The System Arrived Four Years Early, but the Anomaly Is Still a Juvenile - Chapter 161

As Fang Mingyue restored power to the first floor, the instruments and lights in Shen Ge’s area also flickered on. The sudden light and noise instantly awakened the slumbering parasitized individuals and anomalies in the vicinity. These parasitized beings were highly sensitive to sound, and the disturbance stirred them up like a poked hornet’s nest, waking them in droves.

Exiting the secret laboratory, Shen Ge could faintly hear the distinct swallowing sounds characteristic of anomalies and parasitized individuals coming from various parts of the experimental zone.

However, with his “Formless + Silent” traits, he could walk right past an anomaly without any danger, even face-to-face.

As Shen Ge moved through the experimental zone towards the deeper areas, he suddenly heard a cacophony of noise, followed by a sickening, squelching sound like flesh being trampled.

A dark shadow lunged out from the corner ahead, devouring any parasitized individuals and lower-tier anomalies in its path.

Whoa!
Shen Ge’s eyes lit up as he got a clear look at the anomaly. It was a familiar sight: the large rat, a veteran actor in the world of anomalies… If he weren’t in a foreign country, he’d have been tempted to capture this anomaly rat and take it back for Li Xiang to experiment on, hoping to develop more “self-healing” products.

“Report, Master. This Anomaly Rat has an anomaly energy level of 607%. It has just completed its Tier 3 mutation. Please exercise caution!” Xiao Qi’s voice chimed in with a reminder.

Compared to Xiao Qi’s considerate level-reporting service, a certain system would only blare a “Warning: This is a high-level anomaly, run!” in Shen Ge’s mind.

Strangely, even though Shen Ge was standing at the corridor entrance with “Formless + Silent” active, the Anomaly Rat lifted its head, its crimson gaze shifting directly towards his location.

“Scent?” Just as Shen Ge felt a pang of confusion, the Anomaly Rat pounced at him.

Shen Ge reacted swiftly, dodging backward while slashing out with his Pig-Slaughtering Knife. A blade of light cut through the rat’s skin, causing a spray of dark blood to splatter out.

The parasitized individuals nearby, catching the scent of the black blood, seemed to discover some delicious delicacy. They frantically rushed over, throwing themselves to the ground to lick it up.

The wound Shen Ge’s slash had opened on the Anomaly Rat was healing at a visible rate, its regenerative ability far surpassing that of the one from the Rong City branch!

“What a shame.” Shen Ge felt a tinge of regret that he couldn’t take this Anomaly Rat back. Even if he killed it, leaving the body behind would ultimately benefit the Sakura Blossoms.

Given Shen Ge’s current strength, enhanced by the “Crimson Mist Form” rot armor, dealing with an ordinary Tier 3 anomaly wasn’t an issue. However, this didn’t include creatures like the Anomaly Rat with its “Rapid Regeneration” or some of the larger, bulkier anomalies.

After several exchanges, Shen Ge remained unharmed. Although the Pig-Slaughtering Knife had hacked the Anomaly Rat into a bloody mess, its rapid healing ability rendered these injuries almost negligible.

Nevertheless, Shen Ge had already devised a strategy.

The Anomaly Rat was Tier 3, and so was he.

As the Anomaly Rat roared and charged forward, Shen Ge stood motionless. Suddenly, the air seemed to shimmer subtly, and then the Anomaly Rat thudded against an invisible barrier.

Having trapped the Anomaly Rat with his Formless Anomaly Domain, Shen Ge lunged forward. He pivoted his body, violently swinging his right arm. His right hand formed a claw as he thrust it towards the rat’s chest. His entire arm became formless, piercing through the anomaly’s body—

Heart Extraction!

Both Shen Ge and the Anomaly Rat were Tier 3, but Shen Ge’s anomaly energy was special. Perhaps due to the system’s influence, or because its essence was “mental power,” he could suppress entities of the same tier.

As Shen Ge’s hand plunged into the Anomaly Rat’s chest, his mental power, sustaining the Formless Anomaly Domain, plummeted rapidly. But having come this far, there was no turning back.

Just as Shen Ge’s mental power dropped to less than ten percent, his right palm finally broke through the Anomaly Rat’s energy defense and reached its heart.

