The Record of Unusual Creatures - Chapter 731

Chapter 731: The Nanomachine Swarm

Translator: EndlessFantasy Translation Editor: EndlessFantasy Translation

 

Hao Ren stood on the metal riverbank as he looked at the endless and viscous, slow-moving liquid in the river. He could not help but associate it with the dangerous lifeblood. All the mercenaries were keeping their distance from the riverbank in fear. Only Hao Ren, Ulyanov and Nolan stood in front. Ulyanov’s hoarse voice then reverberated out from his helmet, “The end of the world is just a step away.”

“This is the Nanomachine Swarm?” Hao Ren looked down at the viscous liquid in the Gray River. “That’s… massive.”

“Everyone knows the Gray River is made up of the Nanomachine Swarm.” Nolan looked at Hao Ren. “You should have crossed one of the Gray Rivers when you fled the city of the Naturals. Have you not seen it?”

“One of the Gray Rivers?” Hao Ren frowned and steered away from the subject. “No, it was chaotic back then; I was separated from the group. I didn’t pay attention to my surroundings. What’s your plan to cross this river? By boat?”

“We’re waiting for it to solidify.” Nolan turned and walked away before she began to issue commands, “People, we’ll rest here. We’ll cross the river after dusk! Kim, Lorraine, make sure the armored vehicles are on standby mode, and I want all electromagnetic hibernators switched on 24/7. Report if you encounter a problem with the electromagnetic hibernator.”

The mercenaries immediately acted under orders. They rested next to the armored vehicles and took out compressed food from the car to replenish their energy. Carl walked up and down among the soldiers and shouted, “Don’t touch the soil directly with your hands. Look after your water tumbler. Discard it immediately if you find it damaged! Get another antidote in half an hour’s time. Those who feel a burning sensation while they breathe, take double the dosage!”

Ulyanov swaggered to the armored vehicle and said, “I don’t need the antidote for the toxic air. My lungs have long gone.”

“He’s a very optimistic guy,” said the ardent mercenary girl who was walking past. “But it gives people a headache whenever he jokes about his guts. Have you recovered from your trauma? Aren’t you planning to start a new relationship in a new place?”

As she spoke, she went up to Hao Ren, and he took a step back. “Shall I throw you into the Gray River to cool you down?”

“That’s not funny.”

Hao Ren turned and walked back to the armored vehicle. He remembered a computer being in the vehicle. Its primary search function was open to all, and he had seen how Nolan used the terminal. After fiddling around for a moment, he succeeded in connecting to the Internet and began to search for information about the Gray River and the ruins in the North.

The ruins in the North referred to the entire area that the Nanomachine Swarm destroyed 65 years ago. That included three dissolved cities and the vast expanse of land between them. Hundreds of thousands of square kilometers of the area had turned into dead zones. Their destination was Northern Ring Tower in the mid-south of the ruins. As for the Gray Rivers, they were remnants of the Nanomachine Swarm.

The Gray River was not a single river as Hao Ren had initially thought but a series of radial cracks spreading around the ruins in the North. Other than the smaller tributaries, there were hundreds of larger ones. Like a spider’s web, these rivers isolated the entire northern ruins from the outside world. Looking from above, the ruins in the North seemed like a bloody eyeball, and the Gray Rivers were its bloodshot veins. Anyone who wished to reach the Northern Ring Tower had to cross the Gray Rivers.

Observing the simple maps found on the Internet, he found that the major routes between the Natural city and Lawless District ran across one of the Gray Rivers. No wonder Nolan thought that Hao Ren had seen the Gray River.

Although the Nanomachine Swarm had dissolved everything in the area, it did not cover every inch of the ruins in the North. The Nanomachine Swarm remnants just concentrated themselves in the many Gray Rivers and divided the land into many “isles”. Debris modified by the Nanomachine Swarm littered the isles, while toxic substances created by the insane Nanomachine Swarm had polluted the soil. As the terrible, gray “slime” was everywhere, these isles were the only safe places.

Nolan seemed to know the best route—a series of adjoining lands. They only needed to cross a few Gray Rivers to reach the ruins of the Ring Tower.

“Don’t you think something’s amiss?” the MDT’s voice sounded in Hao Ren’s mind. “There’s information about the Nanomachine Swarm’s loss of control, but not a single word about how to control them. These things could have destroyed the whole world, but why did they stop in the Gray River?”

“There’s nothing about it on the Internet. Probably, someone erased the information,” Hao Ren said, turning off the computer and leaving the car. “I’ll talk to Nolan. How are you feeling in the Dimensional Pocket?”

