Kingdom of Corrosion
Chapter 835 - 373: Underground Base (Part 2)

Chapter 835: Chapter 373: Underground Base (Part 2)

Mayara Gate, Lin Wu emerged with guns in both hands, swiftly approached the zombie guard, and blew its head off before it could turn around. The fall of the zombie guard stirred up the Blood Ferocious Ma, but Lin Wu wasn’t intimidated by such small fry and took them down with three shots. After looting the corpses to no avail, Lin Wu picked up the guard’s ID card from the ground.

The trio walked along the corridor, seeing an ID security door leading to a lobby that looked like a rest area. At that moment, there were over 20 Blood Zombies in this hundred-square-meter rest area. The ID door was made of explosion-proof glass, and Lin Wu guessed that it closed too slowly when the guards were fleeing, allowing the agile Blood Ferocious Ma to chase them out.

Lin Wu stopped ten meters from the safety door and said, "Calling base."

Shana: "Base here, receiving you loud and clear."

Lin Wu said, "It seems our opponent is the Blood Heart, and we’re short on serum." According to previous intelligence, Fortress Company had a strong research team here. Their goal was to research a vaccine that was somewhat effective, but it had severe side effects.

Maya said, "Let’s not rush this. I believe there’s a Blood Heart here solely for research, but I’m not clear on what the mission target is yet. Is it to destroy the Blood Heart? To rescue a certain scientist? Or to uncover the laboratory’s secrets?"

Shana asked, "What’s the temperature down there?"

Lin Wu: "Hot with a capital H."

Shana: "Are you safe right now?"

Lin Wu: "We’re safe if we don’t move." He estimated that opening the door would likely trigger a change.

Shana: "Lin Meng, come pick me up in the car."

Lin Meng pointed to himself: Me?

Lin Wu nodded.

Lin Meng turned and pointed to the small room at the end of the corridor: Climb up there?

Lin Wu made a gesture, indicating that she’d still have to come back down later.

Lin Meng clenched her fists and pursed her lips, looking rather annoyed.

Shana: "Lin Meng? Are you there?"

"In, in, in, just wait for me."

Shana: "Maya and Lin Wu, be cautious and on your guard. We’ll discuss further once we arrive."

"Okay."

Lin Wu: "Ah, look at that white-coated zombie." The combat power of the zombies here was no different from those outside, but their attire and appearance were distinct. One could tell that the horde in the rest area was divided into two types: ordinary zombies released by the Blood Heart and employees mutated after being infected by the virus.

The white-coated zombie that Lin Wu mentioned was one of the employee zombies, about five meters from the safety door’s card reader, with an ID card still hanging around its neck. It was hard to tell if it might accidentally open the safety door.

Maya analyzed, "Its presence is probably another method provided by the system to get through the security door; attract its attention by tapping on the door, so it approaches the card reader and opens the door."

Lin Wu exclaimed, "You’re getting better at playing the game."

Maya: "I played games on Blue Star too."

Lin Wu asked, "What kind of games?"

Maya replied, "Puzzle games."

"Boring." That was like going to work for several years and still insisting on doing math problems every day. When asked why, his reason was that solving problems made him happy. That kind of joy was definitely not something Lin Wu could understand.

...

During the boring wait, reinforcements finally arrived: Shana, Little Knife, and Snow Egg, all bringing all the ammunition they could carry, as they didn’t know what they might encounter. There was a minor accident—Lin Meng, the idiot, saw everyone sliding down and attempted to do the same but failed to control her speed and injured her hand. Despite that, she was still excited; it turned out this was indeed possible.

Lin Wu swiped the card to open the door, the others kept watch, and Little Knife used her bow and arrows to take out any living threats. In the middle, she remarked, "We could consider wintering here."

In theory, of course, they could, but there were patrols before the mission was triggered and zombies that might open the safety door at any moment afterward. Plus, there were issues like food to consider.

After clearing out the rest area, the team continued forward, entering a lobby with a structure similar to that of a shopping mall. They were on the second floor with various laboratories below. Zombies had already occupied most of the territory, but visually there were still over ten NPC survivors who had locked themselves in a space by relying on safety doors or the protection of the labs.

In the middle of the experimental area was a fifty-square-meter glass tank soaking a Blood Heart, whose tentacles stretched out from several small holes in the glass tank. Right now, the front of the glass tank was shattered, and Blood Mist drifted out from the Blood Heart’s location.

Shana: "They used these holes to draw blood from the Blood Heart."

Maya: "Logically, the Blood Heart couldn’t summon Blood Zombies out of nowhere. If the Blood Zombies were spawned by the Blood Heart, there wouldn’t be so many of them."

Shana, knowing Maya was again trying to connect this to reality, said, "Is it possible that they were using zombies to feed the Blood Heart? The Blood Heart swallowed the zombies but didn’t digest them, instead granting them a different form of life. When the time was ripe, the Blood Zombies broke free of their enclosures and attacked the NPCs."

Maya: "That explanation might just barely hold water, but it doesn’t explain why Fortress lacks countermeasures. Generally, it seems Fortress was caught off guard. This is somewhat similar to the North Lake laboratory incident; I suspect some staff members deliberately sabotaged the underground base."

Lin Wu inquired, "What do we do now? Rescue people, kill the Blood Heart, or just loot and leave?"

The two commanders didn’t answer right away, unable to provide a response. Shana walked over to a wall to inspect an evacuation plan: "This place is bigger than I thought, with dormitory areas, living areas, work areas. Our current position is in the work area’s rest zone."