Squelch!
Shen Ge gripped the Anomaly Rat’s heart. The Crimson Mist rot armor coating his arm instantly transformed into the Anomaly Stomach form, biting down on the rat’s heart!

[The host is majestic and invincible, single-handedly slaying a Tier 3 anomaly. Reward: 300 System Points, Random F-grade Supply Item x1.]

[Sell the Tier 3 anomaly corpse? Price: 1500 System Points.]

“Yes.”

Shen Ge currently had a total of 14,537 System Points and 15 unclaimed F-grade recovery items, so he didn’t need to be overly frugal with his supplies.

After selling the anomaly corpse, Shen Ge ate a Mental Apple to evade the swarming parasitized individuals and continued deeper into the experimental zone.

Reaching the innermost laboratory, Shen Ge found the switch and turned on the lights. The several-dozen-square-meter room was in disarray: tables, chairs, and stools were overturned; numerous experimental instruments lay haphazardly on the floor and tables; experimental files and reports were scattered everywhere; bloodstains covered the surfaces; and a headless corpse lay in the corner.

Shen Ge had Xiao Qi connect to the laboratory’s computer. Once successfully booted, the experimental records on the desktop caught his attention.

Opening them, he found they were recordings made by the headless corpse before its death.

In the video, a weary, balding Sakura Blossom researcher spoke in heavily accented English.

With Xiao Qi’s translation, Shen Ge roughly understood his meaning.

He said:

“If you are seeing this video, it means the plan has failed. But I have no regrets. I only wanted to prove that the evolution of the individual human has not stopped due to technological development. On the contrary, technology and individual evolution complement each other. The emergence of anomalies has provided humanity with a new opportunity for evolution.”

“Once I completed this research, the entire world would remember my name! No one could steal my achievements! Those who tried to halt the plan back then must be very pleased now, right? However, I managed to take some particularly promising samples from the institute before they could destroy them.”

“These samples are like my ‘children.’ I hoped they could survive in that environment, but they seem to have a bad eating habit—they always like to bite off the heads of their food and chew slowly. I don’t think they prefer the texture of the head, but rather the nutrient-rich brain!”

“Ah, my little one has come to see me. Child, I—”

Before the researcher could finish, a rustling sound was heard, followed by a dark shadow pouncing on him and biting off most of his body in one gulp.

Although the shadow flashed by quickly, Shen Ge could roughly make out that it seemed to be a two-to-three-meter-long black centipede.

“…Tch.” Shen Ge’s expression rarely showed displeasure. He’d rather face animal-type anomalies than insectoid ones.

Especially centipedes.

Due to their “medicinal properties,” he had encountered many of these back when he first entered the Rongshan Mental Hospital—so many that they were measured by the bucketful.

Thus, while Shen Ge wasn’t particularly bothered by worms, maggots, or other insects becoming spirits—er, anomalies—he had a certain aversion to centipedes.

He even felt a momentary urge to forget further exploration and just burn the entire underground research facility to the ground.

Shen Ge closed the video and opened the folder containing the experimental records, browsing through the reports related to the Anomaly Centipede.

These were things he wouldn’t have understood much before, but after spending increasing time in the Research Department over the past few months, he could now grasp some of the data recording patterns.

With Xiao Qi’s help in translating technical terms and specialized data into plain language, Shen Ge quickly understood the “traits” of these Anomaly Centipedes.

First, the Anomaly Centipedes had strong reproductive capabilities. There was a natural cave within this underground base dedicated to cultivating them.

According to the researcher’s reports, it took about three months to cultivate over a hundred Tier 1 Anomaly Centipedes for experiments.

Secondly, the Anomaly Centipedes seemed to inherit the “medicinal property” aspect. Their eggs held high medicinal value; consuming them directly could even slowly heal wounds.

Shen Ge, who had initially wanted to burn the place down, now considered taking some Anomaly Centipede eggs back for Li Xiang to cultivate.

Currently, the “Internal Injury Healing Pills” obtained from the system had a “semi-finished” version developed by the Rong City branch that approached the original’s effects. Adding Anomaly Centipede eggs might just turn it into the finished product.

Shen Ge began searching the laboratory, trying to find the natural cave mentioned in the reports for cultivating the Anomaly Centipedes.

