The copy has 0 error tolerance, and the last words on the ground are all wrong for me.

Chapter 553 Lullaby Agreement

The transport plane plummeted straight towards the ground, which startled Kruger. He pulled out his pistol, pointed it at Baker's head, and shouted:

"Damn it, stop it right now!"

Baker completely ignored Kruger's threats. He seemed oblivious to the gun pointed at his head, and just kept accelerating toward the ground, as if he was in a hurry to get somewhere.

boom!
Kruger shot Baker in the head, which slowed the plane's descent. However, although Baker was dead, his body had become completely fused with the seat and could not be removed.

The transport plane they were traveling in was custom-made for modders and did not have the option to switch to manual control, which gave Kruger no chance to take over the aircraft.

The plane tilted at an increasingly steep angle, almost perpendicular to the ground. Kruger clung to his seat, staring at the ground getting closer and closer, his face ashen.

"Is it okay to land here?"

Just as his mind went blank, a voice sounded from behind him. He turned around and found that the troublesome soldier who had been causing all the problems had appeared behind him at some point.

The other person seemed to defy gravity, standing steadily in the nearly vertical cabin without holding onto anything.

Kruger's brain was no longer able to process this complex situation; he could only be guided by the other party and answered:

"Yes, we'll land right here."

He wanted to say something more, but the next moment the world suddenly spun around him, and he felt a violent sense of spatial dislocation, as if someone had thrown him into a washing machine for a fifteen-minute quick wash.

Even though he was an elite soldier back then, he still couldn't resist the intense dizziness and immediately collapsed to the ground to vomit.

But after vomiting a few times, he realized he was lying on the ground, not in the cockpit of an airplane.

He looked up and saw the military transport plane they had been on crashing not far from him.

The plane crashed and exploded violently. The shockwave from the explosion swept towards him. He didn't care about his dignity and immediately collapsed onto his own vomit.

"Get down!"

After he spoke up to remind them, he found that not only did Wu Chang and the others not react, but a female soldier named Veronica actually walked towards the shockwave and slowly raised her hand.

The next moment, the surging shockwave converged on Veronica's outstretched palm and vanished in a flash.

The process was incredibly smooth, even smoother than his newly installed toilet.

Kruger wiped the vomit off his face and, realizing that what he was seeing was not a dream, slowly stood up.

He looked around; there were five people in total, including himself.

They are the troublesome big guy, the cold weapon weirdo, the black-and-white-haired lady, and the toilet from before... uh, no, I mean the shockwave lady.

He couldn't help but ask:

"Are a few people missing?"

Before Wu Chang could respond, the wreckage of the transport plane exploded a second time, startling Kruger.

He turned his head and saw the trio of bald men emerging from the scattered wreckage of the transport plane.

Despite falling from several thousand meters in the air and the explosion of the transport plane, the three men did not die, and their tactical uniforms were even intact.

This move once again challenged Kruger's understanding.

Is this still the unmodified person he personally selected? Even the most thoroughly modified people are only at this level at best.

Wu Chang wanted to pat Kruger on the shoulder, but halfway through his outstretched hand, he turned away, disgusted by the vomit on Kruger's body.

"Jacques City is just ahead. We're off on our mission. Colonel Kruger, you'll have to go home by yourself."

Wu Chang's tone was like that of a parent who was too busy with work to pick up and drop off their child and was asking if the child could go home by themselves after school.

Kruger dared not say no and immediately nodded:
"Wish ya'll good luck."

Wu Chang's figure was reflected in Kruger's eyes. Wu Chang's body did not move, but in Kruger's eyes, he seemed to walk deeper into Kruger's eyeball.

When he heard about the mission, he went straight to the key issues. In addition, he used spatial magic to help the other party escape when the plane was about to crash, which made a deep impression on Kruger.

At this moment, he used his Mind Traveler ability to directly enter Kruger's mental world.

Wu Chang suddenly found himself in an office.

