Chapter Thirty-Four: Arrival at the Destination

After crossing the sea of flowers, Ye Hai’s luck finally turned for the better.

Along the way, he didn’t encounter any attacks from mutated creatures. Even the zombie crows in the sky didn’t sound any alarms. After nearly two hours of nonstop travel, Ye Hai safely arrived at the designated area.

By this time, four of the six moons in the sky had already sunk below the horizon, and the light grew dimmer. In the faint gloom, Ye Hai caught sight of several dilapidated buildings ahead. Though the structures were badly damaged, their technological aura remained unmistakable. These were spherical buildings, utterly unlike the architectural styles of any country on Earth.

Twenty years had passed, yet the dust-covered, pitch-black spheres still reflected a subtle metallic sheen under the moonlight.

The military camp consisted of four spheres positioned at the cardinal points—east, south, west, and north. The location of these buildings fell precisely within the narrow strip between the seventh and eighth stage territory rings.

This was a place Ye Hai had never reached before. He even believed that, since the formation of the irradiated zone, only Zero had ever ventured so far on this zombie-infested planet.

According to Zero’s own account, she caught a glimpse from afar of a creature that resembled a feline but measured over eighty meters in length. After that, she lost all desire to go any deeper.

Why only “resembled” a feline? Because this cat-like creature had over a dozen legs, and more than half its body was armored with thick chitinous shells. Judging by its appearance alone, few could say what on earth that thing actually was!

The primary difference between seventh-stage mutants and those of the eighth stage lay in their massive size—and the utter unpredictability of their forms. It was like the “earthworm” Javier and the others had encountered earlier: when it emerged from the soil, it sported the body of a cheetah. One could hardly tell whether the earthworm had strayed, the cheetah had gone rogue, or perhaps an elephant had swollen lips. In short, once these mutants evolved to the eighth stage, there was almost no way to recognize what they had been before infection.

Keeping low, Ye Hai slipped beneath the nearest giant black sphere, grimacing at the sight. From a distance, the four spheres looked like mere protrusions—but up close, they were colossal structures.

The spheres, two-thirds exposed above ground and one-third buried below, towered over a hundred meters high above the surface.

Moreover, they were remarkably full and spacious. Even if every office inside included a swimming pool, each sphere could house over a thousand rooms. In such a vast space, Ye Hai searching alone for a tiny identification card within a few hours was truly like looking for a needle in a haystack.

Dragging his weary steps into the building, Ye Hai was surprised to find the interior wasn’t pitch black as he had expected. The metallic-looking exterior walls, viewed from inside, were as transparent as glass. Moonlight streamed in unobstructed, even enhanced to a degree, giving Ye Hai—a country bumpkin by Earth standards—his first true taste of advanced technology.

Though many facilities inside were old and worn, the overall layout remained fairly intact. Evidently, for some unknown reason, this place had not been ravaged by mutants.

Reaching the central hall, Ye Hai was delighted to find a massive schematic map displayed prominently in the middle.

“Armory!”

“Command room!”

“Observation room!”

“Communication platform!”

After carefully studying the map, Ye Hai confirmed that this building did not contain what he needed. Of course, if Dr. Averill Schmidt happened to drop his ID card in some office while visiting, that was beyond Ye Hai’s control.

Relying on the schematic maps in each building, Ye Hai finally spotted the words “ART-3 Research Laboratory” in the third sphere.

His eyes lit up immediately, for he knew that the official name for the zombie virus was ART-3.

Though he had found the ART-3 laboratory, Ye Hai frowned deeply. The lab was buried over thirty meters underground, with no stairwell access—only an elevator.

With the power system completely dead, Ye Hai had no choice but to find a way down through the elevator shaft.

For Ye Hai, who could mimic a Licker, this wasn’t too daunting. After all, in the game, Lickers often climbed walls at a ninety-degree angle to the ground, terrifying players.

But this was a zombie virus laboratory, thirty meters deep in total darkness underground. If any strange leftover specimens lurked within, Ye Hai could easily suffer grave consequences.

The T-virus hadn’t granted Ye Hai infrared vision in the dark! If any eighth-stage monster was down there, descending would be no different from delivering himself right to its door.

For ten years, Ye Hai had kept a low profile, honing his survival skills. He always avoided unknown adventures that could risk his life. Unlike other transmigrators who, upon gaining their system, slaughtered their way to glory and ascended to the pinnacle of life, Ye Hai wasn’t sure he was the protagonist of any novel.

After much deliberation, Ye Hai decided to throw a zombie crow into the elevator shaft to scout ahead.

Locating the elevator, he forced open a small gap with brute strength and tossed a zombie crow inside. He himself pressed cautiously against the edge, ears pricked for any sounds below.

After a series of crashes and thuds from the zombie crow, silence fell. Ye Hai knew the unlucky creature had found the bottom.

As Ye Hai waited anxiously, time slipped by—ten minutes or more. Another round of banging echoed up. Finally, the battered zombie crow, its head swollen from collisions, burst out of the shaft and landed on Ye Hai’s shoulder with a noisy cawing.

Ye Hai understood the gist: “Too dark, couldn’t see anything… crashed into the wall 127 times!”

Faced with this outcome, Ye Hai could only roll his eyes helplessly.

After a brief hesitation, Ye Hai finally pried open the shaft further and prepared to descend himself.

Standing at the edge of the dark elevator shaft, he couldn’t help but swallow hard. He truly didn’t want to go. But for the ID card… he wanted it!

Thinking of the zombie crow below, crashing 127 times and making so much noise without being attacked, Ye Hai gritted his teeth, steeled his resolve, and mimicked a Licker, carefully climbing down the shaft wall step by step.

At last, after several minutes, Ye Hai reached the bottom.

He emerged from the shaft, feeling along the walls—a narrow corridor.

Ye Hai crawled along the corridor wall, then up to the ceiling, hanging upside down as he slowly moved deeper into the pitch-black passageway.