socalfunplaces Chapter 563: Garbage Dump (5)
Chapter 563: Garbage Dump (5)
“Bang bang bang bang bang!!!”
"A possible gas explosion has been detected and the gas composition is being tested..."
"Completed. Highly corrosive gas. Assessing the maximum explosion radius... Completed."
"Assessing threat level... Completed."
"Threat Level: High."
The sudden rise in threat level finally perked Han Zu up a bit. Scans from the contractor's equipment showed that these highly corrosive gases could cause minor damage. This was the only instance of a high threat level Adenauer had encountered in all the dungeons he had entered. It seemed that this secret research institute had indeed remained undiscovered by the people of Infinite City.
If the corrosive gas could reach a high threat level for the real self, then it would undoubtedly be fatal to Adenauer, the vest. So Adenauer deliberately avoided the range of the gas explosion by retreating and reloading. Soon, several monsters with severely swollen torsos rushed towards the gap in the composite door. However, unlike the other monsters with their limbs in front, these guys with severely swollen torsos put their limbs backwards, like bumper cars, and placed their swollen torsos in the front.
"Pfft~~"
But they were also stopped by the fragments of flesh in the gap in the composite door. Slipping and stumbling on the strange-smelling body fluids, their swollen torsos collided with the sharp edge of the gap. Their bodies were not very strong, so they were directly pierced by the sharp points. Immediately afterwards, a large amount of colorless gas gushed out from the puncture point, covering the entire composite door.
“Tsk~~~~”
These highly corrosive gases quickly reacted with the composite door and the debris on the ground, corroding them at a visible rate and quickly breaking down into liquid. These unique chemical reactions generated a considerable amount of heat, scorching much of the corridor. Frank and Liz, hiding not far behind Adenauer, were sweating profusely from the heat.
According to the inspection of the contractor's equipment, these corrosive gases are not only highly corrosive, but also very flammable. However, according to detailed inspections, the current remaining content of these gases is not enough to cause an explosion. So in order to speed up the dissipation of these gases, Adenauer fired a shot at the center of the gas. Sure enough, a huge fireball appeared briefly for one or two seconds, burning up the corrosive gases and restoring the safety level of the nearby area to normal.
"Multiple parasitic life forms detected."
Although the monsters had been eliminated, the parasites within them had not perished from the burning. They resembled wireworms, their bodies remarkably strong and resistant to corrosion and high temperatures. The burning hadn't killed them, but had actually intensified their activity. They lay motionless amidst the shredded flesh and debris, seemingly biding their time, preparing to find a new host. Adenauer had no doubt that if he went there now, the parasites would burst forth from their hiding places and attempt to burrow into his body, attempting to parasitize him.
Due to his powerful and unique physique, any life form that wants to parasitize Adenauer's body will have only one end, that is, it will be completely decomposed and absorbed by his body. Not even hair or bone structure will be spared. So in fact, even if he jumps into the incubation chamber full of these parasites, it will at most be a "meal" for himself. However, the same cannot be said for Frank and Liz hiding in the back. If they are attacked by these parasites, they will probably become the same as these monsters.
Adenauer didn't care about them at first. After all, based on his current location, Frank and Liz wouldn't be anywhere near this place. However, the space behind the composite door was quite large, and he definitely had to go in to investigate. However, once he entered the composite door, Frank and Liz would likely come over to investigate, leading to an attack by the parasitic creatures. Even if they died in front of him, he wouldn't care. After all, Frank and Liz were not important to him.
However, if they were truly infected with the parasites, they would inevitably be retrieved by the Infinite City and taken back for biological experiments. After all, Infinite was deeply interested in anything related to biology. Once they were brought to Infinite's research facility, the intelligence department would immediately become suspicious of their lack of parasitic attacks and would undoubtedly send someone to investigate. After all, his disguised data and profession didn't allow him to handle such a situation. Therefore, to avoid unnecessary trouble, he'd better eliminate the parasites before they were discovered.
Fortunately, Adenauer's alias was notoriously cautious, so additional attacks when the public thought they were unnecessary seemed reasonable to him. So Adenauer first used the bio-force field to suppress the actions of the parasitic creatures, then took out several thermite bombs, activated them and threw them into the gap of the composite door. Almost all the monster corpses were scattered or blocked in the gap, which saved Adenauer time in gathering corpses and debris.
"call!"
When the time came, several thermite bombs exploded rapidly, and the flames instantly engulfed the flesh and debris, burning fiercely and emitting thick smoke. Adenauer used his own biological force field to wrap around the burning area, controlling the fire and preventing the flames from spreading outward and igniting more locations. At the same time, he observed the parasites that were being roasted by the temperature of the thermite.
It can be seen that the physiques of these parasites are indeed strong. Even those parasites that were directly contaminated by thermite were not ignited immediately. However, this was not luck, but rather a more cruel torture. Although the high temperature generated by the burning of thermite did not instantly ignite their torsos, it boiled their body fluids in an instant.
While their trunks could withstand considerable heat, their small size, coupled with the boiling fluids within, affected them both internally and externally. Within two or three seconds, their fluids completely dried up and evaporated, and their trunks, unable to withstand the heat, finally began to burn. Even so, the burning was slow. Some larger parasites, still not yet fully dead, frantically struggled to escape the intense heat. Unfortunately, the suppression of Adenauer's bio-field halted even their struggles. They could only watch helplessly as the flames engulfed them—assuming, of course, they possessed vision. However, based on Adenauer's observations and the direction of their attempts to escape, it was clear that these particular parasites possessed vision, albeit very subtly.
