Hunter of Mysterious Creature-Chapter 533 - 115: City Ruins_2

"Then let’s just bake it, okay?" The only female soldier in the squad rolled her eyes at him, "If all you can do is talk nonsense, then shut your mouth."

The squad leader walked up to the remnants of a building, examined it carefully, then stepped back a few paces to take another look from a distance. Finally, he shook his head, "Very strange... this feeling... it’s like..."

"It’s like those surreal human images in AI-generated drawings, where normally proportioned limbs are bizarrely assembled with seven or eight fingers," the silent sniper of the team suddenly said.

"Yes, that’s exactly it!" The squad leader nodded excitedly, "I’ve been trying to find the right description... only Grazkov, a brilliant graduate from Baijia Art Academy, could pinpoint it so accurately with your metaphor!"

"The proportions and structures of these buildings are odd," sniper Grazkov continued, "Even though they seem to be altered by a massive fire, some things don’t change... Look at this building."

Graz pointed at a nearby four-story building.

"The first floor has no doors or windows, the second floor has a door on its side, and on the third floor, two windows are tightly packed together while another window is on the border between the second and third floors..." Grazkov said, "Although there might be some unconventional architects designing such structures, I doubt the entire street was designed by them."

"Look at this too!" The female soldier quickly rushed to a restaurant and propped up a sign taller than herself.

The sign was blackened by soot, but the writing on it was vaguely visible.

"Do you recognize the writing on this sign?"

The reconnaissance squad consisted of six people, five of whom were Siberian. The most common script in Lake Baikal City wasn’t the official Xiazhou Federation script, Mandarin, but the Russian language of the Siberian Federation. As their mother tongue, they couldn’t possibly not recognize the writing on the sign.

Yet, despite staring at the sign for a long time, none of the soldiers could recognize what was written on it.

The structure of the text bore a strong resemblance to Russian, but it wasn’t Russian.

It seemed more like a "new script" created on the existing Russian glyph structure.

"Is this... encrypted Russian?" the machine gunner murmured.

"No, it’s not Russian," Grazkov shook his head, "I tried matching it using Russian grammar and similar glyph structures... the results were a complete mess, totally unreadable."

"So, it’s a completely self-created script?" the squad leader asked, puzzled.

"No... these characters are actually like the buildings," Grazkov said, "I don’t know if any of you have worked with AI-generated images, but when you import a normal picture into AI software for reprocessing, any text in it becomes a strange code between text and symbols... With these building designs, I now even suspect we are inside a city generated by AI."

Graz swallowed and added, "To be more precise, in an AI-drawn... image of city ruins."

"You’re saying... we’re in a painting?" The soldier who spoke first was taken aback, "No, Graz, that’s impossible! This city ruin actually exists at the Lake Baikal City site, we’ve spotted it from the outpost tower, and kept it in sight on our way here... it... it can’t just be a painting?"

"I was just making a comparison; I didn’t mean to say we were actually in a painting," Grazkov knelt down, picking up and rolling a pinch of sand between his fingers.

"I have a thought," the squad leader mused, "The original Lake Baikal City has been destroyed, not a trace of it remains... And the city ruins where we’re now, it’s a kind of reality-bending anomaly... It’s trying to imitate a human city but couldn’t quite replicate it, which is why it looks like this, do you think that makes sense?"

"Imitating a human city? Why would an anomaly do that?" the machine gunner questioned.

"Are you daft? Instead of asking why an anomaly does that, you might as well ask your girlfriend why she gets angry," said the first soldier, weighing the assault rifle in his hands, "I never bother with what motives anomalies have. I just know, if an anomaly shows up in front of me, I’ll unhesitatingly gun it down!"

As he finished speaking, a shadow flickered behind a window of the nearest building debris.

"Who?" The soldier immediately pointed his assault rifle at that window.

"What happened?" The captain frowned, "Maxim, what did you see?"

"Something flashed behind that window!" Maxim replied, "I swear on my life! It wasn’t just my imagination!!"

"Everyone! Be on alert!" The captain shouted immediately, the other four quickly gathered close, forming a defensive formation using the street’s obstacles for crossfire cover.

"Captain, should we... search inside?" Maxim hesitated briefly and asked. 𝒇𝙧𝙚𝓮𝙬𝙚𝓫𝒏𝓸𝓿𝓮𝒍.𝓬𝙤𝓶

The building had no door, only a window on the side facing the street.

If something was indeed inside, it might still be there now.

"Not yet," the captain pulled out a drone controller from his backpack, extending its collapsible control stick.

The drone hovering above in "follow mode" lowered its altitude immediately, drifting towards the window slowly.

Sniper Grazkov aimed his sniper rifle at the window as well.

Just as the drone passed through the window, a sudden intense vibration, accompanied by the sound of a collapse, sent a pile of debris raining from above, instantly burying the drone under the rubble.

The captain promptly pinned Maxim to the ground. Once the tremors ceased, he brushed the sand off his head and loudly asked, "Is anyone hurt?"

"No!"

"Still alive!"

"I’m fine, Captain!"

"I’m okay too, just have a small scratch on the face."

"What just happened?"

"I don’t know either," the captain dusted his clothes, "but here’s some bad news, we lost the drone."

"So, that tremor was to destroy our drone?" Maxim looked perplexed, "But... if the other side wanted to stop our investigation, toppling all these buildings would be enough to bury the whole squad alive, why only target the drone then..."

"Shut up already!" the female soldier snapped, "If things happened as you said, would that make you happy?"

"Everyone take note, fall back to the street junction... in case of an aftershock, avoid high-rise structures," the captain instructed while opening a radio communicator, "Nineteenth Reconnaissance Team calling base, Nineteenth Reconnaissance Team calling base, we encountered unknown tremors in sector L3, some buildings had minor collapses, drone destroyed, but no personnel injuries. A member witnessed a possible anomaly, but it’s not confirmed... We need drone support, and also... Hello? Hello?"

"What’s the matter, Captain?"

"Damn it, Suka!" The captain irritably tapped the communicator strapped to his shoulder, "The signal interference is too severe! We can’t communicate properly!"