chsdbacks Chapter 324 Self-Destructing Missiles? A Monster That Appeared Suddenly.
Chapter 324 Self-Destructing Missiles? A Monster That Appeared Suddenly.
Zhang Lingyu's Yin Five Thunders were like a leech—the black lightning wasn't an explosive arc of electricity, but a viscous, heavy fluid that spread like ink across the ground and in the air. Once it came into contact with a human body, it would coil around them like a snake, quickly paralyzing muscles and nerves, leaving the person stiff and unable to move.
"Dark Thunder - Dirty Water Thunder!"
Zhang Lingyu thrust out with both hands, and black lightning surged towards the charging guards like a tidal wave. The moment the lightning touched the first person, that person convulsed as if electrocuted, foaming at the mouth and collapsing to the ground. The second person tried to jump over, but Zhang Lingyu struck his ankle with a lightning whip in mid-air, causing him to fall to the ground and be engulfed by the black lightning.
Feng Baobao moved through the crowd like a ghost. Her swordsmanship had no fancy movements or dazzling moves; each strike was simple and direct, yet incredibly precise. One slash severed the gun from a guard's hand, another sliced across another's wrist, the blade cutting into flesh to just the right depth—enough to wound but not kill, but enough to incapacitate them.
"Clang!" The sound of metal clashing rang out—someone blocked her attack with a military knife. It was a burly man who looked like a small leader; he reacted extremely quickly and was quite strong, managing to block Feng Baobao's knife.
Feng Baobao tilted her head, seemingly surprised. Then, with a flick of her wrist, the blade slid down along the man's military knife, sparks flying as the blades rubbed together. With a "sizzle," the burly man's hand holding the knife was cut open, and the knife flew out of his grasp, clattering to the ground. The next second, the back of Feng Baobao's blade struck his temple, and the burly man's eyes rolled back as he collapsed to the ground.
The two of them worked together and managed to temporarily hold off an attack by seven or eight people.
While maintaining the Qimen formation to disrupt the earth's energy and the monsters, Master Wang Ye occasionally used minor spells to harass approaching enemies. He made a hand seal with his left hand to maintain the formation, and with a flick of his right hand, a wind blade flew out, severing the shoelace of a guard who was trying to flank from the side—the man took two steps, the shoelace got tangled around his ankle, and he fell face-first into the mud with a cry of "Ouch!"
He glanced back in Chen Duo's direction to make sure she and Xiao Yun were safe, then continued maintaining the formation, muttering to himself, "Taoists are people too, they need to eat, they get tired... After this job is done, I'll definitely have to get the company to reimburse me for a health-preserving meal..."
Chen Duo held Xiao Yun tightly, hiding behind a pillar. This time, she didn't use the Phoenix True Fire; instead, she lightly tapped her finger on the cloth bag. Several brightly colored little spiders quietly crawled out, scurrying swiftly along the ground towards the chaotic crowd—they were so small, and their colors blended seamlessly into the dusty cement, that almost no one noticed their presence. The little spiders searched for those who looked like minor leaders or technicians, silently climbing up their trouser legs and burrowing into their collars…
A few seconds later, one of the bald bear's henchmen, who was aiming his gun, suddenly felt an itch on his neck. He reached up and touched it, but found nothing. He shrugged and continued aiming, but suddenly felt dizzy, his vision went black, and he collapsed to the ground with a thud.
The second person, the third person... one after another, people fell down silently, without any struggle, as if someone had pressed an off switch.
Nie Lingfeng ignored the battle behind him; all his attention was focused on the control panel.
The screen displayed a rudimentary interface, with green characters flashing against a black background. It showed missile status (ready to launch… but the word "ready to launch" was flashing faster than normal, which was strange), target coordinates (unset, displayed as a red "NULL"), and a countdown timer (not started, displayed as "00:00:00"). Several physical buttons were set: [Power], [Target Lock], [Launch Countdown], and [Emergency Abort]. Next to it was a keyhole requiring a physical key; the edges were scratched, indicating it had been roughly used.
Launch countdown? Nie Lingfeng's brows furrowed even more.
Did Bald Bear really set up a self-destruct or launch program? He carefully examined the flashing parameters on the screen and noticed a detail—in the far corner of the screen, there was a line of extremely small characters, almost invisible without close inspection: "Auto-Destruct Sequence: Pending..."
He felt a chill run down his spine and tried to press the "Emergency Stop" button.
No response.
The button appears to be locked, or requires other conditions—such as a specific password or a specific key.
He then tried to unplug the cables connecting the control console and the missile base. The cables were thick, with copper cores as thick as a finger, wrapped in a thick layer of insulation, and the connections were very secure, the kind that are fixed with screws. Moreover, at the cable joint, Nie Lingfeng discovered a small device—an inconspicuous black cube with a faint red light flashing on it.
Self-destruct device. If the cable is forcibly severed, this device will detonate—it may not detonate the missile, but it would be enough to blow anyone standing nearby to pieces.
What should I do?
Time is running out! The gunfire, explosions, and monster roars outside are getting closer. Gao Lian and his men's feint attack seems to have begun as well—the sounds of explosions and gunfire can be faintly heard from the outer perimeter, and the ground trembles slightly from the shockwaves. The chaos in the hall is intensifying, with more and more monsters appearing—and some seem to be crawling in through other breaches—and the various factions are suffering heavy casualties in the melee. Corpses lie scattered on the ground, and the air is thick with the stench of blood and rotting monsters.
