The light on the metal sphere became extraordinarily bright, like a searchlight, and its angle of illumination widened significantly.
The glaring light revealed every detail of the patterns on the two high concrete walls on either side.
Yulianka had just dived into the water from the top of the train like a fish, disappearing to who knows where. Perhaps she was still inside the dam, or perhaps she had been swept away by the surging muddy water.
Turning on the high beam would expose Pei Ran’s own position, but the light was bright enough that she couldn’t hide. If Yulianka was still around, she wouldn’t be able to hide either.
Pei Ran, carrying this ultra-bright light, moved inward along the tracks.
The light was considerate. Even as her body swayed with her steps, the beam remained steadily focused ahead, automatically scanning up and down.
After walking about fifty meters, a strange sight appeared ahead.
It was a small house, uniquely charming, resembling a cottage from a fairy tale. Its body was made of red bricks, with only the door and window frames constructed from white bricks, interlocking with the red bricks like dog teeth. The door was wooden, painted red.
However, this house was not on the ground.
It was like a plant uprooted, with half of its foundation still attached, suspended in mid-air at the height of two or three stories. It seemed as though it had plunged into the adjacent high concrete wall, with only half remaining outside while the other half disappeared into the wall.
Pei Ran looked up and examined it. “Is this it?”
W was very certain: “I’ve seen photos in the records. This red brick house is the control room.”
It seemed that it had been swallowed when the dam fusion entity shifted its position.
Pei Ran assessed, “It’s so dilapidated. I wonder if it still works.”
W said, “There should be a signal-transmitting device inside, with a built-in power source. If it wasn’t damaged during the fusion entity, it should still function. We can only try our luck.”
The metal sphere’s black “eyes” examined the wall.
The control room was positioned quite high, and the wall leaned slightly inward.
He asked, “How do we climb up?”
He didn’t know, but Pei Ran did. Her mechanical hand pointed toward the concrete wall.
The wall, like a living creature, seemed to shrink back slightly upon being touched.
But against Pei Ran’s mechanical hand, retreating was useless. Chunks of gray material fell from the wall as she quickly chiseled out a shallow indentation.
Pei Ran then carved several new indentations at different heights. Using her fingers to grip the upper indentation and her feet to step on the lower one, she lifted herself off the ground and clung to the wall.
Her movements were light and agile, as if she were simply climbing a ladder.
This is like climbing a sloping rock face, W thought.
He turned his head to scan the area, confirming there was no danger, then shifted the camera back to Pei Ran, inwardly admitting that, for a human, she was terrifyingly strong.
Pei Ran chiseled her way forward, creating a path for herself as she swiftly climbed up the sloping wall. Her speed was astonishing, like a gecko, and she soon reached the height of the control room.
Her hand could now touch the broken foundation of the control room. Pei Ran stopped chiseling new indentations, placed her hand on the foundation, tested its strength, and with a pull of her arm, hoisted herself up.
She steadily climbed onto the narrow ledge, only half a foot wide, at the entrance of the small house.
Just as Pei Ran stood up and was about to open the door, she heard faint movements inside.
A rustling sound.
It was like the sound of snake skin rubbing against the ground, eerily familiar—the same rustling she had heard in the dark train car earlier when the train had stopped.
It was Yulianka.
No wonder there had been no trace of him despite the metal sphere’s bright light illuminating the area. He had been hiding here. This control room was suspended high in the air, and it was baffling how he had managed to climb up.
Pei Ran gently pushed the door, but it was locked.
She swung her mechanical arm and slammed her elbow into the lock.
The wooden door couldn’t withstand the force. With a crack, the lock and a piece of the wooden plank broke off, and the door swung open.
W’s searchlight illuminated the interior.
The control room looked bizarre. Half of the room was embedded into the dam’s wall, with only part of the cabinets exposed. The window was wide open, and the table in front of it was still intact.
Even stranger was the strange “person” standing by the table.
“Standing” wasn’t quite the right word—he was more like a limp figure leaning against the table. His face was still Yulianka’s, and he was still wearing the white lab coat, but his body seemed boneless, soft and slumped against the table.
Hearing the noise, he twisted his upper body with a fluid, almost serpentine motion.
The front of his lab coat was open, revealing something strange inside: below his waist, the fabric of his clothes seemed to have merged with some kind of spiral-patterned tubing, coiled like a soft snake’s body, extending downward and looping on the floor.
The spiral-patterned tubing looked familiar to Pei Ran. Suddenly, she remembered where she had seen it before.
At the entrance of Yehai Station No. 7, inside the metal gate’s casing, there had been the same spiral-patterned tubing connecting a row of metal gates.
The thief.
He was the one who had stolen the takeout—the one who had stolen the green light from the gates—her green light’s fried chicken.
Yulianka had been shot by W in the forehead and upper abdomen, but now there was no trace of the wounds. No wonder W had said he was no longer human but more like a deranged fusion entity.
