183: Chapter 183 Seeking Medicine to Heal Wounds, Accumulating Fire to Burn the Heavens

Ling Ye forced his nearly shattered body to move, relying on his memory and the sense of direction from the map to begin a difficult climb back through the intricate ventilation ducts, heading toward the upper level and the maintenance platform in the middle section of the "Old Lift Shaft".

Every inch of movement was accompanied by intense pain and weakness. The stale dust and smell of rust permeating the ventilation ducts, mixed with the faint scent of blood emanating from his own wounds, were suffocating. He could only rely on his tenacious will and his adherence to the "Star Visualization" to maintain a clear consciousness and guide his direction.

The cold, corrosive sensation in his left arm had not been completely eliminated and was especially noticeable when he moved, like a venomous snake coiled within the Bloodline of his arm, waiting for an opportunity to strike. He had to divert a portion of his focus to continuously suppress it with his "Star" intent and a weak trace of "Qi", which further drained his already exhausted energy.

He did not know how long he had been climbing; perhaps it was only ten minutes, yet it felt like centuries. Just as he felt his vision beginning to blur and his arms were almost unable to support the weight of his body, a familiar, downward-sloping duct finally appeared ahead, along with the ventilation opening where the grate had been removed—it was the exact entrance he had used to enter the "B7 Main Hall" earlier!

He had arrived!

He struggled to crawl out of the ventilation opening and stepped back onto the protruding metal maintenance platform. The cold air, mixed with a chilling current surging up from the depths of the shaft, made him shiver, yet it also perked him up.

He leaned against the platform's railing, gasping violently, sweat pouring down like rain. After a brief rest, he immediately took out the map and, using the last bit of reflection from the PIT screen (which could no longer be turned on), confirmed the location of the "Emergency Supply Point" once again.

The map showed that from the current platform, by following another horizontal maintenance passage connected to the platform (not the one leading to the shaft stairs) and walking about fifty meters in a northeasterly direction, there would be a fork; turning into it would lead to a room labeled "Level 2 Equipment Maintenance Room / Emergency Reserve".

He hoped it hadn't been completely emptied or destroyed yet.

Leaning on his crowbar as a cane, he inched his way into the horizontal maintenance passage. The passage was even darker, with only the extremely faint light provided by bioluminescent green moss from somewhere in the distance. The floor was covered in grease and debris, and the air held a faint smell of mold and machine oil.

A distance of fifty meters, which would normally be covered in a flash, now felt incredibly long. He had to stop several times to rest and tend to the wounds that were bleeding again due to the exertion. The cold sensation in his left arm also became more active as his blood circulation increased, bringing waves of bone-chilling, numbing pain.

Finally, on the right side at the end of the passage, he saw a partially open, rusted metal door, with a blurry label on it that was still vaguely legible: "EQP MTCE / EMER STOCK".

This was it!

Ling Ye felt a surge of joy and stepped forward to push the door open with force. The door hinge let out a harsh "creak" that echoed through the silent passage.

Inside the door was a small room, about twenty square meters. Against the wall were two rows of empty, dust-covered shelves, and some damaged cardboard boxes and parts were scattered on the floor. In one corner of the room, there was an overturned metal cabinet with its door half-open.

It seemed to have been thoroughly looted long ago.

Ling Ye's heart sank, but he did not give up and began to search carefully. He first checked the overturned metal cabinet. Inside were only some dead batteries, a few rolls of moldy electrical tape, and a rusted-shut small wrench. There were no medical supplies and no food.

He closed the cabinet door in disappointment and swept his gaze across the rest of the room. Behind the shelves? Under the discarded waste piled in the corner?

Enduring the pain, he began to rummage through the room. On the bottom level of one shelf, behind some empty cardboard boxes, he discovered a fallen plastic box of a different color!

He dragged the box out with effort. The box was military green, and on it were the blurry words "Federal Emergency Reserve" and a red cross symbol!

An emergency medical kit!

Ling Ye was overjoyed and couldn't wait to open the box. Although it was covered in dust, the items inside were well-sealed: sterile gauze, hemostatic bandages, medical tape, antibiotic ointment, painkillers (expired, but perhaps still usable), and even two small bags of military-grade high-energy nutritional supplements and a few bottles of sealed drinking water!

Great! Heaven never leaves a man without a way out!

He immediately unscrewed a bottle of water and quickly drank more than half of it in small sips. The clear, cool water flowed down his parched and burning throat, bringing an indescribable sense of relief. Next, he tore open a bag of high-energy nutritional supplements; that viscous, oddly flavored paste now tasted like a delicacy, and he swallowed it in a few gulps.

