Embers Ad Infinitum

Chapter 646: Watching

Translator: CKtalon

When the Old Task Force noticed the pale face, he shrank back and disappeared from the window.

“He’s heading down.” Jiang Baimian made a judgment based on the bioelectric signals.

Long Yuehong—who was wearing the Blackmarsh Iron Snake bionic artificial intelligence armor—turned his body to the corresponding spot and sized up the situation through his visor.

The buildings here had a very strong classical charm. The doors on the first floor were rather tall, enough for a legendary giant to pass through. However, they only had the bottom half open. The windows above were arched, and the balconies were narrow. They were purely decorative with no practical value.

With a glance, Long Yuehong deliberated and said, “Could it be that he wants to attack us as well?”

It was virtually impossible that they greeted each other with tears in their eyes like the meeting of fellow townsfolk, right?

Shang Jianyao had said that the fellow didn’t have a human consciousness at all, and he wasn’t the kind that had deliberately hidden!

Just as Long Yuehong said that, a figure flashed out from under the half-open door on the first floor.

He wore the uniform of First City’s army, but it was seriously damaged, revealing pale skin and brown muscles in a few spots. His clothes—which were relatively intact—were also wrinkled as if they had dried naturally after being soaked in water.

The figure’s protruded eyes lacked any luster or focus. He stared blankly, and without concealing his intention, he tried to lunge at Bai Chen—who was closest to him.

Intelligence is a problem. It’s inferior to even animals… Isn’t he using himself as a target? Long Yuehong criticized inwardly, but he reacted immediately. He raised the Berserker assault rifle and fired a short burst.

Ta! Ta! Ta!

The figure was hit by bullets one after another, and exaggerated wounds appeared on his body.

His body was even torn apart in certain areas that separated from the torso, falling to the ground with sticky liquid. However, the figure continued lunging forward. Apart from his balance being affected, there were no signs of him being seriously injured.

Boom!

Jiang Baimian fired a rocket.

The flames enveloped the figure, completely blasting him to pieces.

As they were relatively close, the blast inevitably swept toward Bai Chen. However, she was located at the blast’s periphery, so the spent force failed to do a thing to the Chameleon.

Jiang Baimian had naturally considered the possibility of accidentally injuring her companions when she fired the single-man combat rocket launcher.

Just as the boom sound subsided, she frowned slightly. “Little White, check the corpse. Be careful. I can sense that the weak bioelectric signal hasn’t disappeared.”

“Odd.” Shang Jianyao stroked his chin.

He’s already blown to smithereens, but he’s still alive? Long Yuehong was rather worried about Bai Chen, but due to the combat manual’s rules, he had no choice but to take on the role of guarding against any possible attacks.

The Chameleon-wearing Bai Chen held her Orange rifle and carefully walked to the corpses. She was just about to squat down and check the situation when a black beam of light suddenly jumped out of the corpse that still had a head and went straight for her body.

It was like a long, black wire.

Clang!

The black light failed to penetrate the Chameleon bionic artificial intelligence armor. It slammed into the surface and slid down.

Bai Chen grabbed it and shook it a few times before saying, “A strange worm.”

“Nematomorpha?” Jiang Baimian guessed with uncertainty.

This was quite different from the nematomorphs in her impression.

Nematomorphs were parasites that lived in rivers, ponds, and other places; they infected their targets through water sources. After it completed its parasitism, it could control large arthropods and make them ‘autonomously’ seek out water sources to ‘drown’ themselves.

Now, such worms could actually affect the human body. Furthermore, they seemed to continue acting as the central nervous system after the host died, living off the remaining nutrients.

In addition, it also showed the characteristics of initiating a forced changing of hosts.

As a former wilderness nomad, Bai Chen roughly knew about nematomorphs. She hesitantly asked, “How do we deal with it?”

Jiang Baimian hesitated for a moment and said, “Kill it. Without the corresponding container, it’s impossible to have it wrapped around your hand, right? It will take the initiative to pierce through your skin and burrow into your body.”

She had made a reasonable deduction based on the worm’s performance.

“Are you even from a biological company?” Shang Jianyao felt ‘pained’ when he heard that.

