The system is four years ahead of schedule, but Weird is still a cub.

Chapter 563 Hunter
"Something's wrong."

The further you go in, the clearer the feeling of being "locked in" becomes.

Shen Ge sensed that the force wasn't locking onto him, attacking him, or trying to reveal his location, but rather something akin to scanning or reading data.

This feeling had occurred once before when entering the Black Mountain base, and immediately afterward, Shen Ge encountered a similar "immobile" strange energy attack.

Shen Ge wondered if there was some connection between the two. If the underground Ghost King really had the ability to simulate the ghost energy of a target, then this "scanning sensation" could be explained.

As Shen Ge passed through the second hatch, he suddenly felt a powerful surge of strange energy encroaching upon him, followed by a hissing sound as a large amount of air pressure was released in the passage.

Shen Ge felt the strange feeling becoming more and more obvious, so he simply turned off the three characteristics. Just then, he heard a "click" sound. The mechanical sound of unlocking came from inside the heavy alloy gate in front of the passage. It slowly slid open to both sides, revealing a brightly lit alloy passage that extended downwards. The cold air mixed with disinfectant and some indescribable fishy and sweet smell rushed towards him.

Shen Ge stepped inside.

The alarm in the passage suddenly blared, and a blinding red light flashed wildly!
"Warning! Unauthorized intrusion detected! Activate defense protocol!" A cold, synthesized electronic voice echoed in the corridor.

Immediately afterwards, several firing ports popped up on both sides of the wall, and high-energy laser beams and solid projectiles rained down on Shen Ge!

Shen Ge didn't even lift his eyelids. The crimson light on the surface of his Crimson Mist Armor flowed, establishing a perfect defensive barrier, while simultaneously unleashing Shen Ge's supernatural power—

Immovable Ghost Realm!

All attacks aimed at him, whether lasers or physical projectiles, froze instantly in mid-air as if they had hit an invisible, absolutely still wall the moment they entered a three-meter radius around him.

The laser beam remained in its scorching column shape, yet could not advance even an inch further; the dense projectiles hovered, like insects embedded in amber.

Shen Ge strolled along as if in a leisurely garden, ignoring the frozen, deadly storm, and walked straight ahead. After he passed, the frozen attacks fell to the ground with a crackling sound, as if they had lost their support.

At the end of the passage, a team of fully armed "hunter" guards watched this scene in utter horror, as if they had seen a ghost; they even forgot to fire their weapons.

Shen Ge's gaze swept over them, and his blood-corroded tentacles shot out like venomous pythons—

The sounds of sharp blades piercing flesh rang out rapidly. The guards didn't even have time to scream before they were all pierced through vital organs and died on the spot.

Shen Ge didn't linger. Following the increasingly strong, nauseating smell in the air, a mixture of blood, chemicals, and eerie energy, he quickly ventured deeper into the base.

After passing through several forcibly breached alloy gates and dealing with the guards along the way, Shen Ge arrived at the core area of ​​the base—

A huge underground space.

The sight before him caused even Shen Ge, who was already accustomed to bizarre and tragic events, to slightly contract his pupils.

The vast space was divided into several areas.

The most conspicuous feature is a huge, bottomless mixing pool, about half the size of a football field, with cold alloy walls and a viscous, dark red mixture inside, resembling boiling mud.

Faintly visible inside are the not-yet-completely melted, broken human limbs, stark white bones, and... a large number of strangely shaped pieces of flesh and minerals, emitting faint, eerie energy fluctuations.

The air was filled with a nauseating, sweet, and burnt smell.

Above the mixing tank, several thick metal pipes were continuously injecting a green liquid with a pungent odor and a faint fluorescence into the tank, exactly the "green glowing liquid" that York had described.

Whenever the green liquid is injected, the viscous mixture in the entire mixing tank seems to be injected with violent life force, churning and bubbling violently, making a "gurgling" sound like a wild beast swallowing.

The unmelted limbs and minerals spun, collided, and fused wildly in the pool, their dark red surfaces bulging and cracking as if something terrifying was being conceived inside!

Next to the mixing tank are several fully automated production lines. Huge robotic arms scoop up basketball-sized, dark red "meat chunks" that have already been partially fused from the tank and send them into one high-temperature, high-pressure furnace after another. Inside the furnaces, blinding light flashes and a muffled roar comes out.

