America: The Cremator

The side of the crematorium was a brick platform, which should have been a garden-like structure, but it was abandoned along with the factory and was covered with lush shrubs.

Beside a clogged drain in the corner of the flower bed, an unusually fat rat was licking the liquid flowing down from the flower bed.

Su Long narrowed his eyes, kicked up some water to scare away the rat, and then braced himself to go to the bushes and parted the tangled branches.

A pair of feet wearing cheap sneakers were suddenly displayed in front of you.

Surong looked deeper into the bushes and, judging from the number of heads, there were four unfortunate souls there.

Su Long first took off the portable law enforcement recorder hanging on his chest, wiped the water droplets off the screen and lens, and then took photos from three different angles, which were then uploaded to headquarters via satellite signal.

Then, Su Long took a deep breath, reached out and grabbed the boy in the sneakers' ankles, and applied a little force.

With a snap, the foot and calf separated, leaving only a crispy outer skin, while the inside was completely filled with minced meat and some black mud-like substance.

Even beef stewed in a pressure cooker for 4 hours wouldn't be this tender.

"broken!"

Suron raised his hand, looked at the black sludge on his glove, and recalled the description of black sludge in the Federal Corpse Administration Manual:

"The black, mud-like substance is a hallmark product of this bizarre growth process..."

"When the body's flesh and blood completely transform into black mud, the bizarre is born..."

Sulong turned his head again to look at the fragments of the Gundam in front of him.

With its crispy exterior and tender interior, resembling leftover fried chicken, the transformation process of the black mud must be at least 30% complete, right?

Although it will be a while before the conversion is complete, we can't delay any longer and must start the cremation process immediately!

Instead of moving my colleague's car and then driving my own over... it's obviously more convenient to just use the one that's already there—not only does it save time, but I also don't have to worry about cleaning and maintenance afterwards!

Su Long arrived at the back of the crematorium truck, took out a long-handled shovel from the truck, cleared a space in the flower bed to make work, and then began shoveling the Gundam fragments into the incineration chamber at the back of the truck.

As he shoveled, he discovered something strange:

The cuts on these fragments are not quite the same; some fragments have rough, broken cuts, as if they were roughly chopped with a knife.

Some of the fragments had much neater cuts and smoother surfaces, as if they had been cut with a professional cutting machine.

If the dismemberment process was carried out by the same group of people, there's no reason for them to upgrade the equipment or change the methods midway through.

Sulong selected several highly dissimilar pieces, then picked up his body camera, took photos, and uploaded them to headquarters.

After completing the evidence collection, Su Long sped up his work, sending all the fragments into the incinerator.

Next, all that's needed is to clean up the minced meat and black mud from the flower bed, and then the incinerator can be started.

Su Long took out the vacuum collection system from the carriage, holding the vacuum tank in one hand and starting the vacuum pump with the other, aiming the suction tube at the large amount of paste-like material on the ground.

"Buzzing—"

As the machine started, the suction tube began to gurgle and swallow waste, like a straw drinking eight-treasure porridge. Black mud, bits of meat, and rainwater mixed together and kept pouring into the vacuum tank, and the weight began to increase.

Just as the mushy waste was about to be cleaned up, the vacuum collector suddenly emitted a strange noise, as if something had blocked the pipe opening.

Su Long immediately pressed the emergency stop button, then turned the machine around and carefully inspected the suction tube port.

It appears to be blocked by fragments of some plastic card.

Su Long removed one of the plastic fragments and wiped off the black mud with his gloves.

This is a work permit that has been shredded.

Federal Bureau of Corpses

Name: Daniel Kovacs

Position: Incinerator

……

The shredded work ID could only reveal limited information, but for Su Long, the fragments themselves revealed crucial information—the four corpses at the scene were probably not the four mentioned in the containment report.

Two of the bodies belonged to victims of a gangland feud, while the other two belonged to Daniel and Declan, who came to collect the bodies.

Then, an even more terrifying question arises: what about the other two corpses that should have been here?

The answer is already laid bare before us.

The two corpses had begun to exhibit some kind of strange behavior.

It not only killed the two people who came to handle the scene, but also mixed their remains with those of two other bodies, creating the second crime scene at this moment.

Sulong's breathing became heavy, condensing into a cloud of mist on his gas mask, rising and falling like the tides.

He took out the Glock pistol from its holster, gripped it tightly, and finally felt a sense of security.

After calming himself down, Su Long took the Geiger counter from his waist and kept adjusting its position to explore the area around the pile of corpses.

When the counter approached the area where the 'Gundam' fragments were piled up, the number on the instrument briefly climbed from 4 to 16 before quickly falling back to the normal range.

Although the peak value of 16 is still within the safe threshold, this brief abnormal fluctuation is enough to prove that something once existed here.

Perhaps, after killing those two unfortunate souls, the strange creature that bred there has already left the scene and wandered off to other places?

Su Long spread the fragments of his work ID on the hood of the hearse's engine, and using the headlights, took a picture with his body camera and uploaded it to the branch office's system.

After completing the evidence collection, Su Long returned to the driver's cab of the hearse, took off his nitrile gloves stained with black mud, took out his cell phone from his pocket, and dialed his supervisor, Watkinson.

