Ark Chess Player

I pity their misfortune and am angry at their lack of resistance. After all, Scout had already told Yanke that once he boarded this pirate ship, there was no escaping.

"Look at you. You could have peacefully found a new job with room and board and health insurance. Now, after being brutally beaten and hospitalized, you have to sell yourself to pay for your medical bills. You got beaten up for nothing, and you're losing three months' salary. How many people were lured to Rhodes Island by the Doctor like this? Have you ever seen any of them leave Rhodes Island? No! Here, it's impossible to leave Rhodes Island without paying a price. Those who came in sideways can only leave sideways. I don't think you can stand up straight."

"Hmm? What were you trying to say? You were too quiet, I didn't hear you. Oh, your jaw's been loosened from all the punches, it's normal you can't say anything, I understand. Ace's habit of hitting people in the face first was taught to him by the Doctor. The Doctor once told him that the more handsome the opponent, the more you should hit them in the face. He said it can create psychological trauma for the opponent, boost our morale, and reduce the attack power of female enemies. The Doctor is an expert in close combat and psychological warfare. I heard you were knocked in by the Doctor with a slide tackle and a punch."

"You say no? Don't be shy. Which of the elite operators here hasn't been beaten up by the Doctor? Don't be nervous."

"What did you say? You want to chat for another ten yuan? Okay, I'll sing you a crosstalk."

"Uh...uh...hmm...ahhhhhh!"

Yan Ke was so angry that he fainted on the spot and has not regained consciousness to this day, which shows that words can be a deadly weapon.

Scout, a fellow Sarkaz who had also experienced the Kazdel Civil War, shook his head and left, completely unaware that he was the one who finished off the enemy.

Chapter 153 The Valkyrie of the North

Lin Lu stood in front of the intensive care unit door, gently stroking the door with his fingers.

He turned his head and looked at Natasha behind him, who quickly withdrew her hands from her abdomen.

Natasha silently turned her head away, clearly showing that she was in real pain; even her posture was somewhat unsteady.

She would rather go to the battlefield and fight bravely than suffer the pangs of conscience and the overwhelming sense of powerlessness that permeates her entire being.

Lin Lu said helplessly, "Come here. Even if you want to be scolded by her, you don't have the chance now."

"What do you mean by that...?!"

Natasha's eyes slowly widened, and her hands unconsciously clenched into fists.

The ship's door to the intensive care unit has a small window that is specially cut out, so that doctors can observe the patients' condition at any time, and also so that people who come to visit during the quarantine period can reduce the number of times they need to enter the door.

After all, even the air quality in the intensive care unit has specific requirements so that patients can rest and recover in the most suitable environment.

Natasha leaned against the hatch. Inside the ward, a petite girl lay on the bed, her body covered in tubes and wires.

The petite Feline doctor, Anto, was taking notes, while the medical operator, Aya, who was half a head taller than her, assisted her to prevent any oversights.

"That girl is Zoya, the one who kept sending out distress signals to the Third Army."

Lin Lu sighed desolately, "The girls we just met, at least they were people of similar age gathered together, not fighting the darkness alone. Zoya, on the other hand, was trapped in the most dangerous and urgent military police unit, facing danger at every moment, living in fear every second. Her medical report showed more than ten wounds of varying sizes all over her body, a broken finger, and a fatal wound in her abdomen, which fortunately was treated in time. These were not the factors that caused her to fall into a coma, but rather that she completely exhausted her mental energy on the night four days ago."

"What exactly is it that supports a middle school student to activate the Originium Silencer on his own, despite the excruciating pain that feels like it's going to burst his head?"

"You should have experienced this too, right? The Valkyrie of the North."

"..."

Natasha couldn't answer; her gaze remained fixed on Zoya's small face, which was covered by a respirator.

Natasha gently pressed her forehead against the glass window.

Looking at Zoya, she felt as if she were seeing herself eleven years ago.

At that time, her army camp was attacked by the enemy in Kazimir. To survive, she had to grip her weapon tightly. As if some shackles had been broken, she cut down the charging silver-spear cavalry one by one. She remembered that it was the dead of night, and she guarded the most important armory, fighting until dawn without ever retreating a single step.

The Kazimierz Knights suffered repeated defeats after the arrival of Ursus reinforcements. Their night raid, which had the advantage of favorable timing, location, and manpower, yielded nothing but resulted in the loss of many soldiers.

Afterwards, Natasha received praise, a promotion, and was awarded various medals. She was packaged and promoted by the publicity department like a product, and her actions were given many hypocritical titles, such as the successor of the Ursus military spirit... In reality, she didn't think about so many reasons at the time; she just didn't want to die.

Given the choice between being killed and killing someone, she chose the latter.

Lin Lu noticed this, reached out and patted her on the shoulder, extending an invitation.