When the "meat chunks" processed in the furnace were sent out by the conveyor belt, they had become "Black Blood Crystal" embryos with a layer of black crystals on the surface and dark purple light flowing inside.

Inside some of the original crystals, you can even see the blurry, incompletely digested outline of a human face, silently twisting and solidifying inside the crystal.

These preforms are sent to the final processing area for cutting, polishing, and packaging.

Finally, the finished "black blood crystals," each gleaming with an ominous light, were neatly stacked into a specially designed energy box by a robotic arm.

The entire space was filled with the roar of machinery, the hiss of liquid being injected, the hum of the furnace, and... the never-ending, chilling "gurgling" sound from the mixing tank.

The researchers, dressed in white protective suits and wearing breathing masks, were like indifferent ghosts, busy in front of the instruments, recording data, seemingly oblivious to the scene of the carnage in front of them.

Shen Ge stood in an inconspicuous, shadowy corner high up, surveying the hellish production line. York's description was not even one ten-thousandth as cruel as what he had witnessed firsthand.

He saw the "raw materials" being thrown into the mixing tank—besides the strange ores transported from the mine, there were rows of slaves locked in iron cages like livestock, their eyes numb and desperate.

Several men dressed in "hunter" uniforms were roughly dragging several emaciated and obviously sick slaves out of their iron cages and throwing them into the boiling furnace of flesh and blood like garbage.

"The 73rd batch of fusion test subjects has been successfully deployed. The amount of catalyst injected has been increased by 5%. We will observe the fusion efficiency and the stability of the 'branding'..." A researcher's indifferent voice came through his mask.

This is hardly a research base.
This is clearly a death factory that uses countless lives as fuel to produce evil and power.

"Master, a high concentration of strange energy and a strong signal source have been detected, located in the direction of the main control room at the deepest part of the base. That should be the control core of the entire 'Heart of the Furnace,' and also the command center of the 'Hunter' organization here," Xiao Qi said.

Because Shen Ge's "invasion" of the base was so fast that even the main control room couldn't react in time, the defense team even thought he was in the outer area. At this time, the arrest operation against him was also in the outer area. Who would have thought that he had already successfully entered the interior?

Shen Ge's next plan was to collect research data from this place while completely destroying this sinister underground research base, and also pack up and take away these manufactured eerie energy crystals.

If the Strange Energy Crystals are indeed the precursor to the "Strange Energy Silkworms," ​​it would still be somewhat unsettling for Shen Ge. But even so, he couldn't let these Strange Energy Crystals fall into the mouth of the Underground Strange King.

He had to be quick, so that even if the defense team reacted quickly enough, they wouldn't pose much of a threat to him, but at least he could save some energy.

Beep— Beep—

At this moment, a red alarm also lit up at the top of the research area, clearly indicating that the main control room had realized that the intruders were not so simple and had entered a state of high alert.

"Level One Alert! Intruders have breached the outer defenses and entered the core production area! All non-combat personnel, evacuate to the safe room immediately! Repeat, evacuate to the safe room immediately!" The cold, synthesized electronic voice drowned out the mechanical roar, carrying an unprecedented urgency.

The researchers, who had been busy, were instantly thrown into a panic. They could no longer care about recording data or operating instruments. They dropped what they were doing and ran in terror toward the passage leading to the deeper safety chamber, away from the mixing tank and the production line.

"Trying to leave?" Shen Ge's eyes were icy as he spoke from the shadows.

He stepped out of the shadows and vanished like a ghost!
The next second, he appeared in front of the group of researchers who were fleeing in panic, blocking the narrow passage leading to the safe room.

"Get out of the way!" The researcher at the front, in shock, instinctively drew his sidearm and pointed it at Shen Ge.

puff!

The putrid tentacles struck first, easily piercing his throat and stringing him and the two researchers behind him together into a bloody mess.

"what--!"

The researchers behind screamed in terror and tried to back away, but were pushed back by the crowd surging from behind, and the scene instantly descended into chaos.

Shen Ge gave them no chance; his rotting blood tentacles danced wildly in the narrow passage like the whip of death.

Each swing and piercing sent up sprays of blood and severed limbs, the crimson putrid blood mingling with the dark red slurry of the mixing tank, turning the passage into a slaughterhouse.

