Chapter 55-I Clean Up Garbage in a Wasteland World
Chapter 55 The Bizarre Aquarium-12
Cleaning Center.
"M-Minister Xuan," the technician asked uncertainly, "is she blackmails you?"
No matter how you looked at it, it was blackmail. The Gray Eagle Team was still resisting in the Mechanical Jellyfish Pavilion, but Zhu Ning had led her team to the area above the pavilion and stopped moving. It seemed she wouldn't act until she heard Minister Xuan's reply.
There was a time lag between them and the Pollution Zone. Thinking about Zhu Ning standing motionless at the entrance waiting for money during this critical time—how was this any different from a local bandit?
Minister Xuan smiled. She had lived for so many years and witnessed so much of the Federation's history, yet she had never been blackmailed before.
Minister Xuan stood with her arms crossed and thought for only three seconds. "Reply to her: ten times the reward for mission completion. Any amount exceeding the budget will be deducted from my salary."
Ten... ten times? The technician looked at her in shock. With Lu Qiqin away, no one could control Minister Xuan. This was too exaggerated.
The reward for a B-level mission was already very generous. On top of that, Minister Xuan was giving ten times the amount?
The nearby Cleaning Center employees were in an uproar. While they were discussing whether this was compliant with regulations with pained expressions, they were also thinking: Why wasn't it us on the mission this time!
With that amount of money, you could go a year without working. Those with low expenses could even retire on the spot.
While they were still lamenting, they heard Minister Xuan say leisurely, "Twenty times the bounty for capturing a Transparent Person alive."
Their discussions stopped abruptly, and the entire hall fell into a strange silence. What did Minister Xuan just say? She wants to capture a Transparent Person alive?
The employees who had previously regretted not entering the Pollution Zone suddenly lost their voices. Asking themselves honestly, they couldn't handle this job at all.
Zhu Ning blackmailed Minister Xuan, and Minister Xuan raised the stakes. She wanted a living Transparent Person; the research value of a Transparent Person was greater than anything else.
And Zhu Ning actually agreed.
...
Chu Ling couldn't figure out why she agreed to such an outrageous plan, but Zhu Ning didn't care. According to Zhu Ning, "At least I fought for money for you guys."
Previously, they worked for the Cleaning Center. Now, they were working for their own lives and a huge bonus.
Zhu Ning loved money quite a bit. Who didn't?
But she wouldn't risk her life just for money. Having lived in the zombie world for a long time, her understanding of money was that "enough" was sufficient. It would be perfect if the money she possessed could cover her genetic potion injections and allow her to live a comfortable little life. Once that amount was reached, she would lose the motivation to work hard.
However, these people needed money. Chu Ling needed tens of millions to maintain her mechanical operations; Xu Meng needed a high maintenance fee to upload her consciousness; Li Nianchuan worked only because he wanted to open a restaurant and be a chef after retiring.
Other Demon Hunters needed money just as much. In the Wasteland World, if you weren't a chosen First-Class Citizen, you had to invest a huge amount of funds to maintain your own existence.
She needed to quickly improve the team's cohesion so that no matter what ulterior motives they had, they would prioritize completing the mission.
Minister Xuan's promise was the carrot dangling over everyone's heads. Sure enough, money, as a panacea, started to make this team function. They would suppress their doubts about Zhu Ning and go achieve their mission.
The eight-person squad split into three groups again. Chu Ling, Li Nianchuan, and Xu Meng formed a group of three and were left on the ground.
The door to the backstage of the Mechanical Jellyfish Pavilion had been sealed. Ninety-five percent of the backstage area was water, leaving only five percent for the aquarium staff to operate.
They stood within a circle made of blood and paint, waiting for the unknown danger.
Now that the backstage door of the Mechanical Jellyfish Pavilion was locked, if there was a Transparent Person inside, it meant they were trapped together with it. They would either complete the mission and leave with the huge bonus, or fail the mission and die together. The total mission time was only twenty minutes.
