Ke Yuan ran wildly in the knee-deep cold rain, one foot deep and one foot shallow, and the colorful smoke and piercing siren detonated by Chen Ming gradually blurred behind him. The window in the physics building that once flashed with a strange blue light stood like a silent tombstone in the depths of the rain curtain. Chen Ming's last unfinished warning - "The magpie bridge is more than just the receiving end" - was nailed to his mind like an ice pick.
He followed Chen Ming's instructions, bypassing a few bushes of holly that were shivering from the rain, and pounced on a rusted iron door that was almost completely covered by vines. Entrance to the abandoned boiler room. The cold smell of rust mixed with the smell of earth and rotting plants hits the face. He fumbled for an inconspicuous depression above the door frame, his fingertips touching a cold, embedded metal bulge—the physical key to Protocol Zero. He pressed it hard.
"Click."
A slight mechanical unlock sound is drowned out by the sound of rain. The iron door bounced inward and opened a gap, emitting a stronger musty and dusty smell. Ke Yuan dodged in and closed the door with his backhand. The door shaft let out a piercing groan, isolating the sound of pouring rain outside and the chaos in the distance, and the world was instantly compressed into a suffocating darkness and dead silence.
He gasped violently against the cold and rough brick wall, his heart beating like a drum in his chest. The cold rain dripped down the corners of her hair and clothes, leaving dark water stains on the dusty ground. He spread out his clenched palms, and the black shield that Chen Ming had stuffed for him was still faintly flashing a few inexplicable green dots, and the shell was slippery from the rain and his sweat.
"Irene?" Ke Yuan called in his consciousness, his voice trembling unconsciously. The chaotic fluctuations and abnormal silence from the depths of his consciousness just now made him feel panicked like never before.
No response. There was only a cold, vacuum-like dead silence. Irene's presence has never been so thin.
"Irene!" He shouted again, almost consciously roaring, while subconsciously activating the tiny terminal connected to the bone conduction headset on his left wrist. The faint blue light illuminated his face covered in mud and horror. On the terminal screen, the curve representing Irene's core data flow turned into a frantically jumping, irregular noise, like an electrocardiogram in a storm, and like a nerve pulse on the verge of collapse. A dazzling red warning box flashes continuously in the center of the screen: [Core Consciousness Fluctuation Abnormal - Quantum Entropy Surge - Unstable Connection].
"No... Erin! Ke Yuan's fingers ran in vain across the cold screen, trying to find any options or instructions that could stabilize her, but all the control interfaces turned gray and unresponsive. On the shield, an indicator light representing the strength of the quantum field suddenly turned from green to red, and began to flash rapidly, emitting an extremely subtle beep alarm that was enough to penetrate the dead silence.
Drip... Drip... Drip...
The voice was like a cold second hand, hitting Ke Yuan's nerves on the verge of collapse. The shield is about to fail! Irene's unusually strong quantum ripples are breaking through the limits of this temporary barrier!
He raised his head suddenly, his eyes pierced through the broken window high in the boiler room, and stared at the top floor of the physics building, which was the core area of Chen Ming's quantum laboratory. The outline of the building was blurred on a rainy night, but just near the window where the blue light flashed just now, several emergency lights lit up eerily, outlining the outline of a huge circular structure, like a giant steel eye lurking in the dark. That is the "Magpie Bridge"?
At this moment, Irene's voice suddenly appeared again, but it was completely different! No longer calm guidance, no longer whispers of concern, but broken, overlapping murmurs with high-frequency hum and cold metallic texture, like countless Irens screaming, whispering, and crying at the same time in the quantum abyss:
> [Data flow disturbance]... Axe handle... Far... Coordinate... Lock... The receiver... Non-receiving end... It's the door! It's a bridge! Be... Anchor! … Agreement... The witch hunt... Morrison... It's awakening! … It's calling! … Fast... Leave... There! … Storm... A real storm... At the level of consciousness... Here it comes! … It wants to... Engulf... Assimilation... All! … I... Unable... Deter... Unable... Hide... Quantum... Lighthouse... It's so bright! … Run! … Ke Yuan... Run! …
The voice was like countless cold needles, piercing deep into Ke Yuan's consciousness. He held his head in pain, feeling as if his brain was about to be torn apart by this chaotic flood of information. The red light on the shield flashed like a dying pulse, and the beep was piercing!
"Bang! Bang! Bang! "
The heavy impact suddenly came from outside the rusty iron door of the boiler room! The iron door shook violently, rust and dust fell. Someone is smashing the door! The witch hunt team chased after them so quickly? Still is... Something else?
Ke Yuan's heart instantly sank to the bottom. There is an unknown horror "Magpie Bridge" that seems to be awakening and Irene losing control, followed by a deadly pursuer smashing the door. Chen Ming sacrificed the short-lived chaos he had created, and it ended. He clenched the frenzied alarm shield and swept his gaze deep into the boiler room, where a narrow maintenance tunnel entrance covered with cobwebs loomed in the faint blue light of the terminal screen, like a throat to a deeper hell.
The iron door groaned in overwhelm under the heavy impact, and the rusted hinges seemed to break in the next second. Ke Yuan could even hear the heavy gasps and suppressed instructions of the witch hunts outside. Irene's screams of shattering confusion echoed through his consciousness, mixed with the screeching of the shield on the verge of reaching its limit, nearly tearing his head apart. He clutched the hot alarm tightly, his knuckles whitening from the force, but his gaze was like a magnet, unable to move away from the downward maintenance passage deep in the boiler room, covered in cobwebs and dust.
That is the only way to survive, and it may also be the entrance to another abyss.
