Chapter 689: with translation of

Long'an Base district, weapons testing facility.

Underground seventh level.

Xiong Hanzi shivered, exhaled a puff of white air, and looked resentfully at Lin An, who stood with eyes closed in place.

A large number of violently shaped weapons, appearing to be cold weapons forged from biological bone, floated beside Lin An.

His right hand loosely supported a crystal ball.

His consciousness was constantly communicating with Huang Shaohua.

"Lin Dui..."

His teeth chattered.

Xiong Hanzi wore a mournful face, constantly nagging Lin An:

"I feel like I'm about to be played to death, damn it."

He shivered violently; it was damn cold.

Even his eyeballs had frozen.

He lowered his head and glanced at the tube inserted into his abdomen, which was continuously pumping liquid nitrogen into his body.

The temperature inside his body dropped to minus 215 degrees, enough to embrittle steel and freeze to death any living thing.

Standing beside the liquid nitrogen tank, Chu An spoke softly and calmly lifted his glasses frame.

"Don't move around; this will help you a lot."

Wearing a white lab coat, he spoke while lowering his head to write information on the record sheet, and casually turned up the liquid nitrogen flow a bit more.

Speaking of experiment, he just did it.

Ignoring Xiong Hanzi's desire to escape, these days he has conducted many human experiments.

Things like laser burning the eyeballs, to enhance Zhang Tie's resistance to laser weapons.

Things like throwing him into a steel furnace, to enhance his fire resistance.

Or even making him swallow cluster bombs alive, to train Xiong Hanzi's "fragile" oral defense.

The methods were endless.

The so-called ten tortures, in Zhang Tie's view, were nothing compared to Colonel Chu's perverse appetizers.

Torture!

Sometimes he wondered if he had offended Chu An.

He didn't know how many times he had quietly cursed Chu An; Xiong Hanzi wished he could ascend to heaven right then and never suffer this torment again.

Unfortunately, even if Chu An 'went overboard', his death-immunity talent always managed to pull him back from the brink of death.

Without restraint.

Zhang Tie really feared that if this continued, Colonel Chu the pervert would stuff a nuclear bomb up his ass.

"Don't worry."

Seeing Xiong Hanzi's worried expression, Chu An, noticing he was about to freeze into an ice sculpture, slowly shut the valve.

"I know my limits."

"I definitely won't do a nuclear bomb experiment; that would be too wasteful."

He smiled.

While speaking.

Chu An somehow produced a bucket of glowing, greenish substance, and with a benevolent expression scooped a spoonful and handed it to Xiong Hanzi.

Zhang Tie saw this, his eyes widened to ovals, and he instinctively clenched his mouth shut.

Damn!

What the hell does this pervert want to feed me now!?

Last time he made me drink aqua regia, ruining the taste of even canned food.

And now it's happening again!?

He could see Zhang Tie's resistance.

Chu An smiled, lightly shoved the spoon toward Zhang Tie's mouth with a relaxed tone, wearing an expression that said if you don't eat it I'll force-feed you.

"Good stuff."

"Enriched uranium, plus some radioactive substances."

"Eating it strengthens the body and refreshes the mind~"

"Lin Dui!"

Hearing Xiong Hanzi almost scared out of his wits, Lin An helplessly glanced at Chu An.

Tomorrow is the time the trial tower opens; Chu An simply decided to use every means at his disposal.

Although it's indeed somewhat hard to bear.

But the effect is indeed quite good.

After nearly a week of resistance training, Xiong Hanzi completely gained resistance comparable to that of an indestructible asura.

Ignoring conventional weapons, he could almost absorb energy.

In theory.

Unless a peak Third Rank attack might work on him.

Generally, a Third Rank attacker couldn't break Zhang Tie's defense even if he exhausted himself to death.

This is still with Xiong Hanzi only at Second Level.

If he were to rise to Third Rank, combined with the limit value and some super-strong gear.

Plus his death-immunity talent, truly no one could kill him.

There is only one drawback.

That is mental power resistance.

Zhang Tie struggles to resist instantaneous mental attacks or rule-level special skills.

Chu An also has no better way to handle this.

