Dark Ruins Dawn

Chapter 29 Distortion
The next day, at the incinerator.

The conveyor belt emitted a monotonous hum as Zhuang Fan tossed a pile of empty electronic waste onto it.

Several elderly criminals were talking quietly beside the wreckage.

"Have you heard? A lot more nuclear soldiers have arrived at the main gate."

"I saw it, a huge crowd, and they even carried a big thing inside."

Another criminal looked slightly uneasy.

"It's white, and looks like a large coffin."

"Who cares, let's get to work."

"This batch of goods is badly rotten. If we can't find a few decent ones, we won't even be able to afford food."

Zhuang Fan's hands did not stop moving.

He used a broken piece of steel bar to pry open a heavy armor plate, applying more force than usual.

The nuclear team has arrived again.

Last time they made a big show of it, but in the end they failed to see through their disguise.

This time... it should just be a routine matter.

He told himself that, but his heart still skipped a beat.

There's only one way to survive right now: get rid of Nison, this obstacle, and stop him from demanding bribes so I can save enough money to leave.

He needs more of the eerie mist.

This is the only trump card.

The landfill was shrouded in a lingering, decaying fog. The eerie mist in the air was so thin that it was negligible, as most of it was dispersed by the fog lights overhead.

His gaze was fixed on the most secluded lamppost.

The surveillance cameras there were angled slightly off, leaving a small, hard-to-detect blind spot.

He pushed the iron cart full of scrap metal, moving step by step in that direction, pretending to be earnestly searching for usable parts.

As he passed the lamppost, his body happened to block the view of the person looking up.

A wisp of eerie mist, held in the palm of one's hand, silently seeped into a cable interface at the base of the lamppost.

Corrosion occurs slowly inside.

Without pausing for a moment, he dragged his "spoils" toward the recycling area as if nothing had happened.

"Zi..."

A very faint sound of a cable snapping rang out.

The fog lights didn't emit any light, but Zhuang Fan could directly sense that a strange fog was slowly forming in that small area.

The opportunity is here.

He didn't look up, pretending to rummage through the trash at his feet, carefully absorbing the eerie mist closest to the ground.

The absorption rate cannot be too fast, otherwise it will cause abnormal flow of the fog, which may trigger a monitoring alarm.

Twenty minutes later, he managed to gather a small ball of it.

This amount is not even enough to condense the dark mist.

But he must leave first; staying in the same area for too long is also dangerous.

He would only have an excuse to approach again once the next batch of garbage arrived.

Watson was unaware of the details, but he felt that Zhuang Fan was a bit slow today.

"Hey! You two, is this all you have for today?" The supervisor's tone was very dissatisfied.

"I wasn't very lucky."

"luck?"

He shook his head: "From now on, you need to bring at least ten items every day. If you can't get enough, then don't bother coming."

Hua Sheng wanted to argue a bit more, but Zhuang Fan stopped him with a look.

"understood."

The foreman left with a hint of disappointment; he didn't care about the process, only the result.

On the way back, Zhuang Fan deliberately took a detour, looking towards the main gate of the border defense area from a distance.

The number of soldiers from the nuclear group was double that of the last time, and the security was extremely tight.

In the center of the checkpoint, there was a huge white metal cabin with a smooth, futuristic surface, connected to many sophisticated instruments.

A new batch of criminals who just arrived today are lining up, lying down one by one.

The hatch closes, opens after 20 minutes, and then the next one.

Zhuang Fan's pupils suddenly contracted.

He recognized it: a nanobot medical pod.

But the one in front of us is clearly specially modified; its main function is probably not treatment, but identification.

By injecting hundreds of millions of tiny nanorobots, a comprehensive internal scan of the human body is performed, identifying the most subtle biological features at the cellular level.

No disguise can hide from it.

A chill crept up Zhuang Fan's back.

The eerie mist within his body might temporarily block the scan, but his nano-memory skin would be in danger.

Once inside the cabin, the two different nanoclusters meet, the outcome is unknown, but the risk of exposure is 100%.

It's only a matter of time before it's exposed.

The trouble is big.

He subtly shifted his gaze and followed Watson's footsteps.

"Brother Guangtu, what's wrong?"

"Nothing, just thinking about what to have for dinner."

“…It’s just a protein bar, what’s there to think about?” Watson scratched his head and didn’t ask any more questions.

The next day, the two returned to the garbage dump.

The fog light he had damaged has been repaired, and a thick protective shell has been added to the cable connection.

He knew that the same method could not be used a second time.

Any repeated "coincidence" is itself a warning sign.

That night, snoring filled the beehive nest.

Zhuang Fan lay motionless in the coffin bed.

He summoned the last wisp of eerie mist within his body, letting it follow the shadow of the wall and wrap around the nearest fog-repelling lamp.

