Hunter of Mysterious Creature-Chapter 532 - 115: City Ruins
If there really are mysterious creatures among those artifacts...
Considering the activity range of these scavengers, trying to trace them one by one is like searching for a needle in a haystack.
As he walked, Sun Hang suddenly felt that he might have missed some clue.
He originally planned to study the diary carefully once he returned to the research institute, but an impulse inside drove him to the entrance of a coffee shop, where he sat down by the street-side tables and chairs.
Sun Hang opened the "diary filled with love for the goddess" once again.
As Sun Hang flipped through the pages, these papers, frozen brittle by the cold, constantly made rustling sounds.
"Hmm?"
Sun Hang furrowed his brow; he suddenly noticed that among the maddening text, some characters seemed different.
It might not be too obvious just by looking with the naked eye, but if you gently rub your fingers on the back of the page, you can find that the diary’s owner deliberately exerted more force on certain words, leaving slight raised marks on the other side of the paper.
Sun Hang circled these words one by one, discovering that they formed a coherent sentence.
"I, must, find, a, way, to, escape, from, the, goddess."
Sun Hang couldn’t help taking a deep breath.
He suddenly realized that this scavenger’s death might not have been so simple.
Perhaps he had known from the beginning about the existence of that mysterious creature in the underground lab.
"He chose to betray the ’goddess’, but failed, and thus was punished?" Sun Hang mumbled, "Then... what exactly is this ’goddess’?"
The mysterious creature in the underground lab? Clearly not.
Then it could only be the existence that took the videotape.
Could it be Anna?
Sun Hang pondered for a moment and ruled out this possibility.
If it were Anna, given her personality, she would definitely appear before him to "show off"—just like those kids who have done something "amazing" and are eager to receive praise from their parents.
The thought of a lurking, elusive, and powerful mysterious creature within the city of Chengdu made Sun Hang feel an immense headache.
...
...
Northern Xiazhou, East and West Siberian Plain.
Ruins of Lake Baikal City.
A well-equipped reconnaissance team was slowly advancing through the forest of reinforced concrete, much like the remnants of buildings.
After the destruction of Lake Baikal City by Object 77 "Deathly Aurora," a charred pit remained at the site. Centered around this pit, an area of more than a hundred kilometers in radius became an extremely dangerous pollution zone—any humans or infectees entering the pollution zone would quickly become mysterious creatures... as quickly as a few seconds or as long as a few dozen minutes, without exception.
Just as the Federation Government was planning to completely abandon the ruins of Lake Baikal City and retract the border into Tatar, another mutation occurred.
Countless reinforced concrete structures resembling human building remnants "grew" out of the pit... These structures burst forth from the ground overnight, growing as swiftly as bamboo shoots after a rain. They shattered the vitrified ground, tore through the scorched soil, and rose from the ground, creating the "remnants of a city" almost within an hour.
Meanwhile, the intensity of the pollution within the pollution zone rapidly decreased, and according to live tests, current protective gear could completely withstand the effects of the pollution zone—the remains of Lake Baikal City no longer belonged to a "forbidden zone" for humans.
The newly emerged city remains were identified as a type G mysterious creature, temporarily numbered 790, and code-named "Baikal Remains."
Within twenty-four hours of the appearance of "Baikal Remains," the Xiazhou Federation had already dispatched more than fifty reconnaissance teams, comprising over three hundred personnel, to investigate it... 𝕗𝐫𝐞𝕖𝕨𝐞𝗯𝚗𝕠𝘃𝐞𝚕.𝐜𝗼𝚖
This time, nearly two-thirds of the dispatched reconnaissance teams returned alive to the forward base.
According to survivors, inside the "Baikal Remains," a large number of mysterious creatures were roaming—but they couldn’t be certain whether these creatures were the advance units swallowed by the pollution zone or the victims of Lake Baikal City.
Some believed these mysterious creatures were the deceased residents of Lake Baikal City, but this claim was quickly refuted by experts—the true body of Object 77 "Deathly Aurora" is a mass of plasma reaching a temperature of seventeen million degrees Celsius, even the buildings of Lake Baikal City couldn’t withstand such high temperatures and turned to ash. Fragile humans, far less resilient than buildings, could not possibly have bodies left behind.
"If you ask me, those experts are just talking nonsense," said a soldier in the reconnaissance team, "if these burned buildings can reappear, then of course the dead can also reappear... Maybe what the other teams encountered weren’t mysterious creatures at all, but the vengeful spirits of the victims."
"Vengeful spirits are also a type of mysterious creature," murmured the tall and sturdy machine gunner beside him, "I’d rather hope they’re zombies or ghouls—entities with substance. Our bullets are completely useless against Spiritual Body Type mysterious creatures."
"Alright, everyone shut up, try to stay quiet," the squad leader walking at the front turned around, "don’t you all find these building remnants very eerie?"
"Eerie indeed," shrugged the soldier who spoke first, "even the most normal thing would seem eerie if you put it in millions of degrees of heat and bake it a while, wouldn’t it?"
