Chapter 36-I Clean Up Garbage in a Wasteland World

Chapter 36: The House That Hunts People-9

With the acceleration from the Putrid Fish Head ability, Zhu Ning was three times faster than her opponent. The moment he raised his hand, Zhu Ning could predict his next move. She decisively snatched the gun and twisted his wrist.

Then she fired. A headshot.

[Use Putrid Fish Head's acceleration function? Will consume 3 Health points?]

"Use."

The second one.

[Use Putrid Fish Head's acceleration function? Will consume 3 Health points?]

"Use."

The third one.

[Use Putrid Fish Head's acceleration function? Will consume 3 Health points?]

"Use."

The last one.

Zhu Ning clicked confirm. After four shots, four killers had fallen to the ground. There was a silence in the corridor; Zhu Ning could only hear the sound of her own breathing.

A five-person hunting team, including the sniper, were all dead. It only took three minutes from start to finish; it ended with lightning speed.

The people sent clearly underestimated Zhu Ning's strength. They guessed the worst possibility was that Zhu Ning was an ability user. Even if she was an ability user, sending a five-person killer squad wouldn't leave them without the power to fight back.

But they didn't expect Zhu Ning's methods to be so varied, able to use so many abilities at once.

In a certain laboratory, no one spoke.

On the large screen, the data for Experimental Subject 777 had been completely cleared to zero. Replacing it was a first-person perspective image stitched together from five cameras. Zhu Ning, wearing a black helmet, was right in the center, like a provocative criminal.

Everyone saw it: a Cleaner killed a killer squad in three minutes.

They weren't fools. The team sent was elite, but they were caught off guard and killed.

Even now, they hadn't figured out where the problem lay. They issued the kill order immediately, and the killers had ambushed at the door early on. Logically speaking, they should have won by now.

"Who is she?" Professor Chu asked in a deep voice.

The researcher typed rapidly on the keyboard, searching for relevant information. "Don't know. There is no ability user in the Sanitation Center matching these skills."

Mutants, or the official term "ability users," usually only awakened one ability. Being able to use this ability clearly without mentally collapsing was already a blessing.

But some geniuses could possess multiple abilities simultaneously. The current highest official record given by the Federation was awakening six abilities simultaneously.

There weren't many Multi-Ability Users inside District 103; at least on the surface, they were very rare. Once someone had more than two abilities, they would be reported. The First Military District would come to select people to see if they could be absorbed by the military region. Multi-Ability Users were always enshrined as talents.

They held the list of all officially registered ability users in the Sanitation Center. The only ability user in there who could use Metal Manipulation was a male, but the one in front of them was obviously a woman.

And that guillotine that killed the sniper didn't look like it was controlled by a Metal-type ability at all.

Including Zhu Ning's speed at the end, which was unusual. Her speed was at least three times faster than a normal person, appearing like an afterimage on the camera.

She moved quickly among the four killers, shooting them in the head before they could react. She possessed at least two abilities simultaneously, or had Contaminated Items on her.

This woman seemed like an anomaly that popped out of nowhere. Did the District 103 Sanitation Center have such a bizarre person? But what was her purpose in coming to the experimental subject? As far as they knew, although Experimental Subject 777 was special, it wasn't considered top-tier among all experimental subjects. Most top-tier ability users wouldn't be interested in it either.

The woman wearing the black helmet grew larger on the screen. She leaned close to the lens, completely occupying the screen.

"She discovered the camera," the researcher said.

The killer team was equipped with cameras on their bodies to ensure communication, making it convenient for the laboratory to grasp their movements and give the most precise instructions.

Professor Chu leaned on the console, staring gloomily at Zhu Ning on the large screen. They seemed to be staring at each other across the air.

"Who are you?" Zhu Ning was speaking to him.

"S-should we reply?" the researcher asked.

Professor Chu kept staring at Zhu Ning. The Cleaner helmet she wore covered her face, so they couldn't see Zhu Ning's expression clearly.

