Infinite Terror: Infinite Reversal

Chapter 143 Prison Abnormalities
Zheng Zha could already see Rikers Island prison in the distance. Looking at the outline in the distance, Zheng Zha couldn't help but push up his nose.

"It wasn't shown in the movie... but there's a very strange point: why was Trent, who had already killed someone, ended up being thrown into a mental hospital? Although it's unclear whether he had ever been in prison, it certainly contradicts the present situation."

Zheng Zha walked at a leisurely pace, but arrived on the island in just a few breaths. Reaching a spot near an electric fence, he looked up and saw a guard dozing in the watchtower.

"Is he also out of his mind..." Zheng Zha silently watched the blood seeping from the guard's eyes, then reached out and touched the electrified electric grid. A layer of red flames blocked the contact between his hand and the grid, instantly melting a large hole in it.

Without any sparks or lightning, the entire power grid silently collapsed under Zheng Zha's control. He stepped across the grid and headed straight for the location of the black immigrant recorded in the records.

Zheng Zha's feeling throughout the journey was: it was too quiet.

This is New York's largest prison, holding nearly 20,000 prisoners awaiting sentencing. Even with Zheng Zha's hearing, he couldn't hear much inside.

"There's definitely something wrong... Based on the information we have, the number of people being held on Rikers Island has almost doubled in recent days. How could it be so quiet?"

Mobile phones can not only search information across various systems, but also uncover a considerable amount of related rumors if one is willing to look. When Zheng Zha was referring to recent rumors in New York, he saw someone claiming that the military had become involved in prison management.

"What exactly constitutes intervention..." Zheng Zha observed carefully and indeed discovered many signs. Clearly, the US military had no intention of concealing its intervention; the situation now appeared to have reached a very critical point.

But how long can they keep struggling?
Zheng Zha's eyes were blank. He looked ahead and then gave a cold laugh.

Before long, these systems will completely collapse, because in this real world, no one is immune to corruption. Soon, those who give orders will also go insane, and rotating them will only be a temporary fix.

Or rather, it doesn't even address the symptoms...

Rikers Island prison contains ten prisons. Following the information he had received earlier, Zheng Zha went straight into the gate of one of the prisons.

As soon as Zheng Zha entered the prison, he understood the secret of why he couldn't hear any noise from the outside... It turned out that the prison walls were covered with soundproofing material, and when Zheng Zha touched it, he found that it was no ordinary material.

"Are they all newly laid..." Zheng Zha reached up and pushed up the bridge of his nose. "Are they researching the propagation path of erosion? Sound does indeed have an corrosive effect..."

After walking a few steps further, Zheng Zha saw empty cells on both sides. This actually illustrated the problem even more; given the current recorded number of prisoners, it was impossible for so many empty cells to exist.

Unless all the prisoners are released to participate in group activities.

Zheng Zha smelled a strong medicinal odor, likely a disinfection measure implemented by the military and prison authorities, but it wasn't a regular disinfectant. Underneath this medicinal smell, Zheng Zha also detected a faint, almost imperceptible, pungent odor of blood. This bloody smell had been present for at least two days; otherwise, it wouldn't be so faint.

However, Zheng Zha certainly didn't find the smell of blood pleasant. Although his vampire bloodline had been enhanced, Zheng Zha had no bloodlust. On the contrary, this strange smell of blood made him feel nauseous; it was a physiological rejection.

“Rotten…” Zheng Zha muttered to himself, “If it hadn’t been left for so long before being processed, it would probably have been rotting blood as soon as it gushed out.”

Zheng Zha had only taken two steps forward when he heard a commotion inside. Although he was still some distance away, he could clearly hear the gunshots, shouts, and sounds of flesh rubbing together.

As they reached a corner, several soldiers rushed out shouting. They completely ignored Zheng Zha, this uninvited guest, and ran for their lives.

Their bodies seemed to have gone out of control. Their legs were still desperately moving forward, but their hands were flailing wildly, even throwing their guns away. One soldier even reached into his own eye and gouged it out, letting out a terrified scream as he did so, then struggling to turn his head away.

Zheng Zha turned the corner and saw the scene at the end of the corridor. He sighed and pushed up his nose. Then, a terrifyingly high temperature erupted instantly, shooting out in all directions from Zheng Zha. Crimson flames shot down the corridor like cannonballs, blasting straight at the mass of flesh filling the end of the corridor. At the same time, the soldiers running past Zheng Zha stopped shouting... because they were instantly reduced to ashes.