Under Zhu Ning's manipulation, this mission had turned into a team co-op game, with a game duration and clearance rewards.
Li Nianchuan and Xu Meng held forearm-length military knives. They carried self-defense tools, but Li Nianchuan hadn't really used them much despite going on missions for so many years.
Li Nianchuan stared into the darkness, feeling as if countless eyes were watching him. They didn't know the number or the exact direction; the Transparent People could come from anywhere.
A Transparent Person stepped on the fresh blood, leaving a bloody footprint on the ground. Chu Ling's reaction was extremely fast; she fired immediately.
This time she fired Marking Rounds. Twenty Marking Rounds had been saved for critical moments. The Marking Rounds exploded instantly, working better than a fire extinguisher. Once hit, the paint couldn't be removed.
The green marking liquid outlined a humanoid shape. It was a person three and a half meters tall.
When it first revealed its face, they were all stunned. When Zhu Ning hit its shoulder earlier, she knew this creature was tall, but she didn't expect it to be this tall. Standing at three and a half meters, it nearly touched the ceiling of the pavilion backstage. Li Nianchuan even had to look up to see its face.
The Transparent Person was soaked in green liquid, looking like an ancient forest monster.
The Transparent Person immediately realized it was exposed and lunged at them fiercely. According to the intelligence integrated by Zhu Ning and Chu Ling, the Transparent People moved very fast and possessed immense strength capable of snapping human bones instantly.
The only weakness was that their defense wasn't strong. Their skin surface was fragile, and after a headshot, they would go limp quickly like jelly.
Logically, they should have opened fire to kill it the moment the Transparent Person became visible, but they didn't.
Chu Ling made her move. She was eighty percent mechanized. Activating her full-body defense hardening program, she could resist for fifteen minutes. She was the only one in the team qualified to match the Transparent Person in strength.
Chu Ling kicked towards the Transparent Person's knee pit. Their guess was correct; the Transparent Person didn't know martial arts.
The Transparent Person stumbled, but instinctively swung its arm. Chu Ling was instantly thrown against the opposite wall, cracking it with a loud bang.
After Chu Ling fell, Xu Meng immediately filled the gap.
The four of them had once been held together by Zhu Ning. Now that Zhu Ning wasn't there, they were utilizing their own abilities.
Chu Ling and Xu Meng had only exchanged two or three sentences, yet driven by the same goal, they actually possessed some tacit understanding.
Xu Meng's performance far exceeded Li Nianchuan's knowledge of her. She moved close to the ground, her actions so fast that one could only see a blur of afterimages.
Before Li Nianchuan could even see clearly, Xu Meng had cleanly cut the Transparent Person's left ankle.
The Transparent Person's body structure was roughly the same as a human's. Blood instantly sprayed from the left ankle, along with some gel-like substance.
Next, it was Li Nianchuan's turn. Li Nianchuan exchanged a look with her, tightened his grip on the military knife, and breathed deeply, thinking: "Are we really going to do this?"
Are we really going to do this? The Gray Eagle Team had the same question.
Zhu Ning needed them to set up explosive weapons and detonate them at the right moment. When they saw the flashing A-Level Program command, they knew they had to take the demolition route.
Explosive weapons needed to be installed manually. Half of their side was injured; logically, they didn't really want to move.
Cao Wei's first reaction at the time was: Why should they listen to a Cleaner's command?
But they all heard Minister Xuan's words. Twenty times the bonus. These words were like a shot of stimulant. If they had been half-resigned before, even thinking about sacrificing themselves for the greater good...
Those words were like finding a way out of a desperate situation. It seemed... there was still hope?
Nothing was over yet. As long as they were still alive, anything was possible. They could leave here with twenty times the bonus.
Prometheus had the highest authority to take over their bodies, but he made no move at this moment. Their bodies were temporarily still their own.
Yang Shu and Liu Zhiwei had just injected potent healing agents. They were leaning on the glass stairs panting. In the accumulated water of the glass stairs were swimming jellyfish; they had just narrowly escaped death from there.
