American Horror Story, Starting from Falls Town

Chapter 435 First the mushrooms, then the villains

Anya was terrified. Seeing that Mikhail wanted to try again, she quickly stopped him and went out to find Grigoriev.

Grigoriev rushed into the elevator and gave Mikhail a good scolding.

Anya explained to Roy that the elevator password could only be entered incorrectly three times within 24 hours. If all three were entered incorrectly, the elevator rope would snap, causing the elevator to fall into freefall.

Good grief, if Mikhail makes two more mistakes, Roy and the others will really be going to be on a drop tower.

It's clear that this guy didn't care about the base at all before, and didn't even know about such an important security system.

Grigoriev directly told Anya the code in Russian to prevent Mikhail from making another mistake.

After Anya entered the password, the elevator finally started moving.

A Russian female voice came from inside the elevator, and everyone immediately sat down and fastened their seat belts.

The elevator will then descend at a speed of 10 meters per second, eventually reaching the 3000-meter floor in five minutes.

Five minutes later, the elevator arrived successfully.

I opened the door, and it was pitch black outside.

"It's so dark! Could there be a problem with the electrical circuit? Mikhail, where is the power distribution room?"

Roy blurted out a sentence, then realized that Mikhail didn't understand English, so he had to ask Anya to translate.

As a result, after Anya finished translating, Mikhail still looked blank; he had no idea where the power distribution room was.

This made Roy roll his eyes, feeling that Mikhail was just a human key and couldn't help at all.

Fortunately, a soldier spotted a map on the wall, which Roy and his team could use to head to the power station and try to restart the circuit.

There were still dozens of people on this floor, but there was no movement at all, which gave Roy and his group a bad feeling.

Sure enough, as they walked through the corridor into a large hall, they saw several dark-colored human pillars.

These humanoid human figures were covered in bacteria, and only a few human features could be vaguely discerned, making them look extremely horrifying.

These microbial communities are interconnected and occasionally emit a dark red glow.

"My God!"

Although Anya is a microbiology expert, she has never seen such a horrific scene.

The people within these bacteria did not appear to be completely dead, and still possessed some senses. Upon hearing Anya's voice, they immediately let out painful howls.

"Kill me! Kill me quickly!"

These people were all begging Anya to end their suffering. Although Roy couldn't understand Russian, he could roughly guess what they were saying.

Anya couldn't bear the scene, so Roy hugged her.

Mikhail gave the order for Russian soldiers to kill these people on the spot.

Perhaps for these people consumed by fungi, death is the best relief.

However, the loud gunshot seemed to attract something, and Roy and the others all heard some heavy and dense sounds.

"That voice... is it from a survivor?"

Roy shielded Anya behind him, then took out his beloved Smith & Wesson M629 Ivory Edition.

"Anya, don't be so naive! I don't think a normal person would have such heavy steps."

Based on Roy's experience, only someone weighing over 300 pounds could produce such a sound. It's unlikely that anyone would hire someone that heavy.

Except for the NBA.

Everyone cautiously watched the direction from which the sound came, and the answer was soon revealed.

This was a giant man, over two meters tall, whose entire body was covered in mycelium, resembling a giant mushroom.

The giant mushroom-like creature seemed to have discovered Roy and his companions. First, it emitted a pale red substance from multiple locations on its body, which Anya judged to be some kind of spore.

If Roy and his team hadn't been wearing protective suits, they might have been infected by these spores.

(I have to complain about the original film again; they knew there was a problem but didn't wear protective suits.)
Then, the giant mushroom man charged toward Roy and his friends, spewing exhaust fumes!
Seven Russian soldiers immediately picked up their weapons and began firing, but the rifle bullets only splattered more spores when they hit the giant mushroom man, without producing any effect or even drawing blood.

"Something's wrong!"

Roy realized that this giant mushroom-like man was probably something wrong.

Come to think of it, if a normal person is parasitized by fungi, how could they possibly run so fast? They would basically become a colony of fungi.

But instead of turning into bacteria, this thing in front of us seems to have evolved into another species.

