Chapter 895: Military Base

895. Military Base

"I'm about the same, barely able to stand steady now."

Scarlatti lay sprawled on the ground, looking incredibly frail.

"We can't stay here much longer. Before long, I'll lose consciousness. Before that happens, we have to find a cure for this virus."

Lin Ye tore off the coats from those men and distributed them to Scarlatti and Little Guardian.

"This time we're bringing the electric heater with us. As long as we find the medicine, we can survive."

Lin Ye put on the coat and strapped the electric heater to his back.

Little Guardian was responsible for carrying the other essential supplies, while Scarlatti held the mallet, ready to handle any unexpected situations.

The three crawled out of the basement. Lin Ye had expected the earlier sounds of fighting to attract some monsters, but the corridor was completely empty.

Lin Ye led the way. This time, he wasn't planning to explore the nearby offices. He needed to find somewhere like an infirmary.

They didn't move quickly. Lin Ye kept a constant watch on their surroundings.

The camouflage coats were extremely warm, buying them some extra time.

The metal corridor wasn't particularly complex in layout, and Lin Ye smoothly guided the two out of the office area.

This was a completely sealed building. The corridors didn't even have a single window.

The office area connected to various integrated facilities, such as a cafeteria, dorms, and a library. This place seemed to be a military base.

Lin Ye successfully located the infirmary, but the corridor leading to it was crawling with those black bugs.

The bugs varied in size, with the longest stretching dozens of meters. Their thick, black bodies packed the entire corridor.

Lin Ye didn't hesitate. He immediately lightened his footsteps and retreated from that corridor. He'd experienced those bugs' speed before, and in their current state, they couldn't possibly deal with them.

'The infirmary is off the table. We'll have to find medicine somewhere else.'

The base exit was near the office area, but the situation outside was unknown. Given their current condition, they had no means to explore the outside world.

Lin Ye constructed a mental map of the entire base's layout, and he noticed that in the center of the base, there seemed to be a hidden area.

'Where would the entrance be?'

Lin Ye analyzed the possible locations for the entrance, and soon he identified several targets.

The infirmary was one of those targets.

Lin Ye led the two straight to the cafeteria. In the back kitchen, they found a hidden metal door.

With the power out, the access control system had failed, so the metal door could be opened directly.

Beyond the door was a pitch-black staircase leading downward. Little Guardian switched on the flashlight, and the three descended the stairs, stepping past corpses lying in horrific poses along the way.

The staircase connected to a hall, which in turn connected to several corridors.

"Cough, cough... this seems to be a laboratory."

Scarlatti whispered.

Places like this were usually trouble.

Lin Ye used the flashlight's beam to observe the experimental facilities along both sides of the corridor. He spotted corpses lying on hospital beds. It seemed like they had been researching some kind of disease here.

"Could there be medicine to cure this virus inside?"

Scarlatti was about to go search the area.

"No need. Even if there's treatment medicine here, it might not be safe. Let's go straight to the cold storage where the experimental specimens are kept."

Lin Ye quickly located the cold storage based on the laboratory's layout. The ambient temperature there was very low, so even without power, the specimens inside could last for a while.

Lin Ye opened the cold storage. Inside, a large number of specimens were stored, including those black bugs.

"Cough, cough... there are hundreds of vials here... they only have abbreviations marked on them... which one are we supposed to inject?"

Scarlatti grabbed hold of Lin Ye's coat, barely maintaining her balance.

"Cough, cough... let me think... these vials must have... some kind of arrangement pattern."

Lin Ye wasn't in much better shape. He leaned against the constant-temperature cabinet, his vision slowly blurring.

"Little Guardian... read out... the numbers."

Lin Ye saw the entire world beginning to tilt, just like that fallen ladder earlier.

Little Guardian read out the vial numbers, speeding up her recitation as much as she could. Lin Ye was about to give out.

Scarlatti didn't wait any longer. She directly grabbed the vial at the very back, twisted off the cap, and poured a small amount into her mouth.

Although she was already infected with the virus, this was still an extremely dangerous method of identification, since the virus concentrations differed.

"This last one... might be... concentrated virus..."

Before she could even finish her sentence, Scarlatti collapsed to the ground, losing consciousness.

"That vial's... number..."

Lin Ye knelt on the floor with vacant eyes. He was just about done for.

Little Guardian hurried over to Scarlatti's side and read out the number on that vial.

"145... 146... 147... try them all..."

With that, Lin Ye lost consciousness.

Little Guardian took out the vial containing 145 in its number and fed a mouthful to both Lin Ye and Scarlatti.

Before long, both of their complexions improved slightly.

Little Guardian sprinted out of the cold storage at top speed, found several injection syringes in the adjacent laboratory, then returned to the cold storage. After checking both their conditions again, she injected half a vial into each of them.

After the injections, their conditions stabilized somewhat. Little Guardian closed the cold storage door and swapped a fresh battery into the electric heater.

Two more hours passed before Lin Ye finally regained consciousness.

"...It hurts. It feels like there isn't a single part of my body that doesn't ache."

Lin Ye propped himself up and leaned against the freezer beside him.

"You're alright now?"

Little Guardian poured Lin Ye a cup of warm water.

"Cough, cough... it's been a long time since I've felt this terrible. But my body temperature should have dropped a bit."

Lin Ye took small sips of the warm water, then touched the back of his hand to Scarlatti's forehead.

"...She should be fine too."

Lin Ye relaxed slightly. Just then, he felt a certain... extremely dense concentration of gazes.

'Is there not a single normal place around here...?'

Lin Ye glanced up at the ceiling of the cold storage. It was crammed with countless densely packed human eyeballs, hanging there like clusters of black-and-white grapes.

Those eyeballs sat piled silently on the cold storage ceiling. Some of them were watching them, but that was all.

Lin Ye turned to look at Scarlatti and shifted her body to the side.

When Lin Ye had woken up earlier, his mind was still hazy, which was why he hadn't noticed the 'spectacle' above.

"I could sense they weren't dangerous, so I didn't move you two. Outside might be even more dangerous than in here."

Little Guardian had noticed those eyeballs earlier, but she paid them no mind.

"You're right. Staying here was the correct choice."

Lin Ye could only ignore those eyeballs for now. Scarlatti still hadn't woken up, and he wasn't in great shape himself either.