MASG chapter 110

 

The ceiling was instantly shot full of holes, each one smoking. White smoke and dust mingled, instantly blotting out the sky and forming a barrier within the enclosed space.

Luckily, everyone was prepared. The main gun had been specially fitted with automatic tracking. Before anyone could empty a magazine, Silver Fang fired an air bullet, and the entire ceiling collapsed!

Mo An immediately retreated to protect Mi Dou and Lao Gui. The building was sturdy enough and the robots hadn’t cut corners during construction; otherwise, the entire building would have collapsed by now and everyone would have become crushed wandering souls.

When the dust and smoke finally dispersed, Silver Fang signaled for them to stop. The gunfire slowly ceased, and every gun barrel was scorching hot.

“All right,” Silver Fang waved his hand, dispersing the dust a bit more. Sure enough, as long as there was an opportunity, nothing could withstand firepower suppression. The only fear humans have is insufficient firepower.

“Cough, cough! Cough!” Mi Dou couldn’t help but cough. “What is this even? Silver Fang, you were way too reckless! What if the building collapsed?”

“Relax, it won’t. I’m not that stupid,” Silver Fang said, pointing at the lens covering his left eye. “I’m equipped with the latest gravity sensing and analysis system. In one second, I can calculate how much explosive tonnage this building can withstand. One air bullet is nothing. But what exactly are these things?”

He stepped forward and lifted a piece of debris with the muzzle of his gun, revealing densely packed, burned corpses underneath.

They were extremely small, only about 30 centimeters long. Had Yan Xia not upgraded their main guns, some might have slipped through. Yan Xia’s voice came through. The unsung hero behind the scenes asked, “What happened? Report the situation! Silver Fang!”

“It’s fine. Little girl, why are you yelling so loud? My ears are about to go deaf,” Silver Fang said, rubbing his electronic ear.

“Deaf my ass. They haven’t been original parts for a long time,” Yan Xia shouted. “Were you attacked? What attacked you?”

“I can’t tell yet, but your guns are amazing,” Silver Fang said, lovingly stroking the silver gun.

Talos had already crouched down and used a dagger to pick up and cut open a small corpse.

“Larvae,” he said in a low voice. “Looks like we guessed right. Yukun City is a nest of insects. This building is probably the nest. Our footsteps activated their defense system, so they swarmed and attacked, preparing to strike us.”

Only after Mo An confirmed that everything was safe did Mi Dou walk over. He crouched down to examine them as well. He used a dagger to cut open the flesh-colored insect body, compared it with Lao Gui, and finally agreed with Talos’s conclusion. “They’re definitely insects, and they’re larvae about to turn into a pupa.”

The cut-open larvae resembled intestines and had countless tiny legs. Their mouthparts were circular suction cups filled with several rings of dense, razor-sharp teeth. If bitten even once, the larvae would break the skin and burrow into the human body. The entire human body would become their feeding ground, the abdominal cavity and brain eaten hollow while still alive.

“These are Yehuai’s larvae. This is the second stage,” Lao Gui said, shuddering.

“I reckon we’ll see the first stage, too,” Talos said with absolute certainty. They would definitely find insect eggs, too. When that happened, there would be another hard fight. “Let’s go upstairs first. My cat army is already waiting for us.”

Strangely, the insects hadn’t attacked the cat-type mutants, as if their DNA was naturally programmed to target humans as hosts. Whether pupae or adult insects, they always targeted humans.

A small white cat poked its head out from the rubble and meowed at them. It seemed to be telling them to take the stairs, signaling that it was safe.

Mo An picked up the glass bottle again. “Little Blue, is Xia Yu upstairs? There’s also a basement in this building. Can you sense where he is?”

The little jellyfish swayed inside the bottle. Then, it used its round head to bump the bottle cap several times. It was no longer content to move only its tentacles; now, every part of it was mobilizing.

“Okay, he’s upstairs,” Mo An said as he secured the bottle. For safety, he put the bottle in his backpack. “Let’s move!”

Now that the target was confirmed, there was no time to waste. Following the route cleared by the cat mutant army, everyone headed up the stairs. The scene on the stairway was no better than the elevator. Mi Dou felt it was even more terrifying—practically an enhanced version of hell on earth.

There were so many bizarrely shaped bones.

At every turn on every floor, there were piles of bones stacked together. Back then, these were people who hadn’t made it to the elevator in time while fleeing. They had exhausted all their strength trying to escape. They were just about to reach the first floor and flee the building when they died from an unknown infection. What these victims didn’t know was that hardly anyone in the entire city had managed to escape.

This infection must have been extremely terrifying. Mo An stepped over a skeleton and noticed signs of mutation.

At first glance, all of the bones appeared to be human, but the twisting and overgrowth were severe. Some bones had grown together, indicating massive fusion while the person was still alive. Nuwa carried out human experiments across the entire city, fusing anything together.

Among these bones, Mo An even saw children.

He immediately thought of Xia Yu. When Xia Yu had taught him survival skills, he had been about this age, too.

Mo An stopped.

The others turned around and looked over, unsure of what Mo An intended to do. They watched him bend down, pick up the small remains, and put them in a corner. He wanted to lay the bones to rest. The skull was shattered—it was clear that something had tried to drill its way out of the head, or perhaps had already done so.

However, the bones were too fragile. With just a gentle touch, they shattered into pieces.

“Let’s go.” In the end, Mo An could only close his eyes helplessly. Even if Nuwa had no human emotions, it still shouldn’t have carried out such indiscriminate slaughter.