Just then, a series of strange noises came from next door, followed by the sound of flesh being crushed and “gulping” swallowing sounds.

It seemed the parasitized individuals gathered in the corridor had attracted roaming anomalies, and those lower-tier anomalies were now feasting right outside the office door.

Even trapped, Shen Ge wasn’t panicked. He could easily escape using his Formless Anomaly Domain. But at that moment, he received a message from Fang Mingyue.

Fang Mingyue informed him about the Anomaly Centipedes in the underground warehouse and how the people here had tried to raise anomalies to eliminate failed test subjects. Although Shen Ge felt some aversion to the Anomaly Centipedes, motivated by the goal of creating his own “Internal Injury Healing Pills,” he decided to go check it out.

As Shen Ge headed towards the underground area using the route map provided by Fang Mingyue, she encountered a situation herself.

More and more parasitized individuals were flooding into the underground area, attracting numerous anomalies to come and feed. Some of these anomalies were on the verge of Tier 2 “mutation,” and this all-you-can-eat buffet promptly triggered their evolution.

Several Tier 1 anomalies simultaneously mutated to Tier 2 after devouring large numbers of their kind. Among them were anomalies possessing Anomaly Space abilities.

Suddenly, several Anomaly Spaces appeared at once. The collision of anomaly energies caused spatial distortions in the area, inadvertently allowing some Tier 2 anomalies to enter the laboratory where Fang Mingyue was.

Fang Mingyue had been collecting relevant reports inside the laboratory, planning to hand the ones with important information directly to Shen Ge when he arrived, while having Xiao Qi copy another set for the Special Countermeasures Department.

Unexpectedly, just as she was reviewing the reports, the commotion outside grew louder. Several anomalies suddenly emerged from the distorted space into the laboratory area.

Clearly incapable of handling multiple enemies alone, and seeing that the anomalies had detected her life force signature without hesitation, Fang Mingyue turned and ran.

Unfortunately, these anomalies had clearly spotted her. While she wanted to avoid them, they had no intention of letting her go, initiating a chase through the experimental zone.

The route towards the blast door she had blown open was already blocked by the influx of parasitized individuals. Of the remaining three paths, one housed high-tier Anomaly Centipedes, and the other two—one was her current location, and the other was impassable due to the spatial distortions.

Though anxious, Fang Mingyue didn’t panic and flee blindly. As she ran, she pondered what Shen Ge would do in such a situation!

Obviously, Shen Ge would adopt strategies like “the more chaos, the better,” “as long as it’s easy for me, nothing else matters,” or “it’s just Sakura Blossom territory, let’s wreak havoc”… among others.

A bold idea flashed in Fang Mingyue’s mind. Deciding to utilize this characteristic, she threw a Molotov cocktail and a fragmentation grenade into the crowd of anomalies and parasitized individuals, then sprinted towards the underground warehouse.

These two items alone were hardly enough to stop the monsters flooding into the laboratory. Fang Mingyue not only didn’t plan to sneak away but intended to draw their full aggro.

Then, she stepped onto a chair, jumped onto an experimental table, smashed the window above, climbed through into the adjacent office, and leaped into the corridor. With a flick, her Anomaly Bone Staff extended into a long pole.

The anomalies feasting in the corridor didn’t expect food to fall from the sky. Sensing Fang Mingyue’s life force, one opened its mouth to bite her mid-air. But instead of a tasty morsel, it got a pole rammed down its throat straight to its stomach.

Fang Mingyue used her falling momentum to perform a roll, simultaneously leveraging the staff. The anomaly she had impaled was sent flipping onto its back.

As Fang Mingyue rose, she retracted and then extended the Anomaly Bone Staff again, sweeping it in a wide arc to knock down the parasitized individuals charging at her. She then stepped on them to forcibly charge through the corridor.

Reaching a corner, two anomalies with fleshy, petal-like heads opened their terrifying, gaping maws to bite Fang Mingyue. Instead of retreating, she advanced, ducking under a parasitized individual’s lunge while simultaneously tossing two fragmentation grenades into their wide-open mouths.

Boom!
Boom!
Two loud explosions turned the fleshy flower heads of the parasitized individuals into chunks of meat. Meanwhile, Fang Mingyue, emulating Jackie Chan’s signature downstairs method, slid down the stair railing.

