The alarm sounded short and urgent. Everyone instinctively stopped in their tracks, looking around in panic.
In the crowd, flames suddenly flared up.
Anyone who could make it to Black Well had all experienced life-or-death struggles in silence. They all understood what this meant.
Some text that hadn’t been completely erased had caught fire.
Black Well itself had always paid great attention to de-textualization. Although there was the protection of a shielding layer, with soldiers and volunteers constantly coming and going, and the need to guard against sudden failures of the shielding layer, all clothing and supplies distributed in Black Well were completely devoid of any text, even various logos were removable. Vehicles and all kinds of equipment had also been carefully modified to remove text.
However, life within the shielding layer was stable and peaceful, and sometimes people would habitually write. If one carelessly carried something with text on it, even just a small scrap of paper with a few numbers written on it, it would immediately catch fire at this moment.
And it wasn’t just fire.
Immediately afterward, in the flow of people, someone suddenly exploded, blown to pieces in a bloody mess.
W said next to Pei Ran’s ear, “The destruction of the Phase Two shielding generator had signs. I issued the warning as quickly as possible a few seconds before the destruction. If they had stopped talking immediately upon hearing the alarm, they wouldn’t have exploded.”
But someone still spoke after the alarm went off.
Pei Ran stopped the car, took some tape from her backpack, tore off a strip, and carefully stuck it over her mouth.
The familiar silence returned again.
While pressing the tape to her face, she saw in the rearview mirror that within the tall buildings of Black Well, fire had also flared up in some places.
W was also looking in that direction.
“Black Well has a very well-developed automatic sprinkler fire suppression system, but now there are too many berserk fusion forms, so some sprinkler lines might have been damaged.”
And there was no one left to put out the fire.
The flames grew larger and larger, the wild tongues of fire licking at the buildings, appearing especially bright under the half-dimmed dome of darkness.
If the fire spread, this sealed underground city would become a gas chamber and a crematorium.
People came back to their senses and all sped up, rushing into the tunnel leading to the exit ahead.
W leaned over, reached out and pressed Pei Ran’s cheek, helping her smooth down the parts of the tape that hadn’t stuck well.
He had turned into a human, and was even providing this kind of service.
He himself was an artificial intelligence and wouldn’t make the mistake of speaking carelessly, so he didn’t need to wear tape.
Pei Ran started the small truck and also drove into the tunnel.
The lights in the tunnel were still on, brightly illuminating the surging crowd below. People were swarming forward along the passageway.
In a state of silence, being too close to others was not a good thing. Everyone was trying to move as quickly as possible, to leave this place and reach the open area outside Black Well.
Soon, they arrived at the first and second isolation gates.
These two gates were close together. Normally, at this spot, soldiers would come to scan irises, have everyone tape their mouths, and put on suppression wristbands. But today, there were no more soldiers. On the ground and walls, blood stains were still splattered—this place had also been attacked by berserk fusion forms.
The isolation gates stood wide open.
Once past these two gates, they would be outside the protection range of Black Well’s shielding layer—but at this point, there was no difference anymore.
The small truck followed the other vehicles and the stream of people, continuing forward through the tunnel.
At the end of the tunnel was the final gate, the true exit of Black Well.
But the speed of the people and vehicles ahead suddenly slowed down.
Pei Ran had a bad feeling.
Sure enough, W said, “The isolation gate up ahead just malfunctioned.”
Pei Ran also saw it from a distance.
At the tunnel entrance ahead, the space was slightly wider than this part of the tunnel, and a dense crowd of people had gathered.
At the end of the tunnel, the isolation gate that should have been open was now tightly shut.
Quite a few people were pounding on the gate with their fists, making a loud clanging noise as they struck it.
It was completely useless.
This isolation gate was thick and solid—even the mutated berserk fusion forms couldn’t easily break it open, let alone ordinary people.
Amid the desperate pounding on the gate, someone couldn’t help but cry out.
The moment they made a sound, the people around them immediately panicked and tried to move away.
But at the gate, people were packed tightly together—there was no room to escape. One person exploded, and it triggered a chain reaction, dragging others down with them. Flesh and blood splattered, spraying onto the faces and clothes of those nearby.
The people in front were jammed at the gate, while those coming through the tunnel behind were still unaware, continuing to press forward.
If this continued, it wouldn’t just be a matter of a few people getting blown up.
W said, “I’m trying to find a solution. This gate has been open since the evacuation started. It was still open when we entered the tunnel just now. It’s possible that a light vortex or a berserk fusion form damaged the control circuitry.”
The gate had closed on its own.
Pei Ran was very familiar with this kind of isolation gate—it was made of the same material as the underground vault in Zalan City. Back then, she had tried to blow it open with Green Light No. 1. It hadn’t blasted the gate open, but it had successfully unlocked it.
However, Green Light No. 1 had just been used once not long ago, and it needed some time before it could be used again.
W’s calm voice came through next to her ear: “I’ve tried repeatedly—it won’t open. But all of Black Well’s isolation gates have manual switches, located in the duty room.”
The duty room was actually just a small glass cubicle, with a simple workbench inside, located next to the isolation gate.
W said, “My iris hasn’t been registered in the system, Pei Ran. I’ve already granted you the highest administrative access for the isolation gate. As long as you scan your iris, you can manually open the gate.”
Pei Ran nodded. “No problem.”
She continued to drive the truck forward for a bit. When the crowd became too dense to move any further, she pulled the truck to the side and stopped it, then jumped down and handed the gun to Xingkong.
Team Leader Li also sat up from the truck bed. Her face looked a lot better—at least, it wasn’t as pale as before.
She also drew her gun and held it in her hand, using her eyes to signal Pei Ran: Don’t worry.
Pei Ran and W carefully made their way through the dense crowd, squeezing toward the duty room by the gate.
Suddenly, there was a commotion in the crowd near the gate. People began shoving each other, turning around and running back. They collided with the people coming from the tunnel, like two opposing currents meeting, descending into chaos.
Pei Ran knew exactly what they were trying to escape from.
She saw a blinding green light suddenly shoot up from the ground in front of the isolation gate.
It was a large-scale light vortex, spinning as it slowly emerged from beneath the ground.
This thing ignored all obstacles, appearing and disappearing unpredictably, wandering everywhere—and now it had surfaced again from this spot.
The green light grew brighter and brighter, illuminating the tunnel. A huge green spiral arm emerged.
Everyone in front of the gate pushed and shoved each other, trying their hardest to flee backward. Someone fell and was trampled underfoot by the crowd.
Countless people stepped on each other in the panic. The ones who fell couldn’t help but cry out in pain—another chain of explosions followed.
The spiral arm of the light vortex was blocking the way to the duty room—it was temporarily impossible to get through.
Pei Ran stopped and said to W in her mind, “Let’s wait a bit and go once the light vortex passes.”
Judging by the current path of the light vortex, it looked like it intended to cut horizontally across the tunnel.
W agreed: “Alright.”
The two of them stayed as close to the wall as possible, avoiding the crowded masses.
W turned his body to block the oncoming flow of people, using his body and arms to shield a space for Pei Ran.
Pei Ran: ?
No one had ever done something like this for her in her life. Normally, she was the one creating space for others to survive. This felt a bit novel.
She hadn’t needed it before, and she wouldn’t need it in the future—but it felt pretty good. After all, with someone helping, it was easier and less stressful.
More and more of the light vortex’s body surfaced from the ground, but its speed gradually slowed, and in the end—it stopped.
Its spiral arm remained firmly blocking the duty room beside the gate.
With it stretched across the path like that, there was no way to get to the door and open it.
W suddenly said beside her ear, “Pei Ran, this isn’t good. I saw through the surveillance camera at the tunnel entrance—another group of soldiers turned into those berserk fusion forms just entered the tunnel.”
The tentacle monsters had arrived.
Perfect. A light vortex blocking the way ahead, and berserk fusion forms coming from behind—the people in the tunnel had become the filling in a sandwich cookie. No matter which way they ran, it was a dead end.
Green Light No. 1 was still unavailable.
Fortunately, the tentacle monsters hadn’t reached this spot yet—there was still a bit of time.
Pei Ran reached into her pocket and pulled out a pen and paper, pressing them against the wall.
The little artist was about to create on the spot again.
She had to draw amidst this chaotic, crowded sea of people. W was exasperated but amused, spreading his arms even wider to help her clear a larger space free of interference.
Green Light No. 2 flowed to the pen tip. With practiced speed, Pei Ran drew a few swift lines, outlining the rough shape of the tunnel and the isolation gate in the first panel.
The problem was the second panel—what should the outside of the isolation gate look like once opened?
This isolation gate was the same as the outermost door of Zalan’s underground vault. It slid open to the side, and when open, the exit was just an empty, featureless rectangular space.
Last time, there had been a potted plant and an elevator door outside to serve as references for the door being open—but this time, there was nothing.
Pei Ran remembered very clearly—when Black Well’s isolation gate opened, directly in front of it was the bare red rock wall across the great rift.
There was a way to cut corners.
In the second panel of the comic, Pei Ran similarly drew the tunnel and the rectangular end of the tunnel. Then, she added a vertical line in the middle of the rectangle—
She drew the isolation gate opened halfway.
The gate was very wide, and the spiral arm of the light vortex only blocked part of it. As long as half of it could open, it would be enough for people to escape.
She twisted the pen.
But nothing happened.
Green Light No. 2 had always held high standards for rationality. Apparently, there was no logical way for this gate to open only halfway.
No shortcuts. She still had to draw what it looked like outside the gate when it was fully open.
There was one simple method left—coloring in the panel.
The pen in her hand couldn’t be used for coloring, so Pei Ran quickly tapped open the screen on her wristband and launched the drawing app she usually used.
The pen Lin Yu had given her back then worked like a fingertip—it could also draw on a virtual screen.
This time, in the second panel of the comic, Pei Ran filled the opened doorway with the reddish-brown color of the Great Rift’s rock wall.
She twisted the pen.
Still no effect.
Green Light No. 2 judged that her expression was not sufficient.
Pei Ran added a few symbolic lines on the doorframe to represent the texture of the rock wall. The isolation gate still showed no signs of movement. She added some pebbles on the ground and some curves to suggest uneven terrain—still no use.
Frustrated, she went all out and even added a flying bird in the sky—but still nothing.
W took the pen from her.
Through the surveillance cameras, he could see what the rock wall on the other side looked like. He quickly “printed” a detailed image beside her—fast, but extremely precise.
If she had time to follow his reference and draw carefully, Pei Ran could definitely replicate it.
The problem was—there was no time.
The surrounding crowd had begun to stir. In just that short moment, those tentacle monsters had already begun moving in this direction.
Their tendrils twisted and lashed in the air. From afar, one could already see them grabbing people at the far end of the tunnel.
Someone was flung into the air, screaming uncontrollably, then shattered into pieces along with the tentacle that held them.
On the small truck, Li Yin had stood up from the rear bed, looking toward that side with an anxious expression. But she didn’t move—apparently, she still couldn’t use her ability for the time being.
Unfortunately, within this crowd, there wasn’t another Li Yin who could step forward and take care of that many berserk fusion forms.
Pei Ran turned her head and looked once again at the sealed isolation gate ahead.
As long as the gate opened—
If the gate opened, everyone could escape outside. The tentacle monsters might not be able to catch up.
She stopped drawing and turned to look toward the duty room, thinking. W immediately knew what she was considering.
He didn’t agree.
“Pei Ran,” he said, “the last time you came to Black Well, you passed through a light vortex—you almost died.”
Back then, countless points of light had entered her body—it was an agonizing experience. Fortunately, with Black Well’s medicine and doctors, she pulled through.
Now that Black Well had fallen, there would be no such help.
But on the other hand, it was precisely because of that time passing through the light vortex that all the Green Lights inside her had upgraded and their powers had skyrocketed.
The tentacle monsters were already charging toward them.
There were too many of them—without Green Light No. 1, not even Pei Ran could deal with it.
In fact, there was no other choice.
Pei Ran looked toward the small truck, raised both hands, and made a gesture as if gripping a steering wheel—then slipped past W’s arm and charged straight toward the registration point shrouded by the spiral arm of the light vortex.
Xingkong reacted even faster than Li Yin—leaping down from the truck bed, diving into the driver’s seat, and swiftly starting the engine.
This little miner robot, just like the Ren model, seemed to be pretty good at driving too.
Pei Ran didn’t look back at them. She kept running forward. W closely followed behind her.
Because of the light vortex emerging near the gate, there was no one left in this area. The swathes of bright green light from the spiral arm were dazzling, making it impossible to keep one’s eyes open.
Pei Ran paused for a split second in front of the green light.
Inside the tunnel, the crowd being chased by the berserk soldier forms was now stampeding back in a panic.
Everyone saw—a girl stopped in front of the massive spiral arm of the light vortex, and then, without hesitation, dove headfirst into the dangerous green vortex.
People were stunned by such a seemingly suicidal act.
Countless light points, like a storm of bullets, shot densely into Pei Ran’s body. If they were tangible, she would have been turned into a sieve.
It was a familiar feeling.
Only this time, she had passed through a spot closer to the brighter part of the spiral arm—there were far more light points entering her body than last time.
The first thing Pei Ran did was check on Green Light No. 1.
Sure enough, it immediately awakened—startled by the sudden influx of so many berserk light points, it seemed a bit dazed.
Pei Ran tried summoning it into her field of vision—still no success.
But it didn’t matter. She had already passed through the spiral arm and taken a few more steps forward—into the duty room.
W stopped just before the light vortex. “Pei Ran, do you see the white square iris scanner on the wall? Lean in and scan.”
There was an eye symbol on the screen. Pei Ran leaned closer and scanned.
A white circle immediately lit up. The virtual screen below also came to life, showing one red and one green icon.
“System accepted,” W said. “Now press the green circular icon.”
Pei Ran reached out and tapped it, then turned her head.
Even through the blinding green light of the vortex, Pei Ran could see—the isolation gate was slowly moving.
It was finally opening.