Mutants - Chapter 21
Chapter 21: Countdown
The mutated Fungal-Insectoid Mutant—it had already evolved into a stronger state. Its ability could be glimpsed from how it used the Ironworm tentacles on its hands to grip the ceiling and anchor its body. Its speed and strength had both increased significantly; its physique was at least comparable to a ferocious tiger.
Sui Xin was forced back by its pounce. She could see it clearly after her knife was caught, but its face also quickly sprayed out Ironworms that lunged at her cheeks.
Swish!
Sui Xin abandoned the knife, sidestepped, and drew the second knife from the back of her waist, slashing diagonally at one of its arms.
Pfft, the arm was hacked off, and mucus sputtered out with a sizzling sound. But after hitting the ground, these Ironworms quickly scrambled towards her, and the main body, feeling no pain, could still charge forward ferociously even with one arm missing.
Sui Xin quickly lifted her foot and hooked the leg of a nearby table, pulling the table in front of her as a shield. The charging Fungal-Insectoid Mutant was blocked, its body pitching forward.
Sui Xin twisted her left hand, and a corrosive fluid from the Ironworms sizzled in her palm. With a wave of her hand, the corrosive fluid sprayed out.
It landed directly on the mushroom-like part of the Fungal-Insectoid Mutant's head.
No need to test. She knew from the pool's inability to corrode the Ironworm corpses that the corrosive fluid was ineffective against Ironworms—after all, they shared the same origin. But it was effective against most other organic matter—the mushroom and other muscle tissue on this Fungal-Insectoid Mutant's body would still be corroded.
When she had captured the Parasite King before, she had opened a Fungal-Insectoid Mutant's skull. Under the mushroom was the brain matter.
Pfft… The mushroom on its face was indeed corroded, its body twisting and trembling in pain.
Seizing the opportunity, Sui Xin plunged her knife in.
The blade pierced through the corroded, melting mushroom, straight into its brain matter, stabbing the Parasite King inside with a single strike.
Gagaga, its body twisted and convulsed, and soon it lay still. But the Ironworms, having lost the suppression of the Salmon-Host Myxosporean King, began to revert to their instincts, frantically devouring the muscle tissue.
The flesh and blood on the corpse quickly began to diminish.
With so many worms, Sui Xin couldn't kill them all. She captured one to keep in a test tube for later use, then used her knife to flick the corpse out of the house, luring these worms away with it, and then closed the door.
The slaughter was still ongoing inside the door, the smell of blood was thick, and she didn't know the situation. But Sui Xin had no intention of wasting a large amount of energy to fully mimic and enter to investigate the situation; that ability was truly too draining.
However, she could use her blood sense to determine the approximate number of living creatures inside.
After sensing for a moment, her expression turned a little ugly.
The Fungal-Insectoid Mutants had hunted and killed many people, and their bodies retained some of the dead's blood.
It was different from the blood of the living.
Through these scents, she perceived the number of Fungal-Insectoid Mutants inside—at least twenty.
Of course, there weren't many living people inside, only five.
There might have been more before, but they had already been killed.
Now, the five people inside were completely suppressed, even with their Mutant Abilities. They probably couldn't even open the escape passage before being cornered.
"But to be able to hold out while surrounded by so many Fungal-Insectoid Mutants, the abilities of these five people are probably not weak, or there's a very strong Mutant among them."
Sui Xin checked the time. There were only 45 minutes left until self-destruction.
What to do? Right now, she was afraid she'd stumble even fighting two Fungal-Insectoid Mutants head-on by herself. Three would be a guaranteed death. Going in against so many Fungal-Insectoid Mutants would be suicide.
Time was tight. Sui Xin had to make a decision.
So she went out, and came back in after a while. She cut a small wound on her arm to let it bleed and deliberately made some noise.
Inside the safe house, Jian Siye, A Li, and the others heard the commotion outside. Someone else was here?
But the Fungal-Insectoid Mutants had a much stronger reaction; they were simply too sensitive to fresh blood.
