Eh? You want to try the humanoid girl's iron fist too?

Tony continued to close his eyes and rest; he was now willing but unable to do so.

The negative effects of the cocktail-enhanced injections were too severe, and the immune system, which had been revitalized by the anti-collapse radiation infection drug, was now engaged in a life-or-death struggle with the mutated cells.

In fact, we should have listened to Raphael's advice, and that would have prevented the trouble that followed.

Alki, on the other hand, was truly panicked at this moment, and was somewhat incoherent in front of Doug. He really didn't know that it would cause such serious consequences.

If they had stayed indoors and hadn't gone out, the infected people wandering outside wouldn't have noticed them resting here.

He also realized that if those guys found the entrance to the cellar, the women and girls living underground would be doomed.

Alki grabbed his assault rifle, solemnly raised the weapon, aimed, and fired. After seeing a small hole appear between the target's eyebrows, he immediately looked away.

Although he heard Doug's reprimand, he still didn't seem to care.

Thus, the chaos that a hundred-eyed giant experienced after leaving SHD and his ideals gradually erupted. Everyone had their own ideas, and expecting leaders from various industries to obey orders was simply too difficult.

They are all very talented and have distinct personalities.

Unless a more powerful and successful person steps forward, it will be difficult to achieve the desired results.

Bullets ejected from the ejection port landed on the floor with a series of sharp, clattering sounds. These sounds were picked up by the ELID infected's remaining hearing, directly leading to a relentless surge of enemies.

The only thing that gave Tony a sense of relief was that the insane infected ignored the tool hut next to them and headed straight for the small house where the park management office was located.

As dawn broke, none of the hundred-eyed giants' squad knew exactly how many infected they had killed. None of them asked Raphael, even though they knew she had certainly counted.

Putting aside their prejudices, they had to admit that Raphael was a seasoned expert in this area.

"Do you know where the problem lies?" she asked over the radio.

Alki stared at the corpses outside. After a long while, he slumped down and stared at his combat boots, pondering why he had become so exhausted so quickly... even giving up on himself and thinking that he was incapable of doing anything.

Cecilia wanted to answer, but Douglas stopped her. She looked at him in confusion, and he slowly shook his head, indicating that the one who started it all should answer, even though he was a member of the team.

After a while, Alki's left hand landed next to the radio PTT button, hesitated for a moment, and then pressed the transmit signal switch:

“I am Alki Hubster, a member of the Hundred-Eyed Giants Squad, currently in the Dark Zone of Manhattan, reporting to Raphael: I...I was wrong. I violated the nighttime silence rules, directly causing a battle that should never have happened.”

The only response he received was a cacophony of noise.

Perhaps it was a channel setting issue, or perhaps the battery was dead, preventing the radio from working. Alki tried one channel at a time, repeatedly sending the same message.

A few minutes later, he suddenly remembered that the other party was a lone wolf with electronic warfare equipment, who had blocked nearby radio signals and had no intention of hearing any apologies afterward.

Indeed, if "I'm sorry" could solve everything, there wouldn't be so much conflict and killing in this chaotic world.

Book 1: The World Before the Great War: Chapter 66 Unbuttoning

Around noon, the woman quietly went into the park ranger's room and placed a lunchbox on the table.

“The soup is ready, have a taste,” the woman said.

“Thank you.” Tony Gargia, who was already indifferent, took a small sip and replied with a thumbs up, “I haven’t had such good vegetable soup in a long time.”

"If you like it, I'll get you more."

Raphael glanced at her but didn't answer. Three children lived in the cellar, and a woman who would share her food… it was all strange, almost unbelievable.

At the same time, there is an extraordinary calmness in this, like a battle-hardened soldier picking up his sniper rifle. He should have thrown away the cigarette and stubbed it out with his boot, but instead, he put the unfinished cigarette on the earthen shelf, intending to finish it after the battle.

The same thing happened to this woman when she arrived here...

Thank you.

Alki watched her still standing silently and repeated himself. Suddenly he understood what the woman was waiting for, so he took out a spoon from his three-day bag.

“It’s delicious,” he praised, “It’s really delicious… You should go back now, or we’ll be at war again soon.”

Separated by only a wall, Doug and Cecilia were happily munching on the high-calorie compressed biscuits that came with their MRE rations, enjoying a bite of cloyingly sweet blueberry jam.

Raphael stood between the two groups of people, like a dividing wall, separating this small space into two completely different worlds.

Raphael only snapped out of his reverie after the woman packed her things, picked up the food box, and left.

She looked at the two self-destructive duo, who had just finished their meal, and realized that beneath their cheerful exterior lay an overwhelming exhaustion that was about to spill over.

They lack sufficient data to establish an understanding of collapse radiation and collapse fluid, let alone the effects of wide-area low-level radiation on the human body.

When the abnormalities caused by the latter exceed the human body's tolerance threshold—each person's tolerance limit is different, and special adaptors like Tony are extremely rare—the individual's cognition will gradually undergo degenerative changes, and corresponding physiological changes will also occur, such as decreased cognitive ability, increased limb strength, and slowed movement.

The infected must have fully understood their characteristics during last night's battle, knowing just how difficult the ELID infected are to deal with.

It's important to understand that the siliconization of ELID progresses over time, meaning that the infected individuals who appeared last night were only at the beginner level.

If it were an ELID infected creature left over from the Vietnam War, it wouldn't be something that firearms could handle.

She didn't know what was happening in the other parts of the Dark Zone, although judging from the gunshots and explosions, there was fighting everywhere around her.

But an undeniable fact lay before everyone: the two houses, the shattered windows, the destroyed park, her, the people still alive but fighting each other, the woman struggling to survive with her three children in the cellar, and the collapse radiation that had spread almost throughout the entire Dark Zone—all of this constituted the cold and cruel Dark Zone.