When the call connected, the voice on the other end was hoarse, clearly just woken up from sleep, with undisguised impatience.

"What's wrong, Sue? I hope you haven't messed up again."

"Sir, I've found those two unfortunate missing men."

Watkinson, oblivious to the heaviness in Sulong's tone, guessed with a hint of mockery, "What happened? Did you get completely drunk at a roadside bar, or were you dragged into a nightclub by some prostitute?"

"The two corpses at the scene gave rise to an unknown and eerie phenomenon; they shredded Daniel and Declan and threw them back into the original pile of bodies."

"As for that strange creature, its whereabouts are currently unknown."

There was a moment of dead silence on the other end of the phone. A few seconds later, Watkinson's voice came through again; he was fully awake now: "Are you sure, Sue?"

"I have already uploaded the photos of the physical evidence to the system."

After another brief silence, Su Long could hear the sounds of typing and mouse clicking coming from the other end of the phone.

A moment later, Watkinson's voice came through again, his tone more serious than ever before: "I have submitted an emergency report, and the FBI says they are trying to get to the scene within twenty minutes."

"In addition, they asked you to preserve as much key physical evidence and some body parts as possible, and not to burn them all."

"I see."

"Okay, be careful, Sue. I hope you survive to get my bullet allowance."

After hanging up the phone, Su Long put on a clean pair of gloves again and turned to walk towards the area behind the vehicle where the body parts were piled up.

In just a moment, those pieces that were only partially soft and rotten had turned into large swaths of black mud.

The conversion rate was only around 30% in the previous assessment, but it has probably exceeded 60% now.

It appears that the incinerator insulates against rain and cold, while the even stacking increases the contact area between the fragments, thus improving the conversion rate.

Can't wait any longer.

Su Long immediately picked out several pieces belonging to different owners and set them aside as evidence.

He then picked up a long-handled shovel and spread them out as quickly as possible to ensure they were heated evenly.

After doing all this, Su Long slammed the hatch of the incineration chamber shut, turned around and went to the electronic control panel next to him, and pressed the start-up button.

The panel screen lights up, displaying the words "Self-testing in progress," with a rapidly increasing progress bar below.

Su Long stared at the progress bar, then subconsciously glanced at the system loading bar perpetually stuck at 99% in the corner of his vision, and a thought flashed through his mind:

I wish my system's loading bar could be as fast as an incinerator's self-test bar.

Almost the next second after this thought arose, the self-check progress bar in front of him stopped without warning when it climbed to 98%.

Immediately afterwards, the entire screen flickered, and a glaring red notification box popped up.

Error code E-41: Fuel injection valve clogged, unable to complete refueling!

Wait, after all this time, this thing isn't even as good as the system progress bar?

Sulong stared at the string of scarlet characters, rainwater sliding down the transparent visor of his gas mask, distorting the scene before him into a blurry reddish hue.

This incinerator uses high-pressure diesel direct injection technology. A precision filter device is installed in front of the injector to intercept impurities in the diesel fuel and dust that flows back into the combustion chamber.

According to the Equipment Maintenance Manual, after every five full-load incineration operations, the operator must disassemble the fuel injectors and clean the filter screen with a special cleaning agent.

This is a tedious task that requires an Allen wrench, carburetor cleaner, and at least twenty minutes.

Clearly, those two bastards didn't follow the manual for maintenance.

Without professional equipment and facilities, Sulong simply cannot complete this task in a short time.

As for transferring the fragments to one's own car, that would probably take just as long as a repair.

Su Long withdrew his hand and slammed his fist hard against the metal casing of the incinerator.

Those two bastards.

While alive, they act like seniors and lecture themselves; even after death, they still try to screw themselves over!

If he had the chance, he really wanted to drag those two guys out of the incinerator and kill them again.

But now, they're already inside... and something extremely bad is happening.

Sulong opened the hatch cover again.

The piled-up fragments had completely lost their original shape; muscle fibers, bone fragments, and shattered internal organs had all melted into a black, viscous fluid.

It's hard to describe that state; it's like chocolate that's been exposed to high temperatures for three days, or a pumpkin that's been forgotten in a corner and has completely rotted.

According to the work manual, the eerie thing will be born when the corpse is completely transformed into black mud.

The current conversion rate, by visual estimation, has exceeded 80%.

The black mud is merging together, and the organic matter that originally belonged to the four people is reorganizing, attempting to construct a completely new organism that defies the laws of nature.

Maybe in five minutes, or maybe three minutes.

A brand new monster will burst through the furnace door and then carry out its first killing in front of this crematorium truck.

Su Long brought up the settings menu on the panel and forced a restart of the entire machine so that it could re-enter the self-test phase.

This is a last resort.

Finally, the self-test progress bar started all over again, slowly climbing, and then steadily stopping at 98%.

Su Long anxiously stared at the incinerator panel: "Please, buddy, it's just a little bit more, move it!"

The next moment, finally, the progress bar moved a little more.

However, what moved wasn't the self-test progress on the instrument, but rather what was below the field of view...

System loading progress.