367: Chapter 367 Eighty Meters Underground

The cast-iron manhole cover of the municipal maintenance well was pried open by a liquid metal arm, its rusted edges emitting a metallic tang in the early morning air.

Chen Mo stood at the edge of the shaft and looked down.

Darkness.

Pure darkness, devoid of any light source, surged up from eighty meters below like a gaping maw.

"I'll go first." Nightingale crouched on the other side of the shaft, the tips of her military boots hooked over the edge, her body leaning forward at an angle precisely controlled at the center of gravity's threshold.

"No, I will." Chen Mo vaulted into the shaft, his feet finding the metal rungs of the ladder on the inner wall.

The surface of his liquid metal left arm began to flow, and as he pressed his palm against the shaft wall, it released a faint blue halo into the surroundings.

"How far can this light reach?" 404 peered down, his face instantly turning pale.

"About three meters, enough for you to see the path under your feet."

"Three meters is enough for a..." 404 swallowed the rest of his sentence, grabbed the ladder, and followed down tremulously.

Nightingale went last; she sealed the shaft with her body, blocking out the final sliver of grayish-blue sky.

The three of them descended the vertical shaft. Due to years of neglect, several sections of the metal ladder had rusted through.

Chen Mo used his left arm to temporarily melt new support points into the shaft wall for 404 to step on.

"Brother Mo, is that arm of yours basically a universal toolbox now?" 404's voice echoed through the narrow shaft with a slight tremor.

"Focus on climbing."

"I am focusing! I just tend to talk when I'm nervous, it's not like you don't know..."

"Shut up." This time it was Nightingale who spoke, her voice from above cold as ice shards.

404 tactfully shut his mouth.

Fifteen minutes later, Chen Mo's boots hit solid ground.

The bottom of the shaft was a circular space about five meters in diameter. Heavy blast doors were embedded in the four walls, their paint long since peeled away to reveal rusted steel plates.

Three doors corresponded to three evacuation routes; the largest one directly ahead led to the Core District of Area 07.

The halo from Chen Mo's left arm illuminated a line of red spray-painted text on the door. It was old and mostly blurred, with only the last four words barely legible.

No Unauthorized Entry.

"Brother Mo, this door is at least twenty centimeters thick." 404 knocked on the door panel, his fingers smarting from the impact.

Chen Mo didn't use brute force. He took the brass key from around his neck and inserted it into a rust-covered keyhole at the bottom of the blast door.

The moment the key turned, a series of muffled mechanical sounds emanated from inside the door.

Gears meshed, rods pushed forward, and locking bolts retracted.

A mechanism that hadn't operated for over twenty years was awakened once more by this key.

The blast door slowly swung inward, letting out a piercing shriek of metal grinding against metal.

Behind the door was a tunnel about three meters wide and four meters high. Industrial blast lights were installed every ten meters along the walls, all of them currently extinguished.

But at the end of the tunnel, there was light.

It was an extremely faint, firefly-like greenish fluorescence, pulsing rhythmically like the breathing of some organism.

"Is that the light from the electromagnetic field device?" 404 lowered his voice.

"No." Chen Mo's pupils contracted slightly.

"That's the glow of liquid metal in low-power standby mode."

His left arm emitted a greenish light of the same frequency, echoing the distant light source.

"They know we're here."

Nightingale silently drew her twin blades. There was no reflection on the blades; they were tactical weapons with a special matte finish.

"How many?" Her voice dropped to a whisper only the three of them could hear.

Chen Mo closed his eyes and pressed his left arm against the tunnel wall.

The liquid metal extended forward along the wall like a black snake, silently probing into the darkness.

Three seconds later, he opened his eyes.

"Two hundred meters ahead, at the tunnel fork. At least seven."

"They're scattered in the maintenance slots on both sides of the passage, in a dormant state. But any sound or vibration exceeding a certain threshold will activate them."

404's face turned from white to gray.

"Seven? Seven of those man-eating ghosts The Banker mentioned?"

"They aren't ghosts." Chen Mo retracted his left arm from the wall, the liquid metal recoiling into the shape of an arm.

"They are abandoned experimental subjects with severely degraded bodily functions. The real danger is the liquid metal shells on them."

He looked at 404.

"The electromagnetic generator is in the Core Control Room of Area 07, about eight hundred meters from here."

"You need to bypass these seven Mimics, enter the control room, and shut down the electromagnetic field."

404's lips trembled several times. He looked at Chen Mo, then at the pitch-black tunnel.

"Me, alone?"

"Nightingale will take you through the maintenance pipes to bypass them. Those pipes are too narrow for the Mimics' frames to enter."

Chen Mo turned his gaze to Nightingale.

"You can do it."

Nightingale sheathed her twin blades, pulled a pair of lightweight night-vision goggles from her backpack, and snapped them over her eyes.

She glanced at the entrance to the maintenance pipe—a square opening at the base of the wall just large enough for one person to crawl through, its edges covered in cobwebs and rusty water.

"Understood." She said only those two words, then crouched down to look at 404.

"Follow me. Do not make a single sound, including your breathing."

404 swallowed hard, the sound of it exceptionally loud in the silent tunnel.

Nightingale shot him a sharp glare, and 404 immediately covered his mouth with his hand.

"Then what about you, Brother Mo?" he squeezed out an indistinct voice from between his fingers.

Chen Mo had already turned around to face the depths of the tunnel, the greenish glows dancing in his pupils.

"I'm walking through the front."

"Are you crazy?" 404 dropped his hand from his mouth.

"Charging seven Mimics head-on? Even if you have a Asura-grade Prosthesis, your sin value has been reset to zero. What are you going to use to..."

"I don't need sin value."

Chen Mo cracked his neck, the vertebrae on both sides letting out a crisp click.

He raised his left arm, and the liquid metal at the forearm split and restructured, forming a shield-like structure that covered half his body. Simultaneously, his five fingers transformed into five sharp metal spikes.

"The liquid metal on them is my father's technology."

Chen Mo's voice came from behind the shield, carrying the hollow echo characteristic of the tunnel.

"They recognize this arm."

He took the first step.

The sound of his boots splashing in the standing water sent a series of echoes through the tunnel, spreading into the distant darkness.

Almost at the same instant, all those greenish glows lit up.

Reminder: The website is about to be updated, which may cause loss of reading progress. Please save your 'Bookshelf' and 'Reading Records' (screenshots recommended). We apologize for any inconvenience!