Screams, the cracking of bones, and the tearing of flesh mingled with the piercing alarm, creating a bloody symphony of death.

These researchers, like the slaves they slaughtered, turned into a bloody pulp, bidding farewell to this world forever.

In less than ten seconds, the entrance to the passage was a scene of utter devastation, with not a single survivor remaining. Shen Ge didn't even glance at the corpses; his target was clear—the main control room deep within the base.

His figure flashed again, following the energy core signal source marked by Xiao Qi, ignoring the automatic defense firepower that reappeared along the way but no longer posed any threat to him, and forcefully broke through one thick alloy gate after another.

The heavy gate deformed and shattered like paper under Shen Ge's violent power and strange energy. Smoke and dust filled the passage, and the alarm sounded even more shrill, but it was more like a war drum beating for his charge.

"Master, multiple high-intensity life signals and strange energy reactions have been detected behind the door. Threat level assessment: High," Xiao Qi reminded.

"How tall?" Shen Ge asked in return.

Xiaoqi replied, "Their strange energy fluctuations are very strange, and their intensity is very unstable. The highest is level 5, and the lowest is level 3."

3-5 order?
That's fine.

In the face of absolute power, any so-called "threat" is nothing more than a lamb to the slaughter.

Shen Ge raised his fist, which was covered by the red mist armor, and with the compressed weird energy at its extreme, he punched the core scanning device of the alloy gate without any fancy moves.

A blinding burst of energy light flashed, and the alloy door, strong enough to withstand the bombardment of a heavy bunker buster, along with the huge scanning device, was instantly dented, twisted, and cracked as if it had been hit head-on by a meteorite. Countless fragments of metal and sparks of energy swept inward like a storm.

The gate was violently forced open!

The scene behind the door came into Shen Ge's view.

This is not the high-tech command center full of screens and consoles that you might imagine; it's more like a... huge biological laboratory filled with thick energy pipelines and bizarre flesh and blood tissue.

The entire space is circular, with huge curved screens embedded in the walls, but most of the screens are broken and flicker with unstable electrical sparks.

In the center of the room stood a huge cylindrical container made of high-strength glass and alloy. Inside the container was a dark green, viscous liquid, in which were submerged several twisting, writhing biological tissues that emitted intense, eerie energy fluctuations... or rather, "organs" that were not yet fully formed?
What's even more eye-catching are the three figures standing in the center of the room, with their backs to the door.

They were wearing the uniforms of high-ranking officers of the "Hunter" organization, but the uniforms were almost bursting from the bloated, deformed bodies beneath them.

The exposed skin had an inhuman, dark red color, like cooled lava, and was covered with cracks, beneath which flowed dark purple flesh and blood.

They were unusually tall, nearly three meters, with disproportionately thick arms, the ends of their hands having been transformed into terrifying claws covered with thick keratin and bone spurs.

The skulls were also deformed; some grew extra bony horns, while others were covered with wriggling tumors, their facial features distorted, leaving only a cold, inhuman killing intent.

Clearly, these are the highest-ranking officials here; they have undergone some form of "transformation" and become powerful monsters.

"finally come……"

The strange man in the lead slowly turned around. His voice was hoarse and deep, like two rough rocks rubbing against each other. His face was covered with a mixture of half-molten metal and flesh. One eye was a cold electronic eye, and the other was a bloodshot, bestial yellow vertical pupil.

“You dare to trespass into the ‘Heart of the Furnace’... destroy the food of the great ‘New God’... you deserve to die!” another strange man roared, his voice like the howl of a wild beast. His thick hind legs slammed into the ground, and the alloy floor shattered instantly.

Its massive body, carrying terrifying wind pressure, swung its enormous bone claws and smashed down on Shen Ge like an out-of-control battering ram, tearing through the air with a piercing shriek.

The third strange creature let out a high-frequency shriek, and an invisible mental shockwave surged toward Shen Ge like a tide. At the same time, it spread its arms, its palms split open, and sprayed out two viscous energy beams with strong corrosive and eerie energy!

Faced with the attack of three enemies who were clearly at the level of high-level monsters, Shen Ge didn't even frown, and simply raised his hand slightly.

Strange realm——

open!

(End of this chapter)