With the food and water in his stomach, a warm current rose from his stomach and quickly spread to his limbs and bones, and his physical strength recovered far faster than expected. The effect of this military nutritional supplement was truly powerful.

Next, he began to treat his wounds. He used another bottle of water and gauze to carefully clean the wounds on his left shoulder and the outside of his right leg, applied antibiotic ointment, and re-bandaged them with clean bandages. The "abyssal eye" erosion wound on his left arm was more troublesome; he disinfected it first, then tried to mix a little of his "Star Visualization" intent with the ointment and apply it. The ointment seemed to have little effect on the erosion wound, but the wrapping of "Star" intent seemed to reduce the activity of the cold, and the wound stopped worsening.

After treating his wounds, he swallowed a painkiller (expired, but better than nothing) and gave himself an injection of antibiotics (also expired, risk assumed by himself).

After doing all this, he sat down with his back against the cold wall and once again performed deep breathing exercises, guiding his "Qi" to circulate slowly within his body, accelerating the absorption of the energy from the nutritional supplements, and continuing to suppress the cold in his left arm.

This time, the breathing exercises were significantly effective. His physical strength and Mental Energy were recovering rapidly; although he was still far from his Peak state, he was at least no longer in a near-death state and had basic mobility and combat capabilities.

He estimated the time. From leaving the B7 Main Hall until now, nearly an hour might have passed. The movement of the "abyssal eye" below did not seem to have spread upward; perhaps its main range of activity was still concentrated in the core area. And the "Meltdown" protocol on the surface... the result was unknown.

He had to act as quickly as possible. Before the "abyssal eye" could become more active, or before the "Cleaning" party could conduct a secondary sweep of the underground, he had to get the "xuanyuan ring" and then leave.

He opened Senior Researcher Chen Qinghe's notebook again and turned to the precise hidden location map. The hidden location was in the "Coolant Circulation Hub" area of the B7 Sample Repository, and he needed to pass through the "Backup Maintenance Duct" to find the "Third Isolation Valve".

According to the map and the notes, the entrance to the "Coolant Circulation Hub" was on the lower level of the B7 Main Hall, with an independent maintenance shaft leading there. The entrance to that shaft seemed to be near the corner where the "breathing" sarcoma had been, but it was more hidden and obscured by a pile of pipes and equipment.

This meant that he had to sneak into the B7 Main Hall again and bypass (or pass through) that dangerous "breathing" sarcoma area to find the entrance to the lower level!

The risk was greater than before! Because the "abyssal eye" had already awakened, the vigilance of the derivatives and "eyes" in the hall might have increased significantly.

But he had no other choice.

He organized his equipment. With the crowbar in hand and the pipe wrench tied to his back, he hid his notebook, map, nameplate, and other items close to his body. He took the remaining bandages, ointment, the last two bags of nutritional supplements, and a bottle of water from the medical kit. He checked his multi-tool knife to ensure it was in order.

Then, he stood up and stretched his muscles and bones. The pain was still there, but it was bearable. A cold, determined Battle Intent reignited in his eyes.

He walked out of the Emergency Supply Point and returned to the horizontal maintenance passage. This time, he did not return to the previous ventilation duct entrance—it might have been marked or monitored.

He looked at the other end of the passage; the map showed that it led to another part of the "Old Lift Shaft" area, which might have other paths to the lower level of B7, or at least allow him to bypass the other side of the hall to avoid the front of the sarcoma.

He chose this unknown path.

The passage gradually sloped downward, the lights disappeared completely, and only his "Spiritual Sense" and the touch of the crowbar in his hand guided his direction. The sweet, decaying odor began to appear in the air again; although it was very faint, it indicated that he was approaching a contaminated area.

After walking about thirty meters, stairs leading downward appeared ahead. At the end of the stairs was a partially open, heavy explosion-proof door, and from behind the door came the faint, low sound of machinery running and liquid flowing.

Was it the sound of the coolant circulation System?!

Ling Ye's heart skipped a beat, and he carefully approached the crack in the door to look inside.

Behind the door was a huge equipment level filled with various pipes, valves, and large cylindrical containers (cooling towers?). The space was slightly shorter than the upper hall but more complex. Machines roared, cold white mist permeated between the pipes, there was standing water on the ground, and the air was humid and cold, carrying a heavy smell of chemical coolant.

This seemed to be the peripheral equipment area of the "Coolant Circulation Hub"!

And according to the map, by passing through this equipment layer, one could find the "Backup Maintenance Duct" and the "Third Isolation Valve" leading deeper inside.

Good luck, he had found a path that might allow him to avoid the upper hall!

