Shen Ge wanted to pull off the classic “furrow his brows and take a step back” move, but he didn’t expect to have a “competitor.” This Fang Yaori retreated even faster than he did.
“Investigator Shen, a m-monster!” Fang Yaori said nervously.
Seeing how timid he was, Shen Ge sighed. “Weren’t you pretty bold when you were yelling at me earlier? Why are you so scared just seeing a Rank 2 freak? With an attitude like that, you still want to become an anomaly investigator?”
Fang Yaori said with a pitiful expression, “Investigator Shen, now’s not the time to mock me. My greatest skill is bluffing. When you said you were with the Twelve Zodiacs earlier, I thought, my sister always talks about how you beat those Twelve Zodiac freaks black and blue, so I was just using your reputation to scare them. How was I supposed to know we’d run into the real thing?”
“To put it nicely, I’m an assistant in the Research Department of the Second Special Strategy Department. To put it bluntly, I’m the one being researched. I don’t have the ability to deal with a second-rank freak.”
“Quick, quick, quick! It’s coming!”
Shen Ge sighed inwardly. No wonder Fang Mingyue, whenever she saw this brother of hers, was either hitting him or on her way to hit him. He had already undergone freak modification himself, yet he was still afraid of a freak lower-ranked than him.
Shen Ge raised his hand, and the wristband on his left wrist immediately extended several rotting blood tentacles, binding the freak along with its tentacles. Then he lifted it and slammed it into the ground.
Bang!
Bang!
After a few consecutive heavy slams, half of the freak’s body was smashed into a bloody pulp.
“Report, Master. Blood samples and freak data have been collected.” Xiao Qi took the opportunity while the freak was being smashed to extract the data.
Upon hearing this, Shen Ge clenched his left fist tightly, using the gesture to command the rotting blood tentacles to tighten, squeezing the Rank 2 octopus freak into fresh meat juice.
“Uh.”
Witnessing the bloody scene before him, Fang Yaori subconsciously swallowed hard. Although he had seen quite a few anomalous experimental subjects in the lab, this was his first time witnessing an anomaly investigator’s battle against an anomaly firsthand.
Such a bloody and terrifying image would be etched in his memory forever. The little flame of desire he had to become an anomaly investigator seemed on the verge of being extinguished.
Fang Yaori instinctively looked at Shen Ge, only to see him retract the rotting blood tentacles and casually flick his hand, as if shaking off blood from killing the freak.
He remembered his sister Fang Mingyue often describing the horrors of anomaly combat to him. Sometimes, encountering a troublesome Rank 2 anomaly could even wipe out an entire anomaly squad. But now… a Rank 2 freak couldn’t even launch a single attack before being instantly killed.
“Inv-Investigator Shen, are… are you also a freak?” Meeting Shen Ge’s gaze, Fang Yaori subconsciously blurted out the question for some reason.
As soon as the words left his mouth, he realized it wasn’t a question he should be asking. Taking it back was definitely impossible, so he could only manage an awkward smile.
“I didn’t mean it like that. I just saw those tentacles, they looked like, like…” Fang Yaori couldn’t finish; the more he explained, the more tangled it got.
Shen Ge glanced at him, not bothered by the offense, but asked instead, “Haven’t you seen similar anomalous energy equipment at the freak research institute?”
“This is anomalous energy equipment?” Fang Yaori immediately became interested.
Shen Ge nodded, raised his hand to unleash a burst of anomalous fire to ignite the freak’s body, and while it burned, he sold it off.
[Host successfully killed a Rank 2 anomaly. Reward: System Points x100, F-rank Recovery Item x1.]
[Sell the Rank 2 anomaly corpse? Price: 500 System Points.]
Watching the flames before him gradually diminish until the monster was reduced to nothing but ash, Fang Yaori was speechless with amazement, even forgetting to ask Shen Ge about the anomalous energy equipment.
“How much further to the research institute you mentioned?” Shen Ge asked.
Fang Yaori pointed ahead and said, “Drive straight in this direction for about another ten minutes, and you’ll reach the military base. The research institute is one kilometer outside the base.”
Shen Ge looked in the direction Fang Yaori was pointing. Ahead lay complete darkness; the green belts on both sides of the road were eerily gloomy. Beneath the pitch-black night sky, he could faintly sense a drifting black mist.
Judging by the state of the checkpoint they just saw, the military base Fang Yaori mentioned had probably already encountered trouble. But strangely enough, this was the outskirts of the capital. If something went wrong here, wouldn’t the Special Strategy Department know about it?
Since they were already close, there was no point in overthinking it. Shen Ge had Fang Yaori bring the car over, and the two continued in the direction Fang Yaori indicated.
