Chapter 95: Burst

Just after Chen Chong followed them into the base.

Experiment Hall.

Because of the earlier grenade explosions and the resulting air currents, the thick smoke in the Experiment Area had been blown away a little, spreading into the corridor passage outside the Experiment Area.

It was faintly visible that the entire Experiment Area was already a complete mess. Black and white smoke drifted about, blood and flesh were splattered everywhere, and there were incomplete limbs all over the ground, belonging to both the Dawn Squad and the base guards and soldiers.

At this moment, near the Experiment Area, the two Transcendents, Long Ying and Diris, were nowhere to be seen. Only violent booming sounds continuously echoed in the depths of the base, proclaiming the fierce collision of two ferocious beasts.

A few minutes ago, the airflow from the grenade explosions had dispersed much of the thick smoke in the Experiment Area. Even without Long Ying’s command, the heavily damaged Dawn Squad had completely reacted under the surprise attack and immediately launched a counterattack. After finding cover, they took out homemade explosives and threw them in the direction of the densest gunfire in the corridor ahead, blowing up a large number of guards and soldiers and recovering quite a bit of their disadvantage.

But even so, in the short few minutes from the ambush until now, the entire Dawn Squad could be said to have suffered heavy losses. First, three Awakeners in the thick smoke couldn’t dodge in time and were unfortunately severely injured by grenades; later, in the firefight, another Awakener was hit in the carotid artery by a stray bullet and completely lost combat capability. Now, only the four Awakeners, Qiao Jun, Du Ya, Shao Qi, and Xiong Ming, and a little over ten squad members still had combat ability left.

Even Lin Kun, their guide, had been shot in the chest and abdomen, covered in blood, and could only hide in a corner of the Experiment Area, forcing himself to shoot outward.

However, the guards and soldiers in the corridor were not much better off. Many of them were first killed by Long Ying’s sudden, violent attack, and then another batch died from the homemade explosives and stray bullets. The total remaining was barely twenty men. By comparison, the Dawn Squad, with four Awakeners still possessing combat power, undoubtedly still held the upper hand.

Bang bang bang bang bang!

Inside and outside the Experiment Hall, gunfire, flames, pained roars, and furious curses reverberated back and forth; the battle was at its most intense.

“Their ammunition is about to run out!”

“We can’t drag this on any longer, finish them immediately and go help the leader!”

Under a series of intense exchanges of fire, sensing that the base’s fierce firepower was beginning to weaken, Qiao Jun’s veins bulged as he let out a furious roar. The other three Awakeners, Du Ya, Shao Qi, and Xiong Ming, also realized this point. Then they exchanged glances, threw out their last explosives, and amidst the violent explosions and booming sounds, charged out fiercely, rushing towards the corridor.

Both sides had suffered severe losses, but the Dawn Squad’s four Awakeners displayed an overwhelming advantage. Their speed, movements, and reactions far surpassed those of the white guards. Using corpses as cover in the narrow corridor, they narrowly and thrillingly dodged the guards’ shooting trajectories, darting, dodging, and pouncing back and forth like lightning. With fists or feet, knives or axes, every pounce was guaranteed to take a life.

In the blink of an eye, facing these four elusive and sharp Awakeners, the guards in the corridor fell into complete disarray. In the Experiment Hall, Lin Kun and the others, who had been suppressed by firepower, were overjoyed and popped their heads out one after another to provide fire support.

As guards fell one by one with miserable screams, the great scale of victory seemed to tilt, shifting towards the Dawn Squad’s side.

There were only a few base guards and soldiers left, but the Dawn Squad’s effective strength still had half remaining. As long as they finished off the remaining guards and then went to help their leader, Long Ying, to surround and focus fire on that Transcendent, they would still be the victors!

“Hee hee, what a tenacious group of people…”

Just as the five Awakeners of the Dawn Squad rushed out and gradually regained their advantage, a voice as piercing as a night owl’s cry rang out, making everyone who heard it shudder in fright.

“Kill… Kill you all!”

Swoosh!

Amidst a sick and frantic scream, a tall and graceful figure suddenly appeared at the end of the corridor, shooting over like a white ghost! It was Katherine!

