CHAPTER 561: CHAPTER 293: ZERO ELEMENT CENTER

Boom!

The moment the elevator door closed, the entire elevator shaft shook violently.

Lin Xian used his superpower to control the immobilized elevator, guiding it downward, as a deeply buried odor of annihilating spores burst forth.

"What on earth was that just now? Why did we all suddenly fall into an illusion?"

Luo Yang asked, his face full of lingering fear. All of them were at least Frenzy Level fighters, but no one reacted just now; they all got hit.

It seemed like a moment, but more than two hours had passed. If those head fungi and fungus zombies had rushed in, they would have been wiped out.

"The purpose of these mycelia is to parasitize, not necessarily to kill."

Ding Junyi analyzed, "And it seems these mycelia are more obsessed with organic life than mechanical energy."

Lin Xian’s face was grave: "Even you, wearing full-body battle armor, got affected by the illusion. How can we guard against those parasitic spores?"

Ding Junyi looked at him and said, "I’ve already examined those brownish-yellow fungal spores. Their size is about 2-5 microns. Our anti-toxic masks can completely resist them, and all current Federation-standard train carriage air circulation systems can intercept particles as small as 0.3 microns, unless the circulation system is damaged or a carriage is breached, there’s nothing to worry about."

On the other side, Ning Jing nodded at these words: "Many trains have modified the airtightness and air circulation system of the carriages to deal with dark invasions. Ours have too, but if there’s a breach, that can’t be guaranteed..."

Luo Yang looked worried. This was their first time using train vehicles, and just having come out of the battle in Xilan City, he felt insecure about these issues.

"Exactly, how are we supposed to guard against this stuff?" Kiki frowned, worried for Chen Sixuan and the others.

"Worrying is useless now. We can only hope the Deep Red World organization has some useful methods. Otherwise, we would have to reverse course and retreat back to Xilan City," Lin Xian said. But even as he spoke, he knew it was unlikely; having finally cleared the mark from Xilan City, running back now would be a dead end.

At this moment, Lin Xian felt immense pressure; the drawbacks of the Doomsday Train’s tracks were exposed. If it were a car, they could have detoured, but now with over 4,000 people on train 22 trapped in the spore mist, they were at an impasse, once again in a deadly situation.

Wuu wuu~

Lin Xian controlled the elevator to descend quickly. Along the way, his Mechanical Heart felt the elevator car continuously breaking through countless mycelium roots, occasionally sending a sense of hindrance.

Finally, the elevator reached the core testing zone on the underground fifth floor. Ding~ The elevator door opened to complete darkness. Lin Xian immediately turned on the drone’s lighting, and instantly, what met their eyes was a corridor and hallway entirely covered in mycelium vines, with the floor and walls no longer visible. If not for the faint outlines of the hallway, everyone would have thought this was the esophagus of some monster.

"How is there more and more underground?" Kiki remarked.

"There’s no one here; this research institute must have completely fallen," Luo Yang added.

While controlling the elevator, Lin Xian had been probing the mechanical feedback within the building below using his Mechanical Heart’s scan. He thought the Deep Red World people described in the Fire Book might be hiding below, but he didn’t detect any activity. Now, the open elevator door confirmed his guess.

"Did we come to the wrong place?"

"Probably not," Lin Xian replied. "The vice-captain of the Night Blade Team mentioned there was a battle with people from the Deep Red World underground, so it should be here, but we must be late. It’s been completely overrun by mycelia."

"What do we do?"

Lin Xian, looking serious, knew they couldn’t stay long as the corridor’s mycelia seemed to undergo slight changes in the drone’s lights. He said, "Kiki, let’s search this place for anything useful, and then we leave immediately."

"Okay." Kiki nodded, "Everyone, stay close together."

Saying this, she led everyone, flying through the corridor, using the drone’s lighting and scanning arrays to swiftly move through the underground core laboratory.

The entire underground core laboratory area was covered in mycelium. The floor and walls were overrun by various mycelium vines, and clusters of spore mushrooms hung in strings. The group searched all the way but found nothing apart from human fungi fused to the mycelium walls.

Eventually, they searched until reaching the last area, a special corridor extending into some distinctive region.

"There was a large-scale battle here."

In Ding Junyi’s Black Hawk Battle Armor’s scan, she quickly discovered a lot of discarded weapons beneath the mycelium on the ground.

Lin Xian also noticed it. His Mechanical Scan extended over the mycelium carpet and soon devoured dozens of weapons.

"These weapons are a mixture, mostly not from major organizations, likely from survivor teams."

Having found a clue, the group immediately searched deeper into the corridor, reaching the end before long. In the light of the drone, a heavy radiation-proof door appeared, covered by several layers of mycelium.