Chapter 540: The Mystery Solved
The Spire had always been heavily fortified. The underground base was more than seven hundred meters underground, only accessible by two elevators. The entrance of these two elevators was guarded by nuclear bunker gates capable of withstanding the brunt explosive force tactical nuclear warheads. The exterior of the Spire laboratory was also fortified with alloy plating capable of withstanding battle tank sh.e.l.ls.
Furthermore, the level-five biosafety laboratory was equipped with a complete liquid nitrogen cooling system and a fire suppression system. The researchers dubbed it as the “ultimate bunker laboratory”. Any creature contained inside this laboratory could only ever dream of breaking out of its confinement!
However, all these defensive measures proved to be entirely useless in the face of the Consciousness Stealer. The layer of alloy plating more than half a meter thick was easily torn through as one would tear through a measly piece of paper. All the esteemed suppression systems barely activated before the creature broke out of the laboratory. The creature’s raw power was even above that of Chen Chen with the advantage of Field!
When Chen Chen received news that the Consciousness Stealer had broken out of the Spire, his heart almost stopped. The Eco Science City was practically Blacklight Biotechnology’s foundation and capital of its success. If something were to happen to the world-famous Eco Science City, the global brand of Blacklight Biotechnology would take a major hit!
With this in mind, Chen Chen picked up his speed and charged onto the surface!
The moment he broke through the surface and saw the cloudless sky of the outside world, he was aghast by what he saw. The creature was levitating in the air!
The Consciousness Stealer had an ability similar to Field!
The creature floated around a hundred meters above a square in Eco Science City. Then, it began to open the vertical slit located between its chest and abdomen. Meanwhile, its abdomen was also rapidly expanding like a pufferfish. It quickly enlarged several times its original size and took on the shape of a giant ball!
Chen Chen did not know what this creature was trying to do but he had prepared himself for whatever was about to come his way. No matter what, he had to stop it!
Chen Chen erupted from the underground hole and went after the creature. When he was approximately fifty meters away from the creature, an invisible force shaped like a baseball bat slammed into the creature and sent it flying away in the distance!
“Thump!”
The air was knocked out of the creature as its abdomen quickly deflated!
“Swoosh!”
The enormous body of the creature was sent flying in the shape of an arc, like a perfect home run hit on a baseball...
“X, take care of this hole in the ground and make sure everyone seeing this has their memories erased!”
There was a vicious glare in Chen Chen’s eyes as he geared himself for combat. He rose into skies above, with countless gaping pairs of eyes in Eco Science City watching this otherworldly display. With a roaring explosion that tore through the air, he accelerated into supersonic speed!
He went straight for the creature!
The creature was previously hit with such tremendous force that would have easily demolished a skysc.r.a.per. However, Chen Chen was certain he felt some sort of barrier shielding the creature from his attack. The blow that would have blown it into smithereens ended up only sending it flying away.
This creature did appear to possess something similar to Field...
There was an uncertain look in Chen Chen’s eyes. Although it was at the height of midnight, the T-virus that enhanced his body to superhuman level had given him extraordinary eyesight. He could clearly see the creature flipping and tossing around in circles nearly a kilometer away. It seemed he had landed quite a significant blow despite the creature seemingly guarding itself against his blow.
With just a single blow, Chen Chen had flung it out of the vicinity of Eco Science City!
Chen Chen went after it at supersonic speed and made sure to take precautionary measures by wrapping an invisible layer of Field barrier in a fifty meters area around himself. If the creature were to retaliate instead of retreat, Chen Chen was ready for it.
The previous research had revealed that he could not allow himself to get within a 1.1-meter radius of the Consciousness Stealer!
After the velocity from the attack had expended, the Consciousness Stealer regained its balance. It shrugged in the air momentarily then immediately turned to face the rapidly approaching Chen Chen!
There was a visible shift in Chen Chen’s expression. His thoughts were thrown into a web!
“Fuse with us, fuse with us... For we’re all alone... It’s only by fusing...”
The desire to fuse drowned out every thought in Chen Chen’s mind. His heart was thumping violently at a near-critical rate. His blood pressure immediately skyrocketed, his eyes became bloodshot, and the skin all over his body turned stark red. Even the capillaries in his body were beginning to rupture!
Chen Chen’s supersonic velocity acceleration was immediately cut short. He had a difficult time even suspending himself mid-air...