To install the explosive devices, they had to cross the jellyfish and Transparent People again. They had just escaped with their lives, and now Zhu Ning wanted them to go back.
Tang Ke was silent for a moment before finally speaking: "Reformulate the combat plan."
They had no other way out. They had to believe this plan could come true. It had to come true. Prometheus was still in their brains.
Prometheus was also in Zhu Ning's brain. An AI could simulate and calculate the optimal solution through big data. An AI should be the "brain" of the entire team.
But this operation was completely different. Zhu Ning was the brain of the eight-person team.
Prometheus could choose to sacrifice three people to complete this mission. The success rate would be high, and it could save the majority. He was responsible for the team members' lives.
Zhu Ning didn't adopt his plan, nor did she hand over command of her body to an AI. She wouldn't listen to an AI's commands.
Zhu Ning stood at the edge of the pool. The water below was filled with mechanical jellyfish and unknown pollutants. She took a deep breath, then fell backward, jumping into the rotating black vortex without hesitation.
The black seawater instantly submerged Zhu Ning. A long stream of bubbles surged in front of her helmet. Zhu Ning carried two oxygen tanks on her back.
She guessed the oxygen consumption down here was high, and relying solely on the Cleaner uniform's oxygen supply might cause her to suffocate.
The seawater filtration system activated. She released a long stream of bubbles, moving as flexibly as a marine creature.
The underwater vortex was fierce. As soon as she entered, she was immediately swept away. Zhu Ning didn't struggle at all. She stretched out her arms and swam with the currents. The Pollution Source should be below.
Their plan required all links to be problem-free. As the most critical executor, Zhu Ning couldn't have any issues on her end.
Zhu Ning had originally intended to take Chu Ling underwater into the Pollution Zone with her. After Minister Xuan mentioned the twenty-times bonus, she temporarily changed the combat plan.
Chu Ling was fully mechanized. She was the only one who could contend with the immense strength, making her more suitable for the mission of capturing the Transparent Person alive.
Zhu Ning going alone to purify the Pollution Source wasn't because she was fearless of death, nor was it some heroism.
From the perspective of maximizing efficiency, she was the only one among this group suitable for approaching the Pollution Source. The mechanical jellyfish were fully mechanized, and Zhu Ning's Metal Manipulation range was already two meters.
Metal Manipulation plus Danger Premonition. These two Talents might not ensure her survival, but they would definitely make her die slower than others.
Moreover, she had been watched constantly since the mission started. It was hard to make any secret moves under others' cameras.
Now Zhu Ning was left with only the first-person view camera. The image the Cleaning Center could see was whatever Zhu Ning's eyes saw. Using some harmless little Talents shouldn't be noticed by anyone, like right now.
Three minutes after Zhu Ning went down, she heard a system prompt.
[Primary Talent Danger Premonition triggered. 30-second danger warning sent. Please stay safe.]
Zhu Ning looked back and saw countless human figures drifting behind her.
They were likely the tourists who visited this time, swept into the Pollution Zone and becoming part of it.
Their bodies were soft, and their clothes floated in the water like jellyfish tentacles.
But they had no human heads. Their heads had been replaced by mechanical jellyfish, with countless mechanical tentacles swaying and wriggling gently in the water.
The mechanical jellyfish used to be most notable for combining mechanical technological feel with the agility of marine life. Now that the jellyfish were grafted onto human necks, it was like parasites finding new nests, creating a brand-new species.
In the Danger Premonition, Zhu Ning was killed by a woman in a white dress closest to her.
The mechanical tentacles wrapped around Zhu Ning's face fiercely like hair. The tentacles themselves possessed life; they hugged her helmet tightly and forcibly crushed the black helmet.
First, the helmet was crushed, and finally, Zhu Ning's brain was crushed. Brain matter spilled out in an instant.
