Chapter 1041

"... Unless, everything goes according to plan, and even if Dr. Hughes has transformed into another organism, he still successfully creates the anti-memetic weapon."

"That seems difficult," Tingyun replied.

Or rather, impossible.

After Xianzhou citizens fall into the Mara-Struck state, even if they are saved by the Ten-Lords Commission and return to the world of the living, very few are able to retain their previous temperament and memories.

Let alone changing their physical bodies or transforming their species.

Even if he were lucky enough to inherit his memories, how long could he maintain human thought?

A more likely scenario is that this consciousness belonging to Dr. Hughes would be gradually influenced by the biological instincts of the germ, eventually becoming chaotic.

Perhaps one day in the future, the germ will possess full cognitive abilities and reclaim these memories and thoughts, but it will already be another individual entirely unrelated to Dr. Hughes.

Just like the Tingyun of this very moment, and the Tingyun controlled by Phantylia; although they share a period of memory, they are two completely different individuals.

Tingyun is confident that if she hadn't been controlled by Phantylia when she met her benefactor, she would already be dragging her benefactor along to Changle Heaven to prepare daily necessities for little Tingyun.

Of course, for big Tingyun as well.

The kind that happens once a day, and lasts for a day.

Amidst the unchanging orange-red glow, Adam put away his pistol, shifted his attention away from the charred human silhouette, and turned back to his next task.

When he had just issued the order, he had also harbored a small fantasy in his heart—for instance, that the guy before him was the mastermind, and as long as he killed him with the orbital laser, the world could instantly return to its original state.

The annoying whispers would vanish, the day-night cycle would be restored, all the dead would be resurrected, and his severed fingers would be as good as new.

Turns out, it still doesn't work...

That person could be killed by him with ease only because he was still human, not one of those non-human entities far more powerful than humans.

He was neither the original 3125 nor an anomaly legion enslaved by 3125.

In the end, just an anti-human, anti-social degenerate... a spiritual successor to the "Lost Generation"?

Perhaps he had just spent too long in the company of those monsters and had become tainted with the same aura, leading them to view him as one of their own.

But how did this guy come to view himself as an accomplice to those monsters?

However, what exactly were those giant objects that looked like spider legs?

They seemed to have just come to watch the fun.

Adam tightened his grip on the pistol hidden in his shoulder holster, feeling slightly puzzled.

But in the next moment, he suddenly understood.

In the eyes of those true "anomalies," both of them were stained with the aura of their kind, so they were "one of their own."

Since "one of their own" had resolved the conflict, they had no reason to continue staying here, so they continued to fulfill their duties as loyal dogs.

Tsk... forget it, let's keep moving forward...

Adam muttered to himself in silence, cast the small interlude of the young man out of his mind, and then raised his hand to tap his head, attempting to expel the anxiety and mania in his brain.

Based on various documents collected from Site-41, Adam had already pieced together the grand plan the Foundation had launched to deal with the anti-memetic threat of 3125:

The Foundation had realized the threat of 3125 a long time ago and had launched a series of studies and strategic deployments.

To cover up Dr. Bartholomew Hughes's whereabouts, the Foundation deliberately forged his itinerary and manufactured the illusion of his death.

Subsequently, Dr. Bartholomew Hughes was ordered to go to Site-167 to build the "Non-Reality Expander."

Theoretically, as long as all this went smoothly, after a period of time, 3125 would be directly crushed by Dr. Hughes and his great invention.

But... that was only theoretically.

Because this godforsaken reality was still in this godforsaken state!

Silently adding this, Adam looked back at the site he had just left, and then headed toward Site-167 without looking back.

He felt as if something of his had been buried here, but he couldn't remember what.

After a long trek and a prolonged period of wilderness survival, Adam saw an abrupt complex of buildings on the endless vast plain.

Before arriving here, he had assumed this would be a strictly controlled military zone, or similar to Site-41, an office area with a pleasant environment.

But after seeing it with his own eyes, Adam mistakenly thought he had arrived at a thermal power plant.