Jiang Baimian ignored him and watched Bai Chen rip the worm into several pieces and throw it to the ground before crushing it into meat paste with her foot.

“It sucks. It can’t turn into a few worms after being split.” Shang Jianyao had a look of disappointment.

It’s not an earthworm… As Long Yuehong criticized inwardly, he curiously guessed, “Is this a mutated nematomorpha?”

Jiang Baimian nodded. “Perhaps.”

She fell silent for a few seconds before saying, “Coupled with the pile of green things from before, I suspect that it’s not a problem with the electromagnetic storm but something else.”

Without giving Shang Jianyao a chance to guess, Jiang Baimian raised her thoughts seriously. “Could these things have escaped from that secret laboratory?”

That’s really possible…

Just as this thought flashed through Long Yuehong’s mind, he heard Shang Jianyao say, “It might also come from the Holm Fertility Center.”

Th-this can’t be ruled out at the moment… Long Yuehong felt that both sides made sense.

After finishing off the strange worm, Bai Chen headed back to the team.

Upon seeing this, Jiang Baimian pointed ahead and said, “Any guesses now are useless. Let’s rush to our destination as quickly as possible.”

The Old Task Force members restrained their thoughts and walked along the path strewn with dirty cars toward the next block.

After these two strange encounters, Long Yuehong realized that the bionic artificial intelligence armor was really good. It was clearly better at protecting them than a military exoskeleton. Furthermore, they weren’t heavy at all despite being covering their entire bodies.

For some reason, the Old Task Force’s few shots didn’t attract any dangerous creatures. This allowed them to smoothly enter the block where the Holm Fertility Center was located.

As far as Bai Chen knew, there were definitely many dangerous things lurking in city ruins that had never been explored by humans. This included but wasn’t limited to Heartless, mutated creatures, feral animals, and wandering robots that relied on batteries and small generators for survival. Once gunshots sounded somewhere, they would more or less be attracted and gather over. However, Wasteland Ruin 13 seemed to have completely died. Only a few monsters existed.

As they walked, an ancient, four-story building appeared in front of them.

Its outer walls were painted a warm yellow, and many green plants crept along its facade. These plants also extended to the surface of the lightboxes attached vertically on the wall, showing their dominance.

After careful inspection, Long Yuehong read the two dark-red words on the yellow wall that weren’t covered by greenery. “Center… Fertility…”

“Is it here?” Jiang Baimian—who no longer had any confidence in her spatial perception—asked her teammates.

Bai Chen nodded. “It’s here. Holm Fertility Center.”

…

Nearly 200 meters away from the Holm Fertility Center, on a rooftop filled with weeds and bird feces.

Welf—who was wearing sunglasses and a trench coat and had his hair parted in the middle—put down the binoculars and said to Xu Lan, “The target has almost arrived.”

“Prepare to take action.” Xu Lan—who was dressed as a cowboy with her unfocused eyes—chuckled. “They might never expect that the hotel owner had long ‘betrayed’ their destination. We specially left the information on the guard situation behind.”

Welf shrugged. “This is our destination as well anyway.”

As he spoke, he looked at the tablet computer Xu Lan was holding.

Xu Lan nodded slightly. “I previously removed the restrictions and confirmed many things from following them twice. The woman named Jiang Baimian can really sense bioelectric signals as you said. The range is different depending on the terrain; it’s between 40 to 70 meters. Not bad. You didn’t forget to gather more useful information when you flipped through their memories.

“My Invisibility can hide from her—she will be my first target. Take the opportunity to enter the range where you can modify memories and make the two enemies wearing bionic artificial intelligence armor our ‘companions.’

“The Awakened named Shang Jianyao will definitely be attracted by me. He will try to save Jiang Baimian or avenge her. That will be the perfect opportunity for our two new ‘companions’ to suddenly betray him and attack him at close range.

“In short, try your best not to divert Doctor’s attention. The most dangerous person here is Wu Meng. Without Doctor watching, you and I might die without knowing how.” At this point, Xu Lan took a deep breath. “I can’t control myself any longer.. I’ve seen too many asymmetrical situations in my previous two tailings. I want to destroy all of this!”