At the end of the corridor was a twisted, tangled mass of flesh. The way the flesh pressed against the walls, doors, ceiling, and floor indicated it had been forced into the corridor. Even Zheng Zha wasn't sure how big it was.

This lump of flesh is different from the one Zheng Zha encountered in "Ju-on"... Zheng Zha can hardly find any individual characteristics on this lump of flesh. He can only judge that it is made up of countless people by some vague prison clothes, military uniforms and facial features... It is as if countless people have been roughly kneaded together like clay.

The lower half of the fleshy mass sprouted countless hands and feet, but Zheng Zha glanced at it and knew that they were just limbs simulated using other flesh.

Like a cannonball firing, the crimson flames slammed into the center of the mass of flesh, instantly creating a large hole. Zheng Zha could see through this hole what lay beyond, seemingly a much wider prison area.

Before the mass of flesh could heal itself, crimson flames erupted from the inside out, enveloping the entire mass. Because the crimson flames were so destructive, Zheng Zha wasn't even sure if the creature had any self-healing abilities.

Zheng Zha had long envisioned this move, but he had never been able to execute it consistently. He felt that his methods of using the Crimson Flame were still too limited; how could he rely solely on the skills he had acquired through exchange? So he kept experimenting with the explosive application of the Crimson Flame… When he returned to the Ju-on world to fight the Polar Day Gathering one-on-one, he touched the edge of the third-tier gene lock, and his mastery of his own abilities became stronger and stronger.

Once the third-order gene lock is truly unlocked, this move becomes incredibly easy. Mastering the quality of the red flames, the timing of launch, and the control through willpower becomes as simple as instinct, requiring no thought whatsoever. The terrifyingly high temperature caused the surrounding walls and railings to melt, and the mass of flesh shrank smaller and smaller.

Thinking back to when he first acquired the vampire bloodline, he couldn't even use the vampire energy except for the Crimson Flame, and Zheng Zha couldn't help but laugh. The behemoth that would have given the Central Continent Team a run for their money was now silently reduced to ashes, and a smile appeared on Zheng Zha's lips.

He wasn't smug about feeling stronger; rather, he felt a different kind of pride.

See? When I first acquired the vampire bloodline, I was like a child who couldn't pee, but now I can win first place in the peeing farthest competition!
Thinking of this, Zheng Zha's eyes suddenly changed, and he slapped his face: "What's going on? How can this be so out of line... Could Zhang Heng really be contagious?"

Zheng Zha strode through the corridor to the center of the prison area. In a cell where the wall had been chiseled through, an even more terrifying behemoth was imprisoned. At this moment, one of the bars had been breached, and Zheng Zha quickly guessed that the mass of flesh had split off from there.

"This is nothing compared to what's to come..." Zheng Zha muttered to himself, then looked at another hole from which countless tentacles were protruding. More than a dozen people dressed in military uniforms or white coats were being dragged in by the tentacles, wailing as they went. Two of the people at the front were swallowed whole by the enormous creature inside.

Zheng Zha looked around and saw an old man with a gunshot wound to the face. However, the old man himself had fired the shot. He was trembling all over in pain and couldn't even hold the pistol. He collapsed to the ground with a thud, but still tried desperately to move backward.

"You can't even hit yourself?" Zheng Zha said disdainfully, then walked to a table and started looking at the research report on it.

As he read the research report, he reached up and pushed up his nose. Zheng Zha couldn't help but glance at the old man with blank eyes; this must be the person in charge of the prison experiment.

"No way... You guys want to do research, fine, but you're being this careless?" Zheng Zha tossed aside the research report and reached out to pry open the old man's eyelids. "Who are you trying to fool with these protective measures? Has the scientific community all lost their minds...?"

Seeing the old man's pupils subtly split in two, Zheng Zha sighed and injected a wisp of red flame into his head.

Looking at the black smoke billowing from his seven orifices, Zheng Zha shrugged: "He really went mad a long time ago... This so-called experiment is just feeding a bunch of living people to monsters."

Zheng Zha turned his head to look at the enormous creature emitting various noises behind the iron bars. A ring of crimson fire erupted from its body, engulfing the entire prison area. The iron bars vanished silently, revealing the hideous body behind them.

"Let me see, what makes you more than a centurion?"

(End of this chapter)