It was that familiar sensation again.

As soon as he entered the channel, Chen Chen was overcome by a sense of weightlessness. At the same time, his eyes seemed to lose their vision and his ears lost their hearing. In other words, Chen Chen lost all sense of his body, leaving nothing but an intangible consciousness, floating in the endless darkness…

Nonetheless, this feeling only lasted for a moment and the next second, Chen Chen's eyes saw light again.

At this moment, he was already standing on a pile of rubble. Next to him, there were two other Black Knights and the small Bugatti s.p.a.ces.h.i.+p that had followed behind. The Black Knight who had come beforehand was standing quietly before him.

“Click, click, click…”

Chen Chen's six scanners quickly popped out of his back and scanned the surroundings swiftly, but only detected a few wild cats and dogs in the ruins. Everything else was normal.

“Drone.”

After that, Chen Chen said softly.

At Chen Chen's command, the four M-1 drones upon the Bugatti s.p.a.ces.h.i.+p took off in silence. As they took off, their shape quickly turned blurry. By the time they had flown for dozens of meters, these four drones had completely blended into the air and vanished without a trace.

The drones were much faster than humans at searching. After a few minutes, the four drones had examined everything within one kilometer. This was all sensed by X-112, the clone of Little X, who duly reported each update.

“Sir Commander, no signs of human activities have been found within one kilometer. There's only a large number of animals and plants…”

“Expand the range and find out what the conditions are like within ten kilometers,” Chen Chen ordered.

After the order was issued, the drones moved toward the unknown to explore further.

During the drone exploration, Chen Chen jumped off the ruins and walked toward a nearby apartment that had not collapsed. Although this apartment was already entangled in vines, it was made of conventional reinforced concrete instead of ordinary wooden boards. Therefore, the structure had not collapsed under the a.s.sault of wind and rain over many years.

The original gla.s.s doors of the apartment had been damaged long ago. It was dark and empty inside, like a gaping abyss. As Chen Chen and the three Black Knights entered, a cloud of dust was stirred up by the breeze.

Chen Chen squatted and touched the ground. A thick layer of ash had acc.u.mulated. Based on the thickness of this blanket of ash, no one had entered this place for decades.

Even after seeing this, Chen Chen still did not take the situation lightly but walked in cautiously. After that, he let a Black Knight take the lead as they looked through each room in the apartment.

This apartment had five floors, each of which had ten rooms in a row, connected by a corridor. At both ends of the corridor were stairs leading up and down. This was the simplest layout for apartment buildings.

All the doors in the apartment were anti-theft doors made of alloy, which had remained intact for so long. However, most of the anti-theft doors on the first and second floors exhibited signs of damage. It seemed that someone had forcibly broken in. Even so, those marks were very old as well.

After walking around these rooms, Chen Chen did not find anything special. There was nothing else but some rotten furniture. Chen Chen even found a wallet that had not been taken away in time, with a large amount of cash still inside.

However, all food-related items had disappeared.

“In other words, the people who broke in later took only the food, but not the money.”

Chen Chen reflected out loud, “In that case, someone must've pried open these doors and broke into the apartment after the government collapsed. These people had adapted to a world of anarchy. They were searching for food all over the place, yet they wouldn't spare a glance for money.”

After silently imprinting this clue into his mind, Chen Chen moved past these opened doors and walked toward the highest floor of the apartment.

Those who broke in must have had plenty of options, yet they only pried open the doors on the first and second floors. Starting from the third floor, only a few doors were pried open and most of them were intact.

There were even fewer doors that were pried open on the fourth floor and by the fifth floor, none of the doors had been pried open.

After noticing this, Chen Chen no longer hesitated. He beckoned and a Black Knight immediately stepped forward and tugged violently at the first door that had rusted long ago. There was the sound of metal being twisted, then a loud bang. The door was forcibly opened by the Black Knight.

These Black Knights were like mini supermen who were perfectly fused with the T-virus in the first place. After they put on the GS Combat Suits and the PK Armor, their power was augmented to a terrifying point. Twisting open a rusty iron door was a walk in the park.

When the door was opened, the sound of splitting metal ruptured the ancient silence of this apartment. The sound rippled into the distance, echo after echo…

At this point, Chen Chen frowned because he suddenly realized that this apartment seemed a bit too quiet. It was unlike the ruins that he had just come from. There, after just a glance with his PK Armor's infrared vision, he could detect many insects and a few wild animals.

However, in this apartment, forget about wild animals, there was not even a single insect chirp.

“Something is wrong.”

Chen Chen took a step back abruptly and said, “Let's withdraw!”

Without any hesitation, the Black Knight who had just opened the anti-theft door followed Chen Chen down the stairs.

Along the way, Chen Chen could not help but feel his nerves tensing up. He felt that even the air had solidified for some reason. There seemed to be something in this apartment, which was slowly awakening after the noise they made.

'Is it just in my head? Or…'

Chen Chen felt cold sweat drenching his back. He had not seen anything but for some reason, he felt his hair standing on end. This chill crawling down his spine made him bite the bullet and quickly flee from the apartment.

Only when they had gotten out of the area of the apartment did Chen Chen slowly exhale. The heavy feeling had faded gradually after he left the apartment.

He could not tell what kind of feeling it was. The air seemed to be weighed down by something heavy. The atmosphere that was once light and relaxed became as sluggish as a swamp, turning into a more suffocating pressure.

This was something that only Chen Chen could feel.

It was just that this feeling was rather indefinite.

Chen Chen could not help but glance down at the PK Armor he was wearing. It seemed that this armor had blocked off his feeling, only…

“What kind of feeling was that?”

Chen Chen frowned. He could tell that this feeling did not arise from the five senses, so it must have been an instinctive mental reaction to a part of reality. Strictly speaking, it should fall under the category of his sixth sense.

“In other words, I've sensed something that I've never noticed before and whatever it was caused a direct response in my mind, resulting in a sense of danger?”

This feeling was not groundless. Rather, it was more subconscious. For example, when Chen Chen scanned the area just now, he had observed many animals living in the ruins. Although the surroundings were deserted, they were full of life.

However, after entering the apartment, although Chen Chen had overlooked the presence of those small animals out of habit, the difference in the surroundings still put his subconscious on guard. Thus, Chen Chen's conscious mind would only feel that something was off, without being able to pinpoint what exactly.

It was only in the next moment that the subconscious mind realized what was wrong — the small animals around were gone. Only then did Chen Chen experience a shocking realization and he left the apartment quickly.

Thinking of this, Chen Chen turned around again and looked at the apartment behind him.

Even so, when he got a good look, his pupils shrank furiously!

At some point, all the doors in the apartment had been opened…

It was as if the apartment was waking up from a deep sleep. It had opened its dense rows of “eyes”, staring vacantly at Chen Chen who was standing before it…