Adam still had to admit that although Site-41 was shrouded in an anti-memetic field, as an office space, its surface portion was still quite comfortable.

And Site-167, which covered a full four square kilometers in the distance, had buildings that could be called ugly, even aggressively so.

It had no green vegetation to adorn it, cold and hard like a concrete forest.

Security containment warehouses, research laboratories, and administrative offices, among many other functional areas, stood on the plain, letting the gale howl through the building complex, sweeping past the sharp edges of the buildings and emitting harsh roars.

Nearly half of the site had been precisely erased by orbital lasers, leaving a clear dividing line—on one side were intact buildings and roads, and on the other were charred, flat ruins, a shocking sight.

Adam speculated that perhaps when the anti-memetic warhead trigger mechanism was activated, the laser system automatically intervened to clean up.

However, the specific sequence of events could no longer be verified, and it was irrelevant at this moment.

His target was hidden underground; that was the destination of his trip.

He was already nearing his limit, not just physically, but mentally as well, shrouded by the pervasive malicious radiation of 3125; just resisting it had him standing on the edge of a mental breakdown.

The apocalypse was still ongoing, and that black-red sun on the horizon remained high in the sky.

And Adam was likely the only survivor currently capable of stopping this catastrophe.

This hope was too fragile; if a single anomaly discovered him, it could destroy him, and the difficulty would be no greater than destroying an anthill.

But even so fragile, when this hope transformed into a responsibility that fell upon him, it was too heavy, like a vise firmly clamping his brain, waking him up every night.

The world before his eyes gradually blurred, a blinding migraine followed him like a shadow, and feelings of loneliness and oppression surged like a tide.

It was time to make the final decision.

Between Building 8 and the facility numbered 22E, there was a vertical entrance, a thirty-meter-wide hexagonal shaft with a conspicuous yellow crane spanning above it.

This shaft was used to transport heavy machinery and building materials directly to the massive underground complex.

Adam stood at the edge of the shaft without a railing, cautiously leaning over to look down, feeling as if an invisible force wanted to suck him in.

"It should be down here... it's really deep..."

The inner wall of the shaft was equipped with a metal spiral staircase leading downward. Adam recovered a bit of his strength, took the map from his backpack, and entered Site-167.

This place was quite different from the quiet and peaceful Site-41; besides the difference in style, another distinction was the security level.

Site-41 was Safe-class, and this place clearly was not.

Warning signs were everywhere; some were hanging banners, some were painted on the walls in conspicuous yellow paint, and others were scrolling letters.

Among them were mixed many symbols that Adam could not understand, and he had no clues to infer their meaning.

Not long after, an airtight door blocked his path.

Adam observed carefully and discovered that the airtight door of containment unit S167-00-6183 was no different from those at Site-41.

The only difference was that there was no hole in this door.

Adam swiped his access card through the card reader.

The door rotated open, revealing a sterile white anteroom, with a silence that had been sealed for a long time permeating the air.

He walked inside and waited for the disinfection procedure to start.

If his expectations were correct, the ultimate solution to reverse the current situation and change everything was right ahead, separated from him by only one inner door.

Everything was about to be revealed.

Adam's heart was pounding like thunder at this moment, his eardrums vibrating constantly, the tinnitus replaced by powerful, forceful drumbeats.

But before the inner door opened, everything remained uncertain to him.

He threw that final, most chilling question at himself:

"But if you are here, Dr. Bartholomew Hughes, and have successfully built that machine, and it is indeed effective—why haven't you appeared until now?"

He asked and answered himself, as if getting vaccinated before the plague arrived to ward off the impending bad news:

"Because the machine is useless."

"Because you couldn't build it."

"Because you are dead."

The inner door rotated open.

The underground chamber was filled with a tropical, humid heat, so thick it felt as if one could taste its texture.

It was an unpleasant smell, lingering like stagnant lymph fluid.

Overhead, floodlights were sparsely distributed, with about one-tenth still stubbornly flickering with a faint glow.

Wherever Adam's gaze fell, waste was piled up like a mountain. ===== CHAPTER 1043 =====