In the next room, Miss Cecilia, who had been struggling to swallow compressed biscuits, had completely calmed down and was now paying close attention to the subtle readings of the Geiger counter.

Raphael itself wouldn't have ELID mutant cells—after all, the iron mass and biomimetic materials wouldn't cause collapse-induced radiation pollution. Therefore, subtracting historical environmental readings from current real-time readings will reveal the extent of the increase.

Of course, this could be due to errors or an increase in background radiation. However, another possible explanation is that someone in the team has already begun to change their mind.

Collapse radiation directly induces mutations in cells undergoing mitosis, and these gene mutations induced by collapse radiation are regular, directional mutations.

The new mutated cells will not only continue to divide, but will also produce a completely new organelle that emits radiation in the same wavelength as collapse radiation. This is why infected individuals are infectious and exhibit abnormal metabolism.

It was only at this point that Cecilia fully understood Raphael's overall plan.

Her accusations were almost tantamount to slander, which made Cecilia feel so ashamed that she could hardly face Raphael.

Because the other party's entire consideration was to take away the Hundred-Eyed Giants team, while they themselves regarded this rare kindness as an evil scheme with ulterior motives.

Cecilia avoided Raphael's scrutinizing gaze, turned her back, and swallowed the pills with a strongly industrial-smelling after-dinner beverage.

In the afternoon, Doug practically dragged Cecilia to Raphael. Facing Raphael's emotionless gaze, Doug stammered an apology for his baseless accusations the day before and asked for his forgiveness.

She was very unaccustomed to this, but she had to resolve the issue between the two before the next step could begin.

Raphael smiled awkwardly, paced back and forth in the room twice, then made a snapping sound with her automatic rifle. She sat down at the table, leaning against it, and finally, with difficulty, managed to mimic a rare look of sullenness on her face, asking in her usual voice:

"Will you obey my orders?"

“Damn, I can,” Cecilia replied.

“To put it bluntly, it’s because you don’t cherish people, and you don’t cherish yourselves,” Raphael said. “You don’t cherish them, you really don’t cherish them. Everything else is fine, but your arrogance and self-importance are the real problem.”

Captain Doug Sutton stood beside him, nodding slightly in approval. He suddenly recalled his recent mission to enter New York and the month and a half of fighting, and felt utterly exhausted, as if his bones were about to break.

Not only do they have to complete the tasks from the post office forward base, but they also have to play the role of a parent and become the glue that holds the other team members together.

To avoid collapsing in embarrassment, he stood up, leaned against the wall, and laboriously raised his aching arm to check the time. The clock showed 9:15 PM, a full seven hours since the ELID patient started knocking on the door with their head last night.

And he was the night watchman for the first half of the night, and hadn't been able to rest since almost yesterday afternoon.

After Raphael and Cecilia finished talking, they realized that Doug had already fallen asleep.

He leaned against the wall, his head resting uncomfortably on the automatic rifle magazine that jutted out from under his arm, and fell asleep.

“Listen,” Raphael said, glancing at the two in the other room, and lowering his voice, “try to understand your captain, and think from his perspective. Now, go and rest.”

"how about you?"

“I don’t need it.” A smile appeared on Raphael’s handsome face. “I’m not as fragile as you are.”

She pushed Cecilia to sit on the sofa. "It's 9:20 now. I'll wake you up in six hours. Because of what happened between you and Alki last night, our schedule has to be postponed."

“I’m sorry,” Cecilia replied softly.

"Say 'sorry' is not enough; we must prove it with actions."

Book 1: The World Before the Great War: Chapter 67 Keep Your Distance

Doug turned around with difficulty, cursing bitterly.

Raphael stood in the corner of the room, listening to the fragments of words that leaked from his dream.

Suddenly, an angry expression appeared on Doug's face, and his eyes, protected by his eyelids, moved rapidly up and down, which was enough to show that he was suffering from nightmares.

Raphael was genuinely curious about what people dream about. She wished she could read dreams, like Walter, the android in the movie who could read the protagonist's dreams.

“Yes, they will,” Doug said suddenly. “Of course they will fucking do that.”

He sat up suddenly, like a robot, and then slowly leaned back against the wall.

With a clatter, probably from the metal parts of the sling hitting and rubbing against the backpack, Doug Sutton shuddered, did a tactical roll in front of Raphael, and then knelt behind the sofa, still holding the gun in his hand.

"Oh, you're awake?" Raphael asked curiously. "Do you remember what the nightmare was about?"

“I dreamt that they were all dead.”

"I?"

"No, someone killed us all. I can't remember His face, I only know that someone killed us all, one after another."

"Execution style?"

"I think so." Doug closed his eyes and fell into his memories, trying to find even a fragment in his bizarre dream memories.

Maybe I could give up everything I have now and find myself a secluded basement in a quiet, unknown part of the city. This nightmare of the city that never sleeps will surely end someday.

This situation cannot continue forever in the modern world!

But in any case, he and his team need to leave here, now, immediately!

Doug snapped out of his daze, put away his M4A1, and carefully returned to the spot where he had been resting.

"When do we leave?" he asked.

"We'll set off as soon as the sun goes down."

"Where to go?"

“Ask the Geiger counter, it will tell us the answer,” Raphael replied.

Doug said in a hoarse, seemingly distant voice, "It's taking too much time. The Dark Zone is quite large."

"Yes."

"Are you also a radiation adaptor?" he said casually. "I've never seen you use any pills, and you gave Tony that ARA injection too."

“I don’t need these things, but I’m not an adaptor either.” Raphael stood there motionless. “I don’t need any of them, I don’t even need rest.”

"..."