【Summer Five】Iron City Wall

Still with the five in front, the two walked towards the inner door.Unlike the relatively well-preserved exterior, this room collapsed more than half from the center, with rubble and steel bars on the outside, and a four- to five-meter-high processor was broken all over the floor. The cracked ceiling can still see the light.

"The first landing point of the fantasy species should be here." Xia You observed the environment and found the air valve along the worn signs, "The epicenter of the damage is around the processor, not only the main air valve is leaking, but the rest are responsible for adjusting the effect of pressure The device is also malfunctioning."

Wujo inspected in the opposite direction: "No wonder it's so hot here, and it's a bit cold outside."

"Yes."

The air valve is easy to find: it is crushed under the slanted roof, and the shape of a wrench can be vaguely seen through the steel nails and condensed water.The air valve originally used for heating is dented and deformed, and the liquid is vaporized as soon as it is drilled out, and the smoke slowly floats up, covering half of the room with vague soot.

Groping into the ruins, Wutiao grabbed a steel pipe and used the highest-magnification driven armor to drive the forearm to exert force, and suddenly lifted the boulder buried on the surface.Dust was flying all over the sky, Xia You grabbed Wutiao and hid back, both of them sat down on the ground, and there was a hole in front of which only one person could enter and exit.

"I'm looking at the wiring port, you go and lock the door." Xia You said immediately, "I just saw clearly that the reinforced lock that can withstand a magnitude [-] earthquake is not broken, but the bearing is skewed and the front and rear cannot be connected. You can correct it with your bare hands."

Without any objection, Gojo lay down directly, leaned in from the hole, and crawled to the valve.He whispered to the AI ​​to adjust the visibility of the tactical eyepiece, and at the same time re-wear the cold-proof clothing, and raise all the indices, enough to resist the possible upsurge.

Xiayou's counting sound came from behind, and Wutiao knew it was a reminder of the IP change of Walden Lake.The strengthened lock of the valve needs to be docked with the IP change, otherwise additional manpower will be required for subsequent debugging, which will be potentially dangerous.

Cooperating with the countdown, Gojo raised the right side of his body and stretched out his hand towards the valve.The focus of the driven armor was on the hand. He stretched out five fingers to press the valve wrench, and slowly pushed the door towards the ring holder.The scalding steam was sprayed on the cold-proof clothing, 90.00% of the heat was converted smoothly, and only a small amount of residual heat penetrated through the barrier—even so, it was still unbearable.

"24.34.159.154." Xia You said clearly, "192.168.255..."

About one-thousandth of a second, the five suddenly held their breath, and the propulsion force of the drive armor was fully opened-the gate was pressed into the ring buckle accurately, the keyholes were aligned, and they snapped together at the moment of IP change, and the indicator light was bright green again.

"Huh..." He breathed a sigh of relief and moved out of the hole after confirming that there was no more gas leakage.After taking off the winter clothes, Xia You brushed away the hair stuck to his cheeks, gently wiped off the sweat with five fingers, and said softly, "Very well done."

The green light flashed synchronously with the notification tone of the terminal. Xia You called up the control panel and found that the gas valve of the No. 13 furnace was also reconnected to the network, and the leakage indicator returned to calm.He smiled from the bottom of his heart, and he refused to let go of Wutiao's hand, quite complacently.

"This is the end of the paragraph?" Wujo let him rub the back of his hand, the sequelae of over-concentration a moment ago flashed into his mind, and the adrenaline rushing back made his whole body collapse.

Xia You said with a smile: "At least there is no heat source leaking out. As for how to survive this colder than usual winter—not to mention that it is coming to an end, I don't think there is anything to worry about. "

"—I'm not worried either." Wujo snorted.

During the break, Xiayou reported the situation to the engineering team, who expressed their gratitude and promised to continue to carry out high-intensity maintenance.When Wujo stood up, they prepared to go out and return to the ground along the way they came.

The moment Xia You turned around, Wujo caught a flash of light through the tactical eyepiece.It was the scarlet light coming from the giant phantasmagoria that buried the furnace in the crack on the top of the processor; it was like blood, like snow, and like merciless thunder.At that moment, Wutiao instinctively tensed his nerves, and rushed towards Xia You who was walking in front - he hugged her tightly, and saw a huge flash of light covering the sky and the sun while lying down.

"boom--!"

The giant beast exploded violently without warning, and its corpse was blown into tens of millions of pieces. The power comparable to a small hydrogen bomb directly enveloped a quarter of the fifth area.The strong wind whipped up countless houses, trees, vehicles and streets, including the engineering team stationed outside, all of which were wiped out in the light cluster as bright as snow.The furnace shook, and the earth roared under its feet, like the end.

Under the heavy rubble, Xia You was in a coma for nearly half an hour before waking up with a splitting headache.He could hardly move for a moment, his hands and feet were tightly restrained, and his body and face were cold.It was pitch black all around, and nothing could be seen clearly, and the field of vision was filled with broken rubble and reinforced concrete.

