Chapter 202: Yongsheng Pharmaceutical Foundation (8)

Chapter 202: Yongsheng Pharmaceutical Foundation (Part 8)

"Signal Lost"

On the large screen in the cleaning center, deep red letters flashed, leaving everyone stunned. Could Prometheus have lost connection?

"What's going on?" The technician kept adjusting the signal: "Is there a technical malfunction?"

The image on the screen flickered incessantly, like a live stream with poor reception. There were still faint images coming through from inside, but they could no longer send messages.

Huo Wenxi was the overall leader of this operation; none of the department heads had control over Prometheus.

Initially, the logistics team was just spectating, but now the entire technical center was in chaos.

Xuan Qing frowned and asked, "Did Prometheus escape?"

This was a reasonable guess. It had never lost contact before, and this sudden incident easily led to thoughts of betrayal.

The Federation had always kept it imprisoned, prohibiting any private communication. Had it found an opportunity?

If so, this could be a disaster on the same scale as the awakening of the underground pollutants in Zone 103.

Prometheus did not respond; he could not self-verify on this issue.

Lu Qiqin, who had been watching the commotion, finally couldn't sit still. He rapidly typed a series of commands on the control panel.

After a while, the earpiece on Lu Qiqin's ear lit up, and he received a message from the Federation's main control center: "Zone One has confirmed; it is safe, and the restrictions haven't loosened."

Xuan Qing's furrowed brow didn't relax. Lu Qiqin whispered, "No one can release it."

To ensure its safety, the exact location of Prometheus's imprisonment was unknown to anyone.

An adjacent technician interjected, "There's another possibility for the signal loss. We might be in the same situation as outside the wall."

Humans revered Prometheus because it guaranteed all signals within the wall, but beyond the wall was a different world. The pollution concentration exceeded the limits of human instruments, and it often malfunctioned.

This hypothesis was highly plausible.

"If that's the case..." someone said, "it means that the place Zhu Ning and the others entered is similar to outside the wall?"

No, it might be even more dangerous than some areas outside the wall.

Before entering the hotel, Zhuang Lin had sent out detection devices, but none of them returned.

Zhu Ning and her four-person team had only been inside for fifteen minutes, and now both sides were cut off.

Only intermittent images remained, and due to the delay, what they saw might be from earlier.

In other words, Zhu Ning and the others might already be dead, though they didn't know it.

The five-person team was like Schrödinger's cat, completely entering another state.

After presenting his viewpoint, no one responded. If the pollution had reached this level, it meant that the high walls of Zone 103 had completely failed. They had only listened to Huo Wenxi's speech and some presented written evidence.

But this was the first time they truly realized the severity of the problem; the disaster had escalated.

The cleaning center was already chaotic, with various opinions flying around. Some believed they should dispatch more demon hunters to support the team in the hotel.

Others thought they should activate the A-level protocol directly at the hotel to prevent the spread of pollution.

Some people, at this moment, fully grasped the reality. No matter how passionate Huo Wenxi's public report was, the destruction of Zone 103 was inevitable. They wanted to leave immediately, abandoning the sinking ship.

With Huo Wenxi detained, no one stepped forward to stabilize the situation.

Xuan Qing continued to frown. She had intended to find an opportunity to act, but the current situation prevented her from making any effective decisions.

Zhu Ning and her team hadn't transmitted any useful information, and she was deep in thought.

Suddenly—

The lights in the hall flickered violently. Everyone fell silent simultaneously, looking up at the fluorescent lights.

So many light sources flickering together was eerie, as if a mischievous ghost child was repeatedly pressing the on-off switch.

Shadows appeared and disappeared, faces suddenly emerging and then drowning in darkness.

Familiar faces seemed strangely unfamiliar at this moment.

The lights continued to flicker, as if causing some form of mental contamination.

The video feed of Zhu Ning and her team in the surveillance screen froze, and the temperature in the cleaning center hall seemed to drop a few degrees.

In the screen, Zhu Ning had just entered the conference room, where seats that were previously empty were now filled with people.

The camera recorded these people, their backs turned to the camera, densely packed.

Their silhouettes distorted, disappeared, reappeared, disappeared, reappeared...

As the frequency of the flickering lights intensified, everyone felt a chill, damp and cold, like a cold snake slithering past.

And those pollutants seemed to be seeping through the screen into the cleaning center hall.

...

A blue halo on Zhu Ning's temple was flashing.

The same was happening to Xu Meng and Dr. Fu; their three-person human-machine integration devices had all failed.

Dr. Fu looked the worst, Xu Meng slightly better, and Zhu Ning, who had always disliked Prometheus, hadn't experienced any major psychological breakdown.

But losing the signal means they've lost contact, and it also means there will be no support.

What will the cleaning center do in response?

They wouldn't just trap us like they did at the Mechanical Oceanarium, would they?

Dr. Fu's face was ashen; he spread his hands, "We're done."

This time, it's really over. He had come to seek the truth behind Divine Descent, even prepared for sacrifice, but now, even if he found it, he couldn't relay the information.

Zhu Ning: "Pull yourself together."

Dr. Fu surrendered too quickly. Zhu Ning said, "Does anyone know when the signal failed?"

Dr. Fu shook his head. He never thought he'd encounter such a mess, his attention was always on the outside, never on his own temple.

Xu Meng thought for a moment, "When you entered the meeting room, we could still see your video."