But intuition told him that this person wasn't afraid, because her tone was very calm. Compared to a trash-sweeping Cleaner, she was actually more like a killer. Was it because Prometheus was behind her?

Had Prometheus grown this huge already? Did it have this kind of person under its command?

"Hey?" Zhu Ning tapped the camera. "You want to kill me, shouldn't you at least show your face? Dropping a couple of ruthless lines would work too?"

If the previous sentence was calm, this sentence counted as banter. This was a provocation.

Professor Chu quickly issued an order. "Cut all links to prevent Contamination Spores from parasitizing. Immediately activate the defense mechanism; don't let Prometheus in."

With a snap—

The large screen went black. Zhu Ning's face disappeared.

Compared to Zhu Ning destroying the experimental subject, they were more afraid the experimental base would be tracked and locked onto, risking the leakage of massive amounts of data.

Zhu Ning tapped the camera and saw the red light on it go out. The other side cut the communication. Were they such sore losers? She was just asking casually.

The other side cutting communication meant they wouldn't expose their faces again.

Thanks to this helmet, as powerful as Zhu Ning looked on the outside, she was just as wretched on the inside. Having overused Sanity, blood flowed freely inside her helmet.

Zhu Ning's brain hurt terribly. It was different from the pain last time; it was like a knife had stirred around inside her brain, and now it throbbed with pain every time it pulsed.

Zhu Ning looked back at the scene.

She took out a blue device from her backpack and pressed it on the ground. A blue defensive net opened instantly, extending all the way to the corridor ceiling. This thing was very intelligent; if it encountered uneven walls, it would deform to follow, ensuring the Contamination Spores were within a sealed space. In short, it was like a high-tech protective wall.

This was a Temporary Shielding Device. It was also Zhu Ning's first time using it. It could temporarily isolate Contamination Spores for fifteen minutes, ensuring they wouldn't disperse.

What about the others in this building? Zhu Ning suddenly realized belatedly. It seemed very quiet here; there were no civilians.

Were they evacuated before the killers arrived? Wait, where was Huang Yaruo?

Zhu Ning looked around and found no sign of her. Where did she go?

Since Zhu Ning pushed Huang Yaruo away, she hadn't had time to attend to her. There was no corpse at the scene either. Did she take the opportunity to run?

Makes sense. Huang Yaruo had been trapped in the house that hunted people for fifteen years and instinctively rejected everyone. She probably didn't trust Zhu Ning and ran away while she could.

However, Zhu Ning's mission was to find Huang Yaruo, and she only promised to save Huang Yaruo from the house. Now that she was out, Zhu Ning could be considered to have fulfilled her promise. Where Huang Yaruo went from here had nothing to do with Zhu Ning.

Click. There was the sound of someone behind her.

Zhu Ning's body turned faster than her brain. As soon as she turned around, the gun was already cocked. She could execute a headshot in an instant, but she held her finger on the trigger without acting.

The arrival was wearing a pure white protective suit printed with a small cat face.

"Zhu Ning?" she asked uncertainly.

An acquaintance. Zhu Ning made a judgment in an instant. "Liu Niannian?"

Liu Niannian was obviously frightened by Zhu Ning. That move just now—Zhu Ning really had no emotion, just instinct. She was very much like a killing machine, more like a killing machine than any Demon Hunter Liu Niannian had met.

Liu Niannian had started eagerly planning her "running away from home" after receiving Zhu Ning's message. It took her an hour to shake off her own bodyguards. But she didn't succeed in shaking off Pei Shu; Pei Shu was still waiting for her downstairs.

When she came in, the entire residential district had been evacuated on the grounds of a gas leak. The district was empty. Just as she walked downstairs, she heard a burst of gunshots.

Liu Niannian paused at the stairwell for two seconds, then chose to fearlessly come up and take a look. She ran upstairs panting, and before she could even see clearly, she had a gun pointed right at her forehead by Zhu Ning.

Just like last time, Zhu Ning was wearing a black Cleaner work uniform, wrapped up completely without showing her face, but Liu Niannian recognized it was her at a glance.