With that, they reached the 50th floor.

The stairway was not intact; it had broken off in several places. Silver Fang used a grappling line to help everyone cross safely. As soon as they arrived at the 50th floor, they felt a gust of cold wind—not an illusion of fear, but real wind.

“How can there be wind?” Talos looked upward.

“It’s the air circulation system. Over there,” Mo An said, pointing to the upper left corner. “It looks like Xia Yu is really here. Every other floor has lost power and water; only the top floor is still operating.”

The corridor in front of them looked brand new and was different from the lower floors. The silver walls reminded them of a research institute, and the incandescent lights reminded Mo An of the middle levels. The floor was silver, too, with no visible welding seams or signs of decay. This place was clearly a top-tier laboratory.

“Are we there?” Yan Xia couldn’t help asking.

Ling Shi: [It has been 4 hours and 39 minutes since everyone entered the building.]

“We’re here,” Silver Fang replied. “There’s only one path in front of us now. Follow it, and we’ll definitely find the answer.”

At this point, Mo An took a deep breath. It took tremendous self-control to restrain himself. He took out the glass bottle again. Little Blue had sensed Xia Yu’s presence completely and emitted an unprecedentedly brilliant blue light.

The blue glow was no longer faint. Instead, it was like a permanently lit light source filling the entire bottle. The seawater had also changed, becoming translucent blue as if the bottle contained a crystal of seawater. The light projected onto the silver walls, gentle and lingering. The pink diamond formed from tears lay quietly at the bottom of the bottle.

“Let’s go,” said Mo An, standing at the front of the team and taking the first step.

Everyone followed him through the high-tech yet silent corridor. Their footsteps and breathing collided, like two light leaves, daring not to make too much noise—only the sound of wind. Strip-shaped incandescent lights connected from one end of the corridor to the other, lining both walls. The brightness made one want to cry.

After turning a corner, they saw a door.

This silver hatch was the only door on the entire floor. They had no other choice. Before opening it, Mo An stood in the center, ready to open it. Silver Fang, acting as support, stood behind Mo An with his gun aimed straight ahead. Lao Gui and Talos flanked the left and right, waiting for the order. Mi Dou was positioned at the very back, ready to run if anything happened.

“I’m opening the door,” Mo An finally said.

The others nodded.

At the instant of the nod, Mo An pressed the button to open the hatch, activating the mechanism. White vapor sprayed from above and below as a wave of cold wrapped around their bodies. The area ahead felt as if the temperature had dropped by more than ten degrees. When the pressure-adjusting white mist dissipated, Mo An saw something completely unexpected: no brutal mutant species, deformed synthetic beings, Yehuai insect eggs, or robot army, but instead… electronic equipment?.

The equipment was neatly arranged—it was clearly a server room.

Before he could step inside, the cat army had already rushed in. After entering, they started playing with the cables, rolling around on the floor like ordinary kittens—relaxed and happily playing. Humans, however, couldn’t relax. Under Yan Xia’s direction, Silver Fang conducted an ecological scan before allowing Mo An to enter.

“Inside, other than cats, there’s only one life form.”

“That must be Xia Yu!” Mo An rushed in, taking several steps at once.

The room was filled with cables and mainframes, resembling a mechanical research lab. To ensure that so many machines could operate simultaneously, the temperature was kept extremely low and the humidity was kept moderate. On the fan-shaped map, the moving light dots were the kittens and the unmoving light dot was Xia Yu. Mo An led everyone quickly toward that light dot, calling out impatiently.

“Xia Yu?”

It had been so long since he last called his name—longer than a lifetime, longer than a mermaid’s life. For more than half a year, he had forgotten this name. Now, he had engraved it into his heart.

In the empty room, only the echoes of his voice remained.

A few meters away was the light dot’s location, but what they saw was not Xia Yu himself—it was a sleeping pod.

“Xia Yu!”

Mo An didn’t care about anything else; he rushed toward the pod. A layer of condensation covered the transparent lid. He wiped away the droplets with his hand and finally saw the person he had longed for day and night.

Mo An smiled slightly. “Xia Yu…”

Xia Yu was asleep inside the water-filled pod, naked and floating in the middle. His hair had grown longer. A breathing device was pressed against his face, and countless tubes were connected to his left and right wrists, supplying him with a steady stream of nutrient solution. His face was only one step away from Mo An’s. His eyelids trembled occasionally—he was clearly dreaming.

“I’m here. I’ll get you out right now. Just wait a little longer,” Mo An said. After a few quick glances, he hurriedly started searching. He wanted to dismantle the sleeping pod and pull xla out. However, Talos immediately stopped him.

“What’s wrong? What are you doing?” A terrible premonition rose instantly in Mo An’s heart.

“You can’t wake him,” Talos said, pointing to the hundreds of cables behind the pod and the holographic projection connected to them. “Xia Yu is in Nuwa’s world.”

“How is that possible? He’s right in front of me!” Mo An admitted that he was a little out of control.

He really wanted to calm down. He wanted to calm down completely. But he also realized that he couldn’t.

“His body is in front of you, but all brain activity is in the AI’s virtual world,” Silver Fang also said. “Do you remember that device on the Frozen Island? Xia Yu went through it once. This time, it’s a virtual world built by Nuwa for him. If you forcefully wake him, he’ll probably end up brain-dead.”

 

 

 

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Acargoreng: Bringing Xia Yu back is still a long way off😞