The Ironworms on one of the female Fungal-Insectoid Mutants seemed to be writhing. She was also far more advanced than the other Fungal-Insectoid Mutants; she actually still retained part of a human face. Her eyeballs shifted slightly; she smelled a familiar scent from the blood…
Her expression changed, and she suddenly shot out, taking ten Fungal-Insectoid Mutants with her.
"What are they doing?" A Li and the others were surprised, but also pleasantly so.
A glint flashed in Jian Siye's eyes. "She has found a more hated prey."
"This is our chance, quick!"
A faint light emanated from her hand as she controlled a Fungal-Insectoid Mutant, using it as a shield for their side, charging through the enemy lines. And because of her more spiritual and intelligent control, it was far more formidable than the other Fungal-Insectoid Mutants. One was comparable to five, which was why they had been able to hold out for so long.
Mutant Ability: Control.
A very powerful ability.
Sui Xin was waiting outside, but she didn't expect the Fungal-Insectoid Mutant that shot out to look somewhat familiar.
Huh? Jenny?!
Hadn't she been killed by her?
Can dead Fungal-Insectoid Mutants be resurrected?
Soon, Sui Xin figured it out—because when Jenny was touched by another Fungal-Insectoid Mutant before, she must have been implanted with a large number of Salmon-Host Myxosporeans and Ironworms. Later, when the Red Disaster descended, she also mutated.
So the radiation source in the cave wasn't a necessary condition for mutation?
It's the worms + the Red Disaster?
The thought only flashed through Sui Xin's mind for an instant. Seeing the resentful look in Jenny's eyes, her heart jumped. Then she saw the large number of Fungal-Insectoid Mutants rushing out from behind her, and her expression changed instantly.
So many!
She had only intended to lure out a portion to reduce the pressure on the people inside, let them deal with the remaining ones, and after she dealt with the ones outside, she would go back in to regroup and finish off the rest together, finally opening the escape passage to flee.
Who would have thought she'd draw out so many at once? It wasn't normal. They should have been able to determine from her blood that she was alone, so why did so many come out?
Sui Xin didn't understand, but she turned and ran.
Jenny's face became much more ferocious, the mushroom on her forehead grew even more vibrant red, her body scrambled forward rapidly, and with a couple of whooshes, she was in pursuit from behind…
Sui Xin's speed rushing out of the safe house door was quite fast, but she was still no match for Jenny. Jenny was stronger and faster than the other Fungal-Insectoid Mutants, and was about to catch up to her.
Sui Xin suddenly did a sliding tackle, rushing under the chassis of a large truck.
Jenny was furious, leading the other Fungal-Insectoid Mutants to clamber over the truck or go around it to charge at her.
But just as Jenny leaped down from the truck's roof, she saw a device on the ground in front of her, and on the other side, that damn Sui Xin had already hidden behind the truck.
Not good!
Jenny tried to dodge to the side…
BOOM!!
The reaction plate exploded.
A large swarm of Fungal-Insectoid Mutants was sent flying by the blast.
Sui Xin hid behind the truck's body, feeling the impact of the explosion making the vehicle shake. Rolling heat waves surged, a scorching heat.
Are they all dead?
Sui Xin smelled it—the scent of fresh blood, approaching.
Whoosh!
Sui Xin dodged to the side, but was still tackled by a dark figure that leaped down from the truck's roof.
The disheveled Jenny was blasted into a sorry state, mucus constantly dripping from behind her.
Most likely, because she was faster and further out, her back took the brunt of the impact, and she was severely injured. But she didn't forget to hunt down Sui Xin.
From her eyes, Sui Xin saw a human-like resentment. She was startled, and the Ironworms on Jenny's body were already frantically transferring over, sticking to her body, impossible to kick off. And Jenny, just like the Fungal-Insectoid Mutant in the pharmacy had done to her, prepared to suck Sui Xin's blood and transfer the worms…
Just as Jenny opened her mouth to release more Ironworms onto Sui Xin's face.
Sui Xin's face turned pale with fright. She quickly pressed her left hand against Jenny's cheek, releasing a large amount of corrosive fluid, while her body rapidly transformed into Ironworm skin to insulate against the corrosive damage of the other Ironworms, and her right hand gripped her knife.