For some reason, Katherine, who was clearly just an Initial Awakener, had not only undergone a drastic change in appearance, but her speed had also reached an extreme. Her movements were like a phantom, almost impossible for the naked eye to follow!

Riiip!

In the next second, Katherine’s figure crossed a distance of nearly twenty meters, flashing past Xiong Ming like lightning, causing his face to twist into a pained howl as he collapsed on the spot!

No one except Katherine herself could clearly see what had happened. Immediately after, before anyone could react, Katherine transformed into white lightning amidst her excited and sickly cackling, lunging fiercely at Qiao Jun, who was several meters away.

How could she be this fast!

Katherine’s appearance was too abrupt, her speed simply too great. The screaming wind howled over, and Qiao Jun, who had just dodged a guard’s shot, had no time to evade. He could only watch helplessly as this white ghost, her face something between human and monster, appeared at his side, and then he felt a sharp pain in his shoulder and knee.

Thud!

Blood spurted out. Qiao Jun immediately fell to the ground, propping himself up with one hand, his two legs completely immobile. Five bloody holes appeared in his abdomen, blood gushing out like a fountain, while the ligaments in his knee and shoulder joints were completely severed by some sharp object.

On the floor, Qiao Jun was like a desperate trapped beast, howling and struggling in pain:

“Transcendent! Watch out! She might also be a Transcendent!”

Another Transcendent!

Qiao Jun’s desperate roar echoed through the corridor and the Experiment Area, and everyone’s scalp instantly tingled with shock! Katherine shuttled back and forth in the corridor like a phantom, her night-owl-like eerie laughter sweeping past like a gale. She seemed to have some sick preference for joints like knees and shoulders. The counterattacks of Du Ya and Shao Qi were completely useless; one after the other, they let out miserable howls and were pierced through the chest and abdomen by the elusive Katherine, their arm tendons and knee ligaments torn and severed, collapsing to the ground!

Only wounding, not killing. In the short ten seconds since Katherine appeared, she had disabled all four of the Dawn Squad’s last Awakeners, leaving them to struggle and roar on the ground.

“It’s the Doctor!”

“Haha! These yellow monkeys are dead for sure!”

The exceptionally chaotic corridor fell into dead silence for a moment, then erupted with the overjoyed shouts of the white guards. The remaining ten-plus people in the Experiment Hall, including Lin Kun, felt their eyes split with rage!

Especially Lin Kun, who was hiding in the corner under the window in the hall. Seeing Katherine’s figure in the corridor made him feel like he had fallen into an ice pit, and he couldn’t help but cry out in shock:

“Doctor… Katherine! It’s you!?”

When he had escaped down the underground river back then, Lin Kun didn’t know Katherine had been stabbed in the throat by Chen Chong. It was only after hearing the guards’ shouts, and by her clothes and figure, that he barely recognized this woman with an inhuman face as Doctor Katherine, who had brought him countless painful memories!

Hmm?

Katherine clearly heard Lin Kun’s voice. Her horrifying face turned, her sinister gaze sweeping over to discover Lin Kun by the window. The corner of her mouth immediately hooked into an ugly smile: “I remember you, my former toy… Did you bring these people here? Thank you, I’ve gained many useful materials.”

Under Katherine’s distant, sinister gaze, Lin Kun felt a chill all over his body and couldn’t believe it: “How is it possible, how could you…”

In the corridor, Katherine walked towards the Experiment Hall without restraint, her tone like a night owl crying:

“You want to ask me why I’ve become like this, and how I could possess this kind of power? Speaking of which, I owe it all to 416. My looks, my future, my everything, he ruined it all… But paying the price of everything, I have gained a power I never dared to imagine. But where is 416? Where is Chen Chong? Where is he!?”

Towards the end, Katherine’s face was already a mask of madness, as she screamed neurotically.

The reason she now possessed this speed and strength rivaling a Transcendent wasn’t because she had unlocked her Gene Lock to become one. Rather, Diris had used all his accumulated merit points to exchange for a [Night Fiend] potion for her from the organization. This potion was a gene-inducing mutagen made from the blood of a top-tier New Human far exceeding the Transcendent level, mixed with various precious materials. After taking it, Katherine had awakened from her vegetative state, and her body underwent a shocking mutation, granting her an inhuman physique close to a Transcendent in a very short time.

