Chapter 446: Misled

Seeing the door open so easily, the faces on the members of Meteor Rock Guild fell.

Lun Tai quickly pull Qiao Qiao and the others back. At the same time, he shouted, “Roddy, back up now!”

However, Roddy continued standing there recklessly as he clenched his teeth.

Creaking sounds came from the door as a small gap was opened. Unfortunately, it was too dark inside and he was unable to see anything when he peered inside.

They stood outside the door and held their breath, not making a single sound. They continued in that state, gripping their guns tightly for a few seconds, but nothing happened.

Roddy then pulled out his tactical flashlight and fixed it upon his gun. He tested it by sweeping around with it before stepping inside.

Taking a deep breath, Lun Tai stepped after him.

Walking through the door, they felt a cold burst of air sweeping past them. When the members of Meteor Rock Guild made their way past the door, they found that the temperature inside was much lower.

Due to the surrounding darkness, the corridor also appeared more silent and narrow.

When their shoes stepped on the floor inside, they found that there was something strewn across the surface of the floor. Qiao Qiao lowered her head to check and saw that those were shattered glasses. Those glasses had come from the rooms on the two sides of the corridors. The glass walls of those rooms were broken.

Lun Tai crouched down to pick up a piece of the shattered glass and examined it. Then, his face turned grim. “It is tempered glass!”

The expressions of the others twisted in response.

They kept moving along the corridor. Looking around, they saw that the rooms on boths side  of the corridor were labs of sorts. However, the instruments inside had all been knocked down. The same was true for some tables, which were left upended.

In the darkness, they could only depend on their few tactical flashlights for illumination as they slowly moved forward. Their team acted according to Lun Tai’s instructions and maintained a cautious formation.

“Did you notice something wrong?” Qiao Qiao, who was taking the side position, suddenly asked in a whisper.

A dark look flashed across Lun Tai’s face as he gave a silent nod and exchanged a look with Qiao Qiao.

Corpses!

There were no corpses here!

According to Alpha’s final recording, a certain security personnel here had sacrificed himself to lure that ‘thing’ through the door.

Clearly, that security personnel must have died.

However, after making their way through the door, all they saw was the messed up labs and wreckages.

There was no trace of blood anywhere.

No corpses!

There were no traces of anyone alive or any corpses.

Additionally, there was also no scent of blood in the air.

As a highly experienced veteran, Lun Tai had gone through many battles. He could not possibly miss the scent of blood.

“Too clean, too clean…” Lun Tai mumbled silently.

After reaching the end of the corridor, they found an utterly damaged revolving door. They made their way past the revolving door and found an oval shaped hall. The contents of the oval shaped hall was likewise, in ruins. A large table that was placed inside was flipped over, split into two.

Lun Tai moved over the test out the table’s weight. After doing so, his face grew more contorted.

“What is it?”

“Unless I use my skill, I would not be able to break it.” Lun Tai shook his head.

At that very moment, Roddy, who was in the foremost position, suddenly leaned over a wall and coughed out violently.

“Roddy?”

“Don’t, don’t come over. I am fine.” Roddy panted and turned to face the others. Blood stained the corners of his mouth.

When Qiao Qiao and the others saw it, they noticed something. Roddy’s face was extremely pale and the colour of the blood staining the corners of his mouth was very… … faint.

“My chest hurts a little,” said Roddy with a bitter smile. He looked at the time. “The time for the virus to fully take hold is getting close and my body is clearly growing weaker.”

“We need to hurry!” Qiao Qiao clenched her teeth.

“We have a situation on the left!” Xia Xiaolei suddenly shouted as he pointed to the left side of the hall.

There was something strange there.

They cast their flashlights over and found a glass wall on the left side of the hall.

What they found strange was the fact that the glass wall was intact.

The interior of the hall had been rendered a complete mess, the tables and chairs inside were all overturned and broken while the doors were destroyed. However, this glass wall had managed to stay intact.

“Let us move over to check it out,” said Lun Tai with a frown.

They moved over with Xia Xiaolei in the rear. He had his back against the team and moved backward with his rifle in his hands. When Lun Tai reached the glass wall, he looked at the panting Roddy. “Are you all right?”

“I can still move.” Roddy forced out a smile.

As Qiao Qiao was about to reach out to pull open the glass door, Roddy interrupted her. He extended his hand and opened the door instead. Seeing the tangled look on Qiao Qiao’s face, he responded with a faint smile before striding inside.

It was a room, roughly 200 square metres in size and had the appearance of a standard research lab. It looked very much like what one would expect from a science related research lab. Various chemical instruments and containers were placed inside and were all intact.

“There is a small room there.” Qiao Qiao pointed at the corner of the room.

