Chapter 572: Blood Cloud

Translator: EndlessFantasy Translation Editor: EndlessFantasy Translation

After discovering the needle-like device, all clues were halted.

No one knew what happened in that world. Why did humans disappear, who were they fighting with before disappearing, how did those blood clouds form, and why did the needle that was originally on Mars appear on the earth?

No one knew.

The rain from the blood clouds in the sky corroded most of the traces and even the Internet that humankind was so proud of was eroded. The Black Knights could barely find some fragmentary information, all of which was common knowledge. There was nothing left about what happened in the past year.

Therefore, Chen Chen decided to check it out in person to see if he could find anything by his own ability.

He wore a variety of detection equipment including magnetic field detectors, life detectors, the PK Armor, and so on, and went directly into the dimension of Doom.

However, after he was fully armed and had entered the dimension of Doom, Chen Chen suddenly paused.

He looked at his hands with a little surprise as his hands were constantly moving in the air.

“Sir Commander?”

Across the portal, Little X's clone, X-112 asked, “Did you find something?”

“Yes, but I still need to confirm it.”

Chen Chen's voice was low. He faced the wreck of a building fifty meters away with one hand, tightened his palm slightly, then said softly, “Break!”

“Rumble!”

There was the sound of the building collapsing and the ruins of the five-story building crumpled directly. Endless dust flew into the air as smoke drifted everywhere.

“That's not it...”

Seeing this scene, Chen Chen still frowned and he muttered in a low voice, “I can still wield Field energy but why is there still a sense of uneasy suppression?

“No, that's wrong!”

Suddenly, Chen Chen seemed to realize something. He raised his head and showed a surprised expression. “It's not Field energy, but... Psionic power!

“In this world, I can't use psionic power!”

With that, Chen Chen closed his eyes slightly and then opened them again. “Indeed, the air here gives me a feeling of stagnation. My strength is limited here as if I'm trapped in jelly and it's hard to properly stretch out my body.”

Thinking of this, Chen Chen stepped off with his foot and jumped directly into the sky. He flew straight at a speed exceeding the speed of sound, trying to find a zone where he could exert his psionic powers!

One day later, Chen Chen crossed the Pacific directly to the other side of the earth.

Along the way, Chen Chen kept looking down at the earth, but just as he expected, the entire world had become a ruin. The blood clouds had covered the whole planet. From the ground, it seemed as if the world had fallen into h.e.l.l.

No one, still no one...

Chen Chen swept across cities including the Chinese and Indian Continents, but still only saw the constantly corroded buildings. He did not even see the slightest sign of animal or plant life in this world, let alone human beings.

“Boom!”

Chen Chen landed on a high mountain peak at the speed of sound. At once there was a rumbling sound and two or three meters of the mountain's height crumbled.

Standing on the mountain, Chen Chen looked at everything in the world solemnly. His expression was extremely serious.

Chen Chen's eyesight was comparable to that of a falcon and he could easily see a mouse several kilometers away. He looked around but then raised his eyebrows.

In a col near the foot of the mountain, there was a dark spot.

Seeing this scene, Chen Chen's expression flickered. He quickly flew in that direction and when he approached, astonishment glimmered in his eyes.

He saw that it was a cave with black depths that extended downward over an unknown distance!

“Could it be...”

Chen Chen cast his Field downward but after reaching his limit of fifty meters, he still could not figure out what was inside, so he did not hesitate anymore. He stepped forward and descended directly into the cave!

“Whoos.h.!.+”

The wind rushed by his ears. Chen Chen only saw that the walls of this cave were extremely smooth as if it had been tamped down by something and the diameter of the entire cave was also ten meters wide. It seemed bottomless.

In this way, Chen Chen continued to descend at the speed of freefall. After half a minute, he sensed the bottom. With his Field energy, Chen Chen landed directly on the bottom of the cave.

“Boom!”

Chen Chen stepped directly on a piece of cold, hard material. He stared at it and immediately showed a vindicated look.

“This is... Another 'needle'!”

The pattern at his feet was the same as the pattern that Little X showed to him. It was a peculiar pattern that looked like the sun and also a red spider lily (Lycoris Radiata).

Chen Chen leaned down and stroked the cold metal slightly. It could be seen from its texture that this needle was not the same as the one on Mars. The material of this needle was much newer. It seemed to have been cast recently. There was not much oxidation on its surface.

“Who would stab so many needles into the earth? Was it humans? No, that's impossible...”

Chen Chen looked up at the sky with a flash of doubt in his eyes. He silently calculated the lat.i.tude and longitude of this position.

According to the lat.i.tude and longitude of the earth where the two needles were located, Chen Chen had found a trace of regularity.

Thinking of this, Chen Chen immediately took off again and flew in the other direction.

Next, Chen Chen freely streaked high in the sky at his greatest speed, visiting several locations in one day, some in the mountains, some in the depths of the ocean. Nevertheless, every time he went to a new location, he would find that there was also a “needle” there.

Finally, he came to the South Pole of the earth, and at the pole, he also found the same giant needle.

“Equator, Tropic of Capricorn, Tropic of Cancer, South Pole, North Pole...”

Chen Chen quietly estimated. “If we follow this rule, there's a giant needle every 60 degrees in longitude and every 45 degrees in lat.i.tude. That's to say, there are a total of 20 giant needles on the earth!

“These giant needles nailing the Earth must contain some big secret!”

Thinking of this, Chen Chen stopped investigating. He went straight back to the location where the first giant needle was found. At this time, under the control of X-112, a group of Black Knights was continuously hacking at the top of the giant needle in that area, trying to uncover the secret behind those giant needles.

“How long will it take to break it open?”

Chen Chen came to the side of the pit and asked a Black Knight.

“Due to the highly imbalanced neutron content of the high-offset armor, it's very insensitive in energy transfer, so heat and vibrations won't transfer well at the atomic level. Thus, it's very difficult to break its surface.”

X-112's voice came from the Black Knight. She complained. “Plus, we don't have any high-power equipment that can enter the ground at a depth of five kilometers. For the past few days, we've just made a gash about ten centimeters deep. It'll take a long time to completely break through the surface of this giant needle, about three months to half a year.”

“That's too long, I can't wait that long.”

Chen Chen frowned. He thought for a while and he flew up again and returned to reality through the pa.s.sage.

Another month pa.s.sed. When Chen Chen returned to the dimension of Doom again, he also transported along a huge drill with a diameter of three meters.

This drill could be described as a large-scale device built with all of Blacklight Biotechnology's power and constructed with high-offset armor. It took a month to build it. After it was hurriedly completed, there was no time for fine polis.h.i.+ng, so Chen Chen took the drill with him and came to the dimension of Doom again.

He used Field to carry the drill and came to the cave again, dismissed all the Black Knights, and then used his powerful Field to drill with brute force!

“Buzz —!”

A low but grating noise of friction erupted, just like the roar of an underground monster. The sound even penetrated through the soil and reached the ground. Chen Chen's Field energy was like an unparalleled powerful mountain drill, controlling the drill bit to drill in fiercely!

With the help of a drill, within a few hours, the originally unbreakable door was drilled through!

At the moment when he drilled through, Chen Chen immediately stopped the drill. Only then did he discover that the originally st.u.r.dy high-offset drill had been completely deformed. However, it was not the time to care about this. He just tossed away the deformed drill and looked at the entrance of the drilled hole.

“As I thought...”

Chen Chen immediately saw that in the drilled hole, there were various complicated mechanisms and it was obvious that these mechanisms were constantly in operation.

He could even see various green and yellow lights blinking.

This needle-like thing turned out to be a high-tech device?

Chen Chen was stunned. His Field energy began to peek inside along the opened hole, only to find that the bottom of this ma.s.sive device was almost solid, and only a few dozen of cubic meters of s.p.a.ce at the top contained some precision parts.

Just as Chen Chen was feeling puzzled, several of the pinp.r.i.c.k-sized lights suddenly flickered and at the same time, they made a “beeping” sound, changing from the original green and yellow to red, one after another.

“Does this mean that the equipment is damaged?”

Chen Chen watched suspiciously but just after these lights had flickered a few times, the equipment inside the giant needle stopped running with a “hiss”!

At the moment when their operation stopped, Chen Chen only felt the air around his body suddenly loosened and an extremely refres.h.i.+ng feeling washed over him.

Chen Chen's heart leaped. He closed his eyes again and silently sensed everything and immediately realized that his psionic energy had been restored!

This piece of equipment could suppress his psionic powers!

Chen Chen suddenly opened his eyes with a flash of surprise. The reason he could not use psionic energy before was because of the existence of these steel needles nailed to the depths of the earth!

Just when Chen Chen was astounded by this kind of high technology that went beyond common sense, X-112 suddenly gave an update with an urgent voice. “Sir Commander, the sky has changed...”

“What?”

Chen Chen looked up suspiciously but he could not see anything at a depth of 5,000 meters.

“The blood clouds in the sky have started to s.h.i.+ft as if a wind is coming!”

X-112's voice continued. “Those blood clouds have become denser than usual. With this cave as the center, blood clouds with a radius of hundreds of kilometers are gathering here!”

Chen Chen was startled when he heard these words. He did not know why but a faint, vague sense of crisis quickly surged into Chen Chen's heart, causing him to secrete adrenaline involuntarily.

“Something's wrong.”

A glimmer of determination flashed in Chen Chen's eyes. He no longer hesitated and quickly moved one hand!

“Swish, swish, swish...”

In the big hole that was opened, the entire device was directly broken down into parts and they flew straight out from the entrance of the hole. Immediately, a large number of parts flew out in a messy pile in front of Chen Chen. These strange, varying parts silently hovered in mid-air.

“Sir Commander, the pointer on the magnetic field indicator is jumping violently and the surrounding magnetic field is very disordered. At the same time, the life detector is detecting countless life forms but we can't see anything... Should we retreat?”

X-112 asked anxiously again.

“Retreat at once!”

Chen Chen answered without thinking about it and then he carried these parts and quickly flew toward the top of the cave.

“Swoos.h.!.+”

More than ten seconds later, Chen Chen directly rushed out of the deep cave and raced high into the sky. It was only then that he saw that the originally peaceful sky had turned into a spinning cyclone eye surrounded by endless blood clouds. It was like a huge pupil, watching this spot with billowing malice!

In the screaming wind, watching this strange scene, even Chen Chen felt a sense of suffocation. He did not know what would happen next but looking at this situation, it was not a good thing.

“Woo —”

“Ah ah agh...”

He did not know if it was the sound of the wind or some special meteorological phenomenon. Chen Chen only heard strange roars in the void around him like snarling or millions of people wailing in misery. If one did not have an iron will, one would be immobilized by the sound!

Chen Chen frowned and looked around, only to find that even the ground was blanketed in a rising blood mist and the various instruments on his body were spinning wildly as if the end of the world was arriving!

“Interesting...”

Chen Chen murmured in a low voice. After encountering a crisis like the Consciousness Stealer, what momentous scene had he not witnessed before? Although the situation at this time was strange, it had little effect on Chen Chen. He just flew directly in the direction of the portal.

On the ground, the Black Knights had already given up on all the equipment and instruments and drove directly toward the pa.s.sage. Chen Chen only turned back slightly after he had fled for dozens of kilometers.

He saw that in the distant sky, there were still endless blood clouds converging. The hurricane-like blood cloud had become as large as a mountain with a blood-red rim and a center that was condensed into deathlike blackness. It was also spinning ceaselessly at high speed.

Even though it was so far away, the suppression from the huge cloud was still unabated.

“Rumble...”

In the blood cloud, there was an explosive thunderous noise and an electric arc could faintly be seen zipping by.

That blood cloud seemed to be alive!

This weird thought flashed through Chen Chen's mind for some reason.

“Let's retreat.”

Chen Chen took a deep breath and a fuzzy speculation flashed in his mind. Then, he descended from a high alt.i.tude, directly grabbed the server where X-112 was housed, and lifted off again, flying toward the direction of the portal without looking back...

A few minutes later, Chen Chen had arrived at his destination but at the same time, X-112's voice came again. “Sir Commander, our communication has failed. We've lost contact with the Black Knights of the mining team.”

“Wait for them for half an hour. If they haven't come back then, I'll close the channel directly.”

Chen Chen spoke casually and at the same time, stepped directly into the portal back to reality.