As the flames engulfed the parasites and the bodies they had originally parasitized, Adenauer used the bio-force field to further compress the air, reducing the oxygen supply while gradually absorbing the surrounding heat. Soon, after confirming that everything in front of him was burned to ash, Adenauer used the bio-force field to extinguish the burning flames.
After waiting for a while, until the smoke produced by the burning had spread a little more evenly to other places in the corridor, Adenauer entered the space behind through the gap in the composite door. There were many large machines here, including more than a dozen incinerators of certain models. These incinerators were not the kind used by funeral homes, but special incinerators used by some biological research institutes to deal with biological waste. They had three combustion chambers. The temperature of the first combustion chamber was the conventional 800 to 1500 degrees, which was used to burn conventional biological waste such as skin and internal organs. The second combustion chamber was degrees, which was used to burn things like bones. The last combustion chamber reached or even exceeded the temperature of conventional thermite, which was used to burn remaining combustible gases and decompose harmful substances.
Typically, the third chamber of the incinerator used to decompose biological waste at this research institute doesn't reach the high temperatures of 2500 to 3500 degrees Celsius, as high as thermite. Even the thermite bombs Adenauer had previously created only reached a maximum temperature of 2500 degrees Celsius due to material and time constraints. Therefore, the bio-force field was needed to incinerate the monsters and parasites. However, the third chamber of the incinerator here was set to a maximum temperature of over 3500 degrees Celsius, indicating that the presence of these parasites must have been known to the personnel within the research institute. They had long been aware of this parasitic situation, which is why they built an incinerator with sufficient temperature. Perhaps their original research project, or at least one of them, was related to these parasitic conditions.
Of the dozen or so incinerators within the room, most had their doors open. The monsters and parasites he had previously killed and burned were likely sent here but not dealt with in time. After entering the room, a scan using the contractor's equipment revealed that the composite door hadn't been opened in at least several years. This meant the parasites had a lifespan of at least several years and a very low energy requirement; otherwise, they would have starved to death long ago and wouldn't be alive today.
However, they had already turned into ashes, and it was too late to study them, so Adenauer temporarily put aside his curiosity about them and continued to check other places in the room.
In the southwest corner of the room, Adenauer found two bodies. According to the contractor's equipment, they had been dead for at least three years, yet their bodies showed no signs of decay. They didn't resemble those monsters, but rather normal humans. Based on the lack of decay in their torsos, even without the contractor's equipment, Adenauer could tell that these bodies were not normal humans, but some type of synthetic.
Moreover, through the ability of X-ray vision, it was found that there were no artificial hippocampi on the heads of the two corpses, and there were no visible synthetic components on other parts of the body. This means that these two synths are not the second-generation synths seen before, but may be third or even fourth-generation new synths. This also shows one thing, that is, this secret research institute has nothing to do with Johor Bahru.
This conclusion stemmed primarily from Adenauer's knowledge of the Infinite Company, Infinite City, and the so-called dungeons. While the New Mountain City dungeon lacked a main quest, as the entire area hadn't been fully researched by the Infinite Company, New Mountain City, as a key location, had undoubtedly been thoroughly studied. Furthermore, despite the lack of a main questline, no matter how the player progressed, they would ultimately learn about synths. If anything, understanding synths could be considered a main quest, unrecorded in the quest panel. However, based on his previous experience, the Infinite City and the Infinite Company were already familiar with New Mountain City. Given the synths he had encountered so far, their technical capabilities were at most second-generation. Therefore, the two third- or fourth-generation synths appearing in this secret laboratory couldn't possibly have come from New Mountain City. Otherwise, the synth he encountered in Oak City, attempting to replace Liz, would have been at least third-generation, not second-generation.
Seeing the two synth corpses, Adenauer considered a possibility. Based on their clothing, it was likely that the entire secret research institute's scientific staff were synths. According to his understanding, organizations capable of synths on this scale were very rare. Furthermore, the timeline of this instance was at least twenty years ago. Adenauer could only think of one force possessing this level of advanced synths over twenty years ago: the synths' "mother," the somewhat crazed female scientist and her former lover, a high-ranking military official. By that time, they had likely already mastered the technology to mass-produce third-generation synths.
At the time when the copy was located, the news about the second generation of synths was not yet known to the public. Only authoritative countries and top scientific research institutions had relevant knowledge. All forces that knew about the existence of synths had basically just begun to realize the strategic value of synths at this point in time and carried out related research. Moreover, due to the need for confidentiality, the research progress was not very fast.
However, in the copy of Johor Bahru City, there appeared second-generation synths with a very fast research speed. According to the experience of the small town at that time, Johor Bahru City had spread a large number of second-generation synths. Logically speaking, at this point in time, except for the laboratory of the Mother of Synths, no force should have such a large number of second-generation synths, even the Infinite Company. Although they had matching strength, their research focus at the time was on developing the prototype of the game cabin. Synths were not very useful to them, so no one was researching related products at that time.
Based on this information, and the bodies of two high-level synths found in the secret laboratory in Sterburg, a clue could be pieced together. If Xinshan City truly possessed synths on this scale, then they must be closely connected to that scientist. Perhaps the establishment of Xinshan City had no direct connection to them, but the technology for mass-producing second-generation synths, as well as the secret laboratory where they were currently located, must have been their work. At the very least, they were directly connected to them.
"The contents of those three threaded sealed tubes might be related to what they were researching at the time." Adenauer thought to himself. He stopped searching and sat on the pulled-out incinerator to think about it. The scientist who created the synthesis might be of great help to him.
"Now is not the time to think about that."
But he didn't think for long. Perhaps because he had no clue, or perhaps because he hadn't thought of the detailed steps, Adenauer stopped thinking, stood up, shook his head, and walked over to the bodies of the two advanced synths and continued to examine them.