This time, he chose to corrode the connection points inside the lamp holder.

A moment later, the eerie fog slowly formed.

He absorbed it as quickly as possible.

But not long after, several people's collars triggered alarms, detecting an increase in the concentration of the eerie fog.

"Hey, the light's broken!"

"It must be those bedbugs again!"

Less than a minute later, several guards rushed in, followed closely by maintenance soldiers.

Zhuang Fan closed his eyes, pretending to have been woken up.

This road is also blocked.

For the next few days, Zhuang Fan could only use the most rudimentary method to absorb the tiny, shallow fog from the air.

It's just a drop in the ocean.

Three days later, instead of sending them to the landfill, Nissen transferred the two men to the deepest part of the coal mine.

"I heard you're very capable and have good performance, so let's mine more coal."

“That means I can’t help you make money.” Zhuang Fan’s tone was slightly submissive.

Nissen looked at him with amusement: "I wouldn't even look at the meager profits from the junkyard, but I can't stand you guys having money in your pockets, understand?"

Watson was furious, and as he watched him walk away, he didn't know what to say.

Zhuang Fan pressed down on his shoulder, his voice very low.

"Don't take it to heart, just bear with it."

Deep inside the coal mine, it was sweltering and oppressive.

Each person's face was covered with a thick layer of coal dust, and they wore searchlights as they mechanically swung their picks.

The strong smell of coal dust made people cough.

Inside the mine tunnel, only a few high-powered fog lights were operating.

Zhuang Fan's gaze swept over a newly opened mine tunnel, where the tunnel was very deep and the fog lights had not yet been able to fully cover it.

In some peripheral areas, a thin, eerie mist is slowly gathering.

Nobody wants to go there.

Zhuang Fan picked up his pickaxe and said to the foreman beside him, "I'll go dig over there."

The leader of the criminals was an elderly man. Seeing how enthusiastic he was, he waved his hand.

Zhuang Fan swung his pickaxe, each strike sending coal dust cascading down the rock face.

Soon, a small space that could accommodate one person was dug out, which happened to be an area that the fog lights could not cover.

Watson saw him from a distance and wanted to move the fog lights forward, but Zhuang Fan politely declined.

"Everyone behind us needs light, so it's okay if it's a little dark here. I can manage."

"Thanks, bro." The group of criminals were very grateful. "Brother Guangtu, be careful. I just told the foreman that the new fog lights are still being restocked and won't be delivered for a while."

"it is good."

Zhuang Fan wanted just this "little while".

He knew very well that it would take at least half a day to get from here to the warehouse and then move the bulky fog lights over.

This half-day is his window of opportunity.

He plunged into the darkness, letting the light mist gather and compress within his body.

A small wisp of dark mist began to condense and take shape.

By the time he finished work, a considerable amount of dark mist had accumulated inside him.

Although there is still a long way to go before condensing "black mist," this is his biggest achievement in the past few days.

Exhausted after get off work, Watson bought two protein bars from a vending machine.

He handed one of them to Zhuang Fan.

Before Zhuang Fan could even reach out, a greasy hand reached out from the side and snatched both protein bars away.

He's Nissen's underling.

Nissen walked over from a distance: "Hey, it's time to pay the management fees you owe me."

"Isn't it the end of the month?" Watson frowned.

"Who said the end of the month? I say when, and it's when."

The younger brother handed over the protein bar, but Nissen disgustedly threw it away, stomped on it with his boot, and kicked it in front of the two men.

"Here, these two are a reward for you."

Zhuang Fan looked at him and found the man ridiculously childish.

Seeing that Zhuang Fan was in a stable mood, Nissen chuckled and turned to leave with a few of his men.

After they had walked away, Watson silently squatted down and picked up the two dirty protein bars.

He carefully wiped it with his sleeve. "It's okay, it's just flattened. There's no dirt inside, it's edible."

Zhuang Fan took it from him, said thank you, and then put it in his pocket.

On the fifth day, the two were reassigned to clean their shins.

Next to the work area is the mutant camp where the Sharkman resides.

The area is permeated with a faint smell of seawater year-round, which the criminals call the "smell of sharks."

Zhuang Fan heard that these shark-men sleep in water tanks and need to soak for a long time every day to prevent their skin from peeling.

At this moment, hundreds of shark-men were using their giant jaws to bite the logs into pieces.

When Zhuang Fan passed by them, he pretended to be carrying a box of bones, but secretly he was stealing the "shark mist" from their bodies.

He controlled it with exquisite precision, only removing the thinnest outermost layer so that the sharks wouldn't notice the changes inside his body.

Even so, a few sharks stopped what they were doing and shook their heads.