What was the situation now? An apartment looked like an explosion had occurred, and four corpses lay scattered in the corridor. One of them had tried to escape but failed, his corpse hanging by the stair railing.

Zhu Ning purified a C-Level Contaminated Zone alone? And killed four killers? Liu Niannian knew Zhu Ning was strong, but she didn't know she was this strong.

Zhu Ning's hand dropped. She holstered the gun.

Liu Niannian was stunned. After confirming this person hadn't lost her reason, her tense body relaxed.

Liu Niannian looked at the big hole in the corridor. There were many snail shells on the ground. What type of contaminated zone was this before? A snail nest? Her impoverished imagination couldn't picture it.

And why did the house collapse?

The steel bars of the entire house had been violently twisted, as if an invisible hand had kneaded the house like a soda can.

Did eliminating the Source of Contamination require demolishing the house? That would require an ability user to have the ability to demolish a house, right? But Liu Niannian always thought Zhu Ning used a psychic ability at the hotpot restaurant. Did she guess wrong?

She couldn't understand. Under normal circumstances, Liu Niannian could deduce what happened from clues, but this time she couldn't understand at all.

Liu Niannian asked, "So many spores? What happened here? Why are there corpses?"

Zhu Ning's voice was very calm. She didn't answer Liu Niannian's question but asked, "How is it downstairs?"

Liu Niannian: "When I came, the whole district was evacuated due to a gas leak. The property management said it would take another two hours to fix."

So that was it. No wonder there was no one.

While Zhu Ning was inside the contaminated zone, they had already done crowd evacuation on the outside. Now this building was empty. Prometheus had saved a backup move.

Was Prometheus's operational logic the need to protect civilians? Did it have to ensure infection wouldn't be caused inside the district? Or did it not want to attract too much attention and wanted to handle the problem as low-key as possible?

Zhu Ning didn't know for a moment whether to say this broken artificial intelligence was scheming. Later, she thought this was its old trade.

Artificial intelligence was supposed to deduce all trends before things happened, then make plans for various situations.

Under the planning of artificial intelligence, humans really were like tools. Zhu Ning was pushed forward by it, her every move under Prometheus's gaze. It would cover for Zhu Ning anytime and anywhere. But why help her?

Treacherous. Zhu Ning tagged this super artificial intelligence with a label.

"Two hours is enough," Zhu Ning said. "Prepare to contain the Contamination Spores."

Liu Niannian was already familiar with the process since it was her second time. She professionally took out a complete set of containment tools from her Cleanup Backpack.

Ever since experiencing the hotpot restaurant event, Liu Niannian had been waiting for this day. She specifically pulled strings to get tools for Cleaners to sweep trash.

Liu Niannian had seen the world. After coming out of the hotpot restaurant, ordinary types of corpses couldn't scare her anymore.

Beside her, Zhu Ning had already entered work mode. Worthy of a professional; entering the state was just faster.

For such a large contaminated zone, Liu Niannian couldn't finish it alone. Zhu Ning had to help contain it together.

Behind the helmet, Zhu Ning had a look of decadence. After experiencing all this, she actually still had to work. Was there any justice?

Zhu Ning resignedly picked up the tools and began to contain the Contamination Spores.

System Notification: [Purification Points +1]

Hearing the Purification Points, Zhu Ning was almost moved to tears. Anything could betray you, but Purification Points wouldn't.

As long as you worked hard, it would give you returns. Fair trade for all. Truly her good System.

Liu Niannian glanced around while containing. The corpse lying on the stairs was really too conspicuous. She asked, "What about the corpses?"

Zhu Ning asked while containing Contamination Spores, "How did you get here?"

Liu Niannian: "Drove."

Zhu Ning: "Can it fit five corpses?"

Liu Niannian: "?"

Huh? Did she hear wrong? Zhu Ning wanted to use her luxury car to store corpses?

---

Author's Note: Thank you everyone for watering me!

← Previous Chapter Next Chapter →