“Incidentally, I found your gravity generator. Now there’s a standard ground with 1.0 G of gravity. I’m learning to walk,” said the MDT, sounding very pleasant. “I think this is it; the body still feels like its having cerebral thrombosis. It’s not going to get better no matter how hard I try. Maybe the compatibility has a bottleneck.”

“Well, as long as you’re happy. But don’t touch my arsenal.”

Hao Ren found Nolan, who was standing alone on the bank of the river and gazing at the darkening sky. The gray-haired girl’s silhouette looked extremely thin in the dim light. Hao Ren approached her from behind. While he was a dozen meters away, he noticed that Nolan’s ears flicked slightly; the mercenary leader had a terrific auditory ability.

Hao Ren waved at her as she turned around. “Why aren’t you with everyone else?” Hao Ren asked.

“The Gray River is about to solidify,” Nolan said, pointing at the river below with her chin. The viscous liquid was flowing slower and slower, seemingly solidifying. “After dusk, the Nanomachine Swarm will stop temporarily like an alloy platform, and it’ll be hard enough for the armored vehicles to cross. Of course, don’t switch off the electromagnetic hibernators, or else these things will wake up in a flash. That was how some men from my team died.”

Nolan seemed to be in a good mood, or rather in excitement. She was not as cold and alienated as before. Instead, she patiently answered Hao Ren’s questions. Hao Ren thought that it was an excellent time to ask questions too. “How did humans stop this out-of-control Nanomachine Swarm 65 years ago?”

“Stop?” Nolan shook her head slowly. “No one’s stopped them. The swarm stopped spreading on its own. At that time, many people thought that the world was going to end as all countermeasures and safety devices had failed. Everyone here was waiting for their final moment. But the sudden halt of the Nanomachine Swarm saved the humans. Have you seen these riverbanks?”

Nolan stomped on the metal surface. The shape of the “riverbanks” was similar to natural rock, but they were metal.

“Humans didn’t make these barriers; the Nanomachine Swarm did. They confined themselves in a limited area, so human beings could survive and continue to fight among themselves outside this area. The Nanomachine Swarm should have covered the entire world, continued to multiply and devoured the world until the planet became a large piece of mud. Instead, they created a complex container and put themselves in it.”

Hao Ren blinked. “Why is that?”

“Who knows? Even scientists were scratching their heads,” said Nolan. The corner of her mouth was slightly twisted upward. “You should ask Ulyanov; he’s an expert in this area. But I doubt he likes the topic.”

“Since we’re here, I don’t mind telling you,” Ulyanov’s voice suddenly came from the side. He came up to Hao Ren and quietly watched the Gray River settle down. “Some people guess that the Master Computers sent the last command to halt the multiplication process of the Nanomachine Swarm before they shut down. There are also people who suspect that the Master Computers are still running. The computers are deep underground and getting power from the nuclear reactor. In theory, that will allow them to run until today. If we consider that they’re controlling the Nanomachine Swarm to protect themselves, perhaps they’ll keep running indefinitely.”

Ulyanov paused and continued in a mocking tone of voice, “There’s an even more frenzied speculation; the mutants who call themselves Rangers believe that the Nanomachine Swarm became self-aware and preserved the world based on some decision beyond human wisdom and logic to observe the evolutionary process of humankind. The Rangers see the Nanomachine Swarm as the new master of this world. They demonstrate their superiority of evolution through indiscriminate attacks on other humans and think that by doing so, they would secure a place in the New World during Judgment Day. There are many other similar theories.”

Chapter 732: The World On Thin Ice

Translator: EndlessFantasy Translation Editor: EndlessFantasy Translation

 

The existence of the entire world was a result of the Nanomachine Swarm’s mercy. The most frightening part was the fact that no one knew why the Nanomachine Swarm “stopped”, and when it would wake up again. The world did not escape the disaster 65 years ago. The tragedy was not over, it only slowed down. Like a delayed execution, there was still a blade hanging over the head of humankind, just waiting to fall. In such circumstances, all sorts of voices, either sane or insane emerged.

There had been attempts to attack the ruins in the North to destroy the Nanomachine Swarm, but the Swarm was invincible. Even the use of nuclear weapons would not get rid of them. Some tried to reestablish control of the Nanomachine Swarm, but they ended up becoming part of the Gray River. Some people hoped to rebuild pre-war space technology and flee the planet to preserve the population, but their ambitions had no chance of success in the troubled world.

The Rangers regarded the Nanomachine Swarm as a superior life that far surpassed humankind and dominated the world. They worshipped it like God, thinking that the world and the human race survived by the Nanomachine Swarm’s grace. So, they were loyal to their “master” in a manic way as they only hoped to gain a place in the New World when the Nanomachine Swarm decided to revamp the world.