"Commander Nie! We've found something!"
Erzhuang's voice suddenly came through the earpiece, tinged with surprise and urgency, his words rapid-fire: "I just intercepted a very weak encrypted signal through the signal repeater you deployed. It's coming from a non-standard component inside the missile! That component wasn't in the original design; it was added later! The signal content was quickly cracked—I used a quantum exhaustive algorithm, which took a while—it's a repeating command: 'Self-destruct protocol activated, please contact the main control to deactivate the countdown… Backup key: shockwave frequency matching…' The rest is gibberish, protected by a stronger encryption algorithm, which I can't decipher for now!"
She took a deep breath—though her voice betrayed no breathing, it became noticeably grave: "This missile has likely been fitted with a hidden self-destruct program, and the countdown has already been activated! It's just not showing up on the main interface! We need to find a way to deactivate it, or… use that backup key for 'shockwave frequency matching'! But what is shockwave frequency?"
Shock wave frequency?
Nie Lingfeng suddenly looked down at his feet!
The rumbling vibrations emanating from deep underground, growing clearer and clearer—each tremor causing the ground to quiver slightly, like a giant heartbeat, growing faster, closer, and more frequent. Initially, the intervals between the tremors were more than ten seconds, but now they've shortened to two or three seconds per tremor.
Is it...
Just then, another unexpected event occurred!
Boom-! ! ! !
The entire underground hall suddenly began to shake violently!
More violent than ever before! Large chunks of cement and dust rained down from the ceiling, and fragments shattered on the floor. Cracks spread across the walls like a spiderweb, stretching from the edge of the ceiling to the floor. The missile itself shook, and the countdown timer welded to its body rattled violently, as if it might fall off at any moment.
Then, to everyone's horror, the ground in the center of the hall, directly in front of the missile, collapsed with a deafening roar!
It didn't crack slowly; instead, it was as if an invisible giant hand had violently torn it open from below! The ground shattered like an eggshell, revealing a huge crater with a diameter of over ten meters! The edges were jagged, and steel bars protruded from the broken cement like twisted fingers reaching towards the sky.
An indescribable, terrifying aura, a mixture of sulfur, blood, decay, and pure malice, erupted from the crater like a volcanic eruption!
The stench was so intense, like an invisible wall, rushing towards them and making it almost impossible to breathe. The closest people were so overwhelmed by the stench that they bent over and gagged, tears and snot streaming down their faces. Even Zhang Chulan, who was thirty or forty meters away from the pit, felt as if a hand was choking him, and instinctively wanted to back away.
Below the deep pit, all was dark, with a faint crimson light shimmering in the depths—like a pair of enormous eyes gazing upwards from the bottom of the abyss.
Then, amidst the sickening sounds of bones grinding and slime writhing—sounds so piercing they sent chills down your spine, like hundreds of bones rubbing against each other—a colossal shadow, beyond description, slowly rose from the deep pit.
Nie Ling looked at the giant monster that had just recovered from its "magma cocoon" state and was slowly exhaling a few breaths of black gas that smelled of sparks and sulfur, looking somewhat "bewildered".
A crazy and audacious idea flashed through Nie Lingfeng's mind like lightning.
"Wang Ye! Help me! Maximum power, Chaotic Golden Clang! Slow it down! Even for just one second!" Nie Lingfeng transmitted his voice to Wang Ye, urgent and deep. At the same time, he took a deep breath and held something he always kept close to his body in his palm—a small, inconspicuous, crude token that seemed to be made of some kind of black metal. A blurry, twisted rune was engraved on it, and it felt uneven to the touch, like a fragment of some ancient script. The edges of the token were worn, as if it had been through a long period of time. It was cool to the touch, but it felt strangely heavy in his palm.
Three days ago, Gao Xiaomei received this token from a passing "mountain spirit" with an exceptionally ancient and obscure aura while communicating with "spirits." The spirit said, "Things underground hate this," and asked her to pass it on to Nie Lingfeng. The "mountain spirit" had no concrete form, merely a blurry, grayish-white mist, yet it could solidify the surrounding air. Gao Xiaomei was so overwhelmed by its aura that her face turned pale. The spirit dropped the token and dispersed, as if unwilling to linger even a moment longer. Nie Lingfeng never understood what it was, only intuitively sensing its extraordinary nature, and kept it close at hand.
At that moment, when he took out the black token and approached the control panel, especially the biometric sensor area, the blurry runes on the token suddenly heated up slightly, the temperature rapidly rising from icy cold to hot to the touch, emitting an extremely faint, dim light, as if something that had been dormant for thousands of years was awakening.
The light was very dim, almost invisible, but Nie Lingfeng's fingers could feel the heat penetrating his skin.
At the same time, the giant seemed to sense something.
It abruptly turned its head—if you could call it a head—and the several black smoke-belching holes on the top of its body were all aimed directly at Nie Lingfeng. A low, hissing sound, squeezed from deep within its chest, echoed in the hall. The sound wasn't like anger, but more like… vigilance? The dark red patterns on its body suddenly brightened, and waves of sulfurous heat erupted from its body, instantly scorching the nearby corpses and emitting a nauseating, burnt stench.