to reversely crash the purification room, making Liam’s already highly damaged combat power worse.
Qinggang gained knowledge: “This is too useful. No wonder Liam desperately wanted to bribe him.”
Zhong Mu glanced at Yi Ke in the distance, turned her head and asked quietly: “Did Captain Zhuang intentionally go in this time, or was he captured?”
Qinggang also answered quietly: “Don’t know. I’ve been in the woods the whole time, but Little Yi still hasn’t gone to break down the door until now and looks somewhat calm, so I think Captain Zhuang probably has a plan in mind. Let’s wait and see!”
…
Zhuang Ningyu walked along the corridor to the very end. As expected, he saw Liam there. Besides Liam, Cui Jin transformed into a monster and Ford’s cryogenic chamber were also here. The lighting was ghastly pale, the scene looking extremely eerie. Yet Liam seemed quite to enjoy this underground fortress. He continued to examine Zhuang Ningyu’s body with undisguised eyes, then sighed: “You’re truly a perfect work of art.”
Zhuang Ningyu looked toward Cui Jin.
Liam laughed aloud: “Don’t worry, beauty, you won’t become like her.”
“How did you capture Cui Jin?” Zhuang Ningyu asked.
“She originally wanted to end her own life.” Liam said. “If not for me, she might have jumped from that bridge that night. So my appearance was perhaps instead a kind of rescue for her, and a continuation of beauty.”
Five years ago, opposite the alley where Cui Jin disappeared was indeed a very deep, rapid river channel, so accidentally falling into the water was also one of the police’s suspected directions. Zhuang Ningyu pulled over a chair and sat down: “Tell me, your entire process of rescuing her.”
But Liam was unwilling to speak further. His finger pointed forward. The left wall immediately became a huge display screen, currently showing real-time scenes on the island. Both sides seemed to have entered a brief ceasefire state. A large group of action team members were studying how to break down the door, including Yi Ke.
Liam looked at Zhuang Ningyu and said with interest: “Your boyfriend seems very anxious for you.”
Zhuang Ningyu said: “Pulling the camera so close—what, you like him too?”
Liam’s expression stiffened, doubting his own hearing for a moment.
Zhuang Ningyu spread one hand: “Handsome, good physique, rich, full S-class evolution. If you keep staring at him, I indeed have reason to suspect your ulterior motives.”
Liam’s face turned iron blue. His fingers spasmed but he didn’t turn off the screen.
“Let him go.” An aged voice suddenly came from behind.
It was Nathaniel. After waking up, he had independently sat in his electric wheelchair through the corridor. At this moment, the old man looked at his grandson in the cryogenic cabinet—skin already beginning to show a faint blue-gray color from years of hypothermia—his Adam’s apple trembling uncontrollably: “He’s already dead.”
Liam interrupted him with a tough attitude: “He will come back to life!”
“He won’t!” Nathaniel raised his voice. His aged frame once again burst forth with an angry roar. “The devolution genes he carries are full of fatal flaws, fatal flaws that cannot be erased by medical means. I’ve repeated this many times!”
“But he lived to twenty-four years old!” Liam stood up. “Do you know what this means? It means the devolution I need is completely feasible. What you need to do is merely think of a way to make the entire devolution process safe and controllable!”
Nathaniel shook his head, murmuring: “I can’t do it.”
“I even helped you freeze him!” Liam pointed at Ford in the cryogenic cabinet. “At the cost of tens of millions of dollars, just to let him theoretically survive indefinitely. During this time, as long as you can research a drug that can stop devolution, your grandson can come back to life. And you? I gave you the best experimental environment. The result is that the greatest achievement of you people is only POV3!”
As he spoke, he pulled out a bottle of medicine from a nearby cabinet and forcefully smashed it in front of the wheelchair!
A crisp shattering sound came. Zhuang Ningyu’s pupils dilated slightly. He wanted to catch it but was already a step too late. Looking at the half bottle body that rolled to his feet with the clear “POV3” on it, his temple throbbed. He instinctively looked at the cabinet, but inside was already completely empty.
Zhuang Ningyu asked: “Only this one bottle?”
Liam and Nathaniel simultaneously looked at him puzzled.
Zhuang Ningyu commented: “It sounds like you really exhausted yourself for all humanity’s devolution.”
Liam’s expression immediately became even more unpleasant, as if he’d suffered great mockery.
Nathaniel said: “Only this one bottle, but it can’t achieve one hundred percent safety.”
Zhuang Ningyu asked: “Then what percentage is it?”
Nathaniel answered: “Eighty-five percent.”
Zhuang Ningyu looked at Liam again: “Eighty-five percent is still low?”
Liam looked at Ford in the cryogenic cabinet and said word by word: “I want one hundred percent.”
Nathaniel’s lips trembled uncontrollably: “One hundred percent is impossible, you madman.”
Zhuang Ningyu said: “He might not be a madman.”
Liam stood without moving.
Zhuang Ningyu continued: “After all, it concerns his own safety. Let alone eighty-five percent—even ninety-nine percent, he wouldn’t dare gamble he’s not that one percent.”
After hearing his meaning clearly, the anger in Nathaniel’s eyes was replaced by shock, even a trace of bewilderment. Liam turned around with a dark expression: “What are you saying?”
“I previously always thought you researched devolution agents because of pure-blood ideology, wanting to control population numbers to maintain Evolvers’ absolute rule.” Zhuang Ningyu said. “However now, seeing your safety requirements for devolution drugs are surprisingly so high, I can only reasonably suspect the one who needs it is actually you yourself. You’re not an Evolver at all but an ordinary person ripened by drugs. To maintain the illusion of being an Evolver, you constructed large numbers of laboratories, captured large numbers of Evolvers. But even so, your body still cannot withstand drug erosion, which is why you so urgently need an absolutely safe devolution agent.” He walked forward two steps, looking at Liam. “I investigated you, but not one piece of information mentioned why your left arm was amputated at twenty-eight. Some say it was because of a civil war, yet no one can say clearly which civil war. Logically this kind of thing isn’t difficult to investigate. Now that it’s become a mystery, it can only mean this arm was amputated at a moment unknown to anyone. Evolution injections are generally injected from the left arm. Let me think—one time, after injecting the drug, you rapidly felt yourself unable to endure, so you severed your arm to survive, to prevent excessive drugs from circulating into your heart?”
Liam’s clenched hand slowly loosened.
“You’re really very clever.” He said, and removed his necklace. “Now you can say goodbye to your boyfriend, beauty.”
