CHAPTER 342: CHAPTER 339: BASE (PART 2)

Chapter 339: The Base (Part 2)

It was a mere two hundred meters in a straight line. When Chen Nuo passed by the guard post bunker, he casually cast a Spiritual Force Tentacle over, but to no avail.

The guard post was a circular structure resembling a bunker, made from cold-resistant composite material, with all its doors and windows intact.

But the people inside had frozen to death. A member of the armed forces, dressed in a tactical suit, sat inside with an automatic rifle by his side; the coffee cup on the table had turned into a block of ice.

In the silent base, three groups of Ability Users and Nolan’s group proceeded in different directions.

Chen Nuo saw from afar that Nolan’s group had already entered the main tent, while he had now arrived at the supply warehouse before him.

The cold-resistant composite material was wrapped around embedded steel plates.

The door featured both electronic and manual operation. The electronic system was clearly damaged, and the manual mechanism was also stuck.

They didn’t force the door open, because their pre-operation plan had already accounted for potential unknown enemies or other threats.

The technicians quickly took out their equipment and broke the manual door lock. However, when they tried to push the door open, they encountered another problem: the door and its frame were frozen solid together!

The Captain immediately stepped forward, pushing the technicians aside, and placed a hand on the door frame. His ability was to control water, and all ice was essentially made of the Water Element.

In less than a second, water began to seep from all sides of the door frame, melting rapidly, then quickly refreezing in the frigid air, but the door itself was already thawed.

The Captain gently pushed the door open, and Chen Nuo was the first to walk in.

After all six people entered the warehouse, they quickly closed the door behind them.

The temperature inside the warehouse was even colder than outside! Perhaps because of the low temperatures, while the outdoor temperature had risen quickly during a brief window, the cold inside the warehouse, like in a sealed container, had not yet dissipated.

Upon entering, several of them clearly shivered. Without needing a reminder, everyone quickly donned their cold-protection masks, and six searchlights switched on simultaneously.

Chen Nuo immediately contacted the others through his earpiece, "Captain entered the warehouse."

Each group was named after its leader; no one objected to this.

Soon after, Vanel’s voice came through the earpiece, "Understood. The perimeter is normal for now. Pay attention to internal security. Switch to the common channel."

With the base’s central heating system completely destroyed, the interior resembled a cold storage room. The walls and floor were covered with a layer of white frost.

Visibility inside the warehouse was low, but with the illumination from the six handheld searchlights, it was at least decent.

The base’s warehouse was large. After all, it housed dozens of people, and the long resupply cycle meant a substantial reserve of provisions was necessary to meet their needs.

Rows of material racks, cabinets, and boxes were neatly arranged with labeled classifications.

The group quickly checked the warehouse; in the over two-hundred-square-meter space, the supplies were mostly intact.

No signs of damage or indications of being moved were found.

Chen Nuo found cans of meat and dehydrated vegetables among them. There was even alcohol and coffee—the Octopus Monster’s father was indeed generous.

A large stockpile of food was still there, untouched and undamaged.

There were even more resource reserves, with a small cabin separately storing replacement parts for equipment and tools.

Locked away in the materials room was a cabinet that stored weapons and ammunition.

In the silent warehouse, the only sounds were the movements of the six people—and even they tried to be as quiet as possible.

The two technicians carefully checked the materials and even took some notes.

Chen Nuo and the others were responsible for looking for any suspicious traces.

The warehouse inspection took ten minutes. Afterward, they passed through a gate into a passage leading to another cabin, which was the living area for the warehouse storage staff. It also led to a more important place: the backup data storage.

Upon entering the backup data storage warehouse, the technicians quickly got to work, dismantling the accumulated equipment and removing the hard drives to pack into their bags.

Stored here was several months’ worth of surveillance video hard drive data from before the base incident.

Chen Nuo gave the Captain a look.

The Captain understood and lightly tapped Rebecca and Kamisou Ichiro on the shoulders. "Stay here and watch them. I’ll check the living quarters."

Rebecca nodded. Kamisou Ichiro thought for a moment. "Don’t we need to go together?"

"To save time," Chen Nuo interjected, answering for the Captain.

Then the two men quickly left the cabin.

Passing through another tube-like corridor, they entered the living quarters.

According to the base’s layout, these living quarters were for two people, both staff of the Octopus Monster’s base, responsible for managing daily warehouse reserves and storing weapons, materials, and surveillance data.