Ten minutes later, Shen Ge and Fang Yaori arrived at the military base. At this moment, the base’s steel gate was tightly shut. No one was visible in the guard towers on either side of the gate. The surrounding area was pitch black, and even the warning lights were off.
The strangest thing was that the base’s steel gate was covered in rust, which clearly didn’t match the standards of an active base. Instead, it gave the feeling of having been abandoned for decades.
Shen Ge had felt something was off on the way here, and now that feeling was even stronger. He said quietly to Xiao Qi, “Have you detected any anomalous spatial reactions?”
“Report, Master. No anomalous spatial reaction detected. In fact, there’s no trace of any anomalies or freaks at all,” Xiao Qi replied.
Shen Ge immediately had the system perform a scan. Strangely, after the scan finished, the [Map] didn’t show a single red dot.
“Inv-Investigator Shen, what, what reaction did you say?” Fang Yaori thought Shen Ge was talking to him since they were the only two in the car.
“I’m going to check it out. You wait here.” As he spoke, Shen Ge reached for the passenger door.
Fang Yaori panicked. “So, so, so, you’re going into the base, and I, I’m supposed to stay here alone?”
Before he could finish, Shen Ge had already gotten out of the car, leaped into the air, and with a “whoosh,” jumped directly over the base’s steel gate and went inside.
Fang Yaori was on the verge of tears. Having Shen Ge by his side was at least some protection. If an anomaly or freak popped up now, he was done for.
But he also had no ability to match Shen Ge’s movements. Forget jumping over a gate several meters high; even if he had a grappling hook and rope, he couldn’t get over it.
Fang Yaori could only lock the car doors and keep the engine running. If anything stirred, he’d speed off immediately. As for whether his sister would beat him to death afterward, he couldn’t worry about that now. Dying later from a beating was better than being eaten by a monster right now, right?
Meanwhile, Shen Ge had entered the military base and was pushing deeper inside. However, the further he went, the stranger it felt. Not only were there no people inside, but there wasn’t even a trace of anomalies or freaks. Everywhere he looked, there were abandoned tents, vehicles, and various facilities common to military bases.
But whether it was the vehicles or the facilities, everything showed signs of having gone a long time without maintenance—worn by rain and corroded by time.
As Shen Ge searched the military base, Xiao Qi continuously controlled the blood spiders of the Red Mist Battle Armor to explore the surroundings. Still, no anomalous spatial reaction was detected, and even the fluctuations of anomalous energy were very weak.
Standing in the middle of the parade ground, Shen Ge looked up at the night sky obscured by thick clouds. If even Xiao Qi couldn’t detect an anomalous spatial reaction, there was only one possibility—
The Dream World!
When he had fallen into it didn’t matter anymore. Ever since the incidents at Ping An Hotel and later falling asleep at his godmother’s house, Shen Ge had noticed that the “switch” for the Dream World was becoming increasingly uncontrollable. So, being inexplicably pulled into it now wasn’t surprising.
But in the Dream World, whether it was the doomsday Rong City or the doomsday capital, the number of monsters was countless. Here, not even a single Infected could be found, which was somewhat unusual.
Moreover, this situation was similar to the Ping An Hotel incident. Not only had Shen Ge been unknowingly pulled into the Dream World, but an “innocent bystander” had also been dragged in.
Shen Ge reviewed the events from meeting Fang Yaori to heading toward the research institute, trying to find any clues, all while running back toward the base gate.
Fang Yaori sat in the driver’s seat, nervously watching for any movement around him. Suddenly, with a loud “thump,” a dark figure fell from the sky, startling him so much that he instinctively floored the accelerator.
“Hey, where are you going?”
The moment he lurched forward, Fang Yaori heard that familiar voice and realized it was Shen Ge. He quickly slammed on the brakes.
Shen Ge opened the passenger door and got in, couldn’t help but complain, “This is a multi-million dollar car, and that’s how you drive it?”
“I, I was nervous! You suddenly dropped from the sky, Investigator Shen. I thought it was a monster… Oh, you, you went inside. Did you find anything?” Fang Yaori said with a pitiful face.
“Not a single person in the base. Let’s go check out the research institute,” Shen Ge said.
Fang Yaori started the car and asked in surprise, “Not a single person in the base? Impossible! This is a base directly under the Second Department. It’s usually heavily guarded. How could there be no one today? Did the Americans attack and wipe out the whole base?”
Shen Ge replied, “Your imagination is vivid, but unfortunately, that’s not the case. The good news is that, setting aside the Americans, no country currently has that kind of capability, especially after anomaly energy detectors were fully deployed. The bad news is that the problem might be us.”
