Zalan City.
Pei Ran had been drawing nonstop until after ten in the evening when she suddenly heard footsteps coming from the quiet corridor.
It was time to fill the chemical compound—Konox-47.
Little Kai first went to knock on the doors of Captain Yu Zhao and Dr. Johnson. After exchanging messages with them using the electric code, he came to knock on Pei Ran’s door.
He didn’t enter, just stood at the doorway: [The supplies have arrived. It’s time to start filling. I’ll take you over.]
According to the information, the sealing and transfer process of Konox-47 needed to be closely supervised throughout, but the primary person responsible for monitoring was the chemical expert Dr. Johnson. Pei Ran and Captain Yu Zhao were basically just there as observers.
Pei Ran nodded, turned off the wristband screen, and reapplied a strip of tape over her mouth.
Little Kai reminded her: [According to the notes in the files, no firearms are allowed at the filling site.]
Pei Ran took out her gun and placed it beside the pillow, then picked up her backpack.
Little Kai was puzzled: [We’ll be back soon. It won’t take long. No need to bring a bag.]
Pei Ran replied: [It’s fine. I’m used to it.]
Little Kai took the lead heading downstairs.
Zalan at night was pitch black. The towering buildings stood like silhouettes. Little Kai turned on the emergency lamp he was holding.
Dr. Johnson and Captain Yu Zhao had already gone ahead, led by a soldier, just a short distance in front.
Pei Ran said to W, “Kind of like when we were in White Harbor.”
The mechanical spider clung to the edge of her pocket, revealing one eye. W replied, “Yeah.”
Back then, he was still a broken sphere, wandering with her through the quiet, newly-silent city of White Harbor, walking through dark and deserted streets and alleys.
They weren’t heading in the direction of the Zalan station.
Little Kai tapped on the back of his hand: [There may be leakage risks during the sealing process. According to operational protocol, it needs to be conducted in an enclosed space, so we temporarily requisitioned the basement of a building up ahead.]
He said “requisitioned,” but in truth, there was no one left in Zalan anymore—no one cared where they used.
He tapped: [Don’t worry, the place we’re going is still within the protective wall of the safe zone.]
Pei Ran asked, “What exactly is this Konox-47 that it needs such a big setup? Is it poisonous?”
W replied, “It’s a dark red, viscous liquid. Not poisonous, but it’s highly corrosive. It can only be stored in specially-made metal containers, so the transport process has to be very careful.”
After walking just a few blocks, Captain Yu Zhao and the others in front turned into a tall building.
The ground floor of the building was unusually lit.
The entire Zalan is experiencing a power outage, yet the lights in this place are still on. It’s probably connected to an independent power source, just like the train station.
Little Kai led Pei Ran into the building as well.
The elevator door was half-open, its control panel completely burned out and melted into a lump. Little Kai took Pei Ran down the stairs at the corner.
When they reached the underground second floor and emerged from the emergency exit, there was a small space ahead with an elevator and a potted green plant about half a person’s height. However, with no one watering it since the silence began, it had withered beyond recognition.
Further ahead was a short corridor. The walls and ceiling appeared to be made of metal, and the floor looked solid.
Little Kai curled his knuckles and knocked: [This used to be a bank’s underground vault—completely airtight. Don’t worry, even if there’s a leak, we can just seal it off.]
Captain Yu Zhao and the others should have already gone inside. Little Kai and Pei Ran walked down the corridor.
At the end of the corridor was a heavy metal door, slightly ajar—just like the vault door Pei Ran had imagined.
After entering, there was another small space, followed by another equally sturdy door.
Pei Ran had read before that vaults had this two-door structure to prevent tailgating: one door had to be locked before the other could open. But now, in these extraordinary times, both doors were left open.
Only after passing through the second door did they reach the real vault.
The vault was quite large, empty with nothing stored inside, like a suite with an even deeper section.
A gurgling sound came from within, like liquid flowing.
Little Kai knocked: [They’re all inside—probably already preparing to seal it. Colonel Kurma has also arrived.]
Pei Ran nodded.
Little Kai stopped walking and didn’t proceed further.
The moment he paused, Pei Ran immediately glanced at him.
Little Kai seemed surprised that Pei Ran hadn’t continued forward and had stopped with him. An awkward smile flashed across his face as he gestured for her to go ahead.
Pei Ran instantly noticed something off about his expression.
Suddenly, she reached out and grabbed Little Kai’s arm.
She acted without warning, and Little Kai, completely unprepared, lost his polite smile in an instant, panicking as he struggled to break free and run.