It was afternoon, and the office lights were off, making it exceptionally dim.

The setting sun, positioned at an angle, could only illuminate half of the office.

In the darkness was a large desk, and a dark figure, whose outline could only be made out, sat behind the desk, flipping through some documents.

In the dim yellow sunlight, Kruger sat on an uncomfortable hard chair, his legs together, his hands on his knees, his back straight, looking as reserved as a primary school student.

The room was unusually quiet; the only sound was the rustling of documents turning.

Each page turn felt like a punch to Kruger's heart, making him feel extremely uneasy.

A few minutes later, as the documents were tossed aside, a deep, magnetic voice rang out.

"Kruger, I am very dissatisfied with your performance this time."

"Bringing those guys back to Metropolis before making any real progress has caused such a huge mess."

"I was under a lot of pressure to suppress this matter."

Kruger's body trembled slightly as he defended himself:

“I’m very sorry, General Bill. Walker told me that he saw Professor Eugene in Jacques City. Not only was he alive, but he also seemed to be in good condition and appeared to have recovered from Bioreceptor Dissolution.”

“They were very lucid when they left Jacques, which is why I was in a hurry to bring them back so they could report back in person.”

"I did not expect……"

Bill interrupted Kruger's subsequent explanation, saying:
"I don't want to hear apologies, and I don't care about your explanations. I just want to see the results."

"I'll give you two more months to find Eugene, or get rid of him."

"If you can't do it, I'll personally strap you to a missile and make you and the city of Jacques disappear together."

The scene in Kruger's mental world ends here, and the mental world enters a brief time freeze.

Wu Chang activated the Condensing Emptiness into Reality technique and entered the office. He walked into the darkness, kicked General Bill behind the office into a corner, and then sat down at the back of the office.

He then tapped the table with his finger, and time began to flow again in his mental world.

He unleashed a powerful pressure on Kruger; the difference in inspiration and will rendered the latter unable to muster any will to resist.

he asked:
"What are you trying to cover up by finding Eugene?"

It's not hard to tell from the shadowy figure's words that sending people into Jacques City was just a pretext; the real purpose was to find Eugene.

If Eugene cannot be found, the military might even use heavy weapons to raze the city of Jacques to cover up what happened there.

What is the military hiding that would make them go to such lengths?
Faced with Wu Chang's questioning, Kruger struggled for a moment, and finally whispered:
"The Lullaby Agreement".

Wu Chang raised an eyebrow and asked:
What is the Lullaby Agreement?

Kruger shook his head and said:

"I don't have enough access to the Lullaby Protocol. I only know the name because I bribed the cleaning staff in General Bill's office and overheard a few words about it."

Bribing the cleaning staff is a truly hardcore method of eavesdropping.

He asked Kruger a few more questions about the mission given to him by the Federation, but the latter was unable to answer any of them.

In a normal mission, Kruger's level would already be considered the mastermind behind it all.

However, in the operation concerning Jacques City, Kluge's position was not much higher than that of investigators like Wu Chang. He was not only not involved in decision-making, but he was also unaware of what was happening.

Of course, in Kruger's mind, this was a form of protection for someone of his level.

After all, the more you know, the higher the risk of being driven to suicide. Leaving Kruger's mental world, he didn't care how Kruger would return to the military base alone. He took Sword Star and the others and headed towards Jacques City.

When Wu Changzhen, as a federal investigator, was preparing to enter Jacques City to investigate, his physical body was already inside Jacques City.

As before, upon entering the instance, under the influence of the "True Walker," Wu Chang's true form acquired the identity of a native of the plane.

Raven and Eileen are both spirits of the saint's remains and have the same authority, so Raven also obtained the corresponding native identity.

With Raven's arrival, Wu Chang and Eileen's relationship changed from husband and wife to colleagues.

Wu Chang still used the name Sean. Sean is male both biologically and psychologically, 26 years old, a graduate student at Hover University, and just graduated last year with a major in bioengineering, specializing in biological networks.

