Chapter 757: Light Changes
Light Changes
The surrounding D-Class personnel froze in place. Although they had done some dangerous scouting missions before, none of them had ever faced a mission this deadly right upon entering.
Another D-Class personnel was pushed forward. Keller seemed to hold some status among them, so no one dared provoke him.
The one sent forward had to scout ahead. After only a few steps, he felt as if he had become a little lighter.
A terrified scream sounded behind him, but by then he could no longer reason about what it meant.
Lin Ye avoided the splattering blood. The scout who hadn’t walked far very naturally turned into several corpse fragments. Each fragment slid smoothly in different directions, finally stopping at separate positions.
Two D-Class personnel standing at the entrance also turned into corpse fragments. Blood sprayed everywhere and splattered onto the surviving D-Class personnel.
One D-Class personnel screamed in terror and ran out of the residential complex.
Bang!
Gunshots rang outside. Before long, that D-Class personnel’s corpse was thrown back in.
In less than five minutes, five D-Class personnel were dead.
“I suggest you don’t overthink things, especially don’t focus on different targets. I’m going to check that apartment building over there, you can follow me,” Lin Ye said.
He stepped around the surrounding bloodstains and moved toward the apartment building at the far end of the complex.
He wanted to first survey the whole complex, but considering how those corpse fragments moved so smoothly in varied directions, he decided to pick a single destination to reach first.
If he did that, his body might not scatter to different places.
One D-Class personnel hesitated, then decided to follow Lin Ye, hoping that doing so would increase his chance of survival.
Then he turned into two corpse fragments. One remained in place, while the other moved behind Lin Ye and stopped.
The last surviving D-Class personnel clearly understood Lin Ye’s hint. He stayed right behind Lin Ye, forcing his mind blank to suppress chaotic thoughts.
Gray-white concrete roads ran between the apartment buildings. Lin Ye walked while observing the status of the surrounding buildings. He had already tried before: as long as he didn’t think about where to go, he wouldn’t turn into corpse fragments.
“What do we do next? Those apartment buildings will eat us,” Kuer said, staring at Lin Ye’s back and forcing his mind empty.
“As long as we don’t approach the apartment entrances, we shouldn’t be eaten. Also, the corridor’s sensor lights switched on earlier. Those sensors are a bit too sensitive,” Lin Ye replied.
He felt that if he could avoid triggering the sensor lights, perhaps the apartment buildings wouldn’t devour them.
Kuer didn’t answer. Every step he took risked becoming a corpse fragment.
Lin Ye didn’t go particularly fast, but the complex wasn’t large. Before long, they reached their target location.
The apartment building resembled a beast lying in the dark, its nearest entrance less than ten meters from the two of them.
“I’ll go alone. You stay here. Don’t make a sound,” Lin Ye warned Kuer, then approached the entrance by himself.
His steps were light, almost silent, but when he neared, the corridor lights still turned on.
Lin Ye had to quickly back away, but while retreating his body had already split into two corpse fragments. The fragment left behind was swallowed by the entrance; the other fragment moved away from the building and stopped at the position he had intended to reach.
……………………………………
[Remaining Simulation Attempts: 9]
Lin Ye opened his eyes in the prison transport vehicle. The sensation of being nibbled at by the apartment entrance still lingered on his body.
‘This is a bit problematic. I can’t change my movement route before reaching the target location.’
In truth, Lin Ye hadn’t set the target inside the entrance just now; he had set it to a safe spot outside the entrance. Even so, his body still turned into corpse fragments when he reached that spot.
‘Is it because, at its core, my objective was to enter the apartment building interior? How does the system judge that target?’
Lin Ye had been working hard to fool himself, but he still became corpse fragments.
‘Also, the lights seem unrelated to sound. Do they trigger whenever someone approaches?’
Lin Ye needed to find what triggered the lights, or find a normal apartment building.
Five minutes later, the prison transport stopped again near the complex entrance, and D-Class personnel went into the complex. This time Lin Ye did not stay at the entrance to observe. He set another apartment building deeper inside the complex as his target and moved toward it.
Those D-Class personnel naturally did not stop him; no one followed him this time.
Lin Ye moved around the corpse fragments and successfully reached the target.
This time he didn’t recklessly approach an entrance. He began observing the apartment building’s structure, trying to find clues related to the lights.
The interior of the apartment building wasn’t completely dark. Some corridors and rooms had lights on.
Lin Ye then set a target behind the building and walked along the road to its rear to check lighting conditions there.
Lights on both sides lit up without any apparent pattern. But when Lin Ye returned to the front of the building, he noticed some changes in the front lights.
‘Hmm? Is there some rule here?’
He started moving back and forth between the front and back of the building. He noticed that when he observed one side, the lights on that side wouldn’t change. But if he moved to the opposite side and then returned, the lights would have changed.
The changes didn’t seem to follow any obvious pattern. Lin Ye circled for more than ten minutes without finding it.
‘Then I’ll have to check the other apartment buildings.’
He set Building 18 as the target. Previously he had checked the back sides of Buildings 20 and 19.
By going to Building 18, he could observe its light changes and also check Building 19’s front and Building 17’s back.
By repeatedly changing positions, Lin Ye recorded the light-change behavior of this area and then set Building 16 as the next target.
In just forty minutes, Lin Ye had observed the light changes for all the apartment buildings.
All the D-Class personnel at the complex entrance were already dead. Perhaps because Lin Ye himself hadn’t died, the Squad Leader hadn’t sent new D-Class personnel into the complex.
‘...The light changes are related to the observer... The observation times for each building differ, so I can’t simply aggregate the light changes together... But I can mentally compile the light changes from different times and buildings... to deduce a pattern...’
It was difficult, but not beyond Lin Ye’s capabilities.