It was not quite a ‘small room’.

Rather, the corner area of the room had been set aside and isolated using glass wall. It had the size of around 10 square metres.

Examining it, Lun Tai raised his hand to knock it. “Tempered glass.”

They shone their flashlights inside and saw a strange looking equipment inside. There was also a lab refrigerator inside, which contained various strange looking containers. Their contents were of varying colours: blue, green, red, etc.

“It seems like there is something here.” After considering it, Lun Tai reached out to grab the handle for the room’s glass door.

The door was locked.

When Lun Tai tried to pull the door open, the electronic lock on the door flashed with red light.

Qiao Qiao was surprised and she exclaimed, “Eh? There is power here?”

Roddy considered it and said, “This must be a special place. Looks like this place holds a certain level of importance and is designed to have backup power. This is a cutting edge research centre after all. In order to prevent unexpected situations, it will have backup power. Also, look inside the lab refrigerator. It must contain valuable chemicals or medicinal substances. If the power goes off, it would be a huge blow to their research. It must certainly have a backup power supply. Maybe it is an energy generator or some sort of power battery.

As he said that, Roddy lowered his head and brought out his hand to touch the electronic lock. Using his skill, he was able to quickly open up the lock and the glass door opened up automatically.

Seeing that everyone was going to step inside, Lun Tai quickly said, “Wait, Roddy and I will go in. You all wait outside. I sense something strange about this place.”

“No, I will go in with Roddy.” Qiao Qiao suddenly spoke up. “Lun Tai, you keep watch with the others outside.”

Lun Tai hesitated for a moment before nodding. “All right. After you go in, don’t touch the things inside carelessly.”

Qiao Qiao smiled before following Roddy inside the glass room.

The glass room was not too large. The strange looking equipment itself occupied two thirds of the space inside the room.

After the two of them entered, they looked at the lab refrigerator and the sealed containers containing strange looking liquids. Who knows what were contained inside them.

Qiao Qiao hesitated for a moment before asking, “Could these be the antidotes?”

Roddy responded with a wry smile, “According to that Alpha fellow’s recordings, it would seem that they were unable to reach any result for their research. So… … even if these are some antidotes, who knows if it could affect… …”

Qiao Qiao pursed her lips. “How much time do you have left?”

“33 minutes,” replied Roddy as he shook his head.

Qiao Qiao’s eyes turned red.

Roddy turned around and approached the equipment. After he tinkered with it for a bit, a container rose up from the equipment.

The container was large and could accommodate the human body… … it was like a moulding tray of sorts. A human would be able to fit inside the container. On either sides of the container were binding belts, seemingly made from special materials.

Qiao Qiao took several steps forward. When she examined it in detail, cold sweat involuntarily broke out from her heart.

On the two sides of the container where the human hands would be placed at, scratch marks could be seen.

The material for that part should be engineering plastic, but sharp scratch marks were evident on the surface. One glance was sufficient to inform her that those were made by human nails.

“What is this?”

“It looks like… … some experiment on a living human subject?” Roddy frowned.

He studied the control panel for the equipment for nearly 10 seconds. Then, he pressed a switch and the equipment suddenly lit up.

Roddy stared at the screen that just popped up for a few seconds before blurting out, “This is… analysing instrument! It is an analysing instrument!”

“Analysing instrument?”

“Simply put, it should be something used for the analysis of blood composition. For example, when researching drugs, researchers will inject the test subject with the drug and then proceed to analyse the test subject’s blood to see how the drug affects the test subject…” Roddy shook his head. “I don’t really know too much about it.”

Qiao Qiao replied in a heavy tone, “Maybe…. they were analysing the virus here!”

“Probably.” Roddy said, “I can try it! I will use it to analyse my blood.”

Qiao Qiao frowned in response. “Surely you aren’t going to have to lie inside this thing? From what I can see, there are some issues with this thing.”

Roddy smiled and pressed down on a certain spot on the control panel. An injection device connected to a tube quickly appeared.

“This thing can extract blood directly.”

Roddy quickly rolled up his sleeves.

He jabbed the needle into his arm, allowing it to draw some blood out. The instrument began running, creating a sound that resembled that of the CT machines in hospitals.

At the end of the instrument, a circular machine rotated. It did not take long for some text to be displayed on the instrument’s screen.

“Blood analysis in progress, now selecting possible treatment methods… … 28 experimental treatment drug match… …”

Seeing the text, Qiao Qiao became greatly excited.

“This machine can treat you?!”

A few seconds later however, another line of text appeared, stunning the two of them.

“Analysis of blood sample complete. Components all normal. Unable to find any virus. Criteria for treatment not met. Matching process failed.”