After graduation, he joined the Center for Neural Fusion Applications, which is strongly supported by the federal government, and was assigned to the Calais branch.

His reason for choosing Calais was simple: money. Salaries in Calais are 1.5 to 2 times higher than in other states, and even at the headquarters of the Neurofusion Application Center in Metropolitan Area, salaries are not as high as those in Calais.

Such high salaries are not due to Calais's developed economy or excellent research environment; on the contrary, it is one of the poorest states in the federal government.

Before industrial upgrading, Calais was barely able to survive thanks to its old-fashioned industries, and its economy ranked in the lower middle of the federal government.

With the rise of new technology industries, Calais suffered a significant loss of industry and its economy plummeted. The creation of biometrics further exacerbated Calais's economic decline.

At the headquarters in the metropolitan area, many senior lab staff openly referred to Calais as a "garbage can," making no attempt to conceal their contempt.

Why could someone who ended up in the trash receive the highest salary? In Sean's past view, it was because the place was poor enough that people lived a life of mediocrity. The modifiers didn't spend money or energy maintaining their bio-networks; they just used them recklessly, causing the bio-networks to malfunction frequently.

The data on these failures, and the experience gained in handling them, are valuable data that the laboratory needs.

However, the living conditions in Calais are harsh, and without high salaries as compensation, no one is willing to work in the garbage cans. That's why there are the highest salaries in the entire federal branch.

Sean, Eileen, and Raven were all recent college graduates and were among the first interns to join the Calais State Laboratory branch.

They haven't been in Calais for long, only four months at most.

Contrary to their expectations, there was no endless work to do here; the workdays were surprisingly leisurely.

Drinking coffee, recording data, and occasionally visiting patients with problems in their biometrics network, at most two or three times a week—that's all their work entails.

In their branch, apart from a fifty-year-old female supervisor, only the three of them were formally employed researchers.

As the three were the same age, they naturally became friends, and their relationship had the potential to go even further.

They thought life would continue like this, but an accident ended it all.

Eight days ago, the three of them were drinking at a bar. Sean was planning to find an opportunity to confess his feelings to Eileen, but before he could find a suitable opportunity, a dazzling white light shone in from outside the bar, interrupting his thoughts.

The white light wasn't just blinding; it also contained strange sounds that temporarily caused him to lose his sight and hearing. It took them a full half minute to recover from the impact of the white light.

Before he could investigate what had happened, he saw the customer sitting at the bar suddenly go berserk and start attacking the bartender.

The bartender dodged and cried for help. Hearing the cries, the burly bar security guard walked in, raised his hand, and blew the crazed customer's head off.

The splattered brain matter and fragments of flesh and blood were scattered in the glasses of other customers at the bar, leaving everyone present stunned.

A woman began to scream, but before she could finish her sentence, a bodyguard shot her in the head.

What followed was a chaotic battle.

Sean felt like everyone had gone mad. He protected Eileen and Raven as they left the bar, only to find that the entire city had descended into chaos.

People's destructive desires are constantly increasing, and some people's bodies are even becoming distorted.

They soon discovered that the perpetrators all shared a common characteristic: they were all bio-network modifiers, and their bio-networks were all out of control.

The three returned to the lab and sought help from headquarters, only to learn that the entire state of Calais was in chaos and the military was sealing off Calais, making it impossible for the lab to rescue them.

Headquarters gave them two options: either stay in the laboratory branch and wait for things to be completely over, or go to Jacques, the capital of Calais, and leave on a federal rescue plane.

The three intended to stay at the laboratory branch, but the female supervisor who rushed to the branch after discovering the anomaly was also affected by the white light and went mad.

She was covered in white tentacles, and right before their eyes, she merged with the bio-network modification device, turning the digital operating table connected to the computer into a fleshy monster.