But not only did Pei Ran’s mechanical hand grip his arm firmly, the heavy metal door in front of them also slammed shut with a loud “clang.”
A series of “click-click-click” sounds came from inside the door—the sound of locks engaging.
Then, faintly, they could hear the outer door slamming shut as well.
Little Kai hadn’t expected the door to close so abruptly, trapping him inside too. Ignoring Pei Ran’s grip on his arm, he frantically threw himself at the door, pounding on it with his free hand, the noise reverberating loudly.
Inside one of the vaults on the first floor, the sound of flowing water grew louder.
Pei Ran first called out silently in her mind: “W?”
There was no sound in her ear.
His signal had been blocked again. Pei Ran had long grown used to this sort of thing.
She immediately looked down at the spider in the breast pocket of her shirt.
W had mentioned last time that the spider had its own Neta wave generator and could bypass signal jamming to continue communicating with her.
But strangely, the mechanical spider was curled up in her pocket like it was dead, completely motionless.
Even the mechanical spider couldn’t move—proof that all transmission signals were also blocked.
Someone had built a sealed metal cage and trapped her inside. In order to contain her, they didn’t hesitate to sacrifice Little Kai, who had lured her into the cage under the guise of guiding the way.
Little Kai was already panicking, on the verge of breaking down. Only now did he realize Pei Ran was still grabbing his arm, and he frantically began fumbling inside his clothes.
He hadn’t allowed others to carry guns, yet he had hidden one on himself.
Pei Ran didn’t give him the chance to pull it out and snatched it directly from him.
It was a decent weapon—a Nightshadow M3000 tactical handgun.
Little Kai struggled a couple of times but couldn’t win against Pei Ran. Then he started banging on the door in a frenzy, as if clinging to a final hope, hoping someone outside would let him out.
He was just a disposable pawn. Pei Ran let go of him altogether and first checked the green light within her body.
The green light hadn’t been suppressed and was functioning normally.
They had severed her communication signal with W but hadn’t tried to suppress the green light. Their approach was quite different from the royal faction’s methods.
With the green light still there, Pei Ran felt much more at ease. She scanned the room, then used Little Kai’s gun to shoot out the surveillance camera on the ceiling.
Whoever had been watching her—don’t even think about it anymore.
After dealing with the surveillance camera, Pei Ran gripped the gun and headed straight into the inner room.
She wanted to see what exactly had terrified Little Kai to this degree.
As expected, there was no one in the inner room. Naturally, there was no Colonel Kurma, and no sign of Captain Yu Zhao and the others either. It was possible that Yu Zhao and the rest had all just been decoys, only pretending to enter the building. They might never have come to the vault at all and had long disappeared somewhere else.
In the center of the room stood a massive silver metal tank, over twice the height of a person.
The tank was overturned. The body of the tank had been deliberately sabotaged and was continuously gushing out a thick red liquid.
The person who set this trap must have planned it meticulously, timing it perfectly. Now, the inner chamber was already filled with liquid, covering the ground around the container and rapidly spreading outward.
Judging by the liquid’s properties, it looked a lot like the highly corrosive Konox-47 that W had mentioned.
There was only one way to find out.
Pei Ran pulled a pack of tissues from her bag and tossed it toward the liquid.
A sharp “hiss” sounded.
The moment the tissue packaging touched the red liquid, it rapidly blackened, emitting a wisp of blue smoke.
It really was corrosive fluid. The floor and walls here could withstand its effects, but a human body probably couldn’t.
Pei Ran touched the nearby wall, clenched her fist, and punched it with full force.
Even with the mechanical arm’s immense strength, the wall didn’t budge—not even a dent. The material was similar to the metal walls of the isolation center, though she wasn’t sure what it was made of.
Green Light No. 1 was usable now. If it could repair her body, it could probably fix this broken container too.
Pei Ran quickly assessed the situation.
Using Green Light No. 1 to seal the container and stop the liquid from leaking further wouldn’t help much.
The vault’s floor was flat, and there was no door between the inner and outer chambers. At this rate, even if she plugged the leak now, the spilled liquid would soon cover the entire vault floor.
Its extreme corrosiveness made it unlikely that anything could block it.
Rather than dealing with the leaking container, it’d be better to find a way out.
Pei Ran summoned Green Light No. 1 into her mind’s eye and quickly wrote:
[The two vault doors are blown open, leaving large holes.]
She finished with a period, but nothing happened—the words remained.
Green Light seemed unable to blast through.
