Chapter 55: Bombing the Island Nation (03)

Humanity's 001 Human Base is constructed deep underground.

Resembling a colossal grain silo positioned three thousand meters beneath the earth's surface, it features a central core with a space approximately three meters in diameter housing an elevator for personnel access. The surface of the cylinder is coated with a radioactive shielding layer about fifty centimeters thick. This colossal silo spans a full one hundred and seventy-eight floors. The first five floors serve as purification chambers to handle nuclear radiation, followed by training rooms for super-powered individuals, weapon rooms stocked with various laser cannons and heavy artillery shells, greenhouse cultivation rooms for growing vegetables, and livestock farms.

To simulate a water cycle, a pipeline running almost the entire length of the silo is installed at its exact center. Water vapor evaporated within the greenhouse cultivation rooms is collected by small holes at the top of the rooms, channeled into the water-cycle pipeline, and finally subjected to appropriate pressure at designated floors as calculated by the central mainframe, thereby generating rainfall.

Su Bai walked out of the elevator alongside Luo Yuqing.

"This is the anti-gravity room, one of the training grounds for super-powered individuals," Luo Yuqing introduced. "Ever since nuclear wastewater was discharged on a massive scale, seventy percent of humanity has suffered from nuclear radiation contamination to varying degrees. The contamination levels of nuclear radiation are categorized similarly to mutated organisms, ranging from F-grade to A-grade. With the support of biotechnology, humans with contamination levels below C-minus can maintain normal survival as long as they take healing agents every month."

Luo Yuqing paused. "However, even humans who have suffered only F-grade contamination are already minor contamination sources in themselves. To preserve the purity of the human genome, we have established different shelters for varying levels of nuclear radiation contamination. As for the super-powered individuals living in the 001 Human Base, their contamination levels are all above C-grade. They originally should have died in agony, but miraculously survived due to genetic mutations..."

Luo Yuqing swallowed her saliva, her tone growing increasingly strained and heavy as she lifted her eyes to watch the super-powered individuals undergoing various training routines inside the anti-gravity room.

Su Bai followed her gaze, her expression solemn.

In the 001 training room closest to them, a two-meter-tall man was stripped to the waist. Dense clusters of oral cavities rested on both sides of his waist, while the muscles on his chest and back were already ulcerated and purplish. The left half of his cheek sagged like bubbling, decaying flesh, obliterating any recognizable features of his facial anatomy; only the undamaged right side of his face retained a hint of the gentle and friendly appearance he had possessed before contamination.

The ejection device in the anti-gravity room fired hundreds of air cannonballs. The man clenched his hands tightly, lowered his hips, swelled his mouth like a toad, and let out a heavy grunt.

The oral cavities on both sides of his waist instantly twitched and ejected slippery, greasy tentacles, mirroring the mutated wild boar Su Bai had just slain.

Those tentacles, appearing soft beyond measure, slammed into and shattered the high-temperature-heated air bullets with a loud crash.

The onlookers nearby burst into cheers.

Su Bai possessed exceptionally keen hearing; even though the 001 training room was isolated by completely vacuum-sealed soundproof materials, her spiritual awareness easily penetrated the room to catch the sounds within.

"That's amazing!"

"Your superpower rank must have advanced again! At this rate, the day will eventually come when we can drive out all the mutated organisms in City A and take back our city!"

"We've got to capture that damned prime minister of the island nation, too! Make those idiots taste what nuclear radiation feels like!"

Yet, contrasting sharply with the celebratory atmosphere inside the training room, Luo Yuqing's face was pale, her lips trembled, and there was not a trace of joy on her features; instead, she was desperately repressing her fury.

Fifty years ago, from the moment the island nation announced the commencement of discharging nuclear wastewater into the Pacific Ocean, Dawn Technology, the company under Luo Yuqing's name, began expanding its operations into monitoring and treating nuclear pollution. Luo Yuqing herself crammed extensive knowledge regarding nuclear energy reactors, even pursuing a Ph.D. in nuclear radiation at University A during her spare time.

After nuclear pollution spread globally, Luo Yuqing became one of the few "pure humans" completely untainted by nuclear radiation.

Immediately following this, mutated organisms engaging in large-scale activities appeared across the globe. These mutant organisms, deeply contaminated by nuclear elements, could simply not be killed using the conventional firearms mastered by humans. Research revealed that the only way to fight poison with poison and completely eradicate these mutant organisms was to rely on nuclear elements.

However, for humanity, large-scale deployment of nuclear weaponry in such an environment saturated with nuclear elements would not only contaminate the surviving pure humans but further devastate Earth's already precarious ecological equilibrium. When the cumulative equivalent of nuclear radiation in the air reached a certain threshold, it might even carry radiation down into humanity's newly established underground temporary dwellings.

It was then that super-powered individuals entered the public eye.

The so-called super-powered individuals were humans who had absorbed massive amounts of nuclear radiation in a short period yet ultimately retained their sanity. Unlike ordinary contaminated humans, super-powered individuals could withstand exposure to high-concentration nuclear radiation environments for short durations. While high concentrations of nuclear radiation enhanced their abilities to a certain extent, they simultaneously ravaged their flesh and sanity with compounded severity.

They were no longer human, yet neither were they monsters. A sense of human belonging still lingered within their hearts, yet to ordinary people, these super-powered individuals were mobile sources of contamination, uncontrollable time bombs, and monsters indistinguishable from mutant organisms.

"After nuclear pollution spread across the world, numerous nations assembled armies to crusade against the island nation. Who could have imagined that the island nation secretly used nuclear elements to nurture a vast horde of mindless super-powered individuals? They implanted chips into the brains of these super-powered individuals to manipulate them, and then utilized these super-powered individuals to control the nuclear elements, seizing power far surpassing modern technology."

Luo Yuqing spoke with bitter resentment while guiding Su Bai through the anti-gravity training rooms. "When the super-powered individuals manipulated by the island nation appeared en masse in human sight, everyone prejudged that these super-powered individuals were as crazy, ugly, and unnatural as mutant organisms—products that should never have existed."

Products that should never have existed?

Su Bai gazed at the "monsters" inside the training rooms, burdened with tumors and oozing pus and blood, her gaze flickering slightly.

She kept the Heavenly Pivot Omnipresent Eye open. Super-powered individuals harboring greater quantities of grey elements within their bodies consistently possessed higher-tier abilities than ordinary super-powered individuals. For instance, in the 02 experimental room, there was a young woman with a large mouth resembling a piranha growing on her neck, and a right eyeball as large as a lightbulb occupying nearly half her cheek. The dense nuclear elements inside her body had almost coalesced into a light black hue.

Inside the 02 experimental room, long strip-shaped objects made of a material resembling basalt iron were placed. She was practicing using the high-thermal beam emitted from her right eyeball to slowly saw the thick iron bar before her into two halves.

They walked down the long corridor one by one, passing training rooms numbered 02, 03...

These unnatural products that should never have existed were clearly nothing more than innocent victims implicated by nuclear pollution.

Without exception, every single one of these super-powered individuals possessed spiritual awareness—or, in Luo Yuqing's words, exceptionally high mental strength. The so-called awakening of abilities, aside from the morphological changes brought by genetic mutations, also involved nuclear elements inadvertently clearing their meridians while destroying their physical structures, enabling these super-powered individuals to communicate with the spiritual energy in the air.

Yet, exposing a cultivator who had only just learned to draw Qi into their body to such a highly corrosive environment, and utilizing nuclear elements to temper their physical bodies, served no purpose other than accelerating their demise.

"Many experiments related to nuclear elements are conducted right here at the 001 Human Base," Luo Yuqing said, walking to the final room and turning on the lights. "For example, miracle drugs for curing nuclear pollution are always tested on us first. Furthermore, many super-powered individuals are actually extremely intelligent, able to maintain lucidity despite the erosion of nuclear elements, which proves they possess mental strength far exceeding ordinary people."

At the end of the corridor was a giant conference room capable of holding several thousand people. The entire conference room formed a semi-circular arc, with a crystalline, glowing sphere suspended upon a high platform.

Luo Yuqing walked onto the high platform and addressed the sphere, which sported a pair of miniature wings, "Comrade Xiao Er, please summon all super-powered individuals to assemble in the conference room. We have urgent matters to discuss."

Comrade Xiao Er was the code name for the new version of the Heavenly Eye system, which had dual authentication procedures for iris scanning and voice recognition built into its internal architecture.

The sphere bounced gently like a rubber ball for a moment to signal that it had accepted the request.

[Calling all super-powered individuals to assemble in the conference room! Calling all super-powered individuals to assemble in the conference room!]

"The helium cannon, developed to completely neutralize nuclear pollution, was also created after super-powered individuals extracted pure nuclear elements from the air, conducted prolonged experiments to deduce what kind of energy reaction chain was needed to construct such a structure, and thereby worked backward to determine the structure required for a helium cannon to neutralize these nuclear elements."

With a wave of Luo Yuqing's hand, Comrade Xiao Er projected a beam of light, instantly materializing a world map composed of glowing dots in the center of the conference room.

The conference room quickly filled with seated super-powered individuals.

Su Bai caught snatches of quiet conversation from the audience.

"Who is she? Is she a super-powered individual too?"

"But if she's a super-powered individual, why is there not a single trace of mutation on her appearance? She actually has only two eyes of equal size, symmetrically distributed across left and right cheeks, and looks no different from a pure human at all."

"If she's not a super-powered individual, why does she dare to have direct contact with us without wearing protective gear? At this rate, she'll be mutated by us sooner or later... I don't want her to end up like Commander Luo..."

"Have you heard? Commander Luo's contamination level has already reached D-minus. I don't want Commander Luo to turn into a monster like me either..."

888 whispered, "If the host helps them eliminate the energy reaction reactors using the helium cannon, what will happen to them?"

What would happen to them?

With the greatest source of contamination vanished from the world, they would become mobile sources of contamination shunned by everyone, exactly like mutant organisms. They had once been pure humans untouched by nuclear radiation, but had now transformed into super-powered individuals who contaminated the genetic purity of humanity.

Would this world abandon them, the greatest victims of this nuclear pollution and simultaneously the greatest contributors to resolving it?

Su Bai pondered for a moment and answered truthfully, "I don't know."

"Yet even when a world develops amidst errors, it will still give birth to what is right."

Luo Yuqing coughed a few times to signal silence in the conference room.

Within this vast conference room, apart from Su Bai and Luo Yuqing, virtually no complete "humans" could be seen. If a dimensional audience member who had not read the background introduction were to see these creatures with multiple limbs, mixed tentacles, and elongated arms sitting upright, they would probably never associate this meeting with the word human.

Rather than rebuilding a human homeland, this felt more like conspiring to invade human territory.

However, because this was not a novel world, the dimensional live-streaming room remained shut.

Luo Yuqing first introduced Su Bai to the assemblage.

Upon hearing that Su Bai hailed from another Xianxia cultivation world and had already attained the Great Completion realm of Mahayana, ripples of gasps rose and fell across the audience.

"No wonder she can touch us without wearing protective gear!"

"So is she going to teach us immortality?"

"The things written in those novels are actually true! So if I cultivate hard to the Mahayana realm, can I become a normal person too?"

"Commander Luo said she doesn't need protective gear to slay B-class mutant wild boars. No wonder I noticed the nuclear radiation equivalent on the ground suddenly surging just now."

"She was able to withstand B-plus level nuclear radiation equivalents without mutating—maybe she can truly lead us to the island nation's old site to shut down the nuclear energy reactor!"

"Right, the concentration of nuclear elements there is simply too high. Several batches of super-powered individuals sent there were melted into pools of blood by nuclear elements; I heard even mutant organisms can't survive there!"

"Yet... if monsters like us die, it counts as contributing to the world. But she isn't from our world. If she gets implicated... Why shouldn't the ones who die be the island nation's leaders? That island nation conglomerate that built the nuclear energy pile deserves to die too!"

Su Bai looked at them with a complex expression.

She had always been calm and self-possessed, but after walking all the way through the 001 Human Base and witnessing the tragic plight of the super-powered individuals, a rare emotion of anger stirred deep within Su Bai's heart.

This emotion continuously surged, having first been ignited when Su Bai made her initial attempt to contact nuclear elements.

It was further inflamed upon witnessing humanity's homeland destroyed, while super-powered individuals—transformed into monsters and outcasts by nuclear elements—still babbled grandly about human honor and sacrifice.

They were clearly the ultimate victims of this nuclear contamination, yet they could only hurl themselves into such remote corners, self-deprecatingly bearing the moniker of "monsters" while carrying the responsibility and glory of human rejuvenation.

The Heaven-Swallowing Ice Flame acutely sensed the fluctuation in Su Bai's emotions.

At that exact moment, the Heaven-Swallowing Ice Flame abruptly discovered that a cluster of black elements resided quietly within Su Bai's sea of consciousness.

This cluster of black elements remained utterly inconspicuous, blending almost seamlessly into the darkness within the sea of consciousness. Had it not reacted slightly just now upon sensing the young woman's anger, the Heaven-Swallowing Ice Flame could have remained here for a thousand or eight hundred years without ever feeling that another conscious entity existed alongside it within her sea of consciousness.

An conscious entity identical to her?

The Heaven-Swallowing Ice Flame's brain spun at lightning speed as a realization struck—

If this young maiden had descended to the lower realm in her complete form and brought the Heaven-Swallowing Ice Flame away from the novel world, then the cluster of elements currently resting within her sea of consciousness wouldn't happen to be this maiden's true natal divine sword, would it?

Just as the Heaven-Swallowing Ice Flame experienced its moment of sudden enlightenment, a long sword radiating pure thunderous lightning power gathered in the young woman's hand.

"No one's sacrifice is required."

The young woman's voice was not loud, yet it carried a singular, strange power.

Every gaze converged upon her.

The long sword in her hand was sharp and piercingly cold; its blade was pitch-black yet gleamed brightly, with striking, translucent white lines tracing both edges. The left edge bristled with dense serrations gathered like a river, while the right edge remained smooth and keen, condensed like a mountain.

Even someone utterly ignorant of swords could not help praising the exquisite craftsmanship of this blade.

"They are merely slaughtering a few mere ants."

She spoke indifferently, "Give me the coordinates, and a single day will suffice."

The entire hall erupted in a roar.