215: Chapter 215 Virus Spread

The other side of the black hole turned out to be a new continent!

After this news was transmitted back, it undoubtedly made the leadership of the various major nations who learned of its existence extremely excited. They immediately ordered more personnel to be sent, carrying heavy equipment to explore, determined to seize the initiative.

It was also at this time that the PDA joint research team in the middle of the Pacific Ocean received some bad news.

— —

After finishing her work, Mia Namaya, a Nurse in the research team, returned to her duty room.

Mia graduated from the University of Melbourne School of Nursing. After obtaining her master's degree with excellent grades, she served in a field hospital for three years. She originally thought her days would just pass by uneventfully, until she came to this research station in the middle of the Pacific Ocean.

When she arrived here, her first thought was: "Oh my god! An otherworld really exists; these countries have hidden it too well."

But the otherworld seemed quite dangerous. Thinking of that injured Officer from England, Mia sighed, hoping he would get better soon.

According to the requirements, Mia needed to upload today's duty log to the security system. But after opening the system, a line of red biological safety warnings in the log made Mia's eyes widen, and she stood up abruptly.

"How could this be? Who entered this? Didn't they notice there was a problem here? This is a serious dereliction of duty!"

Mia pressed the alarm button.

Immediately, alarms blared throughout the entire quarantine zone, and someone announced over the loudspeaker that everyone was forbidden from moving around at will.

Fred, who was in the ward, was also awakened by this sound. He felt heavy all over, and a wave of nausea, like the sea churning in his stomach, rushed straight to his throat. An irresistible urge to vomit swept over him.

"Ugh—!"

A puddle of filth appeared on the floor. Fred had vomited up everything he had eaten, emptying his stomach completely. He only felt a little better after he felt like he had even vomited up bitter bile.

"What is happening to me? Is it a side effect of the medication?"

Fred didn't pay too much attention to it and prepared to press the call button to have someone come over to clean the floor and prepare some more food.

But after half an hour, no one had come in. Fred felt something was wrong and pressed the call button several more times in succession, but the result was the same.

"Where is everyone? Damn it, is no one going to take care of me, a wounded man with a crippled leg?" Fred shouted, with a hint of self-deprecating laughter.

Another ten minutes passed, and still no one came. Fred finally couldn't laugh anymore...

What exactly happened?

Fred struggled to sit up. It was at this moment that someone finally spoke, but not at the door; it was from the communicator in the ward.

An old voice rang out from the communicator: "Captain Fred, can you hear me?"

"I can hear you," Fred said hurriedly. "What happened outside?"

"Captain Fred, I am Professor Vanossi. We re-examined your test report and discovered that you have likely been infected by an unknown virus. The area you are in has been completely sealed off, and we need your cooperation to perform some examinations."

"Didn't you say there were no problems?" Fred panicked inside, but could only force a smile. "Professor, you must be joking. I feel perfectly fine."

"I hope so too..." Professor Vanossi's voice grew stern. "Captain Fred, please answer truthfully: did you use any means to conceal an infection?"

"No, I did not!"

Fred was a bit agitated. "I swear on my honor as a soldier, I definitely did not conceal any situation!"

"Please relax. We are just confirming some information; we do not mean to blame you."

Professor Vanossi continued, "We observed that you were vomiting just now. Is something wrong with your body?"

"I..." Fred hesitated for a moment, then answered truthfully, "I don't know why either; maybe something is wrong with my stomach."

After speaking, Fred felt that urge to vomit come up again, but he couldn't vomit anything else out and could only retch a few times.

Fred's heart sank; his body might really be having problems.

The communicator was silent for a moment, as if they were discussing something on the other side. After a few minutes, Professor Vanossi's voice sounded again:

"Captain Fred, do you feel anything unusual with your wound? Please unwrap it and take a look."

"The wound?"

Fred was stunned. Subconsciously, he looked down at the bandaged position on his thigh, which was fixed with splints. Under Professor Vanossi's reminder, he vaguely felt a strange numbness and itching coming from the wound.

Fred immediately removed the splints and used his hands to tear open the several layers of bandages wrapped around the base of his thigh.

"Hiss—!"

When they saw the condition of the wound on his thigh, at this moment, Professor Vanossi and the team members in the monitoring room outside the quarantine zone all gasped in unison.

The monitoring screen clearly showed that the wound on Fred's thigh had been completely covered by a grayish-white stone-like structure. The skin around the wound had turned grayish-white and even presented a texture similar to marble.

"What is this thing?" Professor Vanossi adjusted his glasses, almost pressing his face against the monitoring screen.

Fred was also startled by the condition of his own wound. He tremblingly reached out to touch those grayish-white areas; the texture was hard, completely unlike human skin, more like touching a piece of rough stone.

Fred's expression was terrified. In the face of this bizarre situation, even though he was a battle-hardened veteran, he broke down.

"No! How could this be! Tests were done before; I clearly didn't receive any viral infection. How could it become like this?"

As he spoke, Fred leaned against the head of the bed and pinched hard at that grayish-white area, but he couldn't feel the slightest bit of pain.

Then, a small piece of tissue at the wound was even snapped off by Fred.

Fred stared blankly at this piece of tissue that had fallen off his body. It was just like a real stone fragment, with a subtle honeycomb-like structure on the edges. Even more chilling was that at the wound where the fragment had fallen off, one could not see a trace of blood or muscle tissue, only the same grayish-white substance.

His own body had turned into stone.

In the monitoring room, Professor Vanossi forced himself to calm down.

Unheard of. What kind of terrifying infection could change the basic material structure of the human body? Professor Vanossi felt a chill creep up his spine. He suppressed his inner shock and continued speaking into the microphone:

"Captain Fred, it seems you have indeed been infected by an unknown virus. Please stop harming yourself. Trust us; we will find the cause and treat you with all our might."

After speaking, Professor Vanossi immediately turned off the microphone and turned to his assistant, saying, "Check and see how many people have had physical contact with Fred, and quarantine them immediately."

"No, it must include all contacts. Everyone who has had direct contact with Fred, as well as those who have had contact with these direct contacts—quarantine them all immediately."

At the same time, the operations for large numbers of troops from various countries to head to the otherworld were urgently called off.