71: Chapter 71 A Secret Base in the Desert, No Outsiders Allowed

The sun in Nevada was as fierce as a nuclear bomb hanging over one's head.

This was the edge of Death Valley, where for a hundred miles around, nothing grew, save for weathered rocks and the occasional lizard scurrying by.

"Rumble—"

An armed helicopter with a matte black coating, like a ferocious steel insect, tore through the shimmering heat waves above the desert and slowly landed on a desolate Gobi.

Amidst the sandstorm whipped up by the propellers, Chen Yuan jumped off the helicopter.

He wasn't wearing a suit, but had changed into a crisp set of desert camouflage, with a pair of oversized aviator sunglasses perched on the bridge of his nose.

"Is this the secret base?"

Chen Yuan took off his sunglasses and squinted as he examined the dilapidated building before him.

It was a typical American roadside motel.

Half of the neon letters on the "Sunset Motel" sign had long since broken, leaving only "Sun" and "Motel" clinging to life. The plaster was peeling, the windows were boarded up, and there was even a wrecked pickup truck reduced to its frame parked at the entrance.

It looked like a ghost town that even a drifter would despise.

"A perfect disguise, isn't it?"

Zola emerged like a ghost from the motel's rickety screen door.

He wore that perpetually stained lab coat, held a test tube still dripping with green liquid in his hand, and his pale face was filled with the neurotic excitement caused by a lack of sleep.

"Welcome to my 'Disneyland', Boss."

Zola made an exaggerated gesture of invitation, "Although it looks like a junk heap on the outside, I guarantee that the inside is absolutely more spectacular than the White House."

Chen Yuan followed him into the motel lobby.

A musty, old smell rushed to meet them. The counter was covered in a thick layer of dust, and the radio was still playing country music from decades ago, filled with that spine-chilling wasteland atmosphere.

Zola walked to the old-fashioned vending machine, pulled a special coin from his pocket, and inserted it.

"Click."

The vending machine didn't dispense a soda; instead, it slowly slid aside.

It revealed an elevator door behind it that shimmered with a cold, metallic luster.

"Please, enter."

The two entered the elevator.

There were no floor buttons, only an iris scanner.

"Verification successful. Welcome, Highest Authority Administrator."

The Red Queen's voice rang out, and the elevator began to descend at high speed.

That intense feeling of weightlessness lasted for a full minute; Chen Yuan estimated that they were at least two hundred meters underground.

"Ding."

The elevator door opened.

The previously murky, hot air vanished instantly, replaced by a cool, constant temperature of 22 degrees and a faint, unique scent mixed with ozone and formalin.

Presented before Chen Yuan was a gargantuan, breathtaking underground space.

Countless transparent glass walkways were suspended in mid-air, with a bottomless mechanical abyss beneath them. Staff in hazmat suits bustled about like worker ants, and massive mechanical arms were transporting shipping containers marked with danger symbols.

"This is the specimen room; I call it the 'Graveyard of Evolution'."

Zola pointed to the huge glass jars on both sides of the corridor, his tone carrying a perverse sense of pride.

Chen Yuan took a glance.

His stomach immediately churned violently.

What was soaking inside were all sorts of deformed creatures. Giant pythons with wings, wolves with eight legs, and humanoid creatures with only half a head that were still twitching...

"These are all failures."

Zola shrugged, looking indifferent, "Gene editing is like God rolling dice; most of the time, what He throws out is garbage. But that doesn't matter; what matters is that we found gold in the trash heap."

He led Chen Yuan through the long corridor, arriving at the deepest part of the base.

S-Zone.

This was an absolute restricted area; even the air was permeated with an unsettling scent of high-energy radiation.

A half-meter thick titanium alloy blast door stood in front of them.

On the door was a striking yellow nuclear radiation symbol, along with a line of blood-red characters: [Extremely Dangerous: Living Organism].

"This is it."

Zola stopped, and a fanatical light suddenly burst from his murky eyes, just like a pilgrim finally standing before a holy site.

"Boss, that type-z ore you brought back... it's simply a miracle!"

He waved his hands, speaking incoherently, "It's not just energy! It is a catalyst! A blood of God that can make dead genes 'come alive' again!"

"We tried thousands of methods, and finally injected the ore's radiation energy into a piece of amber fossil we found under the Siberian permafrost, dating back one hundred million years."

"Originally, that was just a fragmented, lifeless DNA chain."

"But..."

Zola turned abruptly, staring fixedly at the thick blast door, his voice trembling:

"It came alive."

"Not just cell division, it is self-reorganizing! It is devouring all energy around it! It is growing at a speed as fast as an explosion of cancer cells!"

"Three days! Just three days!"

"It went from a single cell to a... behemoth."

Chen Yuan frowned.

He could feel that even through such a thick door, the sense of oppression emanating from within still made his hair stand on end.

That was the unique pressure of an apex predator.

"Open the observation window."

Chen Yuan ordered.

"Boss, you'd better prepare yourself mentally."

Zola pressed a button on the console.

The thick armored plate on the blast door slowly slid open, revealing a piece of high-strength, one-way transparent glass.

Chen Yuan walked over and looked inside through the glass.

The space inside was huge, easily as big as a basketball court. There were no lights, only the faint, eerie glow from the lines connected to the massive creature.

That was...

An egg?

No, it was a broken black eggshell, as large as a compact car.

And beside the eggshell, a huge dark shadow was curled up.

It seemed to be sleeping.

Its back was covered in a thick layer of horny scales, like obsidian, which shimmered with a cold, frigid light even in the darkness.

Its huge wings were folded against its sides, with a wingspan estimated to exceed ten meters. Its sharp claws were deeply embedded into the alloy floor, as easily as if cutting through tofu.

With its breathing, its massive chest rose and fell, puffing out jets of scorching white steam.

"Thump!"

Just as Chen Yuan was observing.

The dark shadow suddenly moved.

A thick, powerful tail lashed out violently, slamming hard against the adjacent wall.

The entire underground base trembled violently.

That wall was made of specially poured concrete! Yet it had been cracked with a deep fissure!

"Roar—!!!"

A low, hoarse, yet tyrannical roar passed through the thick glass, vibrating so hard it made Chen Yuan's eardrums ache.

Those eyes opened.

What kind of eyes were those.

Slit pupils.

Golden slit pupils.

Cold, cruel, arrogant, as if a king from the primordial ancient times was surveying this group of ants that had disturbed its slumber.

Chen Yuan subconsciously took a step back.

He had watched countless Hollywood blockbusters and seen countless monsters created with special effects.

But when such a creature that only existed in legends appeared alive before his eyes, and was even baring its teeth at him through the glass, the shock from the genetic level was something no language could describe.

"Zola."

Chen Yuan swallowed, turned his head to look at the mad scientist beside him who was still gesticulating wildly, his voice somewhat dry:

"Tell me the truth."

He pointed to the big guy inside that was trying to tear open the blast door with its claws:

"You call this thing 'hatching'?"

"Are you sure..."

"You aren't resurrecting a Godzilla?"