Now she understood why the trap’s creator, knowing she had Green Light, hadn’t bothered suppressing it and still dared to lock her in here.
This place was probably made of the same material as Black Well’s isolation center—something capable of withstanding a fusion entity’s destructive power.
The thick red corrosive liquid continued to spread toward them. Little Kai, trembling in terror, pressed himself against the door.
But Green Light No. 1 could do far more than just brute-force destruction.
Pei Ran erased the previous words in her mind and tried writing again:
[The locks on the two vault doors malfunction and open by themselves.]
Could things like unlocking and prying open doors be possible with Green Light No. 1’s current abilities?
Green Light No. 1 had a specific effective range. The two doors were quite close to each other—they should both fall within that range.
The moment she finished the sentence, the words disappeared, and from within the metal door came a series of clicking sounds.
The sounds lasted only two or three seconds before the door suddenly popped open with a click.
Pei Ran had only been testing it out—and it had actually worked.
The door opened, and Little Kai, overjoyed, yanked it open and bolted outside.
Pei Ran stepped forward and grabbed him by the collar.
He might still be useful. Pei Ran dragged him along as she exited the door.
Sure enough, the outer metal door had also been successfully opened by Green Light No. 1 and was now left half ajar.
Pei Ran pulled it open, dragging Little Kai with her.
She froze for a moment.
Ahead was that short section of corridor—but at the end of the corridor, it wasn’t the space with the green plants and the elevator.
A hidden metal door had appeared out of nowhere, blocking the end of the hallway and cutting off her escape.
Pei Ran: “…”
Little Kai was completely stunned as well.
Pei Ran first raised her gun and shot out the surveillance camera on the corridor ceiling. Only then did she release him and go over to feel the door.
This door was made of the exact same material as the previous ones—also a material extremely resistant to brute force damage.
Just now, Pei Ran had worried that writing something vague like “the vault’s door lock malfunctioned” might only open one of the doors, so she had specifically written “both vault doors’ locks malfunctioned.”
And now, a third door had appeared.
Green Light No. 1 had upgraded. Based on the last time at the royal estate on the outer island, she figured that if she waited a bit longer, she should be able to activate it again and open another door.
The problem was—time wasn’t on her side.
In just this short moment, the vault’s floor had already been completely submerged by the red liquid, which was now continuing to flow out through the door, flooding into the corridor outside.
Pei Ran immediately rushed over, trying to close the door between the vault and the corridor again.
However, the door had “malfunctioned” thoroughly—its bolts had all popped out, top and bottom, and it couldn’t be shut at all.
Pei Ran tried with her mechanical hand. The metal bolts jamming the door were just as solid—impossible to dislodge. The thick, red corrosive liquid was already seeping out through the loose seams of the door.
Pei Ran immediately stepped back.
There was nowhere to run.
The walls on both sides were made of that special metal—impossible to carve footholds into—and the corridor was too wide to brace against with arms and legs to climb upward.
The red Konox-47 spread rapidly, like a death sentence closing in.
Little Kai, utterly panicked, pressed himself desperately against the exit door.
Pei Ran looked up, studying the corridor’s ceiling.
Suddenly, she took a running start, leaped, and kicked off one wall to propel herself higher.
Embedded in the ceiling were several hidden lights, each the size of a poker chip, with flat, transparent covers. Pei Ran’s metal fingers shattered one cover, hooking into the gap between the light and its casing.
She shifted her grip, hanging from the hole with her left hand, then swung forward and punched through the next light cover with her right.
Now suspended by both hands, her fingers hooked into the ceiling’s light fixtures, she dangled above the floor.
Below, the thick red corrosive liquid surged forward, leaving only the tiny patch of ground beneath Little Kai untouched.
Desperate, Little Kai jumped, straining to reach the ceiling.
But he wasn’t Pei Ran. The vault’s ceiling was high—far beyond his ability to reach.
In a frantic burst of inspiration, he lunged toward Pei Ran, still hanging in midair.
If he could grab her, his feet wouldn’t touch the corrosive fluid.
Pei Ran had anticipated this. She gave him a cold glance, tightened her grip, curled her legs up, and swung just out of reach.
Little Kai missed. His face twisted in horror as he plummeted uncontrollably—
—straight into the thick, viscous liquid.
He didn’t even scream. His face submerged instantly.
After two feeble twitches, he went still.
Where his limbs and clothes met the fluid, bubbles gurgled up as his flesh blackened into char.
Thin wisps of blue smoke curled into the air, carrying a sharp, acrid stench of burning.