The System Arrived Four Years Early, but the Anomaly Is Still a Juvenile - Chapter 159

Beep.

Beep.

Beep.

The urgent sound from the communicator slowly brought Luo Jing back to consciousness. She shook her aching, dizzy, and heavy head, pushed away the rubble pinning her down with great effort, and climbed out from the wreckage.

Amidst a series of rustling sounds, Luo Jing swept her flashlight around and saw several one-meter-long centipede anomalies crawling over a pile of collapsed rubble in the distance.

Luo Jing immediately pulled out an Anomaly Energy Freeze Grenade from the pack on her lower back, pulled the pin, and threw it at the group of centipede anomalies. With a pop, the grenade exploded, releasing a burst of anomalous energy and freezing the centipedes into solid blocks of ice.

Sweeping the flashlight around to confirm no more centipede anomalies were nearby, Luo Jing finally took out her communicator and switched it to voice mode.

“Hello?”

“Investigator Luo! Are you all okay?” The hurried voice of Xiao Cheng came through the communicator, accompanied by gunfire and the grotesque swallowing sounds of anomalies, indicating his situation wasn’t favorable either.

“I’m alright, just some minor injuries. But I haven’t found Brother Li or Investigator Zhao yet. What’s your situation?” Luo Jing replied.

When Luo Jing fell into the sinkhole, Brother Li and Zhao Dezhu had simultaneously shielded her. The collapsed area was vast, so it was clear those two had fallen down with her.

While communicating with Xiao Cheng, Luo Jing used her flashlight to search the collapsed area for any sign of Brother Li and Zhao Dezhu.

The hole above was over ten meters high. Most peculiarly, the area below wasn’t an ordinary cave but an underground structure.

“Investigator Luo!” At that moment, as if hearing Luo Jing’s conversation with Xiao Cheng, Brother Li—half of his body pinned under a rock—shouted to her.

“Over here!”

“Investigator Luo!”

Luo Jing immediately ran towards the source of the voice and found Brother Li trapped under a rock. He stuffed something intestine-like beneath the stone and activated it.

Bang!

The huge rock was sent flying by the expanding “intestine balloon.” Luo Jing helped Brother Li to the side and asked with concern, “Brother Li, are you okay?”

Brother Li frowned in pain. “My left leg was hit by a rock. The bone might be injured. It’s fine, I have the special painkiller from the department.”

“XTPA-9684?” Luo Jing’s brow furrowed slightly.

Brother Li nodded with a bitter smile. “No other choice. Special circumstances… I can’t afford to be a burden with a useless leg. Don’t worry, I know my limits.”

“XTPA-9684” was a special drug developed by the Special Countermeasures Department by combining anomalous “self-healing cells.” Taking it not only made one forget pain in a short time but also allowed wounds to heal slowly.

For example, a 10-centimeter long, 1-centimeter deep cut on the arm would completely heal within 30 minutes after taking “XTPA-9684.”

However, this drug had significant side effects. First, the injured area was healed by the anomalous “self-healing cells,” so that spot would be “eroded” by anomalous energy. Once the drug’s effects wore off, the user would experience pain several times worse than the original injury.

Secondly, the anomalous “self-healing cells” would gradually start to overwhelm and consume human cells. If not suppressed by another drug, the wound would undergo “flesh metamorphosis.” Put bluntly, it meant turning into one of the flesh monsters from the human experiments of the past.

Therefore, the Special Countermeasures Department generally did not allow Anomaly Investigators to use these two “anomalous drugs.” They were only issued in limited quantities—three doses per veteran investigator—during major operations, with usage being entirely voluntary.

Veteran investigators understood the implications of using such drugs. Using them usually meant that, even if the mission was successful, the injured body part would likely require “amputation” to escape the drug’s control. If the injury was in an area like the head or abdomen where amputation wasn’t possible, it was almost tantamount to a death sentence.

Brother Li didn’t want to use this stuff either, but he knew his left leg was basically useless. Being crippled in an anomaly nest meant almost certain death.

Compared to dying here, he’d rather take the gamble!

Before Luo Jing could react, Brother Li had already pulled out a small vial, poured the “XTPA-9684” drug into his mouth, and swallowed it.

After taking the drug, Brother Li immediately felt a warm current surging through his body. It quickly rushed to his left foot, and along with the warm sensation, the pain in his left foot vanished. The bleeding from the deep, bone-exposing wounds stopped immediately and began to heal slowly.

“Old Zhao! Old Zhao! If you’re not dead, say something, damn it!” Supported by Luo Jing, Brother Li stood up and shouted into the rubble.

Instead of Zhao Dezhu’s response, they heard voices speaking in English.

Luo Jing, who understood English, communicated with the two American agents. Their names were “Grotz” and “Hendley.”

The former was the captain of the U.S. Anomaly Support Team, quite capable, with a burly build reminiscent of Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson, and similarly bald.