Blood sample… … normal?

No… … virus?

“How could there be no virus?” Qiao Qiao became infuriated.

Roddy suddenly thought of something. Then, he sighed and shook his head. “This does feel weird… … however… maybe we had been going about this wrong this whole time.”

“What do you mean wrong?”

Roddy did not reply. He turned around and moved toward the lab refrigerator. Next, he forcefully pulled open the lab refrigerator.

Several beeping alarms rang out, but the door to the refrigerator had been pulled open.

“What are you doing?”

Lun Tai, who was outside, and Qiao Qiao, who was inside, shouted out at the same time.

“Proving my guess,” said Roddy with a smile.

After saying that, Roddy gave them no chance to stop him and picked up a syringe containing green coloured liquid. Opening it, he then stabbed the needle of the syringe into his arm.

“Ah!” Qiao Qiao exclaimed, but Roddy shouted, “Don’t come close!”

After that, Roddy quickly turned around and moved back to the analysing instrument. There, he repeated the blood drawing process and started the blood analysis process once more.

It did not take long for the same text to appear on the screen.

“Analysis of blood sample complete. Components all normal. Unable to find any virus. Criteria for treatment not met. Matching process failed.”

After reading it, Roddy’s face turned dispirited and he smiled bitterly.

“Roddy! Just what are you up to?” Qiao Qiao shot out in a hushed tone, a look of anxiousness on her face.

Roddy gave Qiao Qiao a glance and said, “Qiao Qiao, did you think that those vials inside the lab refrigerator are antidotes designed by Alpha and his team? I personally don’t think so.”

“What? If not, then what are they?”

“I believe that Alpha and his team had, based on what they were researching, extracted out some form of ‘virus’,” Roddy quickly explained. “This would explain why there would be a special backup power supply and security system for this place. It is to ensure safety! This place is a place to store viruses.”

“That is just your own guess!” said Qiao Qiao with knitted brows.

“No, it is not a guess.” Roddy pointed at the screen. “Just look, the analysis for viruses gave nothing! Blood is normal.”

Next, Roddy used the guild channel to send something to Qiao Qiao.

[System prompt: You have been infected by an unknown power once again. Calculation shows that this infection cannot re-infect you. Thus, this time’s infection brings no additional effect.]

When she saw the prompt, Qiao Qiao was stunned.

This proved two things.

First of all, the things inside the lab refrigerator, one of which Roddy had injected into himself were indeed the ‘viruses’ that Alpha and his team extracted from that ‘item’.

Second… this thing was likely not a virus at all. According to the analysing instrument, his blood was normal.

It was not a virus!

But if so… … what was it?

Roddy smiled bitterly and said, “We have been misled… … in the earlier prompt, just like this one, the system prompt said ‘unknown power’. In other words, the system never said that this was a virus! Additionally, this quest area that we have entered is a medical related biochemical research centre. Thus, we became convinced that this was a virus. But the truth is… … we forgot something. Alpha was a top researcher, yet even he admitted… … he did not know what this is!”

“Unknown power?” Qiao Qiao shook her head.

Then, something unexpected happened.

Roddy’s body staggered and he had to sit down on the floor. His face was a greenish pale and he panted heavily.

“What is wrong?”

“I… I don’t have any strength left.” Roddy panted. “Don’t come too close. My body feels very strange… it feels hot and cold at random. My strength is leaving me…”

There was a concerned look on Qiao Qiao’s face and Lun Tai, who was outside, was about to dash in when…

A loud noise interrupted them!

The sound had come from somewhere far away.

At the same time, the entirety of the glass room suddenly issued out “beep beep beep beep” sounds.

Lun Tai’s face sank and he opened his mouth to shout, “Hurry, get- “

Boom!

Metal fences on top of the tempered glass walls suddenly came down. After making contact with the floor, several gearing sounds could be heard. It had locked itself!

The metal fence did not merely block off the glass walls, it had also blocked off the door.

As a result, Qiao Qiao and Roddy were locked together inside the room.

Lun Tai shouted and used both hands to grab the metal fence in an attempt to shake it open. However, no matter how hard he tried, the fence remained firm.

The other members also stepped forward and struggled to shake the fence, but they failed to do anything to it.

“This is not some ordinary metal!” Lun Tai was furious. He was about to utilize his Muscle Fruit skill-

A crashing sound echoed out!

The glass door of their room broke down.

A strange looking figure had appeared in the doorway.

It was a very big… … meatball!

After casting a look at it, several members of Meteor Rock Guild, females especially, felt a sense of nausea in their throats and puked on the spot.

The thing… …. had too horrifying of an appearance!

…