Realizing this, Roy immediately rushed forward and delivered a flying kick that knocked the mushroom man down.

Surprisingly, the ordinary mushroom man collapsed with a crash, and then Roy tore the mycelium off the surface of the mushroom man with his bare hands, and sure enough, he found a demon underneath.

It seems that a demon entered the underworld through a portal to hell and was then parasitized by fungi, transforming into its current form.

Perhaps only a demon with a strong physique can avoid being eroded by fungi and losing control of their body.

But judging from Roy's expression, it seemed a bit like the devil had eaten some kind of mushroom and was showing signs of being a little devil.

So, this fungus can cause demons to hallucinate?
What a clever move: first the fungus, then the villain!

From this perspective, this fungus seems to have some research value!
"Roy, what is this thing? It looks like..."

"It looks like a demon, doesn't it? You guessed right, it is a demon! It's just that this demon was unlucky. After entering Earth, it was parasitized by that strange fungus underground, so it lost its mind."

This is truly a tragic story, even Anya began to sympathize with this demon.

The demon, which had been kicked down, tried to get up, but Roy punched it so hard that its head was driven into the floor, and it finally fell asleep peacefully.

However, while the demon fell into a deep sleep, the fungus did not. Its mycelium began to draw life force from the demon to accelerate its growth, and it seemed that Roy's actions had indirectly helped the fungus.

Perhaps the hallucinogenic effects of the fungus were meant to subdue the demon, but the demon's constitution was too strong, and it stubbornly maintained its consciousness until Roy appeared.

Do you have incendiary bombs?

A Russian soldier nodded and handed over an incendiary bomb.

Roy has used up most of his incendiary bombs in the Thing and Alien vs. Predator events, so he plans to use them sparingly.

These things are inherently difficult to obtain; Roy's previous incendiary bombs were actually obtained by killing mercenaries.

At that moment, Mikhail suddenly mumbled something incoherently, and the Russian soldier immediately hesitated.

Roy looked at Anya.

"What did he just say?"

Anya frowned.

"He said that this demon has enormous research value and is an important national asset, and it cannot be burned like this."

Roy was speechless. Even if this demon was worth studying, he still had to be able to take it with him!
If Roy hadn't intervened, Mikhail and his seven soldiers would likely have been wiped out by this mushroom-man demon.

“Anya, translate this for them. If we don’t deal with this thing now, I won’t help it if it gets back up later.” After Anya finished translating, Mikhail immediately panicked and rattled off a long string of words.

He said, "Now that you've come down here, you should finish what you've done."

It is clear that Mikhail has become accustomed to relying on the protection of power to have others do his work for free.

Unfortunately, Roy wasn't buying it and just shrugged, continuing to have Anya translate.

“I’m not Russian, so I have no obligation to protect their national assets. If he has a problem with that, he can go and sue me in America.”

Mikhail, of course, couldn't go to America to accuse Roy. He could only watch resentfully as Roy snatched the incendiary bomb from the Russian soldier and set the mushroom-man demon on fire.

The mycelium twisted and deformed continuously in the flame, but it did not burn.

This surprised Roy greatly, as it didn't seem to fit the scenario of carbon-based life forms.

Carbon-based organisms are all combustible, but because most carbon-based organisms contain a lot of water, they cannot be ignited quickly. They will only start to burn after the water in their bodies is completely consumed.

However, this fungus clearly doesn't seem to have a high water content, which is quite strange.

Could it be because it's parasitizing a demon?
Demons generally have high fire resistance because the ambient temperature is high in most parts of Hell.

Fortunately, the fungus ultimately couldn't resist the power of science and was burned away after several minutes, indicating that it only had high fire resistance, but was not immune to flames.

As for the demon that had fallen into a coma, Roy simply ripped its head off.

The corpse remained untouched; I planned to find an opportunity to retrieve it later and put the demon's corpse into my inventory.

Demons are treasures from head to toe, and it's really rare to find a demon whose physical body has entered Earth. They can only be found near the opened Hell portal.

Mikhail was seething with hatred, but he dared not say anything.