With their help, the group found Zhao Dezhu unconscious in the rubble. His condition was much more severe than Brother Li’s, with multiple serious injuries.

Without a second thought, Brother Li directly injected the injectable version of “XTPA-9684” into Zhao Dezhu, pulling him back from the brink of death.

Meanwhile, Xiao Cheng informed Luo Jing via communicator that those who hadn’t fallen into the sinkhole were being pursued by the centipede anomalies controlled by the mysterious figure in the green cloak and had been forced to retreat into a building not far away.

Actually, the centipede anomalies, while strong, weren’t powerful enough to overwhelm several Anomaly Investigators alone. The main problem was the overwhelming number of regular anomalies and the infected in the vicinity, coupled with the fact that the green-cloaked figure was even stronger than the anomalies. On the investigators’ side, the Korean team members were united, but only amongst themselves.

Xiao Cheng had been slightly separated. He wanted to go to the sinkhole area to help Luo Jing and the others, but the Korean investigators had no intention of assisting him. As they pulled back, Xia Mei and the others were also forced to retreat by the anomalies, leaving Xiao Cheng with no choice but to withdraw with them.

Once the investigators resisting the anomalies and the infected on the surface left, the area above the sinkhole became like a pot of boiling dumplings, with hordes of low-level anomalies and the infected jumping down densely.

The infected constituted the majority. Most critically, they were like zombies; even if they fell and became twisted and deformed, they would crawl or lunge, desperately surging towards Luo Jing and the others.

“Let’s go!” Brother Li, supporting Zhao Dezhu, shouted.

Grotz yelled something in English, the gist being that escaping back up was impossible now, so they should head deeper into the underground facility.

Seeing the sinkhole swarming with infected like a boiling pot, the group had no time to deliberate. They could only follow Grotz and retreat further into the underground facility.

Passing through an old underground passage, they arrived at a pressure door resembling a submarine hatch. Grotz and Hendley exchanged a glance, put on a pair of leather gloves, grabbed the circular wheel, and began turning it with great effort.

Whoosh—

With a loud hiss of releasing pressure, the hatch was forced open by Grotz and Hendley working together. Everyone rushed inside and then tightly closed the hatch behind them.

Soon after, loud thuds of pounding came from outside, clearly the anomalies and infected had caught up.

“What is this place…” Luo Jing observed the old facility, which resembled an underground laboratory, clearly surprised that such a place existed near Tokyo Tower.

Strangely, Grotz and Hendley didn’t seem particularly surprised, almost as if they already knew about this underground research facility, as they looked around.

Investigator Luo asked, “Captain Grotz, you seem… quite familiar with this place?”

Grotz glanced at Luo Jing, then exchanged another look with Hendley. After a moment of hesitation, he chose to be honest with her: “Miss Luo, to be frank, we do know about this underground laboratory. It was jointly built by us and Japan a few years ago, with the aim of researching a virus to kill anomalies. But as far as I know, this facility was abandoned two or three years ago due to an incident.”

Hendley added, “Based on Japan’s report on the Takaguchi City anomaly disaster, they mentioned the two most severely affected areas were Kojō City and Tokyo Tower… We suspected they restarted experiments here, leading to the anomaly outbreak getting out of control and causing Takaguchi City’s complete fall.”

The two briefly explained what they knew. Grotz’s “sincere” demeanor made it seem like he was telling the whole truth.

Of course, how much of this “truth” was real and how much was fabricated was for Luo Jing to judge.

After Grotz finished speaking, he took out a PDA, pressed a few buttons, and pulled up a map. Seeing that he wasn’t trying to hide it from her, Luo Jing stood beside him and openly looked at it.

It was clearly a map of the underground facility, but Luo Jing immediately felt something was off. It was seventy to eighty percent similar to the map of the underground laboratory beneath the Korean mall from Deng Yuqi’s report!

Grotz didn’t notice the subtle change in Luo Jing’s expression. The reason they weren’t hiding this from Luo Jing and the others was to use it as an opportunity to seek cooperation with the Special Countermeasures Department of China.

As for the “purpose” of this cooperation, that depended on whether the subsequent operations went smoothly and whether it was worth revealing more information to these people before making a decision.

After all, two or three years had passed. Whether the deeper areas were still the same as before, and whether they would need Luo Jing and the others’ assistance, were still unknowns.

“Captain Luo, if we can reach here… the command center of the underground facility, we can use the elevator there to return to the surface,” Grotz said, pointing to a marked spot on the map.

Going back the way they came posed difficulties, not just climbing out of the sinkhole, but also dealing with the anomalies and infected in the pit and passages. If, as Grotz said, there was an elevator to the surface in the command center, it would indeed be the best plan to escape the danger.

After discussing it, the group decided to proceed deeper according to the map.

The underground facility indeed looked like it had been abandoned for a long time, with many pieces of equipment decayed and broken. However, Luo Jing couldn’t understand why Japan would build such an important research facility under the city center and then “abandon it so casually.” It seemed somewhat unbelievable.

