Chapter 81: The Black Dental Clinic (Part 12)

Chapter 81: The Black Dentist's Clinic (Twelve)

In Zone 103, the Technical Department of the Cleaning Center.

They are the backbone of the entire cleaning center, measuring the concentration of pollutants in various contaminated areas, assessing task levels, and including priority ratings.

Today, one set of data was clearly very abnormal.

The task named E8097, located in the Ant Nest, originally ranked 1,700th and was scheduled to wait for three years.

Now, this task's priority ranking is continuously climbing: 1,689, 1,600, 1,500...

At first, the technician didn't pay much attention, but when the danger level kept rising and the priority reached 1,500, he finally couldn't sit still.

"Am I seeing things?" The technician rubbed his eyes and asked a colleague to take a look, "Is it malfunctioning?"

It wasn't his fault; the increase was too exaggerated, unprecedented in scale, rising at a rate of one hundred per second. During their conversation, the task's priority was jumping levels.

"Rank 1,300, 1,200, 900..."

Technician: "What's going on? The Ant Nest has always been fine, hasn't it?"

The technician bent down to check past registration records. The Ant Nest was a slum, heavily polluted with heavy metals, but sparsely populated. This area had been registered for three years, and the cleaning center had only placed data monitoring equipment, allowing the technical department to monitor it in real time, without further intervention.

After all, compared to other contaminated areas, the Ant Nest seemed relatively low-risk. The pollution concentration hadn't increased much over the past three years.

"I'll take a look." Another technician quickly typed on the keyboard, "Pollution concentration at 170%, classified as a B-level contaminated area."

"The pollution concentration hasn't changed much from previous tests, so why is the task priority jumping so fast?"

The technician thought there might be an error. They were most afraid of errors now. He rechecked the data, which remained the same. The data was correct, a B-level contaminated area, definitely not as dangerous as the Mechanical Oceanarium.

The Mechanical Oceanarium's priority handling level was 15.

"The activity level in the contaminated area isn't high either," the technician said puzzledly, "and it's decreasing, which means someone killed the source of contamination?"

"There are no official tasks in the Ant Nest today from the center."

That meant the person who eliminated the source of contamination could be an external individual, possibly a civilian demon hunter.

This entire dataset was very strange. A B-level contaminated area, far from the bustling city center, deep within a slum, with low internal activity. Logically, after killing the source of contamination, they should have entered the cleanup phase.

Why is the danger level increasing instead?

What trouble did they encounter after leveling the contaminated area? If they encountered trouble, does it mean the contamination spores are uncontained?

"Rank 500, 400, 100, 30... What's happening?" The technician had never encountered such a situation in his career.

Even if the contamination spores were uncontained, it shouldn't be this exaggerated, right?

As long as the cleaning center dispatches a cleanup team, they can control the situation within twenty minutes of arriving on site, unless it's a densely populated area.

Another technician pondered for a moment, "It must be Prometheus, the big data algorithm."

Prometheus can collect more data and information than the technicians, and it indeed has the authority to elevate the priority of a task.

Now, the Ant Nest's priority has reached 19th place.

Entering the top 20 in priority, the technicians knew what this number meant.

In the view of Prometheus, this artificial intelligence, if the problem in the Ant Nest isn't resolved soon, the entire Zone 103 might fall.

"Hurry!" the technician said, "Contact Minister Lu."

They must inform Lu Qiqin; this was clearly not a problem two junior employees could handle.

If mishandled, they might lose their jobs.

...

Bang! Bang! Bang!

Inside the Ant Nest, Pei Shu's fire ability didn't completely intercept the mutants, and the mutants seemed to possess some form of intelligence.

Although they feared the flames, they quickly realized that the circle of fire surrounding them wasn't very lethal. More and more dark shadows were crawling out of the darkness, like cockroaches, trembling with black antennae, making a rustling sound.

Rustle... Rustle...

The sound was enough to make one's teeth grind.

Zhu Ning could clearly feel that their fear of fire was far less than their hunger for human flesh.

Pei Shu had to use his full power to burn them into ashes, and using full power was very draining. Zhu Ning hadn't seen Pei Shu do this many times.

Liu Niannian proved to be more reliable than she thought. Perhaps due to strict foundational education during her childhood, Liu Niannian, who initially thought she was just here to clean up garbage, remained calm even as the difficulty suddenly escalated.

She kept firing to suppress the mutants, though the shots didn't kill them, they slowed them down. The mutants needed time to regenerate, so any gunfire was better than none.

Pei Shu's main job was to protect Liu Niannian, whose life safety was always his top priority.

In this situation, Pei Shu still managed to warn her, "Behind you!"

She didn't need the warning because Zhu Ning's danger prediction immediately went off. In the danger prediction, a mutant let out a strange cry and pounced from behind. Without a helmet, Zhu Ning had no protection, and the mutant would bite off half her head.

Such strong biting force?

In reality, a dark figure suddenly lunged toward Zhu Ning, but it didn't reach her. Crack!

A loud noise came from above, and a metal plate fell from the sky, smashing the dark figure to pieces with a thud.

The thick black liquid, like blood, flowed from the gaps in the iron plate. Zhu Ning had sourced this material on-site, using the contaminated metal from the ant nest, taken from the ceiling.

Having dismantled homes in the hive before, she found it particularly easy this time.

Zhu Ning wiped under her nose; she was bleeding again. When encountering dangerous metals, manipulating them was her most useful talent, as it cost nothing, but the downside was that it burned mental energy.

So far, the system hadn't alerted her to any drop in mental energy.

She could still cling to life at the edge of mental exhaustion.

