Hunter of Mysterious Creature

Chapter 696 12: Heat Dissipation Shaft_2

Falling from a height of 200 meters did not kill it, but it was injured. This indicates that the creature being tracked has a slightly higher physical strength than humans, but not by much. Without the right tools, the chance of piercing through a six-meter-thick mass of scrap metal is virtually zero.

"That thing probably can't open the sealed plug and escape, right?"

"The sealed plug is physically locked. Only heavy machinery can rotate the plug and extract it from the pump passage, and these operations can only be done from the outside of the pump passage. It's impossible for anyone or any creature inside to escape through the interface without damaging the plug."

"That's good."

Propelled by gravity, Sun Hang quickly ran down the slope. He hadn't gone far when the ground beneath his feet turned from concrete to metal, and every step on the pipeline emitted a very distinct sound that traveled along the tunnel.

Having already been exposed, Sun Hang no longer bothered to hide his tracks. Just thinking about the encroaching sound of these footsteps could give the other a sense of being pressed into a corner, driving Sun Hang's steps more joyously.

Sun Hang loved watching horror movies, but what he liked was not the tense and terrifying atmosphere, but putting himself into the shoes of those scary things in the horror movie.

Honestly, it was quite interesting.

The slope gradually leveled out, and the cooling pump passage transformed from initially vertical to almost parallel... then three diverging paths appeared in front of Sun Hang.

"Why are there diverging paths?"

"The No. 7 cooling pump passage connects to the heat dissipation pipeline network of the power hub at three interfaces, thus there are three branch pipelines," the mainframe replied.

Sun Hang twitched his nose twice, then decisively chose the right-hand path.

"How long are the branch pipelines?"

"Based on your previous direction, the left pipeline is 461 meters long, the middle pipeline is 195 meters long, and the right pipeline is 790 meters long."

"And I ended up choosing the longest one," Sun Hang muttered, "What a waste of time... By the way, is the cooling pump passage under surveillance?"

"The cooling pump passages are equipped with pressure, airtightness, and temperature sensing devices, but there are no surveillance cameras," the mainframe replied. "Moreover, since the No. 7 cooling pump passage is currently under renovation, these precise electronic devices have been dismantled and will be reinstalled during the final phase of construction."

"That's true," Sun Hang nodded, "Installing surveillance cameras in a pipeline constantly filled with thousand-degree steam would indeed waste taxpayer money."

After saying this, Sun Hang stopped.

Seven hundred and ninety meters isn't particularly long, and there were less than fifty meters left to the end of this branch pipeline.

A rust-stained sealed plug blocked the entire passage snugly, with black airtight glue filling the gaps between the plug and the tunnel walls, making it impossible for even a bug to get through.

Sun Hang could feel the presence of the creature's meme becoming stronger, but there was no figure to be seen, only a set of tattered sportswear stained with blood lying on the ground.

The sealed plug wasn't damaged, and even the circle of airtight glue beside it showed no signs of tampering.

Sun Hang stepped forward to inspect the clothes scattered on the ground.

Aside from the tattered sportswear, there was also a white short-sleeve T-shirt and a pair of white panties with a bow decoration.

Though the sportswear was unisex, its size was 155/68A/XXS, which only fits either women or children... combined with the bow on the panties, the human form of this infected creature is likely a petite female...

As for the absence of a bra among the discarded clothes... Sun Hang speculated it might be because for a female with such a figure, wearing a bra made little difference...

But the question is... the clothes are left here, so where did the "person" go?

"Mainframe, did anything exit through the cooling pump passage's outlet?"

"No," the mainframe answered. "After you entered the cooling pump passage, I redeployed several drones with meme-detection equipment from the nearest Dubhe Tower branch, and no anomalies were discovered."

"Could these clothes be a decoy? That creature played a trick of shedding its shell, leaving the clothes here and hiding in another branch pipeline... No, if it moved that fast, it would've already escaped my pursuit..."

Sun Hang abruptly looked up at the tunnel ceiling, "It must still be here."

Vaguely, Sun Hang felt the surroundings seemed a bit darker.

Utilizing his visualization power, he enhanced his eye's abilities, allowing his vision to go unaffected even in complete darkness. Yet, for some reason, upon reaching the end of this pipeline, the surrounding brightness seemed to drop by several levels.

"I can see you," Sun Hang murmured softly.

There was no movement.

"I really can see you, I'm not lying, come on out."

Still no movement.

Taking a deep breath, Sun Hang intensified his ability to visualize negative emotions at the cost of one-tenth of his spiritual power energy.

In an instant, what were once dim tunnels turned into a spectacle of brilliance!

A myriad of dazzling images appeared in every corner of the tunnel walls, with countless distorted human faces and limbs in these images being stretched, compressed... decomposed and then reorganized, reorganized and then decomposed, looking like what a mentally deranged person or an abstract artist would create.

Or rather, what a mentally deranged abstract artist would create.

As Sun Hang reached towards the nearest image, these things suddenly congregated to form a naked body and swiftly dashed towards the cooling pump passage's exit.

However, before it had sprinted a few steps, thousands of mycelia ensnared it, cocooning it into a bundle and dragging it back to Sun Hang's feet.

This human form of the creature appeared to be a girl about eighteen years old—Sun Hang speculated its actual age might only be fourteen, fifteen, or sixteen, or even younger. But to avoid any suspicion of ill intentions, he treated her as an underdeveloped eighteen-year-old girl.

After all, minors' protection laws do not protect adult creatures.

Neither from the perspective of age nor species.

The "girl" struggled violently within the mycelia, but her strength was utterly insignificant compared to the mycelia, resulting in her doing little more than writhing on the ground without any conscious effort.

"I'm quite curious," Sun Hang squatted beside the bundle, "You can transform into an energy form to escape, can't you? Why not use that to break free? This mycelia shouldn't have been able to hold you, right?"

"Or is it..." Sun Hang continued, "did you intentionally let me capture you? Planning to gain a spot in the Dubhe Tower, mingling and living off it? I can understand that; after all, a steady government job is quite appealing, right?"

"But what I'm more curious about is... are you human? Or a creature?"

The girl continued to struggle, accompanied by her exhausted gasps, which inevitably stirred one's imagination.

Sun Hang pondered for a while, then used several mycelia to reel in the clothes she had removed and released the mycelia binding her, tossing the clothes over.

"Put them on," Sun Hang said, "I don't like talking to someone with an exhibitionist tendency."

"I...I'm not an exhibitionist," the girl murmured softly.

She dressed quickly, though Sun Hang caught a clear glimpse of what he should and shouldn't have seen...

It was indeed a female body, and indeed of an underdeveloped form.

"Now, answer my previous question." A liquid metal flying blade hovered at the girl's neck, separated from her "carotid artery" by only a thin layer of skin.