This had nothing to do with Chen Chen’s mental vulnerability. It was a form of pathological disruption, similar to inflicting a terrible disease on someone. Even the strongest, most iron-willed individual would not be able to overcome all diseases in the world and even defeat death itself. His mind was flung into a jumble of chaos and uproar.
Chen Chen tried all he could to suppress the unhinged, psychotic thoughts swarming his mind. Suddenly, an idea came to him as he raised his hand and threw a pill into his mouth.
The moment he swallowed the pill, his body gave away and dove to the ground below. Seeing this, the Consciousness Stealer jerked its limbs and dove toward Chen Chen as well.
The countless, tiny strands of flagellum on its body quivered constantly as it opened its mouth and again as its abdomen began to expand. Its movements made it look like a large jellyfish. Only this was a jellyfish levitating in the skies above...
As Chen Chen plunged toward the ground from several hundred meters in the skies above, he suddenly came back to his senses. He could feel his mind regaining a sense of clarity as he suspended himself mid-air again and regained his balance as he became resolute again.
Chen Chen’s eyes, nose, and ears were trickling traces of blood. His skin was puffing red like prawns thrown into boiling water. He winced at the rapidly approaching Consciousness Stealer and bellowed, “Fire!”
“Boom!”
The moment he issued the order, a guided missile was launched nearby, dragging a trail of exhaust smoke behind it. It collided with the creature and summoned a dazzling flash of light moments after impact. The flash of light took on a blue l.u.s.ter!
Napalm!
Chen Chen immediately retreated the moment he saw the guided napalm missile launched. He glared into the direction of the enormous ball of flame and saw the creature tossing and turning inside the fire. It was covered all over in flames!
“Hiss-!”
The creature emitted a soul-piercing shriek from within the flames, but Chen Chen’s eyes still remained alert. He fixed his careful gaze on the ball of flames and prepared himself for whatever was about to come.
Previously, the Spire had already concluded reports that the protoplasmic liquid could certainly withstand thousands of degrees of high temperature, but only for a short time. The only instance where it had experienced such extreme temperature was when it was wrapped under the protection of the meteorite surface. At the end of the day, all carbon-based life forms were in one way or another susceptible to fire so it was inevitable.
The use of napalm weapons had always sparked debates because of ethical concerns and had long been banned by the Earth Federation. The moment Chen Chen sensed the creature’s use of a force similar to Field was when he realized that ordinary missiles would not be enough and he had to resort to using specialized weapons...
Napalms were unlike ordinary missiles. It was not loaded with TNT explosives, but a jelly substance composed of gasoline and other chemicals. Upon detonation, it formed a splash of flame that splattered everywhere with a rising extreme temperature of up to a thousand degrees. This substance would cling to the surface of its target and continue burning for extended periods!
The observation described above was what was happening now. The jelly substance was clinging onto the protection barrier around the Consciousness Stealer. It only had two options now. It could either shed its protection barrier which would cause the napalm chemicals to cling onto its body. Otherwise, it could let the napalm continue burning on its barrier, but this would mean it was stuck inside this cauldron, with a surrounding temperature of up to several thousand degrees!
Simply put, the napalm only presented it with two choices: to burn or be roasted to death.
This was a solution that Chen Chen had come up with for some time now. He knew that even with his Field, there were still certain modern weapons that he was still vulnerable to. Apart from threats such as atoms and nuclear bombs, another weapon he had to be cautious of was napalm.
Therefore, the moment a creature with a power similar to his Field emerged, Little X immediately prepared the napalm to combat it!
Chen Chen retreated backward as quickly as he could. Meanwhile, several drones had emerged out of thin air around him. These drones were in a completely camouflaged state, unable to detect by radar, infrared or electromagnetic sources. These drones had long since achieved complete invisibility!
This was the technology the Spire had studied from The Predator movie dimension.
Chen Chen continued watching silently as the creature struggled valiantly inside the sea of flames. At one point, it made one tremendous leap out of the sea of flames and tried to get away with a ball of flame still stubbornly clinging onto its barrier.
“Get him!”
Chen Chen ordered and began to chase after the creature while taking caution to keep a moderate distance between them. Meanwhile, the drones also followed after the creature and trailed closely after it.
Due to the creature being enc.u.mbered, it did not take long for the drones to catch up to it.
After escaping the vicinity of the Eco Science City, the flames were finally dying out. The creature’s body had sustained significant burns all over and its cuticle had been charred and turned into darkened layers of epidermis that peeled off as it flew, exposing layers of b.l.o.o.d.y flesh underneath.
