Beginning with the Ubume Bird-Chapter 292 - 18: Sergei and... a Fierce Shot
Chapter 292 -18: Sergei and… a Fierce Shot
The contents on the wadded paper abruptly ended. The handwriting was messy and hurried, betraying that the person writing it was venting pure frustration before deeming it inappropriate and tearing it off from the diary to toss under the drawer.
“Tch~”
Li Yan read the words on the wadded paper over and over again, three or four times, but instead of enlightenment, he felt an even greater headache coming on.
The gist of the message appeared to be that the “Great Ben Clock Lab,” or “that man,” incited the superpowers into a world war, and towards the end, the leaders of various countries realized something was amiss. Yet, a nuclear winter still arrived; an astounding conspiracy that swept across humanity, and so on and so forth…
Unfortunately, Li Yan had little interest in these matters.
There was one thing Li Yan was absolutely clear about from beginning to end. He had come to this wasteland following Yu Shu’s instructions via the key. He knew he wouldn’t gain much profit and there was no point in risking his life for such an onerous and thankless task.
Whether the Age of Winter was a truly awful era, Li Yan could not say, but from the motorcycle gangs roaming the dunes to the major corporations sweeping through the apocalypse with an iron fist, probably none of them wished for Li Yan to stick his nose in.
Besides, he had only been here for a mere ten days while they had lived in the Age of Winter for decades. If some formidable force really was behind the creation of this era and local behemoths like “Pompeii Armaments” and “Black Star Tanks” were clueless about it, then this fruit surely deserved to perish.
Moreover, somehow, this level of manipulation felt strangely familiar to Li Yan.
It seemed more like Yan Fu’s style of operating.
Taishui Yu Shu, Qiong Qi, Mo…
If that was indeed the case, then the stance he ought to take became even murkier.
What Li Yan hated most was that the scribbles on the wadded paper prattled on about a bunch of nonsense and deliberately avoided any mention of the “Endless Yak” along with the research plans in this underground facility, which were actually closely related to Li Yan’s current predicament.
Shortly after Li Yan found the wadded paper, he stumbled upon a large teal alloy door with a man-height crack in it after the conventional hydraulic machinery meant to operate it had been destroyed. Li Yan slipped through with ease, not needing to exert any effort.
Behind the door lay a relatively spacious room, around two hundred square meters, with the alternating flashes of dull yellow and red alert lights creating a peculiar sense of urgency.
Li Yan surveyed his surroundings—aside from some cluttered equipment and test tubes, there were sporadic traces of blood on the floor with a pungent smell, wet as if they had just been left there.
Walking over the strewn shards of broken glass, Li Yan passed a dusty surgery table to reach a row of odd machines lined up before him.
These machines, standing two meters tall and connected by numerous strange wires, looked like dated sterile culture vessels for plants. Now all that remained was shattered glass on the floor—evidence that they had been destroyed.
Below each ravaged vessel was an A4 paper with strings of Russian, one of which shockingly read “Winter Yak” and besides it, the number 017.
There was a photo of a blonde girl with a series of ground texts, the name line reading Vera, followed by her personal information, including her name, parents, alma mater, and the unit she belonged to. At the very bottom was a stark red X…
Looking over these glass vessels, excluding the various “Yak” labels, nearly every vessel had a photo attached underneath, showcasing men and women in the prime of their youth, their faces beaming with the unique idealism of that era.
And without exception, every A4 paper at the end was marked with a red X.
There was one outlier, however.
While the other vessels were smashed, this one was intact, albeit empty.
Underneath this vessel, there was a scribbled smiley face, crooked and twisted, signed with “Sergei.”
Li Yan speculated, forming a rough outline of the events in his mind.
In that apocalyptic nuclear war that doomed all of humanity, the researcher who left the wadded paper had been working on the “Endless Yak” for his homeland in this underground base.
The vessels contained semi-finished “Yak” soldiers. It seemed for some reason the military had decided to abandon the project, sealing these inhumane experiments here along with the half-finished products. Following the nuclear strikes, these “Yak” awakened from their vessels and became zombified creatures affected by radiation…
The room had power, and at its center, the green screen of a black-shelled colossal machine displayed scrolling text, but the machine seemed damaged by gunfire, and exposed wires sparked dangerously.
A side drafting table in ochre held a metal box, its lid open and hollow. Li Yan wiped the box’s edge, finding no dust within; the box had been recently opened.
Li Yan slapped his thigh decisively and without a word, he followed the bloodstains and dashed outside!
Having deployed his Sudu bird for no more than five minutes, a loud explosion rang in Li Yan’s ears, shaking the entire facility. By the time he got there, the entrance had collapsed, and it was too late to give chase.
In his frustration, Li Yan swore, “Goddamn it, these zombies are quite clever.” (Northern dialect meaning they are quite intelligent).
Even though the facility had a generator, someone must have been operating it after all these decades to keep this abandoned base’s power system running. Li Yan scoped out the base and, apart from the “Winter Yak,” there was no one else. This indicated that the undead creature had been wandering here for quite some time.
The “Winter Yak” had a brief skirmish with Li Yan and, realizing it was outmatched, immediately ran to the teal door Li Yan had previously found. Not only did it fire at and destroy the machinery, denying Li Yan any useful clues, but it then took whatever “important” item was in the box and fled, and collapsed the cave exit to prevent Li Yan from pursuing.
This string of actions was clearly no different from those of a living person, even more decisive and efficient than ordinary people!
