Chapter Sixty-Two: Silver Hair and Crimson Eyes

As soon as I entered, I saw the wandering corpses drifting through the massive factory hall, which spanned thousands of square meters. Fortunately, they hadn't noticed us yet.

The three of us hid behind a large shipping container. The factory grounds sprawled in all directions—without a proper understanding of the layout, it would be impossible to find the right place. The most urgent task now was to locate the path to the central control room. No matter where we needed to go, finding the main control hub was the first step; that would be where everything began.

The pathways here twisted and turned—some led to the processing area, others to the storage tanks, and others still to the raw materials zone. Thankfully, my vision asserted its usefulness again at this moment. Within twenty meters, I could force myself to see clearly, and I immediately spotted the hanging signboards. Following their directions, I headed toward the central control room.

The priority was to activate the factory’s power system—assuming, of course, that electricity still flowed within the plant. Only by restoring power would everything inside function again, and we could check via the central control whether any chemicals remained in the storage tanks.

Huo Bing’s body was growing increasingly weak; the hand I held was icy cold, yet her body radiated a strange heat. If we delayed any longer, she would soon lose consciousness from the fever—just as I once had. By the time she awoke again, she would likely have become one of the corpses.

The genetic ecologic chain theory said mutation would occur within four hours at most, but it didn’t mean she could remain lucid for that long. Huo Bing struggled, shaking her head at me with an expression of resignation—her strength was nearly spent. I squeezed her palm and whispered, “If I don’t let you sleep, you can’t sleep; if I don’t let you die, you can’t die. Understand?”

She nodded firmly.

Suddenly, her expression changed and she grabbed me urgently. I couldn’t hear, but sensing her agitation, I turned to look back.

Damn it! The horde of corpses had spotted us and were converging in our direction!

“Up the stairs!”

Fourth Master led the way, with Huo Bing and me following closely behind. To move faster, I scooped Huo Bing up in my arms without hesitation. In her current condition, running was simply out of the question.

Inside, I couldn’t move as freely as in open ground; my speed was limited—I couldn’t dash recklessly as I had in the quarantine zone.

“Fourth Master! Jump! Run forward!” I shouted, leaping down from a three-meter-high platform with Huo Bing in my arms, landing steadily.

“Ugh…” I grunted upon landing. Jumping alone was nothing, but carrying a grown woman was a different matter altogether—even for an old hand like me.

“Miss, if we get out of this alive, you really need to lose some weight,” I joked, keeping my eyes ahead. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Huo Bing staring at me with an unreadable expression.

If only I hadn’t lost my hearing—I could at least have some kind of conversation. No matter how skilled you are, you’re helpless when your senses fail. When both sight and hearing are lost, your strength is drastically reduced; you might not even be able to fight at all.

Passing through the corridor, I glanced at a sign—two hundred meters to the control room. I didn’t dare look back, only ran forward, unable to hear how many corpses were behind us. Perhaps there were many, perhaps only a few.

Yet, what puzzled me was the deafening crash that had ruined my hearing—what had caused that? There must be something big in here; there was no other reason for such a noise. And it must have noticed me—otherwise, how could it have been so coincidental that I pressed my ear against the door and it roared?

That thing was the source of all this trouble—I had to kill it!

“Fourth Master! Fourth Master?”

I finally sensed that something was wrong. Not only had the suspected boss not appeared, but even Fourth Master had vanished! Hadn’t he been right ahead of me? How did he disappear mid-run?

“Huo Bing, did you hear Fourth Master bark?”

She shook her head.

Strange. Surely nothing had happened to him? That mutt hadn’t even barked. No, impossible—last time, even that creature covered in bone spikes hadn’t killed him. Fourth Master was tough; he wouldn’t die so easily.

At least the factory was full of cover; moonlight didn’t spill everywhere, only filtering through some panes of glass. So I guessed the corpses here hadn’t been empowered, or if they had, only a few.

At last, we arrived—central control!

I set Huo Bing down, realizing only then that sweat was pouring down my forehead. I’d been too focused on running to notice before. My clothes were soaked through.

“Locked? Damn, it’s an electronic lock! At least that means the factory still has power; it’s just that the supply elsewhere has been cut off.”

I tried to slice the door open with my titanium alloy blade, but it was too sturdy and thick—clearly built to withstand high-level explosions. Wait! If this door could really withstand a chemical plant blast, there’d be no need to run so far to trigger one.

I stabbed the blade into the door, but it went in without reaching the end and took all my strength to drive it further.

I tried the wall next to it; same result—the blade couldn’t cut through at all.

This was a super safe room!

Huo Bing’s face was pale; cold sweat beaded down her cheeks. As soon as I set her down, she nearly collapsed. I caught her in time as she fumbled in her pocket for the decoder.

“Can you do it?” I asked.

She nodded, her fingers trembling as she tapped and connected the device to the port. Several minutes passed; if I hadn’t steadied the instrument for her, she’d almost have dropped it.

The door opened.

I carried Huo Bing inside. Thankfully, there were no unexpected horrors—everything was intact, just blanketed in dust.

I found the main power switch; as I suspected, it was turned off. The control room’s circuit was on a separate line.

But who had shut down the plant’s power system? Was it the last survivor here? Afraid of wasting electricity, perhaps? Frugal to the end.

I was too tired to complain further, and simply flipped the switch.

There should have been some reaction in the room as the power returned, but I couldn’t hear it. Still, I could see the rapid flickering of various lights. Even the computer screens were back to real-time monitoring.

I stared at the monitors; earlier, I hadn’t had the chance to see what was happening in the plant. Now, at last, I could.

But after a long wait, the system was still booting up—seemed to take a while.

“Let’s search the lab area first; what we’re looking for must be there. Huo Bing, hang in there!” The lights in the control room had come back on. My vision returned to normal, no longer a greenish night-vision blur.

Fine black veins crept up Huo Bing’s neck—a sign the virus was about to invade her brain.

If I didn’t act soon…

I took a deep breath, clearing my mind, and turned back to the monitors.

“I feel like coming here was a terrible mistake.”