But the light in the equipment level was dim, pipes crisscrossed, his line of sight was blocked, and the machine noise could mask many sounds, but it could also mask the sound of danger approaching.

He had to be extremely careful.

Ling Ye slipped sideways into the equipment level and gently closed the door behind him. He crouched low, using the huge cooling towers and pipes as cover, and began to move carefully toward the entrance of the "Backup Maintenance Duct" marked on the map.

The machine roar was deafening, and the cold mist made visibility very low. There were puddles on the ground from time to time, which needed to be carefully avoided.

His "Spiritual Sense" was fully deployed, trying hard to distinguish other movements besides the machine noise in the noisy environment.

Everything seemed normal. There was only the sound of machines running; there were no signs of life or derivative activity.

Could it be that the derivatives of the "abyssal eye" did not venture into this environment filled with machinery and chemicals? Or was there something here that they feared?

Ling Ye did not dare to relax and continued to move forward. After bypassing several huge cooling tanks, a row of parallel, large pipes about one meter in diameter appeared ahead, with "Coolant Circulation - Main Pipeline" labeled on them. And next to these main pipelines, on the rock wall, there was a square opening about the height of a person, sealed by an iron grate, with a label above it: "Backup Maintenance Duct - Unauthorized Entry Strictly Prohibited".

This was it! The entrance to the "Backup Maintenance Duct"!

However, the iron grate was locked with a heavy combination padlock. The lock was a newer model, which was out of place with the rusted environment around it.

Was it installed later by "Deep Space Frontier Capital"? Or was it set up by the "Cleaning" party?

Whoever it was, it indicated that this place was under strict control.

It required a password, or... forced entry.

Ling Ye looked at the pipe wrench in his hand. This heavy pipe wrench might be able to smash the padlock, but the sound would be loud; although it could be partially masked by the machine roar, the risk remained.

Or, try the password? Senior Researcher Chen Qinghe's notes mentioned that the password for the hidden location was his birthday combined with the "Star Chart Sequence".

Birthday? It wasn't written in the notes. But the "Star Chart Sequence"... perhaps it was related to the star chart on the "Ancient Ring", or the star chart on the "xuanyuan ring" passed down in Senior Researcher Chen Qinghe's family?

He tried to recall the star chart patterns on the phantom of the "Ancient Ring" and match them with the possible numbers on the lock... but had no clues.

Time was tight. He could not spend a long time trying to crack it here.

He decided to force it open. He would smash it open as fast as he could, under the cover of the machine noise!

He raised the pipe wrench, aiming at the shackle of the padlock—

Just as the pipe wrench was about to fall!

His "Spiritual Sense" sent an unprecedented, extremely sharp warning of death!

It was not coming from in front, nor from behind!

But from—

Above!

Almost instinctively, Ling Ye lunged to the side and back!

"Boom!!!"

Above the spot where he had been standing, a section of thick, rusted coolant transport pipe, along with its fixed support, had unexpectedly broken and collapsed without warning! The heavy, cold metal pipe and support crashed down like a giant hammer, smashing a shallow pit into the ground, and coolant (a kind of light blue chemical liquid) gushed out from the break, instantly spreading around!

And a ghost-like, sickle-like forelimb covered in dark blue chitinous armor, following the collapse of the pipe, shot out like lightning from the gap in the pipes above, slashing across the position where Ling Ye had just been standing! If he hadn't dodged in advance, he would have been cut in half at the waist by now!

Ling Ye rolled onto the ground and looked up in horror!

He saw that in the shadows of the crisscrossing pipes above, a giant Mutant—larger than the kind of monster he had encountered by the river before, with denser and more hideous blue "eye-like patterns" on its carapace, and blue tentacles writhing on its back like venomous snakes—was staring fixedly at Ling Ye with its pale, compound eyes!

It had been lurking between the pipes above all along! Using the machine noise and the environment to hide itself! Waiting for the prey to approach!

This was no accident! This was an ambush!

"Hiss—Gah!!!"

The monster let out a sharp, ear-piercing hiss. Its massive body, as if weightless, leaped down from the pipes. Six pairs of sickle-like forelimbs spread out, carrying a foul wind, as it lunged toward Ling Ye, who had just climbed up!

Its speed, strength, and power were far superior to those ordinary derivatives he had encountered by the river earlier!

This was definitely an elite or boss-level existence among the "abyssal eye" derivatives!

Moreover, it knew how to ambush! It possessed a certain level of intelligence!

Ling Ye's pupils shrank, and his heart almost stopped beating!

A desperate situation had descended once again!

And this time, behind him were cold machines, in front of him was a violent monster, and his retreat was blocked by broken pipes and gushing coolant.

There was only... a fight to the death!