Chapter 346: Subject 04

One hundred meters underground.

The elevator's descent wasn't fast, but Su Ming's eardrums were still slightly swollen from the pressure change.

He leaned against the elevator wall, idly flipping the Black Permission Card in his hand. The card bore no text, only a string of foil‑embossed code and Wei Gong's handwritten seal.

A-level Resource Mobilization Permission.

The entire Investigation Bureau has no more than eight of these.

The elevator stopped.

The moment the doors opened, Su Ming frowned.

It wasn't the smell of disinfectant hitting his nose, but the faint, sweet, fishy odor in the air—like tossing an entire cow into a blender, shredding it, then soaking it in Formalin for three days and three nights.

The corridor stretched long, its side walls studded with countless red warning lights. They flashed every three seconds, slicing the passage into alternating patches of light and shadow.

Su Ming swiped his card to pass the first gate.

A researcher in a Doctor's Lab Coat jogged toward him, sweat covering his forehead. He was in his forties, wore thick‑rimmed glasses, and his badge read "Senior Researcher Zhou Jie, Containment Management Division".

"Captain Su, you're finally here," Zhou Jie said, rubbing his hands, speaking rapidly. "I've prepared all the files; which anomalous containment subject would you like to see? Subjects 01 to 03 are currently stable; 01 can even communicate normally. My personal recommendation—"

"04."

Su Ming kept walking.

Zhou Jie froze for a beat, then caught up, his complexion turning grim.

"Captain Su, Subject 04 is not permissible."

His voice dropped low, as if fearing to disturb something.

"Jia Shan's... that thing entered its Third Frenzy Phase last week. We fed it seventeen D-level Strange Derivatives, alive, and it devoured them all. Afterward it wasn't satisfied and gnawed a layer off the Lead‑steel Gate Plate at the feeding port."

Zhou Jie swallowed hard.

"Its current state can no longer be defined as 'human'; brainwave monitoring shows its higher cognitive functions have dropped to zero—it's just a mass that only eats—"

"04," Su Ming repeated.

Zhou Jie opened his mouth, as if to say something.

Su Ming didn't look back; he simply waved the Black Permission Card in his hand. Under the fluorescent light, the foil‑embossed seal reflected a cold, hard gleam.

Zhou Jie fell silent.

He recognized that seal.

Across the entire Investigation Bureau, no one dared to deny it.

The two continued deeper down the corridor. The farther they went, the faster the red lights flickered—changing from every three seconds to every two, then to every one.

Like a heartbeat.

A heart beating wildly faster.

At the deepest point stood a three‑meter‑high Lead‑steel Composite Gate. It had no handle, only a card slot and an Observation Window scarred with a deep groove.

Behind the window was utter darkness.

Nothing could be seen.

But Su Ming could hear sounds.

Creak— creak— creak.

It was the sound of bone being crushed.

But not quite.

More like... some creature grinding another creature's shell with its teeth.

Zhou Jie stood by the door, his face as white as paper.

"Captain Su, I'll say it one last time, I strongly advise you not to—"

Su Ming raised his hand and swiped his card.

"Beep— identity verification passed. A-level Permission confirmed. Subject 04 Containment Cell is opening."

The Mechanical Female Voice finished the broadcast.

The gate emitted a heavy hydraulic sound as the two Lead‑steel plates slowly slid apart.

A gust of air surged out from the gap.

It wasn't wind.

It was a thick, almost wall‑clinging, fetid wave, wrapped in high‑density Strange Energy Wave, slamming solidly onto Su Ming's face. The hem of his black Windcoat billowed, producing a rustling sound.

Zhou Jie stepped back three paces and dry‑vomited.

Su Ming didn't move.

He merely narrowed his eyes slightly, looking into the darkness.

The Containment Cell was far larger than he had imagined—at least half a basketball court in width, its ceiling a six‑meter‑high dome fitted with twelve Emergency Explosion‑proof Lights. At the moment only two remained lit, casting a dim, wavering yellow glow that threw trembling shadows across the blood‑stained floor.

Limb fragments littered the ground.

They were the remains of the D-level Strange Derivatives that had been fed in. Some still retained arthropod shells; others were merely pools of chewed‑to‑nothing gelatinous tissue. Black, green, and dark‑red fluids mingled, forming winding little streams across the floor.

Fine spore particles floated in the air, drifting slowly in the light of the two lamps, like a snowfall of rot.

And at the very center of the Containment Cell—

lay a Meat Mountain.

It was the most human thing Su Ming had ever seen that came close to the word "monster."

Or rather, it had once been human.

Jia Shan.

Its body had completely lost control. A three‑hundred‑kilogram mass lay sprawled in the blood pool, fat intermingled with bizarrely proliferated muscle tissue, rendering its outline vague and bloated. Its exposed skin was covered with countless pustules and Compound Eyes—yes, Compound Eyes, the insect‑type kind, densely covering its shoulder blades and the back of its neck.

Those Compound Eyes were still rotating.

Every one spins independently, like dozens of runaway surveillance cameras.

More terrifying is its back: a huge ridge runs along the spine, the skin stretched from within to translucence, faintly revealing a dark creature writhing beneath. Its shape constantly shifts—sometimes like a coiled snake, sometimes like folded wings—thinly wrapped in a layer of human skin.

Jia Shan lies there, its head buried in a heap of derivative corpses, emitting a bone‑crushing sound. Its jaw joint is dislocated and deformed, the mouth gaping far beyond human limits, exposing three rows of uneven fangs.

Creak. Creak.

Eating very attentively.

Su Ming took a step forward.

His leather shoes stepped into the bloodwater, producing a faint "pat" sound.

Jia Shan stopped chewing.

All Compound Eyes stopped rotating simultaneously.

Then, in a synchronized sweep, they aimed at Su Ming.

A half‑second pause.

Jia Shan jerked its head upward.

That face… could no longer be called a face. The features were mashed into a lump, the eye sockets sunk so deep that bone was almost visible, yet from the depths of those two black, hole‑like eye sockets, a light burst forth—

It was pure greed.

No hatred, no fear, not even anything that could be called "emotion".

Only hunger.

An endless, world‑devouring hunger.

Jia Shan's gaze at Su Ming was no different from its gaze at that pile of derivative corpses.

They were all food.

The next second.

A 300‑kilogram Meat Mountain launched off the ground.

No run‑up, no preparatory motion. That absurdly bulky body surged toward Su Ming with an acceleration that defied all physics, tearing spider‑web‑like fissures in the ground. The air was compressed into visible ripples, and Jia Shan opened its massive mouth—large enough to swallow an entire human head—still holding fragments of exoskeleton from the previous meal.

The speed was absurdly fast.

Almost like teleportation.

Behind him, Zhou Jie let out a discordant scream and turned to run.

Su Ming stood in place.

Both hands were tucked into the Windcoat pockets.

No sword drawn. No Qi. Not even any defensive stance.

He simply stood there quietly, watching the all‑covering Bloody Maw draw ever closer—close enough to see the black bloodstains clinging to each fang, close enough that the hot breath expelled by Jia Shan washed directly onto his face.

Su Ming's eyelids did not lift at all.

His right hand twitched slightly inside his pocket.

It was not a clenched fist.

It was rubbing the skin on the inside of his wrist.

Beneath that, the Time Marrow Worm was coiled around his radial artery, pulsing at an extremely faint frequency.

One pulse.

Two pulses.

Like an ancient creature turning over in a dream.

Su Ming's mouth twitched slightly.

"Really can eat…"

He whispered a meaningless remark.

Jia Shan's fangs were less than twenty centimeters from his nose tip.