Strangest of all, Grotz not only had a complete and accurate map but also knew the passwords to some mechanisms and locks clearly.

Even when the group arrived at the command room hatch, Grotz actually pulled out an access card and smoothly opened the command room door, which was supposed to have multiple layers of security.

The command room was sizable, about a hundred square meters. Besides various precision control instruments, there was a wall of monitors in front of the control console on the right, apparently the “surveillance area.”

On the left was a huge floor-to-ceiling window. Looking through it, one could see what appeared to be a natural underground cavern.

On the soil at the bottom of the cavern were two different types of “eggshells.” One kind was at least two to three meters in diameter, the other only about half a meter. There were many of them, thousands upon thousands.

Standing before the window, looking at the hatched, empty eggshells outside, Luo Jing felt an ominous premonition, instinctively thinking of the centipede anomalies that had emerged from underground.

If Shen Ge were here, he would immediately recognize these eggshells as being very similar to the green anomalous energy eggs he had seen in the anomalous energy building in Dongyu Village. Apart from not glowing green, they were almost identical.

While Luo Jing was still observing the pit full of eggshells, Grotz had already inserted an authority card into the control console, activating the wall of monitors.

The surveillance feeds weren’t from inside the facility but showed various street scenes centered around Tokyo Tower.

Due to Japan’s use of a large number of Anomaly Energy Fog-Dispersing Shells, the thick fog in the Tokyo Tower area had temporarily cleared, allowing for normal visibility, at least.

However, on the hundreds of monitor screens, the sky was filled with dense human-headed balloons, and the ground was teeming with anomalies hunting for prey, along with the infected who temporarily served as food.

Grotz seemed to be trying to find something specific through the monitors, constantly manipulating the console to enlarge and display split-screen images on the main screen.

Luo Jing, Brother Li, and Zhao Dezhu stood behind Grotz, watching silently, seemingly trying to figure out what they were actually after.

Just then, Luo Jing suddenly noticed something strange about one of the giant anomalies running through the city on one of the hundreds of screens.

“Captain Grotz, can you enlarge screen H-32?” Luo Jing asked.

Grotz, who had been searching for something, looked towards the “H-32” monitor as Luo Jing spoke and projected the image onto the central large screen.

On the screen, they could see a giant green anomaly, resembling a mutated mantis shrimp, with a fully armed person standing on its back.

This person’s uniform was the black combat suit of the Chinese Special Countermeasures Department.

Luo Jing was familiar with all the Anomaly Investigators participating in this operation. Although this person wore an Anomaly Energy Purifier mask, the tentacles extending from his arms, wrapped around the giant anomaly’s horns, immediately confirmed for her that this was Shen Ge!

Shen Ge stood on the head of the giant “prawn,” several flesh tentacles extending from his body and wrapping around the anomaly’s horns to prevent himself from being thrown off.

Simultaneously, another tentacle was wrapped around his right hand, which he continuously used to “whip” the giant anomaly. Even without sound from the surveillance feed, Luo Jing, Brother Li, and the others could almost hear the phrase “Let’s go, paddle prawn!” echoing in their minds.

Shen Ge controlled the giant prawn anomaly, making it run several laps through the streets, trampling the infected on the ground into pulp. Then, he charged into a group of other giant anomalies fighting in the distance.

Originally, Shen Ge had just been “watching the show,” but after receiving Luo Jing’s message, he decided to resolve these anomalies quickly.

However, the previously brawling anomalies were all Tier 3, and the fog-generating one, suspected to be Tier 4, couldn’t quickly devour the others either. Moreover, they all possessed rapid healing abilities. Waiting for them to determine a victor could take forever.

Crucially, this was a Seven-Fold Anomaly Space, meaning there were probably seven anomalies of this level. Shen Ge figured since things were already chaotic, he might as well stir things up further.

So, using the [Map] to locate this giant green “paddle prawn,” he leveraged his Flesh Armor and the anomaly controller seized from the Twelve Branches during the Daijing anomaly disaster to send interference signals to the prawn anomaly.

While he couldn’t directly control its movements like he had with the previous elephant anomaly, he could use signal interference to prevent it from moving in certain directions.

Thus, Shen Ge “drove” the paddle prawn towards the battlefield, turning the three-way fight into a four-way melee. And he had no intention of stopping there, seemingly aiming to gather all seven “lobsters” to summon the ultimate anomaly!

Luo Jing and the others watched as Shen Ge drove the giant prawn anomaly into the fray, then jumped off its back and disappeared.

Not long after, they saw him on another surveillance screen, herding a new giant anomaly towards the battlefield.

“…”

“…”

“…”

For a moment, including the two international colleagues, all five people in the command room fell into silence.

Brother Li struggled for words for a long time before finally managing to say, “As expected of Investigator Shen… He never fails to astonish me every time he acts!”