“Huh?” Fang Yaori got nervous and pressed the accelerator too hard, causing the car to “whoosh” forward. Luckily, they were the only car on the road.
“We’ve likely fallen into an anomalous space,” Shen Ge thought that before finding a way out, he’d probably be stuck with this dead weight. It was best to explain the situation to him in advance, to prevent him from doing something suicidal at a critical moment.
“An-an-an-an-anomalous space?” Fang Yaori was so scared he stuttered. Although he wasn’t as capable as Fang Mingyue, he fortunately inherited his sister’s “fine tradition” of being obedient. He quickly nodded, indicating that as long as Shen Ge could bring him back to the real world, he would follow Shen Ge’s orders absolutely!
Shen Ge and Fang Yaori arrived at the research institute of the Second Special Strategy Department. The scene here was even worse than at the military base. It looked like a massive explosion had occurred; the entire laboratory was buried.
Staring at the ruins before him, Fang Yaori said incredulously, “This, this, this is impossible. I was here the day before yesterday. How could it have turned into this overnight? No, Investigator Shen, look at these ruins. What kind of explosive power would be needed for this effect? If such a serious accident happened, there’s no way there wouldn’t have been any news.”
Shen Ge crouched by the ruins, instructing Xiao Qi to release blood spiders for detection, while casually saying, “Did you forget what I just said about us being trapped in an anomalous space? In anomalous spaces, time and space are distorted. It’s very possible we’re in a doomsday world from decades in the future.”
“Huh? There’s such a thing?” Fang Yaori exclaimed in surprise.
Shen Ge asked, “Is this the only entrance to the research institute? Are there other passages? Like a secret evacuation route for accidents?”
“Well, even if there were, I wouldn’t know. I’m just a lowly assis… Ah, wait! Actually, I think there is!” Fang Yaori pointed to a collapsed building in the distance. “When I was drinking with some researchers before, I heard them mention an emergency passage built under that hillside.”
“Let’s go check it out,” Shen Ge said, heading toward the hillside.
The two skirted around the collapsed building in front of the hill and, following Fang Yaori’s “memory,” found an iron door that looked like an air-raid shelter entrance. Although it was also twisted and deformed from the collapse, it wasn’t completely buried.
Shen Ge used the rotting blood tentacles of the Red Mist Battle Armor to pry the iron door open, and he and Fang Yaori entered the underground facilities of the Second Special Strategy Department’s research institute.
Although the system hadn’t detected any traces of anomalies or freaks, Shen Ge still had Xiao Qi control the blood spiders to probe the surroundings, preventing any ambushes by freaks capable of evading detection.
The underground research institute was also severely collapsed. Many passages were blocked, and large sections of laboratories were buried.
Fortunately, although Fang Yaori was timid, he still proved useful at this moment. As a lowly “assistant,” he led Shen Ge through a maze of twists and turns to a lab deep within.
Here, they could see it was a lab for freak research. There were several anomaly containment rooms, but either they had completely collapsed, or their doors were twisted and deformed from impact—clearly indicating the monsters inside had escaped.
“Something’s not right…” Shen Ge looked at the damaged doors and structures around him. Judging by the situation, even if an experimental accident had occurred here causing the researchers’ deaths, many of the anomalies used for research had still managed to destroy the containment room doors from the inside and escape using their own power.
In other words, even if there were no freaks here, traces of anomalies should have been detected. It was impossible for there to be no monsters at all.
“Investigator Shen, this is where I underwent the freak experiment. Supervisor Chen took the anomalous antibody from this secret room… Unfortunately, it’s all collapsed. We can’t get in. Otherwise, we might find some samples.” Fang Yaori stood beside a collapsed wall.
Shen Ge told Fang Yaori to step back. Then, he coated his arms with the anomalous energy battle armor and extended several rotting blood tentacles, attempting to move the rubble and lift the collapsed ceiling.
But unfortunately, this wasn’t a “single layer”; it was deep underground. The Red Mist Battle Armor simply didn’t have the strength to lift the ceiling.
However, although the Red Mist Battle Armor couldn’t lift the huge rocks, it could use its “liquid” state to seep through the cracks and enter the interior. Once inside, Xiao Qi could take control.
A few minutes later, Xiao Qi, controlling the rotting blood tentacles, found the buried sample box. It finally managed to pry open the cabinet door and take out an antibody sample from inside.
Although the gaps weren’t wide enough to bring the entire sample out, that wasn’t necessary now. All they needed was to break it and let the sample adhere to the rotting blood tentacles to be brought out.
“Report, Master. Anomalous antibody found. Beginning data collection now!”