The drowsy thoughts flew by for ten years in an instant, bringing him back to the dusk when he stumbled and fell into the big void because of chasing the phantom species.Unlike last time, there was a faint green light flickering in the bricks and tiles, and the light source penetrated the darkness firmly and lightly, delivering a stable and long-lasting cardiotonic to him.Xia You opened his eyes and looked at the light, until his rationality suddenly returned like an ebb tide - he shivered and finally recognized the situation.

The phantom species that should have died suddenly exploded, and the condition of the No. 13 furnace is unknown, but the airlock light that was turned off just now is still stable.It means that a lot of the power of the explosion should have been dissipated into the air, and it didn't affect the ground much.As for the reason for the explosion—since even the phantom species itself is a product of mutation, it is not impossible for the corpse to undergo some changes.

The back of the head was cold and painful, Xia You reached out to touch it, but accidentally rubbed against the front of the front, and the palm was sticky.He looked carefully through the light that penetrated through the gap, and was surprised that the sticky thing was actually blood.

But he didn't have such a large area of ​​wounds on his body—at least his sensible torso and limbs only had abrasions and bruises, and blood of this kind should not appear.Then it's someone else's blood, but there are only him and Wutiao in the ruins, so where did others come from?

...Where did they come from?

Xia You got up in shock, only to find that although the surrounding area was full of fallen rocks, there was not even a trace of being smashed or oppressed on his body.Except for the parts stained by dust, there were only large bloodstains on the clothes and trousers.As for the coolness he felt when he woke up, it was probably caused by the blood that didn't belong to him—a large piece of dark red blood, like a flower that bloomed to the extreme and then withered.

He stood up, his heart was beating fast, and every blow hit his ribs hard, almost hammering his chest out of cracks.The processor room completely collapsed, and the door connecting the aisle disappeared, leaving only a hole less than half a meter high, allowing an adult to bend over and pass through.Not far from where Xia You lay down, a steel bar nailed to the concrete stuck in the middle of the road, completely depriving him of his sight.

The cement slabs were blooming bright red, and thick blood gathered on the steel bars, dripping down the rusty surface little by little.The iron-gray steel plate was filled with a puddle of blood, like fireworks exploding on Xia You's retina, which made him stagger a step.

That thing didn't just fall in the middle of the road.According to the surrounding traces, it should have moved here with the person whose body was pierced, and then pulled out the steel bar from the body with great difficulty, so that such a large-scale spattered bloodstain appeared.

"No..." He muttered, squatting down and hurriedly crawling out of the hole, not feeling the dense pain all over his body, "No..."

The ground of the aisle is also full of bloodstains, winding from the inner door to the outside, with uneven marks from being stepped on by the soles of shoes.Xia You stepped forward to push the door, only to realize that her hands were shaking so badly that she had to push the iron door two or three times before it opened.

He searched in the main control room following the bloodstains, his footsteps were faltering, fear almost bursting out of his chest.There are traces of damage from the explosion everywhere, but fortunately, the load-bearing beams are basically undamaged, and they are still supporting the ceiling precariously.

Until Xia You turned over some crooked tables and saw a few strands of silver hair beside a locker.

The huge sense of security overwhelmed him in an instant, Xia You stepped forward quickly, and was about to say the word "Enlightenment", but was stuck when he went around to the front, making him almost unable to catch his breath.

"Why... do you look like you've seen a ghost?" Wutiao raised his head, his face was as white as paper, but he was still trying his best to smile at Xia You, "It's fine."

After saying that, the hand covering his stomach convulsed, forcing him to bite his lower lip even more tightly.

Xia You was nailed to the spot as if rooted, looking at the five blood-soaked abdomens, and the strangely curled bloodstains on the wall behind him; Blood, almost unharmed self... The air seemed to be filled with lead, the internal organs screamed and squeezed each other, the mouth and nose were blocked by the heavy rust smell, the tip of the tongue was numb, and the severe pain spread from the hair until it completely submerged him .

Before he realized it, Xia You was already half-kneeling in front of Wu Tiao, reaching out to touch the hemostatic bandage covering his abdomen, but when he was about to touch it, he trembled suddenly, and quickly retracted it as if it was burning.He could not hear anything a long time ago, the tinnitus replaced the beating heart in his throat, all he could see in front of him was the endless blood, like a raging fire of karma, which would burn out all the morning light from now on.

"Why...?" In the end, Xia You heard her own voice as thin as a mosquito, "What have you done..."

But Wutiao just smiled weakly, tightened the blood-soaked bandage, shook his head and said, "It's not my fault, if a person can overcome instinct—is that still a person?"

Xia You listened with her head down, pinching her hands curled up by her side into her palms, and the soft flesh inside her mouth was also bitten to a bloody mess.He was trapped in a near-suