Skinwalker Belle – Chapter 294 – Can’t Hold It In Anymore?

The air in the underground base seemed to have frozen.

The piercingly red alarm light finally stopped flashing, returning to a reassuring, deep blue.

On the massive central screen, the scarlet exclamation mark representing the “Level 7 high-energy reaction” had, just a second ago, vanished without a trace.

As if it had never been there at all.

“It’s… gone?”

The bald, burly man stared at the screen, his eyes wide as saucers, and made a dry gulping sound.

The communicator in his hand was soaked with sweat, so slick he could barely hold onto it.

“Energy readings are at zero.”

The middle-aged woman typed rapidly on the console, streams of data flickering across her glasses. Her speech was fast, laced with an unconcealable tremor.

“Thermal imaging scan, no anomalies.”

“Life sign detection, no anomalies.”

“Airflow monitoring, no anomalies.”

She snapped her head up to look at the old man seated at the head of the table, her voice filled with a disbelieving joy.

“It’s gone! Completely and utterly gone!”

“Did it leave?”

Bald Head collapsed into his chair, gasping for breath. The exhaustion of having survived a close brush with death left his entire body limp.

“I told you so! There must be a flaw in the biological weapon those old geezers in the capital came up with! Level seven? Hmph, I bet it’s a one-time use thing. It’s useless once its energy runs out!”

The atmosphere in the conference room, which had been stretched to its breaking point, instantly relaxed.

The suffocating feeling of death’s grip on their throats dissipated, replaced by an almost delirious sense of relief.

A few researchers even collapsed weakly to the floor, looking at each other’s pale faces and forcing smiles that were uglier than crying.

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They had survived.

They had really survived.

“Shut up.”

An aged but grim voice poured over everyone like ice water.

The old man remained seated at the head of the table. Although the two jade walnuts in his hand had been retrieved, he wasn’t rolling them.

His cloudy old eyes were fixed on the flat energy curve on the screen, his eyelids twitching uncontrollably.

“Do you all really think it’s that simple?”

The old man sneered, his voice hoarse.

“Then… what do you mean, sir?” The middle-aged woman’s heart skipped a beat.

“It disappeared too cleanly.”

The old man slowly stood up and began to pace back and forth in the conference room. The sound of his shoes tapping on the floor was exceptionally clear in the quiet space.

“So cleanly it’s as if someone flipped a switch and simply erased that thing’s existence.”

He walked over to Bald Head and looked down at him.

“What if that monster is still up there? What if it has merely concealed its aura, waiting for us to poke our heads out?”

A shiver ran down Bald Head’s spine. His recently relaxed muscles tensed up again, and his face turned deathly pale in an instant.

“Then… then what do we do? Hide here forever?”

“Wait.”

The old man sat back down in his chair, closed his eyes, and tapped his fingers lightly on the tabletop.

“Relay my orders. All systems are to maintain a state of silence.”

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“Shut down the life support’s circulation fans, maintaining only the minimum oxygen supply. Cut all external communications, and turn off all active detection radars.”

“Everyone, stand by on the spot. No one is to make a single sound.”

“The duration is three hours.”

The old man opened his eyes, his gaze as sharp as a torch.

“If that’s a biological weapon, its energy won’t last long. If it has left, three hours is more than enough time for it to leave the Kunlun Mountains.”

“These three hours are our lifeline.”

“If anyone dares to make the slightest noise, I’ll personally execute them before that monster even has to lift a finger.”

…

On the peak of the Kunlun Mountains.

The cold wind howled, whipping up mounds of snow.

The valley, which had been bombarded beyond recognition by Lin Fan, was now a stretch of black, grim scorched earth. The molten lava had re-solidified under the extreme cold.

Steam rose, turning into white mist upon meeting the cold air, only to be quickly scattered by the gale.

It was utterly silent here.

Aside from the wind, not a single sound from any living creature could be heard.

“Tsk.”

A very soft clicking of the tongue suddenly came from behind a massive, charred boulder.

Lin Fan leaned against the rock with her arms crossed, kicking at the gravel on the ground with the tip of her foot out of sheer boredom.

If someone were to scan the area with their Mental Strength right now, they would be scared out of their wits.

Although Lin Fan was physically present, any form of detection or scanning would show this place as completely empty.

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Enhanced by the “Ghost” suit, she was like a part of the landscape itself. Even the heat from her breath was perfectly contained, not a single trace leaking out.

“Are these rats part turtle or something?”

Lin Fan complained wildly in her mind.

She had been sitting here for nearly two hours.

Ever since she had put on the “Ghost” suit and concealed her entire aura, the areas beneath her feet that were suspected targets had gone completely silent.

There were no signal fluctuations, no energy reactions. Even the faint geothermal anomaly that had been barely detectable before had vanished.

“Don’t tell me that Chu Chen really got the coordinates wrong?”

Lin Fan frowned, reaching out to catch a snowflake.

Her fingertip felt ice-cold.

“Or maybe I went too hard just now and the shockwaves caused a cave-in? Buried them all inside?”

Lin Fan began to doubt herself.

She hadn’t held back at all during that frantic bombardment.

By her estimation, even if she couldn’t blast open the main gate, she should have at least been able to crack their ventilation system or a layer of their defenses.

As long as there was a single crack, her Mental Strength would be able to pick up on some anomaly.

But now, it was dead silent below.

“I’ll wait one more hour.”

Lin Fan sighed and crushed the snowflake in her hand.

“If there’s still no movement, I’ll head back to Sakura Island. By my count, the next Rift opening is soon anyway.”

Time ticked by, second by second.

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The sky over the Kunlun Mountains gradually darkened.

As night fell, the temperature dropped even lower.

For someone with the constitution of a Level 7 powerhouse, this cold wasn’t enough to cause harm, but the feeling of the wind blowing down her neck was definitely not pleasant.

It was a good thing she had changed into leather clothes on the way, otherwise the feeling of being frozen stiff wouldn’t have been very enjoyable, especially since her period had just ended.

“Forget it.”

Finally, as the third hour was about to end, Lin Fan lost the last of her patience.

She stood up straight, stretched her somewhat stiff neck, and produced a crisp cracking sound.

“I’m done waiting.”

Just a second before she was about to fly off.

“Vmm…”

An extremely faint hum, one that would be difficult for even a Mutated Beast to hear, suddenly emanated from deep underground.

The sound was tiny.

Like the initial tremor of an old computer fan starting up.

But in Lin Fan’s radar-like Mental Strength network, it was no different from a clap of thunder.

Lin Fan’s hand froze mid-motion.

The flame in her palm instantly extinguished.

A sly smile flashed across her rainbow-colored eyes.

“Finally couldn’t hold your breath any longer?”