But what was the response of the Nanomachine Swarm?

It did not respond. It merely flowed quietly in the Gray River. Whether it was a personal attack or an attempt to control hostility or worship, all seemed to be meaningless to them. It just operated strictly following preset laws—non-proliferating, non-diminishing, and hostile to the outside world. However, it would not hesitate to swallow any risk-takers who trespassed into the North.

Ulyanov looked at the opposite side of the Gray River. His visor reflected the last light of the day. “People who live on the other sides of the wasteland always forget where the world’s biggest crisis is. They even forget that the world is still strapped to a bomb. Only by coming here and seeing the surging Gray River will you realize from the bottom of your heart that the world is standing on thin ice. We can live until today because of an incomprehensible and uncontrollable reason. When I was a researcher, I once did a study on exploring how two completely different life forms would come together after human exposure to alien life. But I never expected the answer to be like this. There’s now an incomprehensible life form different from human beings on this planet. Their relationship to any of this is unknown.”

“Maybe it’s just because they have no way to communicate.” Hao Ren looked thoughtfully at the gray liquid, which was about to solidify. “I also believe that the Nanomachine Swarm has already evolved to become capable of thinking. Just that it thinks differently from humans. They stopped for a reason; maybe, they just wanted to communicate with the humans?”

“You’re not the first to put forward this idea.” Ulyanov turned his head slightly. “But it’s nothing more than a wild guess.”

Nolan suddenly whispered to herself, “Perhaps they stopped spreading because the world simply couldn’t deal with such complicated things.”

“Huh?” Hao Ren did not hear her clearly.

Nolan shook her head and turned to leave. “Nothing. Gray River has set. Let’s roll!”

The hazy sky made it hard to know the position of the sun. Nevertheless, the slowly fainting glow in the atmosphere meant that dusk was nearing the end. The viscous liquid in the Gray River had solidified just as Nolan said. It was as if liquid metal had cooled and solidified rapidly into a shiny metallic surface. There were even frozen ripples and busted bubbles on the surface of the solidified river.

Such was the incomprehensible nature of the Gray River. No one knew why the Nanomachine Swarm would periodically solidify but only interpreted it as the result of program mutation.

After the mercenaries got into the cars, the three armored vehicles began to edge carefully towards the river. Only when they were convinced that the river had completely hardened did the first car get onto it cautiously. A while ago, the Nanomachine Swarm was still liquid, but it was now as hard as steel. Running across the surface, the heavy armored vehicles did not even leave behind a single trace of scratch. Hao Ren was waiting with the team in the second car. Ulyanov noticed Hao Ren was fiddling with the electromagnetic hibernator, and quickly warned him, “Don’t fiddle with that thing; it’ll mess up the frequency.”

“I’ve heard that this stuff can hypnotize the Nanomachine Swarm?” Hao Ren asked.

“Yes. The Naturals may not have seen it, but mercenaries in Lawless District use it.” Ulyanov pointed at the little device. “It has two systems, corresponding to these two green indicator lights: one main and one spare. It’ll allow you to appear as their own in the eyes of the Nanomachine Swarm so that it won’t attack you. But once the hypnosis stops, the Nanomachine Swarm will surge up immediately. Even the solidified Gray River will wake up instantly.”

While he spoke, Ulyanov raised his hand and pointed at the ceiling of the carriage. “We have a bigger version in the car. When you go out and find that something’s wrong with your device, run back to the armored vehicle as fast as you can. If you’re fast enough, maybe you can survive.”

“So don’t play with that gadget.” Nolan threw Hao Ren a glance. “Report immediately if a red indicator lights up. It’ll be too late if both systems are down.”

The lead vehicle sent back a message; it was safe to go. The other two cars began to drive down the riverbank onto the river cautiously. Hao Ren noticed the car jolt and the nervous expressions on the mercenaries’ faces. He curiously asked, “If the Gray River is so dangerous, why don’t we take the air route?”

“There are also Nanomachine Swarm in the air,” Ulyanov said, without ridiculing Hao Ren’s ignorance. Most people did not study the environment of the northern ruins. “It’s the atmospheric purification model, but now it has become a plague over the ruins of the North. They are symbiotic with the clouds, and occasionally, they fall to a distance of only 100 m above the ground and attack any aircraft in the air.”

A White River Consortium researcher sitting at the back of the car suddenly said, “Floating Nanomachines are in the air. When the aircraft flies, it sucks them into the combustion chambers. The Nanomachine Swarm regards this as an attack signal. They destroy the aircraft to protect their kind.”

“I thought you were all mute.” Ulyanov looked up at them. “You sound like you’re speaking for the Nanomachine Swarm.”

The white-haired researcher appeared unfazed. “I’m a scientist. I only share what I’ve discovered.”

Ulyanov shrugged. “What a coincidence. I was also a scientist before I picked up the gun.”

“That’s enough. Be courteous to the clients,” said Nolan, interrupting Ulyanov. She then looked at the four members of White River Consortium. “Please cooperate with us as much as possible; it would be a pity if any three of you die. My order is to make sure one of you survives.”

There was a sudden chill in the atmosphere. Hao Ren realized that Nolan was not only knowledgeable and experienced in combat, but she also possessed a sharp tongue.

The Gray River was unusually large. Fearing that they would disturb the Nanomachine Swarm, the armored vehicles were not going very fast. However, this meant a longer time to cross the river. Outside, the dull gray world made people tired. Hao Ren yawned a couple of times and leaned back in the carriage to get some shut-eye.

A voice, seemingly the MDT’s, sounded in his head, “…What do you want to find there?”

“Perhaps, the tentacles of the First Born,” Hao Ren replied in a stunned voice. “The collapse of the world started 65 years ago, and the Nanomachine Swarm’s loss of control was the root of everything. If this isn’t a human-made disaster, it can only be a natural disaster. I heard that the core vessel of the Nanomachine Swarm is underground. Perhaps the vessel dug too deep, almost reaching a tentacle of the First Born…”

“…What if you can’t find it?”

“Go somewhere else. If worse comes to worst, I’ll do the digging myself,” Hao Ren said.

“What if the thing you’re looking for isn’t here? Will you leave?”

“Leave? Why leave?” Hao Ren felt a little sober now. “I haven’t finished my job yet.”

“Leave as soon as you can. This place won’t last long…”

Hao Ren suddenly woke up. He quickly called the MDT. “What were you talking about just now?”

“I’ve been practicing my walking. Did you have a dream?

Chapter 733: The Northern Ring Tower ##

Translator: EndlessFantasy Translation Editor: EndlessFantasy Translation

 

Massaging his temples with his fingers, Hao Ren tried to recall the emotional remnants in his mind. But the voice that buzzed in his mind earlier had already faded like a dream. He looked back at the mental communications log; it was blank. There was no record that the MDT had spoken to him.

“I just heard someone say something.” Hao Ren exhaled and turned to look at the monitor in the car. The convoy was almost done crossing the river. On the other side, there was light shining in the distance. “The voice said something like this world wouldn’t last long…”

“Your dreams have always seemed bizarre. Don’t take it lightly,” the MDT said in an unusually serious tone of voice. “You seem to have the ability to communicate with other consciousness through dreams.”

“I know, I know. But this time, the “connection” was too short. I couldn’t grasp anything. But I have a feeling that we’ve come to the right place this time. This place must be the key to the planet. The sign always appears in the center of the incident, right?”

The three armored vehicles crossed the solidified Gray River safely. What greeted the mercenaries was a more desolate world than the wasteland outside. Everything there was more bizarre than ever. Through the camera mounted at the front and on both sides of the vehicle, Hao Ren saw that the earth outside was glimmering with a silvery-gray light, as though the entire world had turned into a piece of metal. There were no plants, no buildings, or even a stone of normal shape on the silvery-gray land. There were only some weird bulges and round towers, which looked like they melted into the ground like cheese. The smooth surfaces reflected the armored cars’ light and refracted the light among the metal structures, creating a bizarre sight.

Hao Ren tried to make sense of the scene, and he finally figured it out; it was a melted city.

It was like casting a world in equal proportions of metal, then letting it melt and cool down rapidly halfway. That was what it would become.

“A great plain of steel…” A young soldier drew his rifle close to himself and looked at the scene nervously. “Everything’s turned into metal?”

“Not metal. The Nanomachine Swarm cannot change material properties. They just made things appear similar to themselves,” Ulyanov said, hitting the armored deck behind him with his rifle. “Welcome to the Old Star Continent. You’re now on the remains of 6.53 million citizens and 200,000 buildings, including one of my legs, one of my arms, my liver, and three-fourths of my lungs. I really can’t identify them now.”

A young soldier turned to look at him queerly. “Your jokes have never been funny.”

Ulyanov laughed loudly. He was satisfied with his “visceral joke”. Gazing at the scenery outside, Hao Ren could not help but feel a weird emotion. The silvery land was an aftermath of the Nanomachine Swarm disaster. It looked strange and beautiful, but it was a land of dead bodies as well as city ruins. Those big bulges and round towers, which looked like melted ice cream were probably once large buildings. Were there still traces of human-made structures inside if one blew them apart? Were there remains of the city’s subways and pipelines underground if one dug deep enough?

Perhaps there was nothing left. The Nanomachine Swarm may have penetrated the land long ago, turning the entire land starting from the underground in the North into its domain. But all these were just wild guesses. What happened there was unknown. Buried deep underground in the silvery-gray earth were fields that no human could touch. For the past 65 years, no one could figure out what the Nanomachine Swarm did in the land.

Similar thinking was prevalent among the mercenaries. The boorish men who fought battles to make a living could not help but feel upset when faced with the ruins of the North. Due to fear and reverence, they became sensitive. However, Nolan yawned and appeared uninterested in their reactions.

As night fell, there were no stars and moon visible in the hazy sky. It was all dark. People on the planet had not seen stars for decades. Instead of stopping, Nolan ordered the convoy to speed up. She said that the Nanomachine Swarm was the least active at night as the horrific little devils still needed to rely on solar energy to provide part of their needs. Although they were “awake” at night, their response was much slower than during the day.

Nolan calculated that if things went smoothly, they should be able to reach the Northern Ring Tower before sunrise, just in time before the window closed and the Nanomachine Swarm regained its level of activity.

The armored vehicles were passing between two towering silvery “hills”. As strong lights shone on the metal “hills” on both sides, it created circles of elusive glow. Ulyanov looked at the two symmetrical “hills” and said in a low voice, “This must be the Rock Lyndon Twin Towers. They used to be the tallest buildings in the world. I came here several times when the city was still here.”

“Yes, the tallest building in the world. When the Nanomachine Swarm went amok, it set a world record for the largest number of deaths in the same building. But the record was surpassed in the fourth year by the big explosion of Sanctuary No. 3 in the Far East,” said Nolan as she switched on the comm next to her. “All vehicles, turn off your lights and use echolocation. We’re entering a dangerous area; strong light may agitate some Nanomachines that are lightly dormant.”

All the lights were switched off. The convoy now looked like stray souls wandering in a silent netherworld. In the cold, dead, bleak world, everything seemed to be small and fragile. The heavy armor plates of the vehicles did not help in giving them much sense of security. Nowhere else could make them feel farther away from the living more than this place. And the convoy was still heading deeper into death.

During the boring and monotonous journey, Hao Ren dozed off several times but never heard anything strange anymore. At last, he saw a glimmer of light outside as the convoy passed through a vast silvery-white barrier. The material of the barrier was different from that of the silvery-gray substance of the Nanomachine Swarm. Its uniformed surface was recognizably the work of humans. It was as high as tens of meters. It looked indestructible, but there was a massive hole in its lower part. High temperature seemed to have melted through the barrier and formed the crater.

The convoy passed through the hole under the barrier. Ulyanov patted Hao Ren on the shoulders and said, “This was the first hole that the Nanomachine Swarm created when it got out of hand. They flew out from the container behind this barrier. The container’s long gone, and there are no longer Nanomachine Swarms across the barrier. They’ve all gone to the Gray River outside. No one knows why.”

After passing through the hole, Hao Ren finally saw natural but mutated rocks, soil, and plants severely growing in between the rock crevices. He knew he had arrived in the hinterland of the ruins in the North—an isolated island, which was surrounded but not devoured by the Nanomachine Swarm.

Nolan raised her hand and pointed at the center of the monitor’s screen. “That’s the Northern Ring Tower.”

In the hinterland of the northern ruins, the former walls of the sea of Nano had become a crater-shaped barrier, dividing the acidic soil outside from the natural land around the ring tower into two distinct regions. The Northern Ring Tower was sitting right on top of a hill at more than 400 m high. It was composed of three symmetrically arranged, conical spires. The three-tower building had a massive ring at the top and middle respectively—that was how the Ring Tower got its name.

The two large ring facilities were antennas. When the Master Computers were still running, these antennas were used to release signals to control the surrounding Nanomachine Swarm.

The mercenaries let out a sigh of relief when they saw the Ring Tower. They had made it through the most dangerous part of the journey. They did not have to worry about being swallowed by the Nanomachine Swarm anymore, at least before they made the return trip. The armored vehicles drove all the way to the side of the hill and stopped. The road ahead had collapsed entirely and was inaccessible to vehicles. Nonetheless, the entrance to the Ring Tower was within sight. Nolan ordered everyone to disembark and get to the building on foot.

Ulyanov got off the vehicle at the same time as Hao Ren. He looked up at the building that he last saw 65 years ago and took a deep breath.

Then he strode ahead.

