Hunter of Mysterious Creature-Chapter 368 - 28: The Operation Is Moved Up

"Mr. Li? Is that you?" Liu Yu asked in a deep voice.

He took another step back, but it seemed something in the mud caught the foot of his power armor, causing him to lose his balance completely and fall flat on his back.

"Damn!"

Liu Yu cursed under his breath, reaching out to try to support himself off the ground, but whether it was his own arm or the mechanical arms attached to the power armor backpack, he couldn’t find a single point in the slippery mud to leverage. Several attempts failed to get him back on his feet.

The power armor stamped with the names of Lee Yimin and Peng Wei slowly walked up to Liu Yu, gazing down at him.

"Mr. Li? Peng Wei?" Liu Yu clung to the last shred of hope in his heart—yet he knew well that if the person inside the power armor was truly Lee Yimin, he would’ve already reached out to pull him up instead of just watching him struggle in the mud.

Liu Yu’s inner fear had swelled to its limit, and vaguely, he seemed to see a pair of pale eyes behind the opponent’s visor, staring intently at him.

No, not just one pair of eyes!

Liu Yu didn’t know if he was hallucinating; as the opponent closed in to within less than half a meter, he finally saw the face hidden in the shadows of the visor.

This face seemed as though it had been corroded by strong acid, the surface covered with numerous pits, and at the bottom of these pits, something resembling eyeballs spun around frantically.

Now, hundreds of eyeballs of various sizes on "Lee Yimin’s" face all focused their gaze on Liu Yu’s face.

Liu Yu’s mind went completely blank.

"Mr. Liu? Mr. Liu, are you OK?" Wang’s voice came through the headset, "Can you get up yourself? Do you need me to come help?"

Liu Yu watched as the creature in Lee Yimin’s armor pushed the visor open, its mouth gaped wide, and an array of tentacles like sea anemones extended from its throat.

"Run! Hurry!!" Liu Yu shouted with all his strength.

...

...

Celestial City, Comprehensive Talent Training Base construction site.

Despite the entire Celestial City being placed under martial law, the construction site did not cease operations. High-lumen floodlights illuminated the site as bright as daylight, and hundred-meter-high tower cranes worked like constructing blocks, assembling modular components, with workers manually securing the locks at the joints and pouring concrete into the hollow load-bearing steel columns.

A vast architectural complex far larger than the Celestial City Mysterious Creature Research Institute had already begun taking shape, even the "temporary research institute" built above the underground palace was replaced by a solid fortress-style building.

Sun Hang parked the car at the designated spot, and as he locked the car door, his phone rang again from his pocket.

"It’s Yang Qi." The familiar ringtone allowed Sun Hang to identify the caller without even checking the phone screen; he pulled out his phone and answered directly, "Hello? Is there anything you forgot to mention earlier?"

"There’s an anomaly with Chimera 17!" Yang Qi spoke rapidly, "Observation posts Zero through Six have all lost contact. UAVs have detected a sudden acceleration in the mimetic intensity of Chimera 17, and now we don’t have forty-one days left... According to the latest data, Chimera 17’s ’Emergence Day’ might be brought forward by one month."

"So, only eleven days left?"

"Yes."

"Eleven days, that’s not enough to complete the mimetic reverse engineering, right?" Sun Hang asked, "I remember you mentioned in the meeting that completing 70% of the mimetic reverse engineering requires a month."

"I just talked to the reverse engineering team; they told me, as long as the obtained mimetic samples are complete enough, there’s hope to complete fifty percent of the reverse engineering within ten days... Though fifty percent ’insecticide’ efficacy would be greatly diminished, it can still significantly weaken Chimera 17’s power."

"So you’re suggesting we set off right now?"

"Exactly, first to investigate the cause of Chimera 17’s sudden mutation; second, mimetic sample collection must start immediately... We are truly out of time!"

"What if we inadvertently provoke Chimera 17, further bringing forward its ’Emergence Day’?"

"Then we all just wait for death!" Yang Qi responded irritably, "According to the Disaster Response Committee’s plan, all Hunters involved will gather at the north city gate of Celestial City; a vehicle will transport you there... Also, aside from Chimera 17’s main body, we’ve detected independent-frequency mimetic fluctuations, which means other mysterious creatures exist near Chimera 17."

"Its minions?"

"Purely in terms of mimetic similarity, these creatures aren’t connected with Chimera 17," Yang Qi stated, "But I feel their appearance near Chimera 17 at this particular time is no coincidence."

...

...

An hour and a half later.

kilometers from Chimera 17.

"Bifang III" large military transport helicopter, altitude 200 meters.

"This weather is just terrible." Ye Jiu peered out the helicopter door, "Since the arrival of Eternal Night, Shuzhou hasn’t seen rain this heavy, right?"