Chapter 174 The Strongest Poison

Chapter 174 The Strongest Poison

Wayne placed his foot on the ice. His body weight transferred to the sole of his foot, then from his sole to the ice surface.

In that instant, the molecular bonds in the ice fractured around Wayne.

The ice vaporized, then immediately refroze in the extreme cold, scattering outward as countless tiny ice crystals. Beneath them, a fresh layer of ice appeared.

He took another step. The second layer disintegrated.

A vertical fissure ran through the ground. Wayne stood at its edge, descending step by step.

Each step cost him neurons.

The evolved ones swarmed forward, desperate to seal the widening breach.

Wayne swung the broken bone in his right hand, pulverizing the first three into bloody pulp. But more surged up behind them.

An enraged voice echoed from beneath the ice.

"Everyone, pile on! Bring me his head!"

Thousands of gray-white figures lunged at Wayne simultaneously. The ground couldn't support such concentrated weight—massive sections collapsed.

The corner of Wayne's mouth lifted. Not a smile. The result he'd wanted.

He didn't need to dig through three kilometers of strata himself. Just get all the pieces on the board.

When every defensive net rose to maximum height, the thing below would have no protection left.

Nothing could stop him from reaching his destination now.

So he stopped stepping downward. Instead, he leaped straight into the hole, free-falling.

The evolved ones behind him reacted too slowly, grasping at empty air.

Wayne plunged down the vertical shaft he'd carved, ice walls streaking upward past him.

Ten meters. Thirty meters. One hundred meters.

He kept fracturing the ice beneath him into smaller fragments, accelerating as he descended.

His brain temperature spiked. Black blood seeped through his skin, whipped by the wind during his descent into black threads that drifted upward.

Evolved ones burst from the tunnel walls, trying to stop his advance.

Wayne struck them down one by one with the broken bone, with his fists—with whatever he had. After each impact, his vision deteriorated further.

Twenty-five hundred meters down. The white glow in his left eye began flickering unstably.

The flesh on Wayne's right middle finger shredded completely, exposing stark white bone. He gripped that exposed bone and kept hammering downward. Thirty-one hundred meters.

The ice beneath his feet suddenly vanished—not because he'd split it, but because the ice layer had ended.

A vast chamber opened below. Gray-blue bioluminescent shields glowed above. Below, three platforms, each the size of a football field.

In the center of the platforms sat something alive—not mechanical, not architectural.

A gray-white mass approximately forty meters in diameter, its surface covered in neural-network-like lines. Each line pulsed according to some fixed rhythm.

Wayne plummeted directly from thirty-one hundred meters to the ground.

The lower organism's surface bristled with tentacle-like structures, growing upward to intercept him.

Wayne clenched his right hand into a fist. The fractured finger bone pierced through his skin.

This would be his last chance to speak—and there was no more pretense of composure.

"Stop!"

Wayne didn't stop. Fifty meters from the organism, he spread his left hand wide, all five fingers extending straight.

At full power, the Anti-Resonance Protocol used his body as a medium to fire a forty-meter-diameter decomposition wave into the ground.

When the tentacles touched the wavefront, they dissolved into molecular states.

Wayne's body passed through the decomposition zone and slammed directly into the organism's core.

Also, the white glow in his left eye went out.

Not gradually dimming, then dying. It cut out instantly, like a severed power line.

Neural load in his brain had reached critical threshold.

When Wayne's body struck the organism's core, all sensation vanished.

No pain. No sight. No hearing. He couldn't even feel the sound of his own breathing.

He thought he'd died. But dead men don't smell.

His heartbeat accelerated. Just once.

Wayne's consciousness was yanked from darkness. He found himself standing inside the organism.

Gray-white nerve fiber walls surrounded him on all sides. Each fiber vibrated at extremely high frequency.

The ground beneath his feet was living tissue, sinking once every three seconds.

"Come in." The words didn't transmit as muffled rumbles through ice—they detonated directly inside Wayne's brain.

Wayne said nothing. His mouth was full of blood. If he opened it, he'd choke on bloody foam.

He spat the blood onto the ground. He could see the liquid being absorbed.

"Your blood contains the complete Anti-Resonance code sequence."

"Did you deliver yourself here?"

Wayne finally spoke, his voice barely audible. "Why do you think I crashed in?"

The organism's inner walls vibrated three times, at twice the previous frequency—a sign of excitement. "You're a meal that walked through the door."

Wayne withdrew his right hand. The finger he'd left in the fiber-optic port was coated in a viscous mixture of neural fluid and black blood. "This is how I poison you."

Wayne's left eye was vacant, his right eye could barely see. He could only rely on instinct and memory to respond.

When Griffin had designed the Anti-Resonance Protocol years ago, it appeared defensive on the surface. But buried inside was a segment of self-replicating code.

The contraction frequency beneath his feet changed from once every three seconds to once every two seconds.

Only after direct material exchange with a biofield source would the self-cannibalization code implant itself into the target's core neural network.

"You're deceiving me." For the first time, emotion colored the voice.

Wayne held up his severed finger for it to see. Black blood dripped from the wound, leaving white spots where it touched the ground.

"It's already inside you. Anyone who drinks my blood swallows my code."

The inner walls' vibrations lost their rhythm. Some areas contracted while others expanded, no longer synchronized.

"How long until it takes effect?" It sounded like Wayne was asking it, yet also like he was murmuring to himself. Then he provided the answer. "When Griffin drew the schematics, he wrote 'forty seconds.'"

"You're gambling." The words transmitted to Wayne's brain at a frequency he couldn't consciously hear.

Wayne's nose bled again—black blood. He wiped it with his handkerchief and said, "I don't gamble."

"Even if the code is fake, you'll need fifteen seconds to check whether you've been compromised."

"During those fifteen seconds, the evolved ones outside aren't under your control."

It fell silent.

Wayne's mouth twitched. "One item in Isaac's data stated that your evolved ones don't exist independently. They depend on your core signal to survive."

"You paused for fifteen seconds out there. How many died outside in that time?"

The sound that emerged was extremely shrill, and the entire organism contracted with it.

Not just one section—everything. Outside and inside, above and below.

Wayne's body was caught between converging fiber walls. A bending sound came from his ribs.

"You think I'll let you walk out of here alive?" Its voice regained composure.

"The self-cannibalization code has been isolated. Your blood has drained out. You have no cards left to play."

Wayne could barely breathe. A bone fragment from his collarbone had pierced his lung. Every word cost him dearly.

"You checked it?"

"That's right. Already checked."

The inner walls paused for half a second.