Another drone fired another missile at it.
This time, the creature had learned its lesson. It nimbly dodged out of the way just in time for the missile to glide past its body. However, it did not expect the missile to detonate despite not landing a direct hit on it!
“Bang!”
Another blinding explosion!
“Hiss-!”
The creature let out another piercing scream and dragged its burned body off into the distance. The burning jelly chemical substance clung onto its body stubbornly and set it alight with a blue-colored flame!
The creature was taught a good lesson of what modern technology was capable of.
The consecutive napalm had inflicted major damage on the creature and slowed it down again. This time, it tumbled head-first on a barren plain.
Seeing this, Chen Chen started to slow down without much sense of urgency. He stopped several hundred meters in the air and looked down at the monster with a pensive look.
Although it possessed an otherworldly strength similar to Field that was capable of tearing through armor effortlessly, its intelligence seemed to complement it quite poorly. If Chen Chen was put into its predicament, he would come up with a mult.i.tude of options to avoid the napalm. He could simply retreat into the city just like what happened in The Predator movie. If he was hiding in the city, the humans would be left without a choice other than to sacrifice their common people.
Could the Consciousness Stealer that infected human consciousness be such a simple creature?
Chen Chen decided to not trouble himself with these thoughts. He waved his hand.
“Bang!”
In an instant, another ma.s.sive column of flame rose into the sky above. The heat of the explosion spread from its center and swept past his feet.
The column of flame came from a thermobaric bomb.
The thermobaric bomb could instantly vaporize the air within a several-hundred-meter radius from its center of explosion. This was further accompanied by extreme heat that allowed it to demolish any substance on Earth.
The wind carried scorching heat in Chen Chen’s direction. He fixed his gaze on the flame and waited until it dissipated and showed the charred black ground with the chunk of burnt flesh at its center.
The Consciousness Stealer was undoubtedly dead by now.
Chen Chen only frowned when he saw the carca.s.s of the alien creature. He did not seem impressed or happy about the death of this opponent in the least. That was because he could still feel the pulsing voice lurking somewhere deep inside his mind.
This meant that even killing the Consciousness Stealer could not get rid of this consciousness infection effect inside his mind. However, it did seem like the severe symptoms of this infection were starting to lighten...
“Sir G.o.dfather.”
Little X spoke to Chen Chen through the earpiece, “I just received news that the cloned copies of all the other Consciousness Stealers in the Spire laboratory as well as all the other laboratories in the Earth Federation, had died simultaneously without warning!”
“Hm?”
Chen Chen raised an eyebrow in suspicion. “They all died? At the same time as the Consciousness Stealer here?”
“No, it was right at the moment when the Consciousness Stealer broke out of confinement.”
Little X answered, “Based on the timestamp reported, it happened within a three-second window of the event!”
Chen Chen was amused to hear this report. He looked at the now deceased Consciousness Stealer lying lifelessly on the charred ground. “I think I get it now...
“Earlier, I could feel the consciousness infection symptom lightening at least just a little, it was like when I was first infected by it. If we couple that with what you have just told me, I think I can see the connection?”
“What’s the connection?”
Little X was eager to know about Chen Chen’s observation.
Chen Chen gave a signal for the drones to continue incinerating the body of the Consciousness Stealer with napalm while he stood a safe distance away and remarked, “Do you remember what happened previously? When we cloned five Consciousness Stealers and moved them to the same laboratory, four of them died near-instantly, leaving only the strongest one of the bunch that we see here...
“With that, we can verify that this is a phenomenon similar to the selection of a queen bee in a bee colony. In the bee colony’s case, the reason for this selection is to suppress the secretion of pheromones. From this, we can observe that the Consciousness Stealers must use a more sophisticated form of suppression ability.”
“I get it now, just like its ability to infect the human conscience, it’s an advanced inter-s.p.a.ce suppression that surpa.s.ses humans’ current scope of scientific understanding!”
Little X remarked, “This means that the moment a Consciousness Stealer breaks out of confinement and makes it to the outside world, it’s able to suppress all existing common species. That’s why all of the cloned Consciousness Stealers in the world perished at the same time...”
“That’s right.”
Chen Chen nodded thoughtfully. “That is correct, furthermore... I think I have an idea of how this creature gets the ability similar to Field. It seemed to be the culminated life source of the millions of victims it has claimed, mutated into some form of spiritual power!”