Having passed through here once before, Fang Mingyue knew the railings only had cobwebs and rust, no hidden mechanisms or traps, or she wouldn’t have dared slide down so recklessly.

With the overwhelming number of parasitized individuals pouring in from above, many had already rushed into this passage leading to the underground warehouse. Sliding down actually saved her a lot of time.

The anomalies whose aggro Fang Mingyue had drawn earlier clearly weren’t about to let her go easily. They chased her down to the lower levels, devouring any parasitized individuals blocking their path.

Fang Mingyue rushed to the bottom level, kicked open the previously closed iron door, and pulled out a fragmentation grenade, throwing it into the container where the Anomaly Centipedes were coiled.

Boom!
The moment the grenade exploded, Fang Mingyue had already used her grappling hook gun to latch onto a distant container. She climbed up, pried open the iron grating of a ventilation duct, and crawled inside.

The enraged Anomaly Centipede, after being blasted, charged out. Although it detected Fang Mingyue’s life force scent from the ventilation duct, the parasitized individuals and anomalies flooding in through the entrance were more appealing.

Fang Mingyue didn’t concern herself with the situation in the underground warehouse. As she crawled deeper into the ventilation duct, she took out her communicator and sent a message to Shen Ge, updating him on the situation.

She hadn’t crawled far when she faintly heard gunfire. After checking with Shen Ge via communicator and confirming it wasn’t him, she guessed it might be Luo Jing and the others.

The source of the gunfire was indeed Luo Jing’s group, who had encountered attacks from anomalies and parasitized individuals. After Fang Mingyue activated the power system for the underground base, equipment in many areas powered on. The machine noises, operating unattended, awakened large numbers of parasitized individuals who were being used as test subjects.

Among these were more advanced “Freaks.” Luo Jing and the others hadn’t stayed long in the control room before following Glotz and his companion, attempting to venture deeper into the underground laboratory. Unfortunately, they ran into hordes of these awakened “Freaks” in the experimental zone.

Although these “Freaks” weren’t as powerful as Tier 1 anomalies, they were much more troublesome to deal with than ordinary parasitized individuals who could be handled with guns and grenades.

Facing hundreds of “Freaks,” Luo Jing and her four companions found themselves in a fierce battle, forced into a sealed laboratory.

Seeing they couldn’t hold out, Glotz gave Hendley a look. The latter took out a syringe and injected himself.

Immediately, Hendley underwent a Hulk-like transformation, his height shooting from 1.8 meters to over 2.5 meters, his muscles bulging enormously.

He then charged to the doorway, punching one “Freak” after another, instantly pulverizing them into meat paste.

“This is…” Luo Jing, standing behind Glotz, hesitated to speak, clearly curious about the drug Hendley had used.

Glotz rubbed his bald head, a slightly proud expression on his face. “To be frank, Miss Luo, this is the latest Anomaly Energy Potion developed by our US Anomaly Research Department. It’s similar to the potions you use that rapidly heal wounds and accelerate recovery. But our potion works by accelerating the activity of anomaly energy cells, putting the agent’s own cells into dormancy and allowing the anomaly energy cells to temporarily control bodily functions.”

Brother Li, surprised that the US had such a potion with effects almost equivalent to creating artificial anomalies, asked a rather silly question: “Is this potion also made from anomalies?”

Since it was an anomaly energy potion, it was naturally made from the mysterious and versatile anomalies. Compared to Brother Li’s foolish question, Luo Jing was more concerned about whether it was harmful to the human body.

After all, the potions used by Brother Li and Zhao Dezhi could relieve pain and heal injuries, but required continuous injections of anomaly energy potions to sustain the effect; otherwise, the user would turn into a fleshy monster.

Hearing Luo Jing’s question, Glotz clearly didn’t want to elaborate. “Miss Luo, rather than worrying about whether the Anomaly Energy Potion is harmful to Hendley, perhaps you should consider how we can escape this siege of parasitized individuals?”

Glotz obviously didn’t know that the creatures outside weren’t ordinary parasitized individuals but the more troublesome and harder-to-deal-with “Freaks.”

