[Warning!]
[The host is about to step into the territory of a Seventh-Order Aberrant. The aberrant energy in this area has an extremely powerful corrosive effect. With the host’s current strength, you cannot withstand the corrosion.]
[Extremely strong aberrant energy fluctuations have been detected in the current area. Unpredictable dangers will arise. The geographical environment has undergone massive changes due to the influence of the aberrant domain. Please proceed with caution, host!]
The system’s rating had gone up, and so had its courage. It wasn’t saying things like “certain death” or “nine deaths and one survival” anymore, which showed it had gained some confidence in “itself” and Shen Ge’s strength.
Although facing Sixth or Seventh-Order high-tier Aberrants didn’t guarantee victory, it was no longer like two years ago when all they could do was flee. At worst, they could stir things up and retreat safely.
Of course, someone would never mention that not long ago, when facing a Sixth-Order Aberrant, he hadn’t exactly retreated safely—he’d left a hand behind.
But none of that mattered. What mattered was that when Shen Ge heard the system warning, he’d already activated his Aberrant Eye and looked toward the mountain ahead. Strangely, he could only see aberrant black mist spreading across the mountain, with the summit completely hidden within it. He hadn’t spotted any traces of high-tier Aberrants.
If the aberrant black mist drifting around the summit were replaced with white fog, this dense mountain would look as beautiful as a hidden paradise.
Unfortunately, surrounded by aberrant black mist, the dense jungle-like vegetation gave off an eerie, terrifying feeling.
Fang Mingyue saw Shen Ge standing there staring motionless at the mountain and spoke up: “Shen Ge, is something wrong?”
“It’s fine. Let’s go.” Shen Ge couldn’t yet tell whether this “mountain” was the Aberrant itself, so he could only find the cave mentioned in the intelligence report first.
“Everyone, keep up.” Fang Mingyue gestured to the soldiers behind her, and the group followed behind Shen Ge as they headed up the mountain.
Dense aberrant black mist drifted through the mountain, casting an eerie and terrifying atmosphere over the lush primeval forest.
The smallest trees here required at least seven or eight people to encircle them. The bark of the large trees was covered in moss, and vines wrapped around the trunks like giant serpents.
On the ground, ferns and shrubs grew in abundance like a green ocean, waves rolling, every leaf gleaming with a healthy luster.
The air was filled with a fragrance blending soil, resin, and wildflowers, making people instinctively take deep breaths, wanting to draw as much of this primal essence into their lungs as possible.
Deep in the jungle, the occasional sound of a babbling stream could be heard. A clear brook silently wound through the trees, its surface reflecting dappled points of light.
“Aberrant energy corrosion?” Shen Ge stood by the stream with furrowed brows. Although the system often exaggerated, its main purpose was to make him back off and stay away from high-tier Aberrants.
But since advancing to Fifth-Order, this kind of thing had become less frequent. So setting aside the “exaggerated vocabulary,” the system’s warnings were actually very accurate.
And the two most critical points of its warning about the “mountain” were “domain” and “corrosive effect.” Neither of these should produce the kind of scenery before them that looked like a paradise.
No wonder after receiving the intelligence feedback from Tu Doubi, the New Council had毫不犹豫地 assembled a vanguard team to explore. An environment and resources like this—who wouldn’t be captivated in the apocalypse?
The vanguard team led by Fang Mingyue was used to the ruined cities of the apocalypse. This was their first time seeing such beautiful nature since the apocalypse began. They wished they could breathe in a few more breaths of fresh air.
Just then, Shen Ge suddenly shouted: “Put on your aberrant-energy gas masks. Before we’ve figured out the situation here, don’t breathe in too much of this air.”
“Huh?” Everyone was stunned. The question “Why?” nearly escaped their lips, but the person speaking wasn’t an ordinary soldier—it was the shelter’s “hero.”
Most of the soldiers in the vanguard had witnessed Shen Ge’s strength and trusted him deeply. Hearing this, they quickly checked their gas masks.
The deeper they went, the more complex the terrain became. Fang Mingyue had to assign several soldiers to clear the way ahead, cutting through the vine plants with military knives.
“Shen Ge, something feels off. In the video Captain Tu sent back, there was clearly a path up the mountain, but now…” Fang Mingyue said to Shen Ge.
Shen Ge had also seen the video Tu Doubi sent back and shared the same confusion: “According to the map, the route should be correct. We’ll have to wait until we find the temporary camp they set up.”