Chapter 734: It’s Changing

Translator: EndlessFantasy Translation Editor: EndlessFantasy Translation

 

The Northern Ring Tower was in front of them. The glorious building, which once stood for the highest scientific achievements and civilization of humankind was now disintegrating. The cement wall was cracking from weathering on the outside; most of its bright paint had also faded into dirty, yellowish-brown colors, peeling and falling off the walls. They formed a layer of disgusting soft soil at the foot of the tower. Despite that, the main structure of the tower was still sturdy. The reinforced steel skeleton inside had held the tower up very well. Hence, there was no concern of collapse for now.

“There are no traces of erosion by the Nanomachine Swarm.” Nolan glanced up at the nearly vertical wall. “There’s little difference compared to the last time I came. It looks like there haven’t been any other adventurers here for the past year.”

Hao Ren was curious about what Ulyanov was doing there a year ago. But he knew it was not the right time to ask. Ulyanov led them flanking the tower looking for an entrance. They came before a broken door. From the looks of surrounding marks, the door was blown apart.

“There had been more than one group of people who came here in the past sixty-five years. The allure of pre-war technology has long drawn people here,” Nolan said, turning and telling the mercenaries who came here for the first time. “Idiots kept coming for the treasure, but most of them did not make it back out alive. So if you want to live, follow my command. Don’t touch anything you don’t know what it is.”

“I thought the Nanomachine Swarms are not here?” Hao Ren asked.

“Do you think the Nanomachine Swarms are the only danger here?” Nolan said, raising her gun. “This gun isn’t for the Nanomachines. There are robots here guarding the container underground. These robots could live for a hundred years, in theory. God knows what kind of damage had happened to their operating system now.”

Ulyanov nodded slightly, seemingly agreeing with Nolan.

Hao Ren looked down at the weapon on his hand. It was a light assault rifle. The laser display on the stock indicated the remaining bullets, current users, and the state of the parts, as well as a Gray Fox insignia. Nolan gifted him this rifle. Though Hao Ren had not joined them, Nolan would not let him come onto the battlefield empty-handed.

Before entering the building, Ulyanov bumped Hao Ren on his shoulder and asked, “How good is your marksmanship?”

But Hao Ren just gave him an ambiguous reply. “As good as my kung fu.”

“Well, you walk with me. We will clear the way for the kids behind.”

The mercenaries escorted the White River Consortium researchers into the tower carefully. They came into a corridor. Paint and cement on the hallway had peeled and fell off on the floor. The sign hanging on the ceiling was rusting away. A chilling and strange air was lingering in this decadent building. The mercenaries swallowed nervously in this silent corridor.

It was quiet all around, only the cautious footsteps and breathing of the mercenaries echoed in the corridor. Nolan was leading in front with Hao Ren and Ulyanov flanking the team. The passage became darker and darker as they moved deeper. The few windows on the outer wall of the tower could no longer provide sufficient light to the deeper part of the building. A few mercenaries who had not undergone visual enhancement had put on their night vision gear. In the light green vision, the place became even spookier.

Hao Ren looked at the others; he could see them. But considering that he was a still a ‘Natural,’ he thought it best to put up his night-vision goggles just like the others.

“Do you know where you’re going?” Nolan asked. She stopped and looked over her shoulder at the White Water Consortium researchers who were not far behind.

“The main control room. The control terminal of Master Computer No. 1,” the thin researcher replied. He was as calm as a soldier in this environment despite being just a civilian. Hao Ren could not help looking at him again.

Ulyanov’s heart missed a beat when he heard the ‘main control room.’ He stepped forward and said, “I know the shortest route.”

Nolan nodded. “Well, after you.”

The team continued to move deeper into the corridor before they came to a spiral staircase. Going up was where the main control room was. Hao Ren and Ulyanov went up to check the condition of the stairs. Then they bumped into a human skeleton halfway up.

Ulyanov bent down to check on the condition of the skeleton. Judging from the tattered clothes, he knew the identity of the deceased. “A personnel in the ring tower. Most likely died from falling from above.”

The berserk Nanomachine Swarms did not attack the Northern Ring Tower; people in the building had lived longer than the rest of the world. But their fate was not much better than those who were dissolved by the Nanomachines. In that catastrophe, the building became an isolated island with no supplies, rescue, and hope. These researchers and controllers of the Nanomachine Swarm knew that there would be no rescue forthcoming. No one knew how people in the ring tower spent the last days of their lives. In the two decades after the disaster, the situation inside the ruins of the north was a total unknown. When a suicide squad suffering huge losses and finally made their way into this place, what they found were only dead bodies.