Fortunately, amidst the misfortune, Li Yan was attracted to the spot by a gust of wind from the cave, which suggested there was more than one exit to the base.
“We can’t stay here any longer,”
Li Yan made an instant decision. The Winter Yak possessed enough intelligence, which meant that staying any longer wouldn’t yield any key clues.
Moreover, Li Yan was now afraid that the Winter Yak might come at him relentlessly, or that the base might have some sort of self-destruct mechanism which would be too late to regret once activated.
Of course, this possibility was not great. If such convenient devices existed, the researchers would have used them when they evacuated.
Li Yan bent over and hurried along, his body pressed against the steel plates at the edge of the base buildings.
He had sent all the Sudu birds out, exploring the pitch-black intersections around the base bit by bit. He had taken wrong turns twice, and two Sudu birds died inexplicably during the exploration process—one flew too deep into a cave and lost its way, eventually dying of exhaustion in the dark cave; the other was killed by an unidentified animal resembling a giant earthworm, leaving even Li Yan covered in grime.
Eventually, Li Yan managed to find his way out of the labyrinth-like caves, thanks to a faint light. By then, the sky had already begun to brighten.
Emerging from the cave, the dappled leaden clouds in the sky were still oppressive iron-gray, mixed with some dark red hues like rust, which were aggravating.
But in Li Yan’s eyes, it was undoubtedly a paradise-like view.
He looked around: he stood on an endless black turf with unknown luminescent pools of water floating nearby. Li Yan checked the map; although he couldn’t determine his exact location, there was no doubt that this was no longer the area he was supposed to clear. It was a much deeper area indeed.
Li Yan had a premonition that he would encounter that “Vera” of the Winter Yaks in the Great Demon Lake region.
Suddenly, Li Yan felt an itch on the back of his hand. Lifting his clothes to look, he discovered some tiny red spots there.
People fear the unknown. If Li Yan’s hand had been sliced open with a shocking wound, he wouldn’t have been as bothered, but this unfamiliar territory was making his scalp tingle.
However, Li Yan could clearly feel waves of coolness wrapping around his hand, as if resisting something. This long-lasting sensation somewhat reassured him.
Li Yan glanced at his status bar, where the “exposure to radioactive material” warning had disappeared, replaced instead with “Radiation Infection (Quanlang Sea Ghost Resistance)”.
He exhaled deeply, put a carrot in his mouth, mounted his silver Dodge Tomahawk, and sped away along the pools…
On the black plains, there were still densely scattered ruins and caves, and in addition to the desiccated zombies in tattered clothes, there were a variety of dangerous creatures.
As Li Yan was seeing now.
This was a building frame that had been consumed by flames. Like all structures that could shield ultraviolet rays, a large number of zombies occupied it. Today, these zombies welcomed an unwelcome powerful visitor.
Not Li Yan.
The zombies wielded various old-fashioned firearms, pouring bullets into a deformed monster that walked unsteadily.
The monster was as tall as the building’s frame, with webbed feet that could easily flatten a scrapped jeep, a face slightly resembling that of a human with six limbs, writhing lips with half a zombie’s body hanging out, and hideously frightening. Notably, half its skull, including one eye, had been blown apart, with foul black blood pouring out, driving it into a frenzy.
[???]
Status: Genetic Collapse
Note: The once magnificent Great Demon Lake boasted majestic mountains and green water and beneath the grasslands and glaciers lived wolves, yaks, antelopes, pikas, cranes, and leopards. However, the foundation construction and severe radiation altered this land disastrously, leading to unstable genetics in all creatures. Just a few months of evolution could see herbivorous rabbits gnawing on wolf carcasses while spotted leopards could walk upright…
In such drastic species evolution, often animals would suffer Genetic Collapse due to unbearable changes, and the horrifying creatures in this state would rapidly deteriorate and die within days. Such phenomena were not uncommon in the extreme environment of the Age of Winter.
Significantly, Pompeii Armaments had long been dispatching researchers to record and observe this phenomenon, which they believed could rapidly advance the company’s research on Genetically Modified Agents. In recent years, Black Star and Tanya Mining began to follow suit.
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The horde of zombies encircled the giant creature undergoing Genetic Collapse. The flow of bullets from the machine guns and the fierce flames and shrapnel from grenades were burning the creature’s pain receptors, yet to little effect. The fine wounds left by shrapnel and gunpowder could not fatally threaten the creature. Instead, its hysterical rolling and tearing could lead to heavy casualties among the zombies.
Li Yan crouched behind an abandoned bus covered in moss, observing the battle through a window. He would rather face ten such creatures in Genetic Collapse than confront one fighter jet. The latter’s firepower was terrifying and difficult to target, while the former’s movements seemed clumsy and slow in his view, and were susceptible to Blood Dip explosives. But fairly speaking, this creature’s strength was no less than that of an ordinary fourth-tier soldier. A face-to-face encounter with a third-tier soldier usually left no chance of survival.
Unless he had a sniper rifle powerful enough to be compared to an anti-tank missile.
Gradually, the zombie group couldn’t resist the creature in Genetic Collapse, and it looked like they were about to break.
Boom!
Flames intertwined with black smoke joyously danced and rolled over the creature. With a mournful cry, it suddenly weakened.
Li Yan’s eyelids twitched, and his gaze unconsciously scoured the jungle-like derelict buildings.
With that shot, the spirit of the zombie troops was visibly lifted.
But only Li Yan, who witnessed the entire process, knew clearly that the sniper had lured the creature here on purpose, and the goal was to annihilate both the monster and zombies together.
