Chapter 289: Mortality Rate 20%, Significant Emotional Fluctuation Rate 100%

Faced with such a mysterious and wondrous immortal fog, every nation attached great importance to it and convened an emergency meeting of their supernatural response departments that very day, and after repeated deliberation, a decision was made.

While the immortal fog had not yet grown strong, and seeing that it currently posed no threat, they would send people into the immortal fog to scout its interior.

If it were ordinary fog, it might be caused by weather, but this mass of fog clearly was not—no fog emits light.

Moreover, it looked like an inflated cream puff, gradually swelling and expanding on its own.

This was very different from ordinary fog; it was by no means mundane.

Each nation dispatched a two-person team, fully equipped with all manner of the most advanced gear, and entered the immortal fog together.

With the appearance of the immortal fog, every nation held great hopes, hoping it could advance research into the supernatural and the gods and demons—one must remember that since the emergence of the supernatural and the gods and demons, no nation had ever stopped researching them.

However, although the gods and demons and the supernatural had appeared for some time now, every nation's progress in researching them remained slow.

The reason was simple: gods and demons and the supernatural rarely left anything behind.

Up to now, only Japan's supernatural skeleton, America's supernatural saliva, the great battle crater, and a corner of a palace in Kyoto could be supplied to every nation for research.

Yet after studying these things for a long time, every nation had failed to produce any results, completely at a loss on where to begin. Take the skeleton, for instance—it was harder than any material in the world; even slicing off a piece for study was impossible.

As for the supernatural saliva, it could indeed be studied, but the quantity was far too small. Divided among the nations, there was only so little, and essentially it could not support large-scale experiments, because every bit used meant a bit less, and only so many experiments could be performed.

Scientists found this very difficult, for scientific research requires a great deal of experimentation and verification.

The saliva could not sustain large-scale experiments; every experiment had to be carefully calculated, ensured again and again before being carried out. On top of that, every single experiment failed to yield results, which gave the scientists even more headaches and made them increasingly cautious in using the dwindling saliva.

As a result, research progress was extremely slow.

Therefore, every nation greatly hoped to obtain progress in supernatural research from the immortal fog—the immortal fog was vast, enough to support large-scale research by every nation.

Unfortunately.

The thinking was plump, but reality was gaunt.

Every nation dispatched personnel into the immortal fog full of hope, and all signals were cut off.

All personnel who entered the immortal fog lost contact without exception, and among them the vital signs of several personnel indicated they had already died.

The remaining lost-contact personnel being alive did not mean they were fine. Judging from the heart rate, blood pressure, pulse, and so on monitored by their vital-signs devices, they were all experiencing intense emotional fluctuations.

It was just that current technology could remotely monitor heart rate, blood pressure, and the like, yet could not remotely monitor the secretion of adrenaline, dopamine, and similar substances in the human body; otherwise, it would have been possible to determine whether their emotions were excitement, or tension, fear, and so on.

At Director Takahashi's signal, Yoshimura Murakichi took out the mysterious immortal fog report.

"Over the past days, our nation and every other nation have been in constant contact with the personnel who entered the mysterious fog, yet they remain out of contact. Based on the various data at the time, it can already be confirmed that contact is lost the moment one enters the range of the mysterious fog.

Additionally, the personnel dispatched afterward were the same—once they entered the range of the mysterious fog, they would completely lose contact.

Moreover, starting from yesterday, whether it was the first batch or the personnel who entered afterward, the vital-signs monitoring for all of them failed completely; we cannot receive monitoring signals.

Based on on-site research and detection of the mysterious fog, no signal enhancement can penetrate the mysterious fog."

Director Takahashi exhaled deeply and waved his hand.

On the big screen, a satellite-captured image appeared, clearly showing the scene above—a lush, uninhabited island, upon which sat a mass of fog emanating a glazed, ethereal glow, drifting gently and shining brilliantly.

There was a pattern and regularity to it: each time the immortal fog's radiance circulated, like a pulse beating, the immortal fog would slowly expand, spreading across the entire island.

At this rate, covering the entire island and extending into the surrounding seas was not impossible.

"Is this where that mysterious fog is located?"

Someone asked.

Director Takahashi nodded: "This is the footage our satellite captured, but it was from two days ago. This is the current one."

As he spoke, the big screen image switched to another captured video.

It was the same uninhabited island, but the immortal fog in the footage had changed.

Compared to the immortal fog in the previous video, the immortal fog in this video had grown several times larger, already covering the island, its flowing luster more dazzling than before, like a powerful heart, its radiance resplendent with each beat.

Minister Saitou and the others changed color.

My heavens!

In just two days, the mysterious fog had expanded to such an extent—if it kept expanding endlessly, it wouldn't take long to cover the entire globe.

The key point was that the mass of fog was in the sea area near Hua Nation; the island's location was not close to the direction of Malaysia, but close to the direction of Japan. If it were allowed to expand unchecked, Japan would soon be affected.

"In total, our nation and the others have thrown in over a thousand people, all of whom vanished without a trace, and actually…"

Director Takahashi took a drag of his cigarette, his voice somewhat dry and hoarse.

"Actually, we did deploy weapons. Just yesterday, after careful deliberation between our nation and the others, we attempted to fire upon the mysterious fog to test it, and the result was no effect at all."

At this moment.

Yoshimura Murakichi turned to another page of the report.

"The Data Department has calculated precisely: the expansion speed of the mysterious fog is not uniform. Rather, as the mysterious fog grows larger, its expansion speed also increases. Two days ago it was increasing at one kilometer per day; now it grows one kilometer in half a day.

Scientific researchers from every nation have worked together, attempting to curb the growth of the mysterious fog, and even carried out actions to eliminate the mysterious fog, but the results were zero—absolutely no effect."

Silence.

Many people unconsciously lit up cigarettes.

What is the most terrifying thing?

The unknown is the most terrifying, especially something right before your eyes that you cannot see through, cannot investigate clearly, and cannot even destroy.

"Can we determine whether the mysterious fog's effect on us humans is good or bad?" Minister Saitou asked.

Yoshimura Murakichi flipped through the report:

"The mysterious fog is expanding rapidly. Scientific and technical personnel have inspected the environment around the mysterious fog on site and found no abnormal changes in flora and fauna, air, or soil.

Afterward, researchers conducted experiments, placing some white mice in front of the mysterious fog, and there was no change either.

Later, they placed the white mice ahead and waited for the mysterious fog to expand and spread to where the mice were, submerging the mice within the mysterious fog, then quickly retrieved them. They found the cage was still there, but the white mice, like the personnel who had entered, were gone.

After multiple experiments, and based on the fact that anyone who enters the mysterious fog will inevitably disappear, combined with the vital-signs data from the personnel just before they completely lost contact, the mortality rate is 20%, and the rate of significant emotional fluctuation is 100%.

Based on this, it is preliminarily judged that the mysterious fog poses a danger to us humans."

"Has the Keyan Force given an estimate—how long before a method to eliminate or curb the mysterious fog can be developed?"

Another high-ranking member spoke up.

……

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