Fang Mingyue nodded. She naturally had no objections to Shen Ge’s suggestion—it was just that this eerie environment made her very uneasy.
At that moment, a soldier clearing the path ahead discovered something strange: “Report! Captain Shen, Captain Fang, look at these vines we cut—they’re healing very quickly… It feels like… like aberrant flesh.”
Everyone stepped forward to look at the vines and indeed saw that the cut vines were growing back at a visible rate. When they turned around, the mountain path they’d just cleared was already covered in vines again at its farthest point.
Aberrant flesh?
In fact, when Shen Ge had been going up the mountain, he’d already had the system scan the surroundings. Unfortunately, the [Map] didn’t show even a single red dot. This meant either the Aberrants in this area were affected by special aberrant energy that the system couldn’t detect, or… there was a “big surprise” waiting for Shen Ge and the others.
“Captain, the camp—the camp is up ahead!” At that moment, the soldier responsible for clearing the path noticed a tent completely wrapped in vines.
The tent had been crushed out of shape. If not for the exploration team flag on the door, it would have been really hard to spot.
The group cut through the obstructing vines and entered the temporary camp area, only to find it looked like it had been abandoned for over a decade, completely overgrown with all kinds of plants.
But from the time Tu Doubi sent the intelligence back to the shelter to the vanguard setting out and arriving here, less than two days had passed in total.
Fang Mingyue ordered the soldiers to search the camp, but after a thorough search, they found no useful intelligence. They didn’t see any soldiers from the exploration team or the Aberrant Hunters team either—not even corpses or signs of battle.
No corpses and no signs of battle could be considered “good news”—at least it proved there hadn’t been an Aberrant attack here. The biggest problem was still that cave.
And whether it was searching for Tu Doubi and the others’ whereabouts or confirming whether this “mountain” was itself a high-tier Aberrant or whether a high-tier Aberrant was hiding underground, Shen Ge’s group would have to check out the cave.
The group searched upward from the camp. Strangely, from the mountain base to the temporary camp, the mountain path had gone from being very wide to increasingly narrow, overtaken by all kinds of plants. But now, on the way to the cave, the plants had thinned out considerably. By the time they reached the cave entrance, the plants were growing more than ten meters away.
The area around the cave was completely bare, as if the surrounding plants were “avoiding” this cave—or perhaps there was something terrifying inside.
After reaching the cave entrance, Fang Mingyue first had two soldiers set up aberrant energy detectors, attempting to use them to detect the aberrant energy intensity and life-form signatures inside the cave.
Shen Ge also activated his Aberrant Eye and looked into the cave, but aside from the pervasive aberrant black mist, he saw no traces of Aberrants or aberrant spaces. And if even he couldn’t see anything, then the aberrant energy detectors Fang Mingyue brought naturally wouldn’t pick up anything either.
“Report, Captain! The aberrant energy detector has detected a very strong aberrant energy reaction inside the cave, but no traces of Aberrants or life forms,” said the soldier operating the detector.
“Shen Ge, what do we do now?” Fang Mingyue asked.
Although she was the nominal commander of this vanguard team, everyone knew that was just for show to the New Council. In reality, Shen Ge, the “outsider,” was the true commander.
“Let’s go in and take a look.” Shen Ge didn’t suggest splitting up, because once they’d entered the “mountain,” they were already in a trap. Whether inside the cave or outside, there was no difference.
“Alright.” Fang Mingyue had the soldiers pack up the aberrant energy detector, then assigned two soldiers to guard the technical personnel and equipment at the cave entrance while everyone else followed her and Shen Ge into the cave.
“On the way here, I’ve already taught you all the methods for dealing with various aberrant domains. Keep my words in mind. If you get lost in an aberrant space, don’t run around like a headless fly. First, find a way to determine your position, then find the patterns of exploration.”
“Aberrant spaces aren’t that scary. Use the aberrant energy locator to record your beacons. As long as you don’t panic, you can find the Aberrant’s weak point and escape the aberrant space.”
In fact, what Shen Ge was describing could be considered the most basic anti-Aberrant knowledge of the Special Strategy Department in the “reality” he came from, but that was all summarized by the Research Department and Special Strategy Department based on repeated anti-Aberrant experience.
In this world, from the appearance of Aberrants to the fall of the entire world, only a few short years had passed. The development of anti-Aberrant abilities hadn’t even gotten off the ground, let alone research into these anti-Aberrant tactics.