In the depths of the darkness, many mutants lurked, rushing towards them one after another.

Liu Niannian's teacher was nearby, sounding even more experienced than the demon hunters at the cleaning center. From his words, it seemed that Pei Shu might have worked outside the wall before taking up employment with Liu Niannian.

With such a good teacher around, there was no harm in asking.

While fighting, Zhu Ning asked, "What’s the usual procedure?"

Pei Shu, covering Liu Niannian's retreat, was still immersed in the talent Zhu Ning had just used. Perhaps because he had been a teacher for so long, he instinctively answered when asked, "If it were outside the wall, the mobile team would be dispatched, but no one wants to provoke this thing. Generally, they just go around it."

That made sense. Outside the wall, their main job was reconnaissance. If they encountered something they couldn't handle, they immediately fled, not wasting their ammunition reserves easily.

Zhu Ning kept retreating; they needed to evacuate from the dentist's office, and she had never felt this road so long.

Containing the contaminated spores, which was essentially garbage collection, had always been considered by Zhu Ning as the most laid-back dangerous job.

She never thought that containing contaminated spores would become a problem one day.

Blood-red contaminated spores floated in the air. Zhu Ning activated a temporary shield, which could temporarily prevent the spores from spreading.

However, the temporary shield had obvious limitations. For example, in Huang Yaruo's house, which was a regular space, the effect was greater once activated.

But this contaminated area was very extensive, including not only the dentist's office but also parts of the neighborhood.

Zhu Ning only protected the dentist's office, while contaminated spores still floated outside.

Prometheus wouldn’t be so irresponsible. If the spores spread, the first to be infected might be the ant nest in front of the contaminated area.

Once a neighborhood fell, it would lead to large-scale infection, which was a serious issue.

Prometheus was likely already contacting someone.

Zhu Ning felt that not having that damn human-machine joint device was also troublesome, as she couldn’t directly contact Prometheus now.

They had to retreat. The corridor leading to Gao Zijian's home was blocked by mutants, so Zhu Ning had to exit through another passage on the fifth floor. At this moment, her secondary brain beeped.

It was Song Zhizhang. Zhu Ning was firing her gun when she answered, and the first thing she heard was, "I hope you have some good news."

Song Zhizhang paused, hearing the gunfire from Zhu Ning's end. From the sound, he knew Zhu Ning was in a dangerous situation.

Song Zhizhang, usually lazy in tone, was unusually serious this time, "Zhu Ning."

"The cleaning center will arrive in ten minutes, and the people coming are from the Anomaly Incident Team."

Another department?

Before Zhu Ning could speak, Song Zhizhang continued, "You have absolute autonomy. You can choose to stay, or you can choose to leave. Whatever you decide to do, I suggest you don’t meet the Anomaly Incident Team; they’re very troublesome."

Zhu Ning: "..."

It sounded very troublesome.

Zhu Ning didn’t want to run into the cleaning center at all. Xuan Qing was already suspicious of her. If she were seen here again, she would likely face another investigation.

This time, there would be no easy way out.

Zhu Ning bit her lip, feeling a bit regretful as she looked at the contaminated spores in the field. This was the first time in many missions that she hadn’t contained the spores herself.

Purification points were always divided into two parts: one part was the reward for completing tasks, and the other part came from containing contaminated spores.

Zhu Ning felt like she had only eaten half of a meal, leaving the other half untouched.

Losing half of her income was painful, especially since the cost of using items was increasing.

Not a pleasant feeling.

But given the current situation, handing it over to the authorities was the best choice. They would arrive in ten minutes, much faster than Zhu Ning had imagined.

They could quickly control the situation without affecting other slums.

Zhu Ning ended the call with Song Zhizhang. A wall of fire rose in front of her. Mutants seemed to instinctively fear fire, hesitating to approach, and the flames disrupted their movements.

Although she didn’t know their weakness, fire seemed more effective than bullets.

Zhu Ning’s direct and violent approach also worked, meaning that the more pointed the weapon, the less effective it was. Either use fire or crush them like Zhu Ning did, giving them no chance to regenerate.

Zhu Ning tilted her head and said to Pei Shu, "Do you need my help?"

Pei Shu: "..."

Why did Zhu Ning’s offer of help make him feel uneasy?

Zhu Ning: "The cleaning center will arrive in ten minutes. Meeting them head-on would also be troublesome for you, right?"

Pei Shu frowned; Zhu Ning was right. Their identities were sensitive, and they dealt with the authorities secretly. It was better not to bring certain matters to light.

Moreover, they didn’t know which department was coming. If things escalated, it would be very bad for them.

Pei Shu was confident he could get Liu Niannian out of the scene, but he wasn't sure he could do it within ten minutes.

Sure enough, Zhu Ning had a mysterious organization backing her. How did she find out about the cleaning center's operation so quickly?

Who exactly was supporting her from behind? From the tone of her phone call, she must have held a certain position in the organization.

She might be one of the top figures. It’s best to cooperate with such people and never provoke them.

Zhu Ning: "Coincidentally, I don’t want to greet them either."

Zhu Ning’s single sentence brought their situation closer together. No matter what caution Pei Shu had toward Zhu Ning before, he had to admit that cooperation was the best way forward.

Pei Shu: "What do you want to do?"

Zhu Ning: "My metal manipulation, your fire control. Don’t you think we would make a good team in this situation?"

Before Pei Shu could respond, Liu Niannian said, "You’re thinking of creating a sealed flame space?"

Zhu Ning: "Your young lady is smarter than you."

Pei Shu: "..."

Thank you.