According to the soldiers who were lucky enough to come back alive, people in the ring tower had died a variety of ways. Most of them died of hunger; a few of them committed suicide; and the rest were killed in the fighting, perhaps for the last remnants of food in a riot. There were many more creepy stories passed down, for instance, human bones were found in the kitchen utensils in the kitchen in ring tower, and countless mutilated bodies in a room.

Every one of them was a bone-chilling story.

Hao Ren looked at Ulyanov, who was examining the skeleton. He did not know if this man had recalled the dark rumors about the Northern Ring Tower. But to avoid delay, he patted Ulyanov’s shoulder and said, “Let’s keep moving. People are waiting behind.”

Then only Ulyanov slowly got to his feet.

They came to the first floor. After passing around a narrow passage, a broad hallway opened up in front. Ulyanov pointed to a door not far away. “There is the control room you are looking for.”

“The door is intact…” Nolan looked at the door somewhat unexpectedly. “I thought the guy who came before us had already smashed every single door in here.”

“Probably there is an alarm system behind this door that connected wirelessly to the security robots,” said one of the researchers, who came up to examine the door. “Unbelievable! There is still power in the lock! There is still energy in this place!”

Nolan looked at the researcher thoughtfully. It seems like this researcher knew a lot about the ring tower.

Ulyanov turned to look into the dark end of the corridor. He seemed to have found something he was interested. “You guys stay here. I’m going to take a look over there.”

Then he went. Nolan told a mercenary beside her. “Carl, you go with him.”

Carl, the tall mercenary nodded silently before he quickly dashed to catch up with Ulyanov. Both of them promptly disappeared into the dark end of the corridor.

Hao Ren did not suspect anything. He thought that Ulyanov might be looking for her wife, and as an outsider, he was not in a position to be a busybody. He turned his head and watched as the White River Consortium researcher tinkered with the lock on the door. It was incredible that the electronics on the door were still functioning until this day.

Suddenly, an ear-piercing sound of a gunshot broke through the silence.

Hao Ren looked up and tried to locate the source of the sound. That was where Ulyanov and Carl were!

Nolan was quickly in response. Before the gunshot sound trailed off, she had ordered rapidly, “Two-man team, go and check it out.”

Hao Ren did not know which team he belonged. But he wasted no time thinking; as soon as Nolan opened her mouth, he had already dashed toward the end of the corridor.

As if out of the illusion, he suddenly saw the corridor walls undulating like water. Though the vision was only a flick of a second, it bothered him.

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Chapter 735: Ulyanov’s Death

Translator: EndlessFantasy Translation Editor: EndlessFantasy Translation

 

The illusion flashed across Hao Ren’s eyes.

It was so fast that he was not sure if what he saw had happened. Hao Ren shook his head, but the corridor in front of him had returned to normal. Suddenly, a second gunshot came from a distance. He quickly disregarded the illusion and dashed towards the end of the corridor. He heard the hurried footsteps of other mercenaries catching up to him.

Meanwhile, the MDT that was training its own body in the Dimensional Pocket heard the gunshots and footsteps through its shared senses with Hao Ren. It asked, “What’s happening out there?”

“Ulyanov’s probably exchanging fire with the security robots,” Hao Ren said telepathically. “By the way, why is this corridor so long?”

He remembered that when Ulyanov left, he could see the end of the corridor. But now he felt he was running in an endless dark passage. He could not hear the footsteps of the mercenaries behind him anymore. He looked back and only saw the same dark corridor and Nolan’s figure behind him. The others had gone.

“This is strange, where are the soldiers behind me?” Hao Ren whispered. Just as he was wondering whether it was an illusion, a gunshot was heard and then a thud—the sound of a body falling to the ground not far ahead.

The sounds were very near. Hao Ren immediately dashed into the darkness. The next moment he knew, he found himself in a dimly lit rectangular hall. There were many long metal boxes everywhere. He did not know what they were for, but he smelled thick engine oil and gun smoke. Astonished at this hidden chamber in the Northern Ring Tower, he suddenly saw a shadow from the corner of his eye.

Hao Ren quickly darted over and discovered Ulyanov was on the ground. The trademark full-faced helmet was unmistakable. The veteran had fatal gunshot wounds in the abdomen and chest; pale pink mucus spurted out from the wounds onto the ground. He was struggling in pain; his breathing was loud behind the helmet.

“Ulyanov!” Hao Ren called him, stepping forward to lift Ulyanov’s slightly. He did not dare to move Ulyanov for fear of causing secondary injury. He reached into his dimensional pocket for a portable medical instrument and asked anxiously, “What happened? The security robot?”