Jenny's cheek was rapidly corroded, the mushroom also melted. In her agony, she let out a scream that sounded like an animal's cry mixed with a human female's. Her body also twisted. At that moment, Sui Xin exerted her strength, flipped over, and pinned Jenny beneath her, and stabbed down hard with the knife.
Mucus splattered.
Sui Xin was disgusted by these worms and the mucus. She quickly stood up, shook off the worms, and then returned her skin to normal. But this heavy use of her ability had consumed a lot of her energy.
Mainly, producing the corrosive fluid was too energy-intensive.
"Combat-type abilities are clearly more direct and efficient in energy use. The indirect killing power of my ability is too energy-consuming."
Sui Xin felt helpless, but there was nothing she could do at the moment. Then she quickly ran towards the safe house.
Hurry!
She had to hurry and join the people inside…
Sui Xin had just stepped through the door when she saw a large number of Fungal-Insectoid Mutant corpses on the ground.
They killed them all?
Not good!
The door to the escape passage was already open.
The five people had already gone inside.
The five of them faced her from across the room; the door to the escape passage was closing.
Under her helmet, Sui Xin frowned.
These people had no honor; they didn't even wait for her. But then again, they hadn't discussed it. They finished off the other Fungal-Insectoid Mutants and retreated; there was nothing to blame them for. If it were her, she definitely wouldn't have waited for anyone either.
Forget it.
Sui Xin didn't plan to dwell on it.
Jian Siye looked at her, about to speak, but A Li beside her suddenly made a move… a vortex of black gas swirled in his palm.
A large amount of poisonous gas was released directly outwards.
This poisonous gas was somewhat useless against the Fungal-Insectoid Mutants, but it was very effective against other living creatures.
Sui Xin was about to go over, but her face changed when she saw the poisonous gas, and she had to retreat.
The helmet she was wearing now was one used by the previous people. It wasn't as advanced as her original red helmet and had no effective anti-toxin features at all.
So…
She could only retreat.
The door to the escape passage closed completely, and according to the protocol, the safe house was about to self-destruct.
Sui Xin looked at the completely sealed escape door and had no choice but to turn and flee.
BOOM!
Sui Xin leaped out of the main door and quickly dropped down behind the body of a nearby vehicle.
The explosion rolled towards her.
The shockwave erupted.
Sui Xin was covered in dust and grime by the rolling shockwave. She opened her backpack and looked at the single reaction plate inside, then estimated the strength of the escape passage door, her expression gloomy.
Can't blast it open.
That A Li had screwed her over.
"Humans really can't be trusted."
Sui Xin had rarely trusted her own kind, because the outcome of trusting them was never good.
In a world like this, it was every person for themselves. Over time, she would only become more cautious and ruthless than others.
This time was out of necessity, but she didn't expect to fail again.
She checked the gruesome Fungal-Insectoid Mutant corpses on the ground and found that these corpses had also been dug open—ah, these Fungal-Insectoid Mutants must have fragments too, and Jian Siye and her group also knew that the fragments could be absorbed.
It wasn't that Sui Xin hadn't been suspicious, but she was in a hurry, even willing to give up the Fungal-Insectoid Mutant corpses.
In the end, she still couldn't get out.
But thinking about it from another perspective, these people had time to dig for fragments but didn't think to spend a little time waiting for her.
Of course, judging from A Li's final action, it wasn't just that they didn't want to wait for her; they probably wished she were dead, after all, they already knew about the Genetic Fragments.
Sui Xin sighed helplessly. She checked the time; 30 minutes left.
She went straight out and dug open the other Fungal-Insectoid Mutant corpses, especially Jenny's.
The fragment wasn't in the Fungal-Insectoid Mutant's main body, but inside the Parasite King in its brain.
The Fungal-Insectoid Mutant itself was a composite entity, not a completely independent organism. It didn't have a unified genetic chain; it was controlled by the mutated Salmon-Host Myxosporean King, and the fragment was also inside the Parasite King.