His tone still carried confidence in the “Anomaly Energy Potion,” and a faint smile could even be seen at the corner of his eye. But this smile didn’t last long, shattered by the intrusion of two Tier 2 anomalies from outside.

Hendley, in his Hulk form, was already hard-pressed to hold back the hundreds of “Freaks.” No one expected several anomalies to appear from somewhere, devouring the “Freaks” as they charged towards the experimental zone.

Hendley, who had been holding the line in the corridor, didn’t anticipate the anomalies’ ferocious assault. Even with the power of the Anomaly Energy Potion maximizing the effects of his several anomaly energy equipment, he couldn’t last five minutes against this horde. Both he and his equipment were swallowed by the two leading anomalies.

Watching as anomalies and “Freaks” poured into the experimental zone together, Glotz had no time to grieve. He, along with Luo Jing and the other two, tried to use their anomaly energy equipment to block the entrance.

However, facing overwhelming numbers and quality, all resistance seemed futile. Just as despair set in, a loud BANG erupted from the back of the laboratory. The iron grating of a ventilation duct in the corner was kicked open, and a slender figure dropped down.

“Mingyue!” Recognizing the newcomer, Luo Jing was overjoyed.

On one hand, she and Fang Mingyue were both agents from the headquarters, had known each other for a long time, and had a good relationship. On the other hand, Fang Mingyue’s arrival via the ventilation duct meant they could potentially escape through it.

But before Fang Mingyue could even respond after jumping down, she raised her hand. The Anomaly Leather Bracer on her right arm deployed an inflatable pad that expanded inside the ventilation duct, seemingly attempting to block it.

However, the next second, another loud BANG sounded. The inflatable pad blocking the vent was forcefully “squeezed” out, followed by half-meter to one-meter-long Anomaly Centipedes dropping from the ventilation duct.

“What’s going on?” Luo Jing, forced to the center of the lab by the Freaks, asked Fang Mingyue.

After escaping into the ventilation duct, Fang Mingyue had assumed the large Anomaly Centipede would prioritize devouring the anomalies and parasitized individuals that had charged into the underground warehouse. While the big one indeed ignored her, there were many smaller Anomaly Centipedes in the other containers in the warehouse.

The report Shen Ge saw mentioned the Anomaly Centipedes’ strong reproductive ability—so strong that the high-tier centipede could lay numerous eggs by itself.

During the “abandoned” period of the underground base, the Anomaly Centipede hadn’t starved. It sustained itself by consuming its own eggs and the smaller centipedes.

Terrifyingly, the centipede’s egg-laying efficiency far exceeded its consumption rate. Fang Mingyue only saw the large centipede hiding in one container but didn’t realize that the other containers were filled with smaller centipedes hiding to avoid being eaten by their mother.

The fragmentation grenade Fang Mingyue threw not only attracted the high-tier centipede’s attention and drew in the anomalies and parasitized individuals from outside but also awakened the small centipedes in the other containers.

It was like poking a hornet’s nest. Dense swarms of Anomaly Centipedes crawled all over the warehouse. Some, detecting Fang Mingyue’s life force, chased her all the way here.

Luo Jing hadn’t expected this outcome. Her newly kindled hope was instantly extinguished, but Fang Mingyue wasn’t as pessimistic.

“Sister Luo, don’t worry. Agent Shen has received the location I sent and is on his way here,” Fang Mingyue said, her tone filled with absolute confidence in Shen Ge.

Luo Jing didn’t say anything outwardly, but inwardly she was anxious. After all, the underground research base was more complex than imagined. Who knew how long it would take Shen Ge to fight his way here? Moreover, the corridor outside was already completely blocked by “Freaks” and anomalies.

However, as the saying goes, speak of the devil. Just as they mentioned their hope, a somewhat off-key but barely audible song echoed from outside the experimental zone—

“Just captured a few monsters, hey!”
“Subdued a few demons, ho!”
“Why are there so many Freaks and anomalies!”

Regardless of the singing quality, its ability to draw aggro was excellent. Hearing the song from the end of the corridor, the Freaks and anomalies surged backward en masse.

But what awaited them wasn’t just red flames but also the anomaly energy bullets from the Anomaly-Killing Revolver. In an instant, the entire corridor became a slaughterhouse!

Shen Ge, the “Anomaly Butcher,” had arrived!