Zhu Ning asked, "What did you see?"

Xu Meng immediately transmitted her video to her, "I saw you suddenly unable to stand in an empty meeting room, as if something had grabbed you."

Fortunately, the basic functions of the helmet were still working. Zhu Ning received Xu Meng's video and skimmed through the electronic data in just a second.

The video from Xu Meng matched what she described, making Zhu Ning look particularly strange.

Dr. Fu had already learned from Xu Meng and sent his video over, "I saw someone."

Zhu Ning paused, the video inside her helmet was playing, and it froze at a certain frame.

There really was someone in the screen, distorted by the video, standing right in front of Zhu Ning, suddenly turning around.

With a snap, Zhu Ning immediately closed the video to avoid any contamination.

She felt this place was more chaotic than she imagined, "The contamination probably started as soon as I entered the meeting room."

What Zhu Ning saw, what Xu Meng's camera captured, and what Dr. Fu saw, all had subtle differences.

It seemed the contaminated area was targeting each person with mental pollution, all hallucinations. Xu Meng suffered the least, while Dr. Fu suffered the most.

Zhu Ning: "Be careful from now on, what you see might come to life."

Dr. Fu looked puzzled, "I don't understand."

Zhu Ning: "Blinking, camera shutters, they're all like doors."

"If my guess is correct, when we blink, it's like taking a photo, the moment the shutter opens, it brings in contamination, and this thing can mutate and spread like a virus." Zhu Ning felt the situation was very complicated.

Since it's all hallucinations, anything is possible.

People can't control their blinking frequency, and camera shots might be distorted.

From now on, nothing can be trusted.

Xu Meng: "No wonder Prometheus lost contact."

This place is like a natural enemy to hunters. Humans have spent years researching scientific methods to deal with contaminants.

Finding patterns, recording videos, transmitting them internally through helmets, using technology to compensate for human weaknesses in contaminated areas.

Now, all that has been erased, advantages turned into disadvantages, excessive use only increases the risk.

Zhu Ning: "All three of us should turn off our cameras' automatic recording function."

Zhu Ning was the first to turn hers off, followed closely by Xu Meng, while Dr. Fu hesitated.

Growing up in a safe zone, humans naturally trust technology. Turning off the camera in a contaminated area feels like closing an eye, reverting to a primitive state, making one feel very insecure.

But Dr. Fu still turned it off. If what Zhu Ning said was true, this action might save their lives.

After turning it off, the screen became like a simple piece of glass, and the people in the protective suits observed the contaminated world through it.

Dr. Fu asked, "What about the human-machine interface device?"

The blue halo on their temples was still flashing, the fungal filaments of the device embedded in their temples. To remove it, they would need to take off their helmets first, then manually remove it.

But that was a paradox; removing the helmet would expose them to contamination.

Zhu Ning: "Don't worry about it. If we get a signal somewhere, maybe we can contact them."

Xu Meng nodded, "We need to find Chu Ling and Cao Wei now."

This place is so dangerous, they might already be in grave danger.

Zhu Ning also thought about it; the greatest fear of humans is the unknown, and this place amplifies the unknown to the extreme.

The contamination seen is hard to distinguish from reality, possibly just hallucinations from the experiments.

The signal was lost without notice, and everything recorded by the camera is unreliable.

Two teammates missing, a swarm of Cockroach Men outside the door.

And they seem to be getting further away from the truth of Divine Descent.

Zhu Ning asked, "Can your Psychic ability take us underground?"

Xu Meng shook her head, "Not possible, the distance is too far."

They were on the ninth floor, and Xu Meng's Psychic ability couldn't sustain it, especially since she hadn't walked among the Cockroach Men for long periods.

Dr. Fu didn't know how to fight; he only knew the situation was dire and couldn't offer any useful suggestions.

Zhu Ning used God's Eye to look down the corridor again. The Cockroach Men were more densely packed now, with several faces pressed against their door, trying to squeeze through the gaps.

This door wouldn't hold for much longer.

Facing them head-on would be futile. If these Cockroach Men could glide, Zhu Ning would be buried under a swarm of cockroaches as soon as she stepped out.

The elevator was out of the question, and the emergency exit was blocked. They could only take the staff passage.

But even the staff passage was now gathering Cockroach Men.

Use fire?

That seemed unlikely. In a real fight, she'd have to burn the entire building to the ground.

Was it really going to come down to a desperate charge? Zhu Ning and Xu Meng might make it, but Dr. Fu would likely not survive this.

Xu Meng: "What about the window?"

The window?

Xu Meng was already fumbling around the window. The master bedroom had floor-to-ceiling windows that wouldn't open, but the living room had two windows that did.

She had already pushed one open. There was no wind outside, and no sound, just an eerie silence.

Outside, there was no night view, only a gray mist that was spreading, with dark, writhing lines in the contaminated area.

Zhu Ning reached out and touched the gray mist. She had expected it to be just mist, but it felt solid.

Her palm was left with a clump of gray-black liquid. She rubbed it between her fingers; it felt like diluted oil and also resembled some kind of insect secretion.

What is this?

Zhu Ning used God's Eye to look at the mist but found nothing.

There came a scratching sound from outside the door; Cockroach Men were clawing at it. Were they really going to have to go through the window?

Zhu Ning looked down. Though they were only on the ninth floor, it seemed bottomless, as if anyone who entered would be buried.