“No… It’s a human enemy,” Ulyanov’s voice was weakening. He lifted his finger slightly and pointed to the other end of the hall. “They’re in uniform, regular army. Many…”

“Don’t talk. I have a medical instrument here. I will explain to you what it is later,” Hao Ren said, setting the parameters of the simple medical instrument with his free hand. He needed to adjust the tool into compatibility mode to treat Ulyanov. Ulyanov was neither fully human nor entirely robot; it was difficult to cure him with the conventional method. Hao Ren even had no idea whether he should use a medical kit or a repair robot. Which one was more suitable for Ulyanov?

“No… That’s okay. My pump is broken,” Ulyanov’s eyes did not even look at the next silver metal box that suddenly appeared out of nowhere beside him. He just waved and stopped Hao Ren. “I know you’re a good man, but you can’t save me… blood?”

Ulyanov suddenly paused. He lifted his hand that was stained with the fluid from his body. The liquid was warm and red, dripping down from his helmet’s visor. It had a sweet metallic scent.

It was not an electrolyte and biochemical solution but blood.

Hao Ren was surprised at what he saw. He did not know when the fluid changed, but he did clearly remember he had seen electrolyte spurting out from Ulyanov’s wounds. Now Ulyanov was covered in blood.

“My…blood…” Ulyanov’s voice suddenly became elusive, as if his consciousness was leaving his body and the world. He slowly turned to look at Hao Ren as his confused mind was struggling to recognize the person in front of his eyes before he completely went blackout. “I…seem to know…”

“Hao Ren, I’m Hao Ren.” Hao Ren could not wrap his brain around what happened. But he had felt everything around him was undergoing tremendous changes. It was a baffling feeling that came from his intuition of years of encounters with the supernatural powers. He shook Ulyanov and asked, “What’s going on? You…”

“Hao Ren, yes… I know you…,” Ulyanov’s voice slowly sank. “Hao Ren, Gray Fox, Carl… Khiton… I saw it–it’s red, we all soaked in the red. Fire in the sky, burning, out of control, the whole world is burning. I… I will…”

Hao Ren felt that Ulyanov’s body was getting lighter like he was pulling himself out of the world. Hao Ren was desperate to do something to stop that, but Ulyanov’s condition was no longer medically treatable. At his last moment, Ulyanov seemed to have recovered his strength as he grabbed Hao Ren’s collar desperately, but his body was almost weightless. “Khiton… Khiton was right!”

Hao Ren felt Ulyanov’s grip on his collar loosening. Then Ulyanov’s body disappeared in his arm as soon as he blinked, leaving only a voice from above that said, “I’ve woke up… in the next dream…”

“What exactly did he want to say?” the voice of the MDT only sounded this time. “Do humans become philosophers the moment before they die?”

“How could a machine head like you understand the abstract concept?” Hao Ren said, getting to his feet. He saw every trace of Ulyanov had disappeared, not even a drop of blood or electrolyte. “We must find Nolan. She may know something.”

Hao Ren tucked the medical instrument and ran back from where he had come. But after leaving the hall, he entered into an unfamiliar place.

The dark passage was gone and replaced by a dimly lit alloy gallery. The difference was not just in lighting as Hao Ren clearly remembered how the corridor looked. This place was a completely different space. Even the architectural style was not of the inside of Northern Ring Tower.

“Well, before finding Nolan you must first find your way back out,” said the MDT. “If that passage is still there.”

Hao Ren clenched his rifle and prayed casually to his sixth sense before dashing in a direction. No matter what changes had occurred, he remembered he had come from this direction.

As Hao Ren ran, the sound of hurried footsteps and jumble of shouts and vulgar curses came from behind. He looked back and was surprised to see a group of soldiers dressed in gray-blue combat uniforms coming out from a corner of the corridor.

The soldiers were surprised when they saw Hao Ren. But they were no hesitation in their action at all, as they immediately pointed their guns at him and fired without warning.

Without warning or dialogue, it seemed that the purpose of the soldiers here was to eliminate all targets but themselves. Hao Ren was surprised and flurried as bullets rained on him and sparkled like burning firecracker fuses.

“What the hell? Where do these people come from?” He lunged forward as he yelled. Armed with his Steel Membrane Shield bracing the hail of bullets, he took the soldiers on in close quarters combat—actually, it was just a one-sided walloping.

The ordinary human soldiers were confounded when they saw the invulnerable man. They shot instinctively, but it was useless. Hao Ren moved like an obscure shadow, and the eyes of normal humans could not follow his movements. Hao Ren knew he did not have to hold back; these ruthless soldiers would not hesitate to kill. But he figured he did not have to use the powerful weapon in dealing with these mortals—the Steel Membrane Shield would do the job.

But Hao Ren did not kill them. He needed to figure out what was going on.