The Russian soldiers around him were also intimidated when they saw Roy easily pull off the devil's head as if he were taking apart a toy.

Only Anya continued to look at Roy with adoration, truly a fervent female fan.

"Let's go, let's continue to the power distribution room."

For the rest of the journey, Roy and his companions did not encounter any more mushroom-man demons, but they did see some more people covered in bacteria.

In some rooms, an entire wall has been covered by bacteria, which looks disgusting.

Finally, Roy arrived at the substation and restarted the power, instantly restoring light to the floor.

"Spread out and search around. If you encounter any danger, fire a warning shot or shout for help."

Anya translated Roy's words to the others, and the ten people immediately split into five groups to search for survivors on this floor.

Roy was, of course, paired with Anya.

Anya suggested that the two of them go to the research lab first, since the lab has a security lock, and someone might be hiding inside by locking the door with the security lock.

Roy followed Anya's advice, and the two went to the research area, where they found three people in the observation room.

Upon seeing Roy and Anya, the people in the observation room immediately banged on the glass and called for help.

However, because the observation room was very soundproof, neither of them could hear what the other was saying.

Fortunately, Anya had been to a similar Russian research lab before and quickly found a button to turn on the microphone.

"Hey, can you hear us?"

(The following is a dialogue translated by Anya Translation.)
"Yes, of course! Were you sent by higher-ups for rescue? We've never seen you before!"

Anya and Roy only arrived here yesterday, so it's perfectly normal that the three of them don't know each other.

"We'll release you right now!"

No! Please don't!

One of them, wearing a white lab coat and clearly a researcher, stopped Anya.

"why is that?"

"I discovered that this fungus thrives in warm environments; it becomes sluggish and grows slowly at room temperature, and it dies directly in environments below 0 degrees Celsius! We've created a low-temperature environment in this observation room, so it's currently safe. But going outside might not be so safe!"
There are a lot of spores in the air outside right now, which would be very dangerous for us without protective clothing!

This researcher was quite calm, and what he said was reasonable and well-founded.

However, Roy felt that the characteristics of this fungus were similar to those of the freak.

"Okay, maybe we can help you find some protective suits and then take you out."

"How's the situation outside?"

"We saw many people being devoured by fungi, and we also discovered a giant monster that looked like a mushroom."

"We saw the monster too. It seemed to have come up from the 6000-meter floor by elevator. Luckily, the temperature inside the observation room was low, so it didn't come in!"

"Someone came up from the 6000-meter level?"

Anya was astonished because she remembered Grigoriev saying that the floor had been remotely isolated and the elevator would not go down.

"Yes! I suspect it climbed up through the maintenance access road!"

There's nothing that can be done about it; most people wouldn't imagine that someone would climb 3000 meters vertically.

"Alright, hang in there a little longer, we'll figure out a way to save you!"

The conversation ends here.

These three survivors are incredibly lucky to have survived, and they reveal an important piece of information: fungi are sensitive to cold.

Actually, Anya had a vague suspicion that fungi were afraid of the cold when they were on the ground.

However, mere speculation is insufficient; concrete evidence is required. These three survivors serve as corroboration of Anya's conjecture.

"Since we know that fungi are afraid of low temperatures, perhaps we can use liquid nitrogen to disinfect this layer!"

Anya quickly came up with an idea.

Besides being used to accelerate race cars, nitrogen can also be used to quickly cool down cars by utilizing the extremely low temperature of liquid nitrogen (-196 degrees Celsius) and its physical property of evaporation to remove heat.

"Is there liquid nitrogen in the base?"

"I...I'm not quite sure."

Anya's expression showed some hesitation.

Indeed, this base, which is neglected by both its owners, may not actually have liquid nitrogen. After all, it's quite troublesome to produce, and sterilizing this layer would probably consume a lot of liquid nitrogen.

However, once this underground discovery reaches Russia, Grigoriev will likely gain more support.

The two turned to go to the equipment requisition room when they suddenly heard loud gunfire in the distance.

"It looks like a battle has broken out. Let's go check it out!"

(End of this chapter)