The fragment from the Parasite King in Jenny was indeed larger than the fragments from the other Fungal-Insectoid Mutants.
The Parasite King's fragment was also dark red and semi-transparent, not much different from a human's, but there was one difference: the patterns on it were not as complex.
Jenny's was more complex, half human fragment patterns, half Parasite King fragment patterns.
"As expected, she had human consciousness."
Sui Xin was a little horrified, because she had indeed killed Jenny back then. By that logic, wasn't it equivalent to coming back from the dead?
This was too terrifying. If Tianxi Group got ahold of this technology, wouldn't that be insane?! Thankfully, the Red Disaster was not replicable.
"It had been several hours from her death to the arrival of the Red Disaster. In principle, brain cells die completely within ten-plus minutes, and most cells throughout the body would also die completely within a few hours. To be able to resurrect from that…"
Sui Xin had observed Jenny's brain matter and found that it still retained strong activity. When she cut it open, the brain was actually still twitching, very different from the brains of other Fungal-Insectoid Mutants.
"Could the other corpses have resurrected too?"
As she was wondering, she noticed that after Jenny's corpse, which was being devoured by other Ironworms, was exposed, something fell out from within the sizzling corrosive fluid.
What is this thing?
Sui Xin picked it up and looked, her eyes showing a hint of surprise.
A locator.
"And it's a Jiayun mineral ray one-way locator—this thing doesn't need to transmit a signal; the other party just needs to use related equipment to sense the Jiayun rays to unilaterally determine the target's position."
Sui Xin suddenly had an epiphany.
During the Red Eye Organization's attack, the GPS was overridden and guided to their ambush point. It probably wasn't operated by a technician on their side, but rather—operated by Jenny herself, the chief technician of the 9th Exploration Team.
An inside job is the hardest to prevent.
That traitor Jenny had long colluded with the Red Eye Organization to ambush her own team. She probably wanted to make a big score, then fake her death, change her identity, and escape.
After all, being a corporate wage slave isn't easy. Once you strike it rich, who would still want to work for someone else?
So, the Red Eye Organization should already know this location. Could they already be on their way?
They are inside the ruins, so they would definitely be faster than the company's forces coming from M City.
"The premise is that they could survive the Red Disaster… but the stone structures of the caves in the Gobi region seem to be able to resist the Red Disaster Radiation, just like they blocked the low-temperature radiation before. And these organizations that survive in the ruins zone basically have their outposts in these natural stone structures. The probability of survival is not low."
"So, they should be arriving soon."
"But they definitely won't find the exit of the escape passage, and they can't open it. It's a pity I don't have any communication equipment to contact them. And even if they reach the outpost, they probably don't have enough firepower to open the main gate. If they had that kind of firepower, they wouldn't even care about the energy bars in a single outpost. Unless their goal is also to capture Mutants, then it's possible they would go all-in and pay a heavy price to blast their way in."
In terms of defense rating, if the isolation gate is 50, the safe house door is 30, and the escape passage door is also 50, then the outpost's main gate has a defense rating of 200.
Higher than the defense of all the other doors combined.
Ten reaction devices wouldn't be enough to blast it open.
But this method was too uncertain, completely relying on the decisions of those organizations. By the time they made a move, she might have already been killed by the outpost's self-destruction.
Sui Xin thought for a moment, then placed the locator back on Jenny's body, while she herself ran to the isolation gate.
Can't blast it open. A single reaction plate can't blast this place open, but she had a way out.
The escape passage door was completely closed, almost 100% sealed, because it was designed for escape, which included isolating against poisonous gas.
But the isolation gate was not necessarily so. Because trucks used to pass through here frequently in the early days, the ground was never clean. The reinstalled gate couldn't be completely sealed. Tianxi Group wasn't that meticulous—so there was a gap at the bottom.
Mainly because who the hell would have expected Mutants to exist later on.
Sui Xin ate all the fragments.
"Prophet's Guidance Life Evolution Progress: 3.2% + 0.7%. Current Progress: 3.9%."
The evolution direction didn't change, still Level 3.