"Would you be interested in coming to my office and hearing what happened that night?"

Natasha nodded slightly, clutching her abdomen, where she felt a piercing pain.

Sigrún has taught at the Iceland University of the Arts as a part-time lecturer since and was Dean of the Department of Fine Art from -. In – she held a research position at Reykjavík Art Museum focusing on the role of women in Icelandic art. She studied fine art at the Icelandic College of Arts and Crafts and at Pratt Institute, New York, and holds BA and MA degrees in art history and philosophy from the University of Iceland. Sigrún lives and works in Iceland.

Rhode Island Doctor's Office.

"That's how it happened. I don't know about the other parts of Chernobog, but the upper town is finished."

Lin Lu raised the coffee cup in front of him, looking at the black liquid emitting white mist. He suddenly remembered that he was still wearing a hooded mask, so he put the cup down again.

"If Valery hadn't used himself as bait to implant the Originium silencing device into the stitched monster's body, that monster would have been virtually invincible. Even for me, facing a monster that was a full twenty meters tall, could move at high speed, and had an infinite health bar... how much would I have to pay to have it buried with me in that city? At that time, not only would the upper Chernobog city explode, but this kind of monster that could survive on ore might even chase after the moving city, maybe even run to Lungmen, or maybe even head north."

Lin Lu idly swirled the coffee in his cup with a spoon, then smiled mischievously: "I believe you can tell from my words how troublesome that monster is. Even if the current emperor of the Ursus Empire realizes the situation and sends the Third Army Group stationed on the border to clean up the mess, how many sacrifices do you think you would have to make to slow down the Stitches' pace?"

"..."

Natasha mechanically raised her cup and downed the scalding black coffee in one gulp, her eyes filled with horror.

She saw the images projected onto the tactical virtual sandbox in Dr. Rhode Island's office.

The terrifying, grotesque, bloodthirsty monster roared to the sky, its hollow maw seemingly capable of devouring everything, with countless human organs entwined around it like a giant cocoon, eerie and horrifying.

The ultimate operation log from that night has been deleted by Amiya with her CEO privileges, but Rhodes Island will still keep records of the monster's information, as this information is its most valuable resource.

Rhodes Island's medical and engineering departments have been working day and night for the past few days to analyze what type of Originium Arts could so quickly turn ordinary people into Oripathy infected individuals. Why do these Oripathy infected individuals lose their minds and become like beasts, feeding on the flesh and blood of ordinary people?

What is most frightening are... those monsters that were mutated from the students of Chernobog.

The monsters are incredibly diverse, seemingly without a fixed ecological template, but rather like ink spilled on paper, spreading in all directions.

Kroos categorized each monster into different levels and included the methods the Doctor used to defeat them.

Humanoid monsters can also be burned to charcoal by flames, their flesh and bones can be physically destroyed, or they can be killed directly by fragmentation grenades.

But monsters that break free from the human form are different. For example, there are slimes that can freely change their shape; they can heat themselves like porcelain, becoming incredibly hard. They can also melt a part of their body into highly explosive, high-temperature slime, capable of rapidly dissolving even metals like iron with melting points over a thousand degrees. If these slimes were to stick to a person, they would probably melt instantly.

As for the Frankenstein's monster...

As Lin Lu said, without Valery's self-sacrificing act, he would have had no chance to kill him.

After participating in the analysis of the monster's weaknesses, Kroos suddenly understood why the Noah Armor had suffered such heavy losses and also understood the overclocking and overload of the Ark Driver.

It's already a remarkable thing that the PhD student came back alive; what more is there to criticize?

"Doctor, could you please give me a copy of the information?" Natasha asked in a deep voice.

“Of course…” Lin Lu looked at Natasha’s slightly relaxed expression and said the rest of his sentence, “No.”

Chapter 154 Tell me, why?

Natasha asked, puzzled, "Why?!"

"Do you take me for a philanthropist? You think you can just take away our hard work with a few words? There's no way you can have such a good deal! Not to mention that I risked my life to obtain this intelligence, if it's not handled properly, it could cause global panic and perhaps even trigger a worldwide massacre of those infected with Oripathy. How could I possibly entrust it to the Ursus Empire, which is on the front lines of the persecution of the infected?"

Lin Lu instinctively wanted to dig into his ear and fling out the earwax, making such an extremely sarcastic gesture.

But now that he's wearing a hood, he's rubbing his temples, almost as if he's about to utter a classic line.

"As you can see, these Oripathy infected individuals did not become such bloodthirsty beasts of their own volition. If the symptoms of Oripathy turned people into zombies who wanted to bite anyone they saw, then there would be no infected in this world. The living would do everything they could to exterminate them, leaving not a single one alive. Originium would also become a contraband, and people all over the world would have to bury it underground, hiding it in the deep sea where no one knows it. Unless some people are really crazy and want to turn the infected into Originium for industrial energy."