However, the cost of this potion was not low. The deformity of Katherine’s body and face was the best proof. Furthermore, after forcibly enhancing herself by taking [Night Fiend], her potential had been completely exhausted, making it almost impossible for her to ever have the chance to unlock her Gene Lock.

All of this was thanks to 416, that is, Chen Chong.

Swoosh.

Katherine’s figure flashed, and she actually completely ignored the terrified Dawn Squad members hiding behind various covers, walking directly into the Experiment Hall. Licking her lips lightly, she stared at Lin Kun and spoke in a sickly gentle tone: “Please, tell me, where exactly is Chen Chong?”

Facing the mad Katherine approaching, Lin Kun’s scalp tingled, and he didn’t even have the courage to shoot. He yelled out in extreme fear: “He’s dead! To cover my escape, he died!”

“Impossible!”

Katherine shrieked:

“If you all could survive, how could he die! I want him, I want him, I want…”

Boom!

At that very moment! The entire Experiment Hall suddenly shook. In a deafening boom, the electronic iron door that had been locked and sealed after the squad entered the hall, as if struck by a heavy siege ram, was violently ripped from the wall and sent flying! At the same time, a powerful figure stirred up a fierce airflow, his footsteps shaking the entire hall, charging out like a thunderbolt!

This figure was clearly just one person, but the steel floor twisted and deformed under his stomping steps, and the air seemed unable to withstand the force of his forward charge, howling madly. It was Chen Chong!

Listening behind the electronic door, he had taken in all the sounds within the hall. Chen Chong had also learned that Katherine had not died but instead possessed extraordinary power, so he stopped listening to the drama and decided to act personally, to correct his past mistake!

The moment Chen Chong charged out carrying a violent gust of wind, both the inhuman Katherine and Lin Kun and the others were horrified. Especially Katherine, who clearly felt the newcomer locking onto her with a cruel gaze, and his speed was faster than hers, appearing right in front of her in less than a blink of an eye!

“Who!?”

The newcomer’s speed and ferocious momentum were too overwhelming, the fiercest she had ever seen in her life. At this critical, split-second moment, Katherine let out a frantic shriek, displaying reactions and movements comparable to a Transcendent level. Her feet launched her back, and she suddenly dodged sideways, trying to avoid the newcomer’s incredibly ferocious collision.

However, in the next moment, the solidified gale slammed against Katherine’s ugly face. She felt as if something had grazed her arm, making her almost lose all sensation of her body, spinning as if flying through the air.

Katherine did not completely avoid Chen Chong’s tyrannosaurus-like collision. Her arm was still grazed by Chen Chong’s iron-tower-like figure, but merely being grazed was enough to send her entire body flying out with a boom!

In mid-air, the normally invisible and intangible air seemed to exist as a solid entity, violently preventing Katherine from advancing. The fierce gale rushed into Katherine’s open mouth, suffocating her in that instant, unable to make any sound.

Time seemed to slow down. In her mental blankness, Katherine forced her eyes open, but her pupils reflected a steel wall that was getting closer and closer to her.

Bang!

Like a powder compact smashed against a wall, at that moment, Katherine’s entire graceful body trembled violently. The terrifying impact force, as if she had been hit by a sports car traveling at 400 kilometers per hour, transmitted through her body and acted upon the iron wall, completely shattering every bone and internal organ in Katherine’s body, embedding her deeply into the iron wall!

Her pupils dilated. Without time to resist, or even to feel any pain, and without recognizing Chen Chong’s identity at all, she was killed by Chen Chong’s straightforward, no-frills collision.

“Dear Doctor, you being alive truly surprises me!”

After crashing into and killing Katherine with effortless ease, Chen Chong stopped his movement, dashed forward, grabbed Katherine’s body, which was like a torn leather sack, off the wall, and threw it onto the ground. His face was filled with cruelty:

“I want to see if you can come back to life again this time!”

Before his words had even faded, Chen Chong raised his foot and stomped down, completely bursting Katherine’s already twisted and deformed head!