After Shen Ge finished speaking, everyone followed the dark, narrow cave passage inward. After walking for about ten minutes, the cave, which had originally been six or seven meters wide, became increasingly narrow and damp.
Shen Ge wore tactical gloves he’d borrowed from Fang Mingyue and brushed his hand along the cave wall, only to find it wasn’t ordinary water stains but a kind of black, viscous substance.
Black blood?
Shen Ge couldn’t help but think of the black blood viscous substance he’d seen seeping from the flesh walls inside the high-tier Aberrant’s belly before. But the “black liquid” here wasn’t as viscous as black blood, nor was it corrosive.
After walking another few dozen meters, everyone suddenly heard a rustling sound. Shen Ge swept his aberrant-energy flashlight forward and saw a mass of “black mist” crawling toward them.
Looking more carefully, that “black mist” was nothing of the sort—it was a swarm of “little spiders,” each the size of a baby’s fist, looking bloody and fleshy. They were called spiders because they had eight legs, but they actually looked like a baby’s chubby little hands with eight fingers, completely skinned.
“Aberrants! Watch out!” Fang Mingyue noticed the moving “black hands” in the flashlight beam and immediately alerted everyone.
Shen Ge spread out his “No Escape from the Aberrant Domain” ability, condensing an invisible barrier to block the black-hand spiders on the other side of the passage, then reached out to Fang Mingyue: “Give me the Molotov cocktails.”
Fang Mingyue quickly handed over several Molotov cocktails. Although the invisible barrier was transparent and formless, as Shen Ge’s ability, he could control its movement even without seeing it. So after “opening” a gap, he threw all the Molotov cocktails Fang Mingyue handed him inside.
The next second, the passage was instantly ignited by the Molotov cocktails. The fire crackled and popped, and everyone could even smell a burnt stench.
Strangely, the flames seemed to be blocked by an invisible barrier—but only Shen Ge knew what was really happening.
Although Fang Mingyue found it strange, she didn’t ask too many questions, because at that moment she noticed that the cave walls illuminated by the firelight were densely covered with these black-hand spiders. If someone had claustrophobia, they’d probably faint on the spot seeing this.
However, these black-hand spiders weren’t rated very high. The small ones were only First-Order, and the slightly larger ones were at most Second-Order.
Shen Ge had many ways to deal with them, but he chose the most direct one—using fire to burn through the entire passage, solving the problem once and for all.
Fang Mingyue stood behind Shen Ge watching the flames devour countless black-hand spiders when a question suddenly occurred to her: “Shen Ge, from the moment we entered the cave until now, there seems to have been only this one path. And judging by the number of these black-hand spiders, it’s unlikely they could have just pushed through directly…”
Fang Mingyue’s meaning was simple: with this many black-hand spiders, upon encountering them, the logical choice would be to “retreat” rather than continue forward.
If she would think that way, then Tu Doubi would too. But the video intelligence sent back showed no signs of them returning.
Did they die to these black-hand spiders, or did they find another passage?
Shen Ge obviously understood what Fang Mingyue was getting at, but he thought of another possibility: “Maybe we’ve been in an aberrant space ever since we entered the cave. The good news is that we haven’t been separated by the aberrant space. The bad news is that unless we deal with these spiders, we can only retreat.”
Just as Shen Ge finished speaking, a “thud” sounded from behind them. A soldier suddenly collapsed, slamming against the cave wall.
Because the incident happened so suddenly, the soldiers behind him thought they were under attack. They didn’t even have time to catch him—they instinctively raised their guns and aimed at the wall.
But under the flashlight beams mounted on their guns, there was nothing on the cave wall. So two medic soldiers quickly rushed forward to check on the fallen soldier.
“Captain, he’s passed out.” After examining the soldier, the medics found no obvious wounds, but his breathing was getting weaker and weaker.
At that moment, Shen Ge opened his Aberrant Eye and scanned the area. He detected a wisp of aberrant energy fluctuation on the soldier’s back. He stepped forward and turned the soldier’s body to the side, pulled open his combat uniform, and saw a thumb-sized black blood clot on the soldier’s lower back.
“What is this?” One of the medics pressed on the blood clot with a medical tool. Strangely, the blood clot seemed to have a life of its own, slowly moving toward the center of the soldier’s back.
Seeing this, Shen Ge quickly drew the military knife strapped to Fang Mingyue’s calf and stabbed it directly into the black blood: “Careful—this is a parasitic-type Aberrant!”