There was even a set of backup monitoring equipment here. If the main equipment failed, this could be used at any time as a replacement. It could connect to several backup surveillance probes in the base, serving as a temporary monitoring system for the entire installation.

This area had only two rooms: one was personal quarters, and the other was a backup monitoring room.

The door to the backup monitoring room was locked, but Chen Nuo easily twisted off the lock and melted the ice to enter.

But as soon as he entered, Chen Nuo was stunned.

Chen Nuo gently shook the searchlight in his hand. "What is this?"

On the backup surveillance console, something was placed on top.

The Captain frowned and said with a wry smile, "It seems... to be a pair of..."

"..." Chen Nuo frowned and took a glance.

Indeed, it was a pair of pants.

Then, something even more bizarre happened.

In a corner of the room and on the ground, there was also a coat, discarded as if it had been thrown down carelessly.

"There are traces on the ground." Chen Nuo bent down, carefully sweeping the searchlight beam across the floor.

Clear dragging marks were visible on the ground, preserved intact by the freezing.

A thin layer of frost covered the surface, but a light swipe revealed something darker.

"Is that blood?" Chen Nuo looked up at the Captain.

The Captain gently touched the ground. His control over the Water Element allowed him to instantly recognize the composition of the dark, solidified substance.

"It’s blood." The Captain’s face turned serious.

Chen Nuo took a deep breath.

He quickly discovered more problems.

A standing microphone on the backup control console was bent; it should have been upright.

Chen Nuo checked it and confirmed it had been bent by brute force.

There were also some scratch marks on the control console.

Furthermore, one spot on the console had clearly been struck forcefully, leaving a slight dent in the external housing.

After pondering for a moment, the Captain said, "A fight took place here!"

Chen Nuo said with a bitter smile, "But what kind of fight makes someone take off their pants?"

The two experienced operators looked at each other, strange expressions simultaneously appearing on their faces.

"I remember them saying the base was all male, right?" one of them mused.

"Uh... maybe they were just too lonely?" the other ventured.

Chen Nuo shook his head. "That’s not right. Even if someone was having an affair here, after they were done, why wouldn’t they put their pants back on and take them? Why leave them behind? And what about the drag marks on the floor, and the bloodstains?"

Chen Nuo thought for a moment but couldn’t figure it out. He simply said, "Let’s go check the living quarters. Based on previous analysis, the two staff members from this section should be here. If we haven’t found them anywhere else, their bodies might be in the living quarters."

They left the backup surveillance room and approached another module door, this time with Chen Nuo leading the way.

After opening the door, Chen Nuo was the first to enter swiftly, a Telekinesis Barrier already positioned in front of him.

But very quickly, Chen Nuo froze!

The Captain, who followed him in, also froze!

The living quarters weren’t large. They contained two beds, two desks, a modest table, and a small compartment that served as both a toilet and shower. That was the extent of the space.

However, Chen Nuo and the Captain did not see any bodies!

That was not the main reason both were stunned.

After taking a deep breath, Chen Nuo immediately pressed his earpiece.

"Vanel, Captain’s team here, we’ve found something!" Chen Nuo said hurriedly.

"Copy that, Captain, please repeat?"

"Captain’s team here, we’ve discovered a situation! Captain’s team here, we’ve discovered a situation!"

"What did you find?"

In the room, Chen Nuo and the Captain stood side by side, staring grimly at the ground before them.

The floor of the module was damaged. A huge, irregular-edged hole gaped in the ground. The composite material shell forming the module’s floor had been punched straight through, and even the permafrost beneath was churned up. It was a gigantic chasm, approximately two meters in diameter, leading down into unfathomable depths like an underground tunnel.

"This damn thing couldn’t possibly have been dug by the Octopus Monster’s people themselves!" The Captain swallowed hard, instinctively stepping back.

Chen Nuo quickly extended his Spiritual Force Tentacles down into the hole and then furrowed his brow.

The excavation was deep. As his Spiritual Force Tentacles spread into it, they quickly encountered forks... Below ground, a crisscrossing network of more than a dozen tunnels had been dug out... crude and brutal!

And just at that moment, the two men suddenly heard a harrowing scream!

By the sound of it, it seemed to be one of the two technicians.

Then, very quickly, a voice came from outside the door—Rebecca’s, laced with surprise and an angry exclamation.

"FUCK!!!!!"

BANG!!

A gunshot rang out.