Upon hearing this, Natasha seemed to connect the dots, and her face turned deathly pale in an instant.

Lin Lu transformed the images displayed on the tactical virtual sandbox into images of manipulated infected individuals, and said in a deep voice, "If the information I have is leaked, in this era of opaque information, the information in this data will spread as increasingly outrageous rumors. Perhaps the first person says it's true, but the second person will say that the infected eat people. The third person will say that Oripathy infected individuals can turn an entire city's ordinary people into monsters in one night. The fourth person will say... the rumors will only get more and more outrageous! In the end, maybe someone will casually say that injecting disinfectant into the body can cure Oripathy, and even more ignorant people will believe it."

"Don't always think of things so simply, Major Natasha."

Lin Lu waved his hand, directly putting away the tactical virtual screen, and the bright blue glow gradually dissipated.

Darkness enveloped the room again, but soon the curtains in the ship's window rose rapidly, letting the light back into the room.

Natasha stared at Lin Lu, wanting to refute something, but for some reason she couldn't come up with an effective argument from beginning to end.

“This information could save many people,” she said dryly.

"Nonsense, do you think I don't know? The reason I didn't run away at lightning speed after seeing those monsters was because I was worried about what would happen if those man-eating things escaped from Chernobog. Rhodes Island is only ten kilometers away from Chernobog. With those monsters' inhuman speed of running 100 meters in nine seconds, I almost got caught even on my motorcycle. They might be at your doorstep in the next second!"

"Yes, without you, the consequences would be unimaginable."

Natasha nodded in agreement, her lake-green eyes gleaming with unwavering determination.

"You saved Natalia and the others, you saved the survivors."

"You are the one who brought the souls of the citizens of Chernobog back to their homeland, to rest in peace."

"You are the one who allowed this war-torn city to be buried in the most dignified way."

"It was you who ended the giant monster and saved the nearby mobile cities from devastation."

"It's you……"

"Okay! That's enough, that's enough. Stop praising me."

Lin Lu covered his face with his hands. He was very uncomfortable with being praised so much. He would rather be called a "trash doctor" than a "hero".

The last person called Great Hero has already vanished into the night sky like a shooting star. He still has to be caught by someone to continue the battle, fill up his NP, and then use another shooting star to finish him off.

"Alright, now that things have come to this, I won't hide anything anymore."

Lin Lu let out a sharp rebuke: "Do you know why I had your men waiting at the entrance to the reception room?"

Natasha blinked, then suddenly realized something and exclaimed in astonishment, "Isn't all the information you've given me enough? Is there something even more shocking?!"

"Listen up, that's because I'm about to start swearing!" Lin Lu slammed his fist on the table. "That damned Ursus Emperor is nothing but a cookie! A traitor high on hydroxychloroquine!"

After a few seconds of stunned silence, Natasha's upbringing and the theory of the emperor's supremacy instinctively fueled her anger: "You—!!"

"What do you mean, 'you'? You dare to say no? As the leader of the Third Army Group, why was you betrayed by your monarch when you should have been protecting your country the most? You could only watch helplessly as a tragedy that could have been avoided happened, and then come to me pitifully begging for candy afterward?"

Lin Lu raised an eyebrow, tapped the table twice with his middle finger, and said righteously, "Come on, tell me, why was the Reunion Movement able to infiltrate Chernobog, a border city with a glorious history, so easily? According to Sonia and the others, when the Chernobog incident first broke out, Mephisto, one of the leaders of the Reunion Movement, gathered students from all the schools in the upper city, including a group of noble children controlled by the Reunion Movement. As fear and unease continued to fester, it eventually led to a series of tragedies."

"This is……"

Natasha's anger was immediately extinguished by more than half, and she stammered, unable to speak.

Lin Lu stared directly at Natasha, his cobalt blue eyes solemn: "On the day of the Reunion Movement incident, I said I was there. Rhodes Island's operators came to Chernobog to bring me back to the ship. Our excellent natural disaster messengers on Rhodes Island observed that a natural disaster was about to descend upon the region, but none of them expected that they would happen to encounter the Infected declaring war on that very day. To escape Chernobog, we forged a path with weapons and staffs, fighting to the death. But why…"

"Why have Chernobog's defensive systems never been used?!"

"Why were the garrison troops in Chernobog the first to withdraw from the city?"

"Why did some of the noble lords of Chernobog get the news first and rush off in a hurry!"

"Why is it that this city with such a great history cannot detect the signs of impending natural disaster, and quietly lingers in the disaster area waiting to die!"

Lin Lu roared and howled, as if he wanted to vent the pent-up anger that had been hidden in his heart since he awoke from the stone coffin.

“Natasha Andreyevich Rostov, tell me, why?”