Pei Ran felt a flicker of confusion in her heart.
When she had hypnotized several people at the entrance and tested the method on the gate, the gate fusion entity was still alive, and its green light remained safely inside the metal casing.
Assuming that Yulianka had been controlling Inaya all along and had the ability to hypnotize others, possessing the power to control their abilities, then he should have been an order-state fusion entity.
In other words, he must have absorbed at least two points of green light:
One was the order-state green light that allowed him to control others’ abilities, and the other was the deranged-state green light from the gate fusion entity.
Pei Ran herself had also absorbed three deranged-state green lights from the pipeline workers. That green light had simply been “eaten” by Green Light No. 1 like takeout, and she had remained perfectly fine, with no strange occurrences.
But why had Yulianka turned into this state after absorbing the deranged-state green light from the gate?
As soon as Yulianka saw that it was Pei Ran, he twisted his body swiftly, instantly “slithering” onto the table and smoothly slipping out through the open window on the opposite side.
Pei Ran rushed in, dashed to the window, and leaned out to look down.
Yulianka had already slithered down the outer wall of the small house and onto the adjacent high wall.
His body wriggled, clinging tightly to the wall. The fine patterns on the spiral tubing expanded and contracted, gripping the surface as he crawled down like a snake, moving at an astonishing speed.
Most importantly, although he had no legs, he still had two arms, and in his hands, he clutched a large black box, about forty centimeters square.
Pei Ran: “Is that the signal transmitter for the switch?”
W had already seen it. “Yes.”
Pei Ran turned and rushed back to the door, climbing down the wall along the previously chiseled indentations, feeling utterly exasperated.
This Yulianka, who had turned himself into this half-human, half-ghost state, actually had the audacity to steal the transmitter.
He seemed very familiar with Yehai Station No. 7, even knowing about the switch and the control room. Was he so opposed to changing its direction to the northwest?
It was unclear what kind of obsession he had with the old circular route.
Pei Ran was in a hurry to chase him, descending even faster than she had climbed up. When she was still a good distance from the ground, she simply jumped down.
Not far ahead, Yulianka had also reached the ground.
He still hadn’t stood up. With both hands clutching the transmitter, the lower half of his body pressed against the ground, the spiral tubing twisting and stretching as he slithered forward rapidly.
She couldn’t let him escape.
Pei Ran broke into a sprint.
Yulianka slithered deeper into the dam. Fortunately, W’s searchlight shone far enough, keeping him in sight and leaving him nowhere to hide.
After slithering a short distance, he suddenly turned and disappeared into the wall.
Pei Ran grew anxious, sprinting over, only to realize that Yulianka hadn’t actually disappeared.
This section of the concrete wall had a set of slanted, upward-leading stairs. Yulianka was slithering up the stairs in his serpentine form, which slightly slowed his pace. Pei Ran charged up the stairs after him, taking large strides.
The staircase was incredibly long, seemingly endless, stretching over a hundred meters. At the top was what appeared to be a square exit.
Yulianka slithered ahead while Pei Ran pursued him fiercely.
Thud, thud. W fired his gun, shooting at Yulianka’s chest and abdomen, trying to locate the mutated heart. But Yulianka showed no reaction.
W said, “I’ll try shooting his eyes.”
Pei Ran replied, “Okay.”
He fired from behind, two shots piercing through Yulianka’s head. Almost instantly, the holes in Yulianka’s head healed, and his speed didn’t slow at all.
The ability to transform was a feature of the gate fusion entity, and Yulianka had inherited it perfectly.
Pei Ran climbed the stairs at an astonishing speed, steadily closing the distance. Just as she was about to reach the exit, the upward stairs suddenly twisted violently, like a wave.
It was the Tanggu Dam moving.
Boom, boom—
Deep within the dam, a series of earthquake-like rumbles echoed, as if the internal structure was collapsing and twisting.
In such a cataclysmic moment, the advantage of crawling close to the ground became apparent. Yulianka was completely unaffected by the shaking and continued slithering up the stairs, soon disappearing through the exit.
Pei Ran did her best to steady her steps, holding onto the wall beside her as she rushed up the stairs.
As she burst through the exit, a gust of cool, fresh air hit her face, carrying the faint, fishy scent unique to watersides.
This was actually the top of the Tanggu Dam.
The dam, like a continuous high wall, stretched across the wide river. Beside it was the massive reservoir, its surface rippling slightly under the moonlight due to the dam’s tremors.
Yulianka, still clutching the transmitter, had already slithered to the edge of the dam.
Pei Ran suddenly understood what he intended to do.
He was going to throw the switch transmitter into the reservoir.
Just like the three pipeline workers who were obsessed with extending their pipes to connect others as part of the pipeline, Yulianka, after becoming a deranged fusion entity, seemed to have developed a mad obsession with preventing Yehai Station No. 7 from changing tracks.
He was stubbornly determined to stop the train from switching tracks. What kind of deep-seated grudge did he have against this train?