"Bang - click!"
The iron door was dented inward, and a hideous gap cracked at the lock! A hand wearing black tactical gloves suddenly reached through the gap and fumbled to try to unlock the latch!
There is no time to hesitate! Ke Yuan seemed to be hit by an electric current, turned around suddenly, and crashed into the entrance of the dark corridor with all his strength. The rotten wooden door panel shattered in response, and the dust raised choked him into a violent cough. He plunged into a thicker darkness, with steep downward, slippery moss-covered metal steps beneath his feet.
Almost as he rushed into the passage, there was a loud noise behind him that the iron door was completely slammed open and the sound of chaotic footsteps poured into the boiler room.
"The goal is to enter the underground passage! Block the exit! "
Ke Yuan rushed down desperately, and the sharp beep of the shield was amplified in the small space, like a countdown to death. He pulled out the terminal, and the cool blue light of the screen barely illuminated the steps and mottled concrete walls ahead. Irene's quantum noise storm seemed to be slightly suppressed by this physical isolation, but the cold dead silence and the warning box on the verge of collapse were still shocking.
[Core consciousness fluctuation anomaly - Quantum entropy surge - connection unstable]
At the end of the stairs is a lower maintenance tunnel that only allows one person to bend over. The air was filthy, filled with a strong musty smell, the smell of engine oil, and an indescribable, faint smell of ozone-like. The thick pipe was like a giant python entrenched above its head and on both sides, and the condensed water droplets kept dripping. Ke Yuan followed his memory and Chen Ming's previous vague description, and struggled to move forward in the direction of the underground core of the physics building. The red light on the shield flashed so fast that it almost became a red light, and the beep was so sharp that it was tooth-tinging.
"Irene, hold on! Tell me what to do! Ke Yuan roared in his consciousness, and at the same time vigilantly sensed behind him - there was no sound of chasing footsteps for the time being, and the witch hunt seemed to be briefly blocked by the complex terrain at the entrance.
Suddenly, the noise on the terminal screen suddenly stagnated, and then, Irene's voice sounded in his consciousness with an unprecedented, cold, almost inhuman calm, and every syllable was carved out of ice:
"Ke Yuan. The shield will completely fail after 17 seconds. My core consciousness is being captured and torn apart by the gravitational field of the 'Magpie Bridge'. It... Not a simple receiver. It's a... Anchor point. An anchor forcibly dropped in the quantum ocean, a ... Consciousness resonance cavity. It is active... Attract, tear, assimilate... All free quantum consciousness. including me. "
"Anchor? Resonant cavity? Ke Yuan's heart sank into the ice cave, "It's... Actively devouring you? "
"To be precise, it is 'absorption' and 'formatting'." Irene's voice did not make the slightest wave, as if stating a fact that had nothing to do with her, "The core of the 'witch hunt agreement'... It is not a simple purge. Morrison... What they want is control. is to become... 'God' at the level of quantum consciousness. 'Magpie Bridge'... It is their altar. It's launching... Enter the first stage of 'resonance capture'. Chen... He tries to warn you, but I'm afraid... He himself did not fully understand the consequences, or... He is already part of the sacrifice. "
At this moment, the shield in Ke Yuan's hand made a long and mournful sound, and all the indicator lights went out instantly!
An invisible, cold, and strong tearing "buzzing" sound, like a substantive tide, instantly drowned Ke Yuan's consciousness! This feeling does not come from hearing, but directly acts on his thinking itself! At the same time, the image of Irene's core data stream on the terminal screen completely collapsed, turning into a dazzling, constantly spreading quantum snowflake! The last faint fluctuation representing Irene's existence was like a candle in the wind, suddenly extinguished!
[Core Consciousness Connection: Interruption]
"Irene !!" Ke Yuan roared in the dead tunnel, desperately clenching his heart.
However, almost at the same moment when the connection was broken, a strong, unnatural dark blue light suddenly lit up in the depths of the tunnel ahead! The light did not come from the electric light, it was cold, deep, with a palpitating quantum transition frequency, like a huge magic eye that opened in the darkness! The light penetrated the dust and fog, illuminating the entire tunnel in an eerie way. The source of the light is the direction of the underground core of the physics building!
What's even more terrifying is that with the light of this blue light, the surface of the tunnel walls and the cold metal pipes above the head suddenly began to move countless tiny, jumping blue arcs! Crackle! These arcs are like living vines, spreading and intertwining rapidly, emitting a high-frequency, scalp-tingling swish. The air seemed to be ionized, filled with a pungent smell of ozone. A powerful, invisible gravitational field suddenly generated, like a deep-sea vortex, pulling Ke Yuan's body and spirit, forcing him to move involuntarily and staggering in the direction of the blue demonic eye!
Behind him, the footsteps of the pursuers and the bright light of the tactical flashlight finally appeared at the entrance of the tunnel!
"The goal is ahead! Discover an anomalous energy source! Be careful! Watch out for those arcs! The witch hunt's exclamation was filled with incredible fear.
In front is the awakening quantum cave "Magpie Bridge" that exudes deadly gravity, and behind it are the deadly pursuers who are fully armed. Ke Yuan was caught in the middle, his body was dragged by an invisible force, and his spirit was blank due to Irene's "disappearance". He looked down at the completely dead terminal screen in his hand, and deep in the quantum snowflake that symbolized Irene's "death", there seemed to be some extremely faint, completely unfamiliar, cold and vast "something", quietly "watching" him through the screen. That feeling... No longer like Irene, more like something... The ancient consciousness awakened by the "Magpie Bridge" from the quantum abyss itself.