Then, Sui Xin turned into an Ironworm.
She squeezed into the gap.
Squeezing, squeezing, squeezing…
She squeezed out from under the isolation gate and reached the outpost area. After reverting to her body, she had consumed a lot of energy again.
"This ability is really hard to describe, naked every time—thankfully there are no cameras here."
Speechless, Sui Xin quickly found a corpse, stripped off its clothes, and put them on. She saw that this corpse hadn't resurrected at all.
Strange, Jenny resurrected, but these dead people didn't.
Sui Xin took his knife and gun and quickly rushed to the weapons and energy depot. She found that neither Huang Ye outside nor the dozen or so corpses inside had resurrected; they were as dead as they could be.
So what was the difference between them and Jenny?
Sui Xin soon knew—it was the brain.
The Salmon-Host Myxosporeans in their bodies probably never reached their brains, unable to provide the special secretions and energy to maintain the activity of some brain cells.
Whereas Jenny had been directly implanted by that Fungal-Insectoid Mutant at the time—she recalled that when the Fungal-Insectoid Mutant implanted her, it did include worms burrowing into her brain.
This was probably the key.
Then in a sense, she had also voluntarily placed a Salmon-Host Myxosporean King in her body. She was also on the verge of death at that time. Did it also influence her mutation?
Could her Genetic Fragment also be half-human, half-worm?
Sui Xin wasn't sure. After all, she couldn't just cut herself open to check.
She suppressed her thoughts and went to the main power switch, blasting it directly.
All the lights inside the entire outpost went out.
Sui Xin then rushed to the armed energy depot and, using her helmet's night vision in the darkness, silently removed all the buttons from the dozen or so corpses of the team members. But she didn't destroy them, instead gathering them together in a box where they couldn't see outside or hear small noises.
She wasn't sure if the live broadcast was still on. Anyway, a sudden blackout was better than letting them see what she was doing.
After finishing this, Sui Xin quickly packed up all the energy bars inside. But she found that her body couldn't seem to absorb these energy bars—as expected, the evolution direction for Mutants couldn't use all types of energy. It seemed only genetic energy would work?
Her stomach had no desire to eat them either.
Then they could only be used as an energy source. She also took a backpack full of explosives, leaving only a small portion behind.
Then… she set the armory on fire.
The reason she didn't destroy the buttons directly was because they had to hear the sound of an explosion, otherwise, it would be a flaw in her plan. If the company investigated later, found the explosion point here, but discovered the buttons hadn't captured anything, coupled with the power outage and black screen, they would definitely deduce that someone was deliberately obscuring the live cameras. Then she would easily be exposed as a company insider, and specifically, a member of the 9th Exploration Team.
Because the people inside were originally supposed to be unable to get out, and outsiders would have no need to be so cautious, so it must have been someone from the team.
While the energy depot was exploding and burning wildly, Sui Xin had already picked up Huang Ye's corpse and rushed to the isolation gate, using his face for recognition and simultaneously entering the password. Each member of this exploration team had one-time entry access.
Jian Siye and her group either didn't think of it, or didn't dare to gamble—didn't dare to bet that there were other team members' identities they could use outside.
Anyway, Sui Xin had no other choice but to exploit this bug.
After the isolation gate opened, Sui Xin shot and destroyed the device's control panel, removing its memory function, then dragged Huang Ye's corpse through the gate.
As the gate closed, Sui Xin had already picked up the backpack she had left inside and let the gate close.
When it closed, a raging fire was already burning inside the outpost. The weapons in the energy depot were too destructive; various thermal and explosive weapons, given time, could burn down the entire outpost.
Sui Xin didn't care. The more that burned, the better it would cover her tracks.
8 minutes left!
The outpost's full self-destruction was about to begin!
She quickly rushed to the safe house, which had already exploded a while ago. The safe house here was completely destroyed, with only the escape tunnel gate remaining.
Sui Xin placed the energy bars, explosives, and the reaction plate, then quickly ran far away…
Detonation. This explosion was much more powerful than the one outside; it directly blasted the escape door open.
Sui Xin ran over without even waiting for the flames to die down, quickly jumping into the escape passage and sprinting through the scorching, smoke-filled tunnel.
Faster, faster, faster!
Only four minutes left, ahhhhh!
Sui Xin ran for her life, and at this moment, the outpost had indeed entered its explosion countdown…
Almost in the final minute, Sui Xin burst out of the tunnel. After running out of the exit, she kept running.
Because once the explosion behind her happened, the range of the shockwave and flames would likely spare nothing within several hundred meters.
Sui Xin's back was already burned by the heatwave in the tunnel, her skin was in extreme pain, but she couldn't care less, running frantically across the barren sand.
Just as she had run over four hundred meters.
BOOM!
The self-destruct countdown finally reached its last second…
The entire outpost entered a frantic explosion mode… the flames were spectacular, a mushroom cloud billowed, the ground was cracked by the blast. Thankfully, most of the energy bars in the weapons and energy depot had been taken by Sui Xin, otherwise the explosion would have been even more powerful.
Boom, Sui Xin was actually counting down in her head. When she mentally calculated that she wasn't far enough, she finally had a flash of inspiration, diving and rolling into a pit more than a meter deep.
The shockwave had arrived.
She jumped into the pit as a sharp pain shot through her back.
Whoosh… The shockwave rolled over her head, carrying a large amount of sand and dirt, which came pouring down into the pit.
She was covered in dirt, truly becoming a person made of earth.
After the shockwave passed, Sui Xin opened her mouth and spat out a mouthful of bloody water.
Still hadn't completely avoided it.
Weakened, she struggled to her feet and looked back from the pit. The various areas of the outpost were still burning in different places after the explosion, the walls had been blasted into numerous fragmented shapes, and huge rocks had fallen to the ground. No wonder the commotion just now was so immense.
Scared me to death.
This vicious Tianxi Group.
Sui Xin, still shaken, supported her heavily injured body, wanting to escape, but she smelled the scent of blood.
Not her own, but someone else's.
Carried on the wind.
The fresh scent of blood, and it was getting clearer, the scent of more than one person.
Someone was approaching?
And it was a lot of people.
Sui Xin's scalp was about to explode.
"Is it people from the company or from those organizations in the ruins zone?"
Sui Xin assessed her injuries and weakened state. She couldn't use her ability unless she had a relevant energy supplement. After a comprehensive assessment, her expression turned ugly—if it was people from an organization arriving now, there would definitely be a lot of them, and they would search this area extensively. Without a vehicle, she couldn't possibly escape on her two weak legs alone.
If it was the company, that was even worse, she'd be toast. Because the company would definitely have an aerial unit to assist in capturing Mutants from the sky, making her escape even more impossible.
Anyway, no matter who was coming, she had to make preparations, conceal her identity, and reduce her level of danger. The most optimistic outcome would be not exposing her Mutant identity to Tianxi Group.
This damn desperate situation!
Why was her life so hard? All those maneuvers before were to fake her death, and in the end, it still failed!
It seemed the most logical choice, and the one with the highest probability of survival, was just one.
Sui Xin, adept at judging situations and surviving, decisively got up, climbed out of the pit, and ran towards the outpost.
She went in through a crack in the wall, threw away her helmet, shot herself squarely in the shoulder, then ran to the pharmacy, took the half-damaged original helmet, rolled around in some unburnt medicinal herbs in the thick smoke, getting some of the herbs stuck to her, then ran to the canteen's water reservoir and jumped in.
Splash, the surface of the water rippled, and the waves gradually calmed.
Underwater, although Sui Xin was holding her breath, she didn't plan to hold it forever. Because the probability of being found was too high, she planned to put on an act after being found. Anyway, they would definitely suspect she was a Mutant and wouldn't kill her outright. They would most likely take her away and lock her up.
As long as no one discovered the series of actions she took inside the outpost, she still had a chance.
But why did she feel so drowsy?
Could it be!
Her pupils dilated.
This water is tainted! Tianxi Group planners, you're really something else!
No way she did all that just to end up getting caught😭
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