Chapter 700 - 443: World Serpent [1]
A dozen seconds later.
The little girl’s body vanished completely.
Modification Points +10 (1%)
"Huh? That’s all?"
Hu Qi was a little surprised.
’This thing was weak, but in terms of actual power, it was at the Mayfly Level.’
’At the very least, it should have been worth a few hundred.’
’I can’t believe it was worth so little.’
"Not only an idiot, but useless too!"
He shook his head.
His figure faded, slowly melting into the sky.
It was as if he had never been there at all.
Of course, that was assuming one ignored the massive, ten-kilometer-wide crater on the ground.
...
Within a certain stretch of sea.
A lone island was shrouded in the pitch-black night.
Moonlight fell like a silver veil, outlining the jagged silhouettes of the buildings on the island.
At its very center stood a massive White Pagoda.
It loomed against the night sky, its peak occasionally flashing with an eerie blue light.
In the distance, waves crashed against the reefs, the sound of the tide exceptionally clear in the silence.
Only upon closer inspection would one discover that the island was far larger than it seemed.
It was as if there was a sense of spatial distortion.
The island’s dense forest became a series of rolling shadows in the darkness.
It contained various terrains—mountains, rivers, Snow Mountains, and waterfalls—like a continental plate unto itself.
Personnel in khaki protective suits moved along illuminated pathways between the buildings, their headlamps cutting long trails of light through the night. Occasionally, researchers in white lab coats would also appear at observation windows, their figures projected onto the glass by the cold light from within, only to quickly disappear again.
This was the White Pagoda.
It also had another name:
The Global Alien Origin Body Research Institute.
As the name suggested, it was a research organization formed by the world’s nations and dedicated to studying the Alien Origin Bodies that appeared across the globe.
It gathered top talent from every region of the world to resolve the issues caused by the Alien Origin Bodies that appeared from time to time.
Suddenly, a piercing alarm blared through every corner of the White Pagoda. Its harsh buzzing and flashing red lights tore apart the island’s tranquility.
At the sound, the expressions of nearly everyone on the island changed.
...
「A moment later.」
In the White Pagoda’s highest-level emergency conference room.
Under the bright lights, all of the White Pagoda’s core leadership sat bolt upright.
The air was thick with tension, so quiet that every breath was audible.
Everyone’s gaze was focused on the image displayed by the holographic projector at the front.
It was a set of specially processed photos of corpses.
Due to the use of top-level security processing, the image resolution had been deliberately lowered, rendering it a blurry, pixelated mess.
Chief Researcher Kalu stood before the circular conference table.
He pushed up his gold-rimmed glasses, his voice grave:
"Everyone, a short while ago, the Alien Origin Radar detected an unprecedentedly powerful Alien Origin Body signal."
𝙛𝓻𝒆𝓮𝒘𝙚𝙗𝒏𝙤𝙫𝓮𝒍.𝓬𝒐𝙢
Some Alien Origin Bodies possess little inherent danger.
But using them also carries a certain degree of risk.
This usually requires a permission hierarchy:
Low-level personnel cannot come into contact with high-risk auxiliary Alien Origin Bodies.
Certain Alien Origin Bodies consume the user’s lifespan, memories, or sanity.
The anomaly radar was one of the relatively safe ones.
Codename: TZ-055, a T4-class Cataclysm Alien Origin Body.
Its external form is an old-fashioned radar screen that displays abnormal energy fluctuations across the globe, though it occasionally gives false positives.
Risk of Use: Staring at it for more than half an hour will cause hallucinations and even schizophrenia.
Method of Use: Must be operated by at least three monitors simultaneously.
They rotate every 30 minutes.
Monitors must receive a preemptive injection of a Spirit stabilizer and wear anti-interference headphones.
After completing a shift, monitors must report to the Psychotherapy Department for a mental wellness evaluation.
Kalu pointed to the projected image to his side.
"Based on the information we currently have, I’ll break it down into a few points."
"One: The first record of this Alien Origin Body shows it appearing in the sky above Wutong Town, on the outskirts of Su Xing City.
The Alien Origin Body was serpentine in form.
When it appeared, three members of a Cleaner team on a containment mission were all tragically killed.
Furthermore, the Alien Origin Body energy signature from the Twelve-winged Angel Statue has vanished.
The crying girl, codenamed LB-296, vanished along with it."