When the monster waved its mechanical arm, holding a syringe in its left hand and a scalpel in its right, shouting that it would perform free modification surgery on them, they could only turn around and run away, locking the monster that their supervisor had transformed into inside the laboratory.

Unable to stay at the laboratory branch, they had no choice but to go to Jacques.

On his way to Jacques, Sean called his mentor and learned that he was stuck in Calais and was on his way to Jacques. His mentor told him to go find Professor Eugene, and if they could find Professor Eugene, they would be safe.

The three then dodged the flesh monsters as they made their way towards Jacques City, finally arriving before nightfall.

Wu Chang searched through Sean's memories, looking for information about Eugene.

He didn't know until he looked it up, and upon recalling it, he discovered that this Professor Eugene was quite an accomplished person. He was the founder of bio-network technology, known as the father of bio-networks, and also the honorary dean of the medical school at the University of Hover.

The textbook Sean was studying had Eugene's biography on the very first page.

Since inventing bio-network technology 35 years ago, Eugene has been the undisputed number one in the field of biology, and whatever he studies is sought after by people all over the world.

Five years ago, he stepped down from his leading role due to health reasons and gradually disappeared from public view.

Wu Chang clicked his tongue, thinking to himself that it would be difficult for a big shot of this caliber, hiding his identity in the godforsaken city of Yak, not to cause some trouble.

He confirmed the current situation through his memory, and then looked at the condition of himself, Eileen, and Raven.

Their survival team of three was in dire straits; they looked utterly disheveled as they fled to Jacques, passing through two cities and encountering at least five crises along the way.

As the only male in the team, Sean was responsible for frontal combat. He carried a shotgun on his back, a revolver on his waist, and a rifle in his hand.

These firearms were borrowed from the owner of a bloodstained weapons shop when they passed by during their escape.

The situation was extremely dire; it would take a long time to collect all the shop owner's fragments, so they figured he wouldn't refuse them.

Eileen had learned fencing when she was a child, and when Sean borrowed the gun, she casually borrowed the antique sword hanging on the wall.

As for Raven, she was in charge of driving and reconnaissance, and her situation was somewhat better than the other two.

It's 6:30 PM now, and it's already dark because of the overcast sky.

Before it got completely dark, the three of them followed the road into the city of Jacques.

Contrary to expectations, the city of Jacques, teeming with fleshy monsters, did not present a scene of hell on earth.

The city was deathly still, without chaos, and there were hardly any rotting corpses on the streets, making it much better than the two cities Sean remembered passing through.

As the setting for the Gamma-level dungeon, Jacques City appears much more peaceful than the Beta-level city of Ein.

Based on experience from navigating the Plague Origin dungeon, when entering this type of dungeon and wanting to gather information, finding survivors is always the best approach.

Unlike the source of the plague, the people who died here could generate resentment normally. Only eight days had passed since the light of collapse, so even the weakest pale red resentment would not dissipate.

In Wu Chang's view, the streets were filled with resentment that could provide intelligence.

He quickly located a survivor settlement in a nearby residential building by observing several slightly darker areas of resentment.

There happened to be a small supermarket nearby, and it wouldn't be appropriate to go there empty-handed, so he decided to go find some supplies.

The resentment on the streets, 60% of whom died while searching for supplies, meant that food, water, and gasoline were absolutely essential for the survivors in Jacques.

Compared to other buildings on the street, the small supermarket was not damaged much. Although the glass doors and windows were broken, the shelves inside were still relatively tidy.

The shelves were 90% empty, with only a few supplies remaining at the very back. One shelf was filled with high-calorie, high-sugar biscuits, and the other with bottled water—all the resources that the survivors needed most.

It was as if someone had deliberately placed them here, waiting for him to come and retrieve them.

Since the other party dared to put it down, he certainly dared to take it. He swept everything on the shelf into his shopping cart and was about to leave the supermarket when the lights suddenly came on at the empty checkout counter.

A clear female voice rang out from inside the cash register.

"Sir, you haven't paid yet."

(End of this chapter)