Even the indestructible Asura of the original body has this flaw.

Zhang Tie's willpower has always been his weak point.

But Lin An isn't overly worried.

Those who awaken mental power are rare to begin with.

Those who excel at damage and can overwhelm Zhang Tie's stats are even rarer.

If worse comes to worst, I'll later craft a set of specialized mental resistance gear for Xiong Hanzi.

Speaking of that.

After Zhang Tie choked down the gleaming green enriched uranium, his eyes glazed over.

"Captain Lin..."

"What did that old man say?"

"We're about to enter the trial tower; what's the situation inside exactly..."

Life is hopeless.

Watching Lin An put away the crystal ball, he simply asked out of curiosity.

After hearing, Lin An pondered briefly, then just brushed it off.

"There isn't much information."

"Huang Shaohua..."

"He indeed hid from us that he is also third-level; he had pretended to be peak second-level."

"After some interrogation, he said he also hadn't participated in the first trial tower."

"According to rumors and what he knows, the first trial tower is indeed different from the later ones."

In short, a hint of doubt flashed in Lin An's eyes.

"The first trial tower is indeed as the capital said."

"It consists of five trials (strength, agility, physique...); after completing them, one advances to third level, then the death battle begins."

"The strongest will earn the top title, and their war zone will receive substantial rewards and preferential treatment."

"Personal rewards seem tied to fourth level and some secrets of the cataclysm."

This differs from the notion that whoever finishes the trials first gets the top rank.

The title of first among third level.

The Doomsday System obviously doesn't let survivors obtain it so easily.

It's obvious that many will likely die in the death battle.

Rewards are tempting, punishments are harsh.

This almost concerns the fate of a nation, even an ethnicity.

And what weighs on Lin An's mind is.

In his past life, he never heard of the Huaxia war zone receiving any rewards; on the contrary, after the first third-level appeared, the war zone channel was flooded with pleas for help.

The implication is just one thing.

In his past life, a problem occurred in the Huaxia war zone's first round of trials.

After triggering the punishment, they chose to conceal it...

A very bad situation.

Upon realizing this, Lin An quickly knew he had to change this outcome.

Whether for himself, for Long An, or even for the entire Huaxia war zone.

Zhang Tie listened in a daze to Lin An's description and didn't take it to heart.

Grinning and grimacing, he rubbed his battered head.

"Captain Lin, what do you have to worry about?"

"Those little brats, one punch each!"

"Heh heh, I just don't believe anyone could be stronger than us!"

Long'an Base, the core stronghold.

Standing in the center, Lin An calmly looked at the seeing-off squad members, then rubbed AnXia's little head.

As the trial countdown nears its end, this time it's still him and Zhang Tie participating.

After confirming that Chu An would help manage the base, Lin An also felt relieved.

Chu An is so mysterious that he doesn't believe this guy would lack other means.

Looking among the seeing-off crowd, Mo Ling was absent.

Lin An subconsciously furrowed his brows.

This little girl...

Still not back?

The next second, the system announcement suddenly blared:

"Global announcement: The first trial tower has opened; all trial participants, please get ready."

"This time's participating war zones: 35 major war zones (Central Asia, East Asia, South Asia, Northern Europe, North America....), 177 minor war zones."

"Number of participants this time: 16,587."

This trial, affected by the disaster progress, has increased difficulty and increased rewards.

The Trial Battle will open transmission in 10 seconds.

Inside the Trial Tower, time flows at a ratio of 1:10 (10 days inside the tower, 1 day in reality).

The moment the cold system announcement sounded.

Countless survivors from the war zones instinctively looked up at the sky.

Some were fearful and uneasy, others were full of confidence.

As one of the strongest groups of survivors after the apocalypse, each person yearned, believing they were humanity's hope.

The Second Level is merely the starting point; the Third Level is the true fire seed!

Central Area.

Lin An instantly withdrew his thoughts, silently adjusting his condition to its peak.

His gaze was blazing, filled with fighting spirit.

First place at the Third Level can only be mine!

"Countdown begins:"

"9..."

"8..."

"7..."

"0!"

White light flashed.

In an instant, 16587 Awakened Ones vanished from reality.