She absolutely couldn’t let him throw the transmitter into the water. If he did, there would be no way to switch the tracks back.
W fired again, this time aiming at Yulianka’s arm.
Unfortunately, his weapon’s effect was piercing. Yulianka’s arm deformed instantly as the hole was created, but it quickly closed up again, leaving him unharmed.
Pei Ran urgently called out to W in her mind: “Tell Black Well to send a text message to Yulianka’s wristband! Hurry!!”
W, who even knew how much tax the local veterinary clinic paid each year, couldn’t possibly be unaware of Yulianka’s wristband number.
W immediately replied, “Okay.”
The next sentence followed closely: “Sent.”
In front of them, Yulianka, who had almost reached the edge of the dam, suddenly had a small virtual screen pop up in front of him.
The virtual screen was particularly bright in the night, displaying an image—a white background with black text, the same warning message image the Federation had originally sent.
Earlier today, at the entrance of Yehai Station No. 7, when Yulianka received a message from Kirill, Pei Ran had noticed that his wristband automatically displayed messages. He hadn’t turned off this dangerous feature.
This feature could be used to harm others, but the problem was that the sender would also die in the process—a case of harming the enemy at the cost of greater self-damage.
But Black Well was different. W had mentioned that Black Well could still safely send text messages.
Yulianka was also stunned. In his deranged mind, he might have been wondering why a message had come through or why, at such a time, someone could still send text-based content.
Pei Ran didn’t know the consequences of receiving a text message either.
The best-case scenario would be an immediate explosion. The energy targeting the human body wasn’t high, and since it was specifically designed for human flesh, even if it exploded, the wristband would remain unaffected, and the transmitter should also remain unharmed.
Yulianka, however, didn’t explode.
The virtual screen displayed the text: “Divine retribution follows.”
In a flash, a bright light erupted. Yulianka’s left wrist, where the wristband was, suddenly emitted a thick plume of smoke.
The energy struck his wristband, and the high temperature not only melted the wristband but also instantly turned his forearm into a charred stump.
With his arm burned to a crisp, he could no longer hold the large transmitter, and it rolled to the side.
Another earthquake-like tremor shook the Tanggu Dam, which now resembled a massive beast slowly awakening.
The top of the dam twisted like a wave, making it impossible to stand steadily.
Yulianka, with his charred arm, acted like the other deranged fusion entities, seemingly unfazed by the pain. Without a sound, his body twisted a few times, and the burnt section of his arm fell off. The remaining part elongated and deformed like the barrier of a gate, quickly filling in the missing section and reforming into a hand.
He slithered forward again, reaching his two “hands” toward the transmitter on the ground.
But the delay had been enough.
Pei Ran stumbled and crawled through the shaking ground, rushing forward on all fours. She lunged, grabbing onto the spiral tubing that made up the lower half of Yulianka’s body.
The texture of his tubing was strange, and his tail slipped almost effortlessly out of her grip.
Pei Ran didn’t hold back. Her mechanical hand stabbed into his tail, and with another forward lunge, she pinned Yulianka beneath her.
Yulianka, after all, was a tall and strong man, now further enhanced by his transformation. He struggled fiercely under Pei Ran’s restraint, the two of them rolling and grappling on the ground.
Seizing an opportunity, Pei Ran flipped over, straddling him. Her mechanical hand clamped precisely around his neck and squeezed.
Crack. His neck bone snapped.
Yulianka’s head twisted to one side, but his body continued to move.
His head tilted grotesquely, his grayish-white eyes fixed on Pei Ran with a deathly stare. A green light flickered within his half-open mouth.
Pei Ran knew that her green light had always only appeared in her mind. Yulianka shouldn’t have known about her abilities originally; otherwise, he would have tried to exploit them, preventing himself from falling into this situation.
His ability to control others’ powers seemed to require knowing that they had abilities in the first place. She wasn’t sure exactly how it worked.
But she didn’t need to worry about that now. Once she took his green light, she could figure it out by experimenting.
Earlier, when she had torn through the high walls inside the dam, Yulianka must have seen it. In a life-or-death moment, he had tried to control her ability, though she didn’t know what he intended to do.
However, whatever he had planned, he couldn’t do it now.
The Green Light No. 1 inside her, after tearing through the layers of walls like peeling an onion, had long since “gone to sleep.” Even she couldn’t wake it up, so there was no way he could.
Her black mechanical hand had already ripped open Yulianka’s abdominal cavity, but the mutated heart wasn’t there.
Pei Ran reached in, feeling upward, and finally found it near his neck. No wonder W’s shots hadn’t hit it.
The deformed heart, entangled with countless blue blood vessels, was pulled out.
Pei Ran’s hand clenched around the heart and squeezed.
As the heart burst, Yulianka’s deranged, mutated thoughts suddenly cleared, and that moment seemed to stretch infinitely long.
How did it come to this? Yulianka thought, bewildered.