Chapter 230 – Terror
After Yao Bei finished assigning tasks, everyone set off.
Tu Ran divided her team into two groups. She led Shen Yunhe, Le Qin, and other second-generation pioneers to handle the basement level, while Xiao Di and Min Tao, who usually worked together seamlessly, led part of the second-generation team to cover the first floor.
The basement consisted of workspaces and storage rooms. The lighting was dim, and some areas had no lights at all, leaving them in complete darkness. As Tu Ran’s team descended, the air was thick with the smell of dampness, mixed with the stench of fish, making it nauseating.
The soles of their combat boots felt sticky against the floor.
This was supposed to be a luxury cruise ship?
Tu Ran switched on the light attached to her combat helmet, scanning her surroundings. The place looked more like an unlicensed, filthy, and disorderly food workshop. The wealthy passengers above would never imagine that their food came from here.
The corridor on this level was extremely narrow. It was hard to believe that such a large cruise ship had walkways so cramped that two people walking side by side would feel squeezed. Tu Ran had no choice but to have the team move single file. She took the lead, while another first-generation pioneer covered the rear.
The hallway was lined with separate rooms, some of which were open, revealing piles of boxes of various sizes inside. Other doors were tightly shut and needed to be forced open one by one.
Tu Ran was in charge of kicking the doors open, while Le Qin and Shen Yunhe took positions on either side, ready to rush in. The rest of the team scouted the surrounding area to guard against any lurking mutants.
They kicked open five doors in a row, only to find more stacks of goods inside. The group’s tense nerves relaxed slightly, though only by a small degree.
Without any change in expression, Tu Ran walked towards the sixth, firmly closed door.
“Get ready,” she spoke into her helmet, reminding everyone to stay alert.
In this situation, they couldn’t afford to let their guard down.
“Three, two, one!”
“Bang!” Tu Ran kicked the wooden door open.
A thick, bloody stench mixed with heat rushed at Tu Ran the moment the door opened. She hadn’t activated her air purifier, and her eyes rolled back as she nearly fainted.
Shen Yunhe and Le Qin led others, ready to storm into the room, but they only managed two steps before freezing in place. The beams from their helmet lights revealed the scene inside, and they couldn’t take another step forward.
Severed limbs and mutilated bodies were piled all over the floor, all human, resembling the heaps of dead fish they’d seen in the previous room.
Blood pooled across the ground, and Shen Yunhe and Le Qin had unknowingly stepped into it. They quickly retreated, their boots making sticky, squelching noises against the floor.
The sound sent a chill down everyone’s spine.
Even Tu Ran felt uneasy. This was the most brutal crime scene she had ever witnessed, and her stomach churned violently.
She would have much preferred facing the genetic monsters responsible for this carnage head-on rather than being confronted with such a gruesome sight.
But she had to stay composed.
She was the emotional anchor of this team. If she panicked, the others would likely lose their nerve entirely.
Calmly, she used the light from her helmet to scan the entire room, ensuring there were no genetic monsters lurking.
Once she was certain the room was clear, Tu Ran said, “Move to the next one. Stay on high alert, everyone.”
The monsters’ food was here, meaning they couldn’t be far.
The group left the room and headed to the next one.
This door was already open, allowing them to see inside from the hallway. It was a small living area, likely a resting spot for the workers who processed food below deck. The cramped space was mostly taken up by a bed, and while there was no one inside, the bed was soaked with a large pool of blood.
As expected, something had happened to the person who once occupied this room.
“Next,” Tu Ran commanded decisively, turning to move on.
Tu Ran had expected to find a genetic monster on the lower deck, given that it was the “grain storage” area. However, after thoroughly searching the entire level, she found no trace of the monster, nor any sign of human presence.
It wasn’t on the lower deck.
Could it have moved to the upper floors to digest its food?
Tu Ran had no choice but to lead her team upward, all the while contacting Min Tao and Xiao Di via communicator.
“We haven’t found anything yet,” Min Tao’s voice occasionally came through, accompanied by the sound of door kicking.
Tu Ran stopped.
They were currently on the stairs between the lower deck and the main deck, and the stairs were narrow.
She stopped, and the pioneers behind her followed suit, looking up at her in confusion.
Tu Ran’s brow furrowed deeply.
The blood from the pile of corpses hadn’t fully dried, indicating that the genetic monster hadn’t left long ago. It had left the fresh food behind but had disappeared… Tu Ran glanced at Le Qin and Shen Yunhe’s boots.
A drop of red liquid on the surface of the shoe looked glaring under the faint light.
“Zhao Shan is missing!” someone suddenly exclaimed from the bottom of the stairs.
Tu Ran was speechless. Why was the missing person only now being noticed? She immediately jumped over the stair railing and rushed back to the room filled with severed limbs.
The genetic monster must have been hiding above the door in that room.
The room had been pitch dark at the time, so she hadn’t entered. Shen Yunhe and Le Qin had only stepped inside briefly, startled by the scene and quickly retreating. If the monster had indeed been hiding on the ceiling, they might not have discovered it.
Upon reaching the room, Tu Ran found the door was now closed.
It hadn’t been closed when they left!
Tu Ran kicked the door open, and her eyes were immediately met with the sight of a disheveled monster, its multiple limbs wrapped around the body of a pioneer.
One of its sharp claws had already pierced through the pioneer’s chest, thankfully on the right side, away from the heart. The pioneer trembled weakly, his lungs damaged, with large amounts of blood streaming from his nose, all of it pooling inside his helmet.
The monster, drawn to the scent of his blood, opened its mouth wide, attempting to bite down on the helmet at an impossible angle. The helmet, made from special, highly durable materials, was too strong for it to bite through. Frustrated, the monster stretched its jaws wider, trying to swallow the pioneer’s head whole.
Tu Ran’s sudden entrance startled the creature for a moment, but then it quickly unwrapped itself from the pioneer and crawled toward her.
Yes, crawled.
With its sharp fangs and claws, and its wild, tangled hair, Tu Ran felt a shiver run down her spine.
This genetic monster wasn’t one of the three listed by Zero.
There were more than three genetic monsters on this ship!
She raised her machine gun, aiming at the creature, and unleashed a barrage of rapid-fire shots.
The monster was caught off guard, stumbling backward several steps. But it quickly regained its balance, even adapting to the force of the bullets, and lunged forward despite the barrage.
Tu Ran dodged swiftly, just as the monster’s claws sank deep into the wooden planks behind her. As it struggled to pull its claws free, Tu Ran drew the long blade from her back, channeling [Immense strength] into it, and swung it down toward the creature’s neck.
The blade embedded itself halfway into the monster’s neck, causing its head to droop forward due to the loss of support.
But it wasn’t dead yet; it continued to pull its claws out of the wooden planks.
As Tu Ran prepared to deliver another strike,
Shen Yunhe and Le Qin arrived. Seeing the monster’s appearance, they couldn’t help but gasp. Without delay, they drew their guns and opened fire, their bullets hitting the genetic monster before Tu Ran could make her next cut.