"Strange, I feel much more comfortable."

"Hmm, it's not so stuffy anymore."

After finishing his work, Zhuang Fan went to help the elephant-men move I-beams and used the same method to absorb the eerie mist inside them.

Back at their hideout, Watson went to buy protein bars, only to have them stolen by Nissen's men.

Watson was silent for a moment, then paid 30 credits from the collar and bought two more.

When Zhuang Fan learned that he had bought a total of four, he was speechless at Nissen's ridiculous tactics.

"Brother Guangtu, is there really no way to deal with this kind of evil person?" Hua Sheng's voice was tinged with despair.

Zhuang Fan did not answer directly.

He couldn't reveal his plans for fear that someone would search Watson's memories.

The more you know, the faster you die.

On the sixth and seventh days, the zombie horde attacked again.

Zhuang Fan and Hua Sheng were temporarily dispatched to the front lines.

This time, on the chaotic battlefield, he absorbed the eerie mist emanating from every mutant around him.

When it came time to clear the trenches, he squeezed the last bit of debris from the remains of the green-skinned and walking corpses.

A little adds up to a lot.

That night, he lay on his bunk, sensing the total amount of eerie mist within his body.

That's barely enough.

……

The two were walking back to their hideout.

Zhuang Fan's gaze was fixed on Nissen, a figure in the distance who was bragging to several foremen.

The opportunity is here.

"You go back first, I'm going to buy something."

"it is good."

After Watson left, Zhuang Fan did not go to the vending machine, but turned into a side road and found a blind spot without surveillance cameras.

He looked at the figure spitting as he spoke thirty meters away and took a deep breath.

Thirty meters is the limit of his ability to control the eerie fog.

He closed his eyes and compressed and condensed all the chaotic and eerie mist within his body.

The intense mental strain caused him to have a splitting headache and his vision to blur intermittently.

A small cloud of black mist took shape in his mind.

Then, the black mist left the body.

Like a silent ghost, it slowly approached Nissen under the cover of night, following the shadows of the walls and pipes.

Then it burrowed into the back of his head.

Nissen's expression froze instantly.

Immediately afterwards, he felt a splitting headache, as if his entire skull was about to explode.

"what--!"

A scream pierced the noise of the camp.

Zhuang Fan swayed, all his strength drained away in an instant. He could only lean against the wall, enduring the dizziness, and turn to leave.

He went around in circles, bought protein bars from a vending machine, and lingered on the road for a long time before finally returning to his hideout.

Nissen and his men were gone.

When Watson saw him, he immediately came over, his face filled with barely suppressed shock and glee.

"Brother Guangtu, have you heard? Nissen... he suddenly mutated!"

"Just now, he was talking to someone when suddenly his head swelled up and turned into a shark's head! Everyone was stunned, haha!"

Zhuang Fan smiled. "Where is he?"

"He was dragged away by the guards. He's probably been sent to the mutant camp. He'll be soaking in a water tank tonight, haha!"

Among the strange mists that Zhuang Fan absorbed were shark-men and elephant-men; he just wanted to see which one Nissen would become.

Now that it's turned into a crunchy shark, it might as well go bite some wood.

His expression quickly turned serious: "Listen, if anyone comes to check our memories, don't think about anything, just cooperate normally."

“I know, Brother Guangtu.”

Watson, recalling their shared secret, nodded vigorously: "I've been interrogated several times before, so I can fabricate some new memories to cover up the old ones. Don't worry."

"That's fine."

Nissen's anomaly caused quite a stir in the criminal camp.

When he was thrown into the mutant camp, he tried to explain something, but all that came out of that shark's head was a terrifying roar, no longer resembling a human voice.

The guard didn't understand and didn't care; he just used a stun gun to shut him up.

The leader of the Sharkman camp recognized him and grinned.

"Oh, isn't this Lord Nissen? Welcome! Don't leave now that you're here."

The guard was getting impatient: "You guys should teach him how to speak shark language. We don't even know what he's yelling."

"no problem."

After saying that, a shark dragged him deep into the camp.

On the other side, in the officer's office.

The new battalion commander of the 86th Battalion was a refined middle-aged man wearing gold-rimmed glasses.

When he learned that his lackey had turned into a killer, he frowned.

"Strange, he just had the concentration of the eerie fog tested two days ago, and the level was very low. How could it suddenly distort?"

He asked the guard beside him, "Are you sure the fog lights in the camp are completely covering the area?"

"Reporting to the battalion commander, everything is normal."

He always felt that there was something sinister about this matter.

Thinking of the hideous heads in the Sharkman Camp, he suspected that those guys had deliberately done this.

"Investigate everyone who has recently had a conflict with him, and keep a close eye on the Shark Man Camp."

(End of this chapter)