253: Earth Core Fireworks

Chapter 253: Core Fireworks. Chen Mo let go and spat out a mouthful of fluorescent saliva in disgust.

"Pah."

"Disgusting."

He casually tossed White Dove onto the ground and sat down himself. The wound on his back was steaming, healing at a speed visible to the naked eye.

That sensation of hunger had finally vanished.

In its place was a bloated, aching feeling from overeating.

"You..."

White Dove lay on the ground, his glasses shattered everywhere. His refined appearance was completely gone.

He looked at Chen Mo, fear appearing in his eyes for the first time.

"You aren't human..."

"You're a monster..."

"I'm flattered."

Chen Mo picked up the half-broken scalpel from the ground and pressed it against White Dove's throat. "Now, can you tell me who stole the 'gluttony' heart from the lab?"

White Dove panted heavily, his eyes flickering.

Suddenly, he began to laugh.

It was a neurotic, desperate laugh.

"Stole? No, no one stole it."

White Dove stared into Chen Mo's eyes, his voice raspy. "It escaped on its own."

Chen Mo frowned, the tip of the blade piercing White Dove's skin. "Speak human."

"Don't you understand yet?"

White Dove coughed up a mouthful of blood. "This heart is alive. It chose a host. It has been searching... for the perfect vessel."

"And that vessel..."

"Is right in front of me now."

Beep—!

A sharp alarm suddenly exploded throughout the room.

The red lights of the entire underground laboratory began to flash frantically.

[Warning: Core energy depleted.]

[Self-destruct sequence initiated.]

[Countdown: 60 seconds.]

"Cough, cough... Hahahaha!"

White Dove laughed wildly, his eyes filled with madness. "Chen Mo, you won this round. But you won't take the secrets with you."

"Five tons of high explosives are buried here."

"This entire Old Street underground will become our tomb!"

"Madman."

Chen Mo cursed and turned to pull Ruan Qiushui.

"Don't waste your effort."

White Dove's voice rang out behind him. "All exits are locked. Only my retina can open them. But in my current state..."

He pointed to his swollen, bloodshot eyes.

"Come to hell with me."

Chen Mo stopped in his tracks.

He looked at the thick alloy walls surrounding them; there truly was no way out.

But he didn't panic.

He turned to look at Ruan Qiushui.

The woman was crouching next to the headless 'clone,' seemingly studying something.

"Hey, Meal Ticket."

Chen Mo called out, "Are you full?"

Ruan Qiushui looked up, a bit of blue liquid still staining the corners of her mouth.

"Seventy percent full."

She licked her fingers.

"Then get to work."

Chen Mo pointed to the ceiling above, which was three meters thick and cast with lead layers and steel plates.

"That doctor said he wants to treat us to a flight on a 'dirt plane.'"

"Let's open a skylight for ourselves."

Ruan Qiushui followed his finger with her gaze.

"That's very hard,"

she said.

"I'll give you an extra snack."

Chen Mo walked over to her side and reached out, pressing his palm against her back.

Thump!

His heart throbbed violently.

The massive nuclear energy he had just absorbed from White Dove and hadn't had time to digest poured unreservedly into Ruan Qiushui's body through his arm.

It was power enough to drive a tank.

"Mmm..."

Ruan Qiushui let out an ecstatic groan, and her entire body lit up.

Red light condensed on her body, eventually gathering in her right hand.

That hand turned into a deep crimson that was impossible to look at directly.

"So hot."

Ruan Qiushui looked at her hand and giggled.

"Opening the skylight."

She suddenly leaped.

She was like a bolt of red lightning surging upward.

BOOM!!!

The ceiling was shredded like it was made of paper.

Soil, rock, and rebar all turned to powder in that instant.

A passage leading straight to the surface was forcibly carved out.

Sunlight.

Long-awaited, dust-scented sunlight spilled down through the hole.

It shone right onto White Dove's face, which was twisted in shock.

"Impossible..."

he muttered to himself.

Chen Mo ignored him.

He caught Ruan Qiushui as she fell from the air and slung her over his shoulder.

"Bye-bye, old man."

Chen Mo turned and gave White Dove the middle finger.

Then he stomped his foot, using the momentum to climb rapidly up the rough wall of the hole like a gecko.

The countdown reached zero.

Rumble—

The earth trembled.

A massive fireball swallowed everything underground.

But Chen Mo had already leaped onto the surface.

He landed at the entrance of the abandoned subway station. Behind him, the ground was collapsing, sending up a massive mushroom cloud.

"Pah."

Chen Mo spat out the dust in his mouth and patted his still-burning chest.

"I'm never eating nuclear batteries again."

"Gives me heartburn."

Ruan Qiushui lay on his back, her eyes sparkling as she watched the soaring flames.

"What pretty fireworks."

Chen Mo didn't say anything.

He fished out the data disk he had swiped from White Dove's body from his pocket.

Even though that madman was dead,

this thing should contain the true origin of that 'gluttony' heart.

And... evidence of Wang Daoming's crimes.

"Let's go."

Chen Mo stowed the data disk away and looked toward the distant neon lights of Jiang City.

"I still have to work overtime to write a report tonight."

"By the way."

Ruan Qiushui suddenly leaned her head toward his ear and said sinisterly,

"That doctor just said you're the perfect vessel."

"Then what am I?"

"A side dish?"

Chen Mo rolled his eyes and shrugged her off his back.

"You're the cutlery."

"Hurry up and move. If the local cops catch us, even I won't be able to protect you."

The night wind blew,

masking the underground rumble.

It also masked a corner of an even larger conspiracy... The sound of sirens tore the night sky of Jiang City to shreds.

The alternating red and blue flashing lights illuminated the Old Streets around the abandoned subway station like a disco.

Only the dance music here was the fire truck alarms, and the backup dancers were a group of soot-covered, shaken residents.

"Cough, cough."

Chen Mo leaned against a trash can in a dark alley, took off the tactical vest whose color was long gone, balled it up, and stuffed it deep into the pile of trash.

The vest was covered in radioactive dust left by that freak White Dove, as well as the smell of machine oil from those two cyborgs.

It was too pungent.

If he didn't get rid of it, the radiation detector would scream like a cat with its tail stepped on before he even entered the police station doors.

"I want to eat that."

Ruan Qiushui squatted at the alley entrance, pointing her finger at an ambulance distributing hot water in the distance.

More accurately, she was pointing at a piece of chocolate in the hand of a young nurse who was bandaging the wounded.

"Bear with it."

Chen Mo put on a cheap jacket he had swiped from a roadside clothesline and zipped it to the top to cover the charred blade wound on his neck.

"That's for the living."

He fished a pack of flattened cigarettes from his pocket, pulled one out, and held it in his mouth without lighting it.

His hands were shaking.

It wasn't because of the cold.

Although the heart in his chest was full, it was currently 'ruminating.'

That nuclear energy was too volatile, burning in his veins as if lava were flowing through them.

With every breath, his alveoli felt as painful as if they were being polished with sandpaper.

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