Volume 1, Chapter 45: Eyes Are Watching Us
On the display screen, under the continuous action of this frequency, a patch of severely source-energy-polluted, barren soil saw its black pollutants decompose at a speed visible to the naked eye.
A mutated piece of alfalfa even evolved, in a bizarre posture, a root system capable of actively absorbing the harmful substances from the soil!
"Purification, guiding evolution!" Dr. Qin's eyes reignited with fanaticism. "This is enough to change the landscape of the entire doomsday! We can reclaim our land, reclaim our food!"
Li Hexuan's heart also violently skipped a beat; he understood the implications of this better than anyone else.
"However!"
Dr. Qin's tone abruptly shifted. The fanaticism on his face was doused as if by a bucket of cold water, leaving behind only profound anxiety and fear.
"Just moments ago, we conducted the fifth high-intensity frequency experiment. The exact moment the frequency reached its peak," he pointed toward a monitoring device flashing with countless garbled characters, "a signal swept right across the outer perimeter of City E."
"All our equipment failed to trace its source, failed to parse its composition! It was a ghost, an entity of a higher dimension that ignored every physical rule known to us and directly perceived our experiment!"
Dr. Qin lowered his voice to a whisper, terrified that something might overhear him.
"It did not travel via electromagnetic waves, nor sound waves; it was a form of perception we cannot comprehend at all! Our experiment lit a lamp in the dark, and an unknown existence saw that lamp!"
Li Hexuan's pupils suddenly constricted, and a chill crawled up his spine.
This description coincided precisely with the fragmented rumors deep within his memories from his past life—rumors concerning "Lord-tier" creatures, those capable of dominating an entire region, surpassing even "King-tier" beings!
Those existences had long since transcended the realm of beasts; they were the true monarchs of the apocalypse!
"Mr. Li."
Su Mengyi's soft voice sounded, interrupting Li Hexuan's train of thought.
She kept her eyes closed, her brow furrowed tightly.
"My feelings... seem to have changed. I can hear them. In the ruins of the city, I can hear so many, many weak lives crying, yearning."
Every time she resonated with the core fragment, her bloodline as the "Whisperer of Life" awakened a fraction more, and her range of perception expanded madly in tandem.
The lamentations of the entire city flooded into her mind.
That night, inside the garrison of the Thor Team, the atmosphere was oppressive.
Everyone understood what kind of terrifying existence they might have provoked.
Su Mengyi sat alone in her room, attempting to sort through the complex and chaotic "voices" in her mind via meditation.
She emptied her mind, allowing her perception to extend outward, crossing the sanctuary's walls and drifting toward the dead city ruins.
She "heard" the wind, heard the struggling growth of mutated plants beneath the concrete, and heard the mourning and yearning of all life.
Suddenly, all sounds vanished.
An extreme throb that froze the soul emanated from directly above her head.
Su Mengyi abruptly "lifted her gaze." Within her spiritual perception, high above in the endless expanse, behind the layer of polluted clouds, a pair of gigantic eyes—impossible to describe in words—slowly opened.
Those were not eyes made of flesh and blood.
They were gigantic eyes composed of pure energy, of cold nebulae, and of absolute indifference.
They overlooked the entirety of City E much like a human gazes down upon an ant nest below, devoid of anger or curiosity, possessing only the cold, merciless scrutiny of a deity.
Just a single glance.
The giant eyes quietly faded away.
"Ah!"
Su Mengyi emitted a short scream, jolting violently out of her meditation. Soaked in cold sweat, she gasped heavily.
The door was kicked open, and the figures of Li Hexuan and Zhang Nan instantly rushed in.
"What's wrong!"
Su Mengyi raised her head, her lips trembling as she forced out a few words.
"Eyes."
"In the sky... there is a pair of eyes... watching us."
Inside the military's highest command room, the atmosphere was stifling to the extreme.
On the holographic screen, the three-dimensional map of City E hovered quietly, with not a single area remaining as an absolute green safety zone.
"Eyes?" Lin Feng's brow knotted into a dead lock as he stared intently at Li Hexuan. "You mean Miss Su 'saw' an incomprehensible existence at the spiritual level, overlooking us?"
"Not overlooking," Li Hexuan's voice was chillingly devoid of any fluctuation. "It is scrutinizing. Just like humans looking at ants beneath their feet, deciding when to lift a foot."
Lin Feng drew a sharp breath; there was an oppressive aura about this man that compelled belief.
He spun around abruptly, roaring at the communications officer: "Activate Level One 'Bastard' Protocol! Run all long-range detection systems at full power! Conduct all-weather, zero-blind-spot scans of the skies and ground! I don't care what method you use, I want to know what on earth that pair of 'eyes' is!"
The order was executed swiftly.
The entire City E sanctuary entered a state of maximum alert—relaxed on the outside, tense on the inside.
However, three consecutive days passed, and the detection systems—having consumed massive amounts of energy—failed to detect any anomalies.
That terrifying pair of eyes suspended in the firmament seemed merely to be a nightmare of Su Mengyi's, coming without a trace and leaving without a shadow.
The city's peace was fragile beyond endurance.
On the fourth day, that peace was torn apart.
"Beep! Beep! Beep!"
Inside the Sector C garrison, a piercing alarm shrieked into the air.
A communications officer rushed into the command room with a pale face: "Brother Xuan! Something's happened! We've lost contact with Alpha Team Three, who went out to scavenge supplies!"
Li Hexuan abruptly stood up.
"All communication equipment went down simultaneously, including the military-issued emergency distress signals!"
"The captain of Team Three is Monkey!" Zhang Nan's expression shifted instantly. The young man called Monkey was a subordinate he had personally trained—quick-witted and reliable.
"The last known coordinates of the loss of contact!" There was no emotion audible in Li Hexuan's voice, but those familiar with him knew this was the dead calm before a storm.
"The industrial park in the west of the city. They were planning to retrieve a batch of special alloys."
"Get the car ready!"
Ten minutes later, a modified off-road vehicle roared out of the sanctuary like a black lightning bolt, heading straight for the west side of the city.
Before the car even came to a complete halt, a suffocating, heavy stench of blood washed in through the wind.
At the scene, dead silence reigned.
The transport truck stood undamaged by the roadside. There were no traces of rampaging mutated beasts, no explosions, and no signs of a struggle.
Only corpses.
Five bodies of the Thor Team members lay quietly beside the truck. A trace of bewilderment remained frozen on each of their faces; their fatal wounds were all located at the throat or the back of the heart—killed with a single blow, clean and decisive.
"Monkey!"
Zhang Nan leaped out of the vehicle. When he saw the wide-open eyes of the young man, the towering warrior's eye sockets instantly turned blood red.
Monkey's eyes were bulging wide, and his hand still tightly clutched a dagger, yet he had not even been given the chance to swing it.