After drawing cards, the evil god became my source of吐槽 (tu cao, a form of humorous commentary/criti

Chapter 39 Bloodstained Hospital (18)

The two fled quickly.

An Jing spotted a small team appearing ahead.

Seven people, lined up neatly, uniformly equipped, all armed with heavy-duty mental jammers and magnetic blast shields. Leading the way was the squad leader, wearing a dark gray tactical exoskeleton with the epaulet number "005".

An Jing almost reflexively raised her hand and waved at them: "Hey! Over here!"

Her voice still had a lingering hoarseness, and the leader, 005, immediately reacted.

They had already received He Lin's communication and confirmed the two's direction, so the group quickly moved forward to meet them.

"Target locked." 005 said coldly, "Confirmed to be 003 and target An Jing."

An Jing grabbed the still dazed 003 and pulled him forward two steps. "You know this person, right?"

003 was still wearing a hospital gown, with red marks on her face that were hard to tell whether they were from her slap or the effects of a hallucination. Her eyes were unfocused and she looked dazed.

005 frowned and glanced at it, his eyes quickly sweeping over 003's unguarded face: "Tsk, this idiot, there can't be a second one besides 003."

After confirming their identities, he quickly waved his hand: "Escort them out first!"

An Jing was taken aback and stopped in her tracks.

She glanced back at the collapsed corridor, then looked at 005, her brow furrowing: "Aren't you leaving?"

“Our mission is to deal with this mysterious creature.” 005’s tone was not heavy, but it was exceptionally decisive.

"Are you crazy?" An Jing raised his voice. "That's an A-level mystery. How are you going to handle it?"

“I know.” He interrupted her. “The nature of the target is known: Class A, psychological pollution type.”

"Then why are you still staying here?!"

"Duty".

He spoke softly, but without the slightest sign of wavering.

An Jing clenched his fist, suppressing the anxiety in his heart: "There are too few of you, not nearly enough. Even 003 was easily contaminated by it."

“Our mission is to stall it.” 005’s voice remained calm as he turned and nodded to the people behind him. “Take her away and evacuate immediately.”

"Hey, wait a minute!" Before An Jing could say anything, two team members came over and grabbed her arms, one on each side. Although their movements weren't rough, they pulled her back without hesitation.

"You'll die!" she struggled to shout. "It's just finished merging. Once it adapts, you won't be able to stop it at all. You're committing suicide, do you understand?!"

“I know.” 005 stood at the edge of the collapsed corridor, looking at the gradually darkening end, and nodded almost imperceptibly. “But you are the ‘highest priority mission’, and there can be no mistakes.”

An Jing didn't know what was wrong with her; she just felt annoyed by their stubbornness.

Who told them to be so inflexible?

Perhaps because of 001, she subconsciously changed her attitude towards the people holding the lamps.

She didn't even realize it herself.

"Calm down!" An Jing's voice almost exploded in the air. "This is an A-level mystic, not a B-level or a C-level! It's fused with a human! And a father with a strong obsession at that! You have no chance of winning against it!"

005 did not turn back.

He simply raised his hand.

The next second, the team had completed their tactical deployment, and the two continued to lead An Jing and 003 to the safe passage for evacuation.

An Jing was still struggling desperately, but her strength was limited. She knew that rushing back at this moment would not only be useless, but would also hinder the team's deployment.

"What makes you think you can hold off that mysterious creature? There are only seven of you." She couldn't help but ask the two people supporting her.

One of them spoke up: "We've always been aware that the mystery of A-level can cause the magnetic field to expand rapidly. We must control the situation, even if the price is death. There's no other way."

"..."

He said this so frankly that An Jing was speechless and couldn't say anything.

But, why.

Why didn't she want to see them die?

At that moment, a cracking sound, like a spine being dislocated, suddenly came from deep within the corridor.

Like bones being forcibly bent.

Something started to move. Everyone heard it.

[Stop dawdling, An Jing, listen to them and run! That thing is coming for you!] the system whispered.

An Jing suddenly looked up, her eyes turning cold in an instant.

Even though the eerie thing was already quite far away from her, the sharp sound of the metal equipment scraping against the ground, like a python crawling, kept lingering in her mind, segment by segment, inch by inch, emerging from the depths of her being.

It was obvious that the mysterious creature was provoking her.

At this moment, at the end of that corridor.

The entity that had already completed the fusion moved.

In the darkness, he dragged the strange machine closer step by step. The body was human-like, yet not human; a network of blue-gray blood vessels emerged beneath the skin. Half of the face still retained Dr. Du's features, while the other half twisted and writhed, like ever-growing tentacles churning within the flesh.

He seemed to be speaking, his lips moving, but no sound came out.

"Focus." 005 said in a low voice.

The team members immediately switched positions, activated their mental jammers, adjusted their magnetic shield defense arrays, and simultaneously aimed at the approaching figure.

An Jing resigned herself to her fate.

She wasn't stupid, nor was she willful or reckless. The lamplighters had already set up defenses, hoping she wouldn't turn back and cause trouble, and she understood how important the "primordial source" within her was.

If you insist on staying, it's not helping, it's hindering.

Without looking back at 005 and the others, he silently wished them well in their lives.

Two lamplighters dragged her and 003 to the entrance of the passage, which was a temporary spatial rift, but now the rift had closed.

"It's...sealed off?" one of them stared at the exit of the passage and whispered in disbelief.

"That's impossible, we clearly synchronized the magnetic field stabilizer..."

He stopped abruptly before he could finish speaking.

puff!

A dark blue arm silently emerged from his chest, its twisted veins writhing like worms, and a foul stench wafted towards him.

The lamplighter froze, his gaze still fixed on the door that should have led to "safety" through the crack, as if he had no idea that death was imminent.

Blood gushed from his mouth, and he didn't even have time to scream.

The next second, his body was suddenly lifted up by that hand and thrown aside like a rag doll, crashing into the wall and collapsing to the ground.

An Jing was stunned.

She felt a buzzing sound in her ears, and the whole world went silent for a moment, leaving only the sound of her blood rushing and her heart pounding.

She looked in the direction where the lamplighter had fallen.

The man who had just told her, "There's nothing we can do about it," and "We've always been prepared."

She didn't even know his number.

"...He's dead?"

An Jing's voice was dry.

She stared at the pool of blood, forgetting to even blink.

then,

She looked up.

He met that enigmatic gaze head-on.

Those eyes were open asymmetrically. On one side was the iris that originally belonged to "Dr. Du," now blurred and confused; on the other side was a black hole-like eyeball that was writhing and rotating, as if staring into an abyss.

His dark blue hands were still stained with the blood of the lamplighter.

He was looking at her.

To be precise, he had been watching her the whole time.

(End of this chapter)