Zhu Ning hesitated for a split second when she looked back. The mechanical tentacles were already wrapping around her. High-intensity electric current conducted to the helmet, causing the panel data to fluctuate wildly. Prometheus's voice became smaller and smaller, mixed with crackling static sounds.
Mechanical jellyfish had the same habits as jellyfish; they had electricity and poison. Zhu Ning's dominant right hand was already useless, so she could only use her left hand. She raised her gun.
Bang!
The bullet was fired. Whether the bullet could penetrate the mechanical defense of the mechanical jellyfish was unclear to Zhu Ning because she wasn't actually using that.
Firing the gun was just a diversion. She used Metal Manipulation the moment she fired.
Within two meters, her Metal Manipulation possessed absolute power. The jellyfish-human's face had already been crumpled by her. The head, shaped like a mechanical jellyfish, was crumpled into a ball like a soda can. Before it could react, it was dragged away by a strange force.
If viewed from the surveillance feed, this jellyfish-human looked very much like it had been blown apart by Zhu Ning's shot.
Zhu Ning looked up. A very obvious crack appeared on her helmet, and intermittent subtle noises came from her ear. The inside of the helmet must be malfunctioning.
The helmet felt wrong. A small strip of mechanical tentacle was crawling slowly on the helmet, leaving a disgusting and slimy trail.
Outside the helmet, the tentacle was inches from Zhu Ning, as if crawling on her eyeball.
[Sanity drops by 1%]
Zhu Ning tore off the tentacle. It took a long time to shake that thing off. She kept feeling she hadn't cleaned it completely; the tentacles might have quietly crawled all over her body like leeches.
Opposite her floated countless jellyfish-humans. At this moment, they were densely packed together, appearing to number at least a thousand.
Sometimes people feel fear when seeing overly dense things. It had a bit of that effect now.
Thousands of jellyfish-humans hovered opposite her. The jellyfish had combined with their faces, and the positions that were originally mouths were spewing out large amounts of tentacles.
"So beautiful," they suddenly said.
"So beautiful so beautiful so beautiful so beautiful so beautiful—" Thousands of jellyfish-humans called out in unison. They showed extremely intoxicated expressions, as if believers shouting loudly to a certain deity. Their tentacles were still wriggling as they called out.
[Sanity drops by 2%]
Good news: Ever since Prometheus short-circuited, the system in her brain was working better and better. It was very sensitive, at least in notifying her of her current status.
Bad news: Zhu Ning felt her vision dim.
The jellyfish pavilion had no light to begin with. Looking at people through the green night-vision filter was already blurry. Now, it was as if Zhu Ning's vision had gone completely pitch black.
She felt a massive biological creature swimming above her head, or perhaps a giant submarine was driving over her.
She looked up and saw only ten paddle-shaped tentacles over twenty meters long. She couldn't even see the full picture.
It was a super-large form mechanical jellyfish. Its total body length might exceed fifty meters.
A mutant of the Stygian Jellyfish?
The Stygian Jellyfish is a giant invertebrate in the deep sea, one of the largest jellyfish. This thing was obviously more exaggerated than the science trivia Zhu Ning had read, big enough to fill the entire Mechanical Jellyfish Pavilion.
Humans were like ants in front of it. Those with deep-sea phobia or megalophobia would probably be scared out of their wits right now.
Under normal circumstances, Zhu Ning would definitely run away immediately upon seeing this thing. But this time she didn't move. This should be the target she was looking for. If Lin Xiaofeng was indeed the Pollution Source, she was likely inside it.
Author's Note:
In reality, the Stygian Jellyfish (Stygiomedusa gigantea) can reach a diameter of 1 meter. It also has 4 "paddle-like" arms up to 10 meters long. Because it has no stinging tentacles, they are used to capture prey. In the past 110 years, people have only seen this rare jellyfish 115 times. It is considered one of the largest invertebrate predators in the deep-sea ecosystem. —From a certain encyclopedia. Those interested can search for photos of the Stygian Jellyfish; they are super huge and shocking. Thank you all for liking this!
Comments
Post a Comment