Chapter 13
The last kilometer was a straight path, and passed in the blink of an eye.
The main entrance of the hydropower station was equipped with a security checkpoint. An electric fence gate blocked the way, leaving only a passage for a single person to enter. An Tianhe had no choice but to dismount. He put on his helmet, checked his protective gear, and slowly walked in, holding his homemade spear.
Passing through the gate, he saw a parking area nestled against the mountain to his right. Not far away, he could see a row of factory buildings. Looking through the glass window, the security room was empty. The surroundings were deathly quiet; it didn't look like an army was stationed here at all. An Tianhe felt his heart sinking.
He tried twisting the handle of the security room, and to his surprise, it opened with a click. It wasn't locked?
An Tianhe immediately tightened his grip on the spear, pulled down his helmet's visor, and slowly pushed open the metal door to peek inside. The desk by the window was messy, a thermos cup was knocked over, and a few chairs inside were haphazardly scattered. The safe was wide open, with only an elbow-length anti-riot baton left inside. There was no foul odor in the air, nor were there any bloodstains or bits of flesh on the floor. He couldn't help but let out a long sigh. It seemed the security personnel had left in a hurry; something must have happened.
After circling around and finding no clues, he had no choice but to go out and continue his search. The parking lot was empty, with only two dilapidated electric patrol cars left abandoned there. An Tianhe's interest waned. He opened his visor and continued walking inward, deciding to try his luck at the factory buildings.
He hadn't walked far along the roadside green belt when his nose caught a whiff of a familiar, foul stench. He followed the direction of the smell and, sure enough, found a horrifically mangled corpse behind a bush. Its head was mostly chewed off, its torso torn in two, and its internal organs almost completely cleaned out, leaving only a blood-stained skeleton. The cloth next to the corpse was soaked in plasma, its original color indistinguishable.
Not far from the corpse lay a row of crude kennels, all empty.
An Tianhe froze. "Damn it, there are dogs here!" It felt like an icy cold snake slithered down his back, and the hair all over his body stood on end. He turned to run back to the security room, but unfortunately, it was too late.
A rustling sound came from the surrounding bushes, followed by three large dogs emerging one after another.
However, they could no longer be considered dogs. Their bodies were completely rotten, their grayish-white ribs and dark red muscles half-exposed. They vaguely resembled German Shepherds in shape. Their mouths were twisted open in a ferocious grin, their sharp fangs covered in bloodstains and dripping with pus as they surrounded An Tianhe, step by step.
He felt his scalp tingle and his body stiffen. Dealing with even one of these things was difficult, let alone three?! However, the corrupted zombie dogs didn't give him any more time to think of a strategy. He only had time to pull down his visor when one of the dogs suddenly howled, accelerating as it pounced on him like a black shadow, moving with unnatural agility.
An Tianhe reflexively dodged to the side, narrowly avoiding a fatal blow, but his right calf was viciously bitten by another zombie dog that had snuck up on him!
"Ahh-" An Tianhe screamed in agony. The zombie dog's scarlet eyes were filled with a frenzied hunger. It desperately wanted to devour the fresh flesh before it, constantly shaking its head trying to tear off a piece to taste first.
Before the fight with the zombie dogs, An Tianhe had been somewhat fearful, but when the pain of being bitten surpassed a certain threshold, it instead triggered the ferocity in his subconscious. Knowing he wouldn't escape this disaster today, he decided to go all out and fight the damn things!
"Fuck you!!" he roared, throwing himself sideways onto the dog biting his leg, unintentionally dodging the assault of the third dog. Using the momentum of his body weight, he drove the spear in his hand into the body of the zombie dog beneath him. Without stopping, he slid his hands down to a third of the spear's length, pulled out the spearhead, and then viciously stabbed it into the dog's eye socket, causing pus and blood to splatter. He pulled it out and stabbed again and again until the beast was completely motionless.
During this time, the other two zombie dogs continuously attacked him, always aiming for his throat and face, but the closed motorcycle helmet stubbornly withstood the assault. Even so, he couldn't avoid his head being rattled, leaving him dizzy.
After dealing with one zombie dog, his helmet's visor was covered in blood and filth. He had no choice but to open it, and suddenly felt a sharp pain in his shoulder. It turned out that the zombie dog, unable to bite his vital parts, had changed its target.
An Tianhe's shoulder had no protective gear, and a large chunk of flesh was instantly torn off. The pain sent him into a rage, and he swung the spear in his hand horizontally. Whoosh. He swept one of the zombie dogs off its feet, seemingly hitting its front leg. When it tried to get up, it found it could no longer keep its balance. One of its legs was twisted into an "L" shape, completely unable to support its body. But even so, it continued to crawl towards An Tianhe ignoring the pain, and attacked him.
The last zombie dog paused for a moment, circled halfway, and then suddenly accelerated and leaped at him. An Tianhe only had time to sit up and raise his spear vertically. As a result, with a squelch sound the spear tip went right through the dog's mouth and pierced its brain. Its body was skewered in mid-air by the spear tip, still twitching and kicking for a good while before it fell silent.
Gasping for breath, An Tianhe with hands covered in blood, took off his helmet and threw it aside. At this moment, his body, his shoulders, arms, legs, chest, and back were covered in scratches, gashes, and bites. Blood continuously soaked his clothes. With a pale face, he smiled grimacingly, knowing he wouldn't survive.
Gathering his last bit of strength, he used the now deformed and bent spear as a crutch to stand up. He limped over to the one-legged zombie dog still crawling on the ground, spat a mouthful of bloody spit at it, and said, "Son of a bitch, go to hell!!" He repeatedly stabbed the spearhead into the dog's head, and its body immediately went limp and stopped moving.
An Tianhe was exhausted. The surge of adrenaline faded, leaving him feeling cold all over, but he still forced himself not to fall. He knew that if he fell, he would never get up again. Subconsciously, he leaned on the spear and staggered forward.
The sunlight shone on him, but he couldn't feel any warmth.
"Am I going to die here? Is my life going to end like this?" The thought that he would soon become a mindless walking corpse filled him with a sense of hollow fear.
Suddenly, countless fragments of his past life began to flash before his eyes, like a movie fast-forwarding. The second-to-last scene showed, hopeful the expectant face of his parents, and the final image froze on the beautiful, tear-streaked face of a woman.
"Dad, Mom, I'm sorry. Your son has failed you... Xia Yan... I... can't keep the promise I made... You have to live on, live on..." Suddenly, his legs gave away and he lost his balance, tumbling down the hillside. After a series of rolls, he was stopped by a patch of bushes, and then there was silence.
The wound on his head oozed fresh blood, which pooled into a small stream on the ground. Most of it seeped into the soil and disappeared, but a small portion was suddenly absorbed when it approached a fist-sized smooth stone.
This stone was completely different from the surrounding ones. Its surface was a strange purplish-red color, seemingly imprinted with a peculiar pattern. Suddenly, the stone lit up from within, then shot out a beam of blue light that expanded into a fan shape, scanning back and forth in all directions.
"Carbon-based lifeform detected... Basic mission conditions met..."
"Target lifeform's vital signs are weak, and life state shows a pathological trend... Main AI, should the binding process still be initiated?"
"Target is unresponsive... Should Emergency Protocol No. 141 be activated... Accepting command. Spacetime beacon activated. Opening transmission channel."
A brighter point of light shot out from within the stone, bursting open above An Tianhe's body to form a giant orb of light, its interior was like a vortex and its exterior crackling with lightning.
The inside of the orb spun faster and faster, instantly generating a powerful suction force. The surrounding bushes and branches were pulled as if by an invisible giant hand. An Tianhe, at the center, was slowly lifted into the air by the force, and with a suddenly disappeared into the orb. The orb then exploded with a bang, scattering into specks of floating particles. Soon, the area returned to tranquility, as if nothing had happened. Even the purplish-red stone had vanished.
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