'Captain Zhao!' Chen Yan shouted harshly.
'Present!'
'Bring me the instigators! Lock them up! Everyone else, get back to your posts immediately! If anyone else spreads rumours or disrupts order...' Chen Yan's voice was as cold as the ice deep inside a bunker, 'they will be dealt with on the spot according to wartime regulations!'
Under the stern gazes of Captain Zhao and his team, the crowd dispersed swiftly like receding tides, leaving behind only suppressed breaths and the lingering fear of those who had narrowly escaped disaster.
Chen Yan finally turned around, took a deep breath, and pushed open the laboratory door.
The laboratory was brightly lit. Lin Lu stood with her back to the door, facing a complex biological scanner. She wore a white lab coat, her figure appearing somewhat frail. Upon hearing the door open, she slowly turned around.
Chen Yan's heart sank suddenly.
Lin Lu's face was unusually pale, with dark circles under her eyes. But what was most striking was her left forearm, which she had rolled up—the skin there also bore faint, pale green patterns resembling the delicate veins of new shoots, lighter than those on Chen Yan's leg but emitting an equally faint glow. Her eyes were weary, yet they burned with an almost obsessive focus.
'You... saw it too?' Lin Lu's voice was soft, tinged with a hint of self-mocking bitterness.
Chen Yan nodded silently, walked over to her side, and fixed his gaze on the scanner screen. The screen displayed a complex molecular structure model, with a deep green, constantly shifting crystal cluster at its core, surrounded by spiral structures representing human DNA chains. The two were forcibly connected by countless minute energy flows and material exchange channels, forming an extremely unstable symbiotic state.
'This is the "medium,"' Lin Lu pointed at the deep green crystal cluster, 'It transforms biomass and drives fusion. My body and yours... are being slowly assimilated by it.' She paused, her voice trembling slightly, 'The good news is that this assimilation process... seems to be slightly interfered with by our will and bioelectric signals. The bad news is that the "Purifiers" are coming.'
She pulled up another set of data, and a blurry three-dimensional outline appeared on the screen—a streamlined, metallic-hued spindle-shaped object, its surface covered in energy patterns resembling living vines, with a massive energy-gathering orifice at its tip, akin to a plant's suction cup.
'Blurred imagery captured by the outer sensors of the deep bunker. It's tracing back along our drilling path. Moving extremely fast. 72 hours... might be the most optimistic estimate.' Lin Lu looked at Chen Yan, her eyes filled with worry. 'The Ark's defences... can't stop this thing.'
The pressure weighed on Chen Yan's shoulders like a mountain. The internal suspicions had been temporarily suppressed, but the external deadly threat was already closing in. The only way out—establishing the 'Ecological Lighthouse'—required returning to the hellish surface, to that faintly hopeful 'Emerald Valley.'
'Lin Lu,' Chen Yan's voice was unusually calm. He pointed at the coordinates of the 'Emerald Valley' on the screen, 'Prepare the technical blueprints and core equipment list for the "Lighthouse." Make it as streamlined and efficient as possible.'
Lin Lu immediately understood his intent, her pupils contracting slightly: 'You're going up there?! Now?! There's nothing but...'
'There's no time.' Chen Yan cut her off, his gaze fixed on his leg, which glowed with an ominous green light. 'This leg will rot faster in the bunker. Out there... it might still be useful.' He gave a nearly cruel smile. 'And I need you to stay here.'
He pointed at the locked 'Eval-Override' subprogram on the screen: "You must continue to crack it! Find the final command interface to activate it! When I ignite the 'Lighthouse' in Jade Valley, you need to send that 'key' to Gaia from the depths of the bunker! This is our only chance! Both sides are indispensable!"
Lin Lu looked into Chen Yan's eyes, which burned with a reckless flame, at the glaring green light on his leg, and then at the same patterns emerging on her own arm. A surge of profound sorrow and resolve welled up within her. She knew that Chen Yan's mission was a suicide mission. And she herself, remaining deep within the Ark, might either exhaust her life in the data ocean or be consumed by accelerated assimilation.
"Alright." Lin Lu's voice trembled with emotion, yet it was unwavering. She swiftly began operating, transferring a compressed technical package into a reinforced portable terminal. 'Take this! And...' She hurried to a nearby low-temperature incubator and retrieved a small syringe containing a deep green, clear liquid. 'This is an inhibitor prototype I reverse-engineered from samples of the symbiotic organisms within our bodies. Theoretically, it should last for 48 hours, temporarily suppressing the assimilation process and keeping you... conscious. But the side effects are unknown—it might be extremely painful.'
Chen Yan took the cold syringe and terminal, then without hesitation, injected the syringe into his intact left deltoid muscle! The icy liquid entered his veins, and instantly, an excruciating pain like a million ants biting his heart and a numbing coldness swept through his entire body! He groaned, his forehead veins bulging, cold sweat soaking his back. But a few seconds later, the excruciating pain and intense itching in his leg were indeed forcibly suppressed, though at the cost of his entire body's muscles stiffening and his nerve endings enduring a persistent numbing pain.
'Enough,' Chen Yan clenched his teeth, his voice straining through his gritted teeth. Feeling the conflicting sensations of cold and heat within his body, he looked at Lin Lu: "The Ark... is in your hands. Watch over the home."
He turned and dragged his leg, which was temporarily suppressed but still emitted a faint green glow, toward the equipment area. He needed the most elite and trustworthy team, a modified vehicle capable of traversing hell, and... a daring charge into the despair-filled land known as 'Emerald Valley.'
Time remaining: 71 hours. The shadow of the Purifier loomed over the Ark. Above the surface, in the deep green hell, a faint glimmer of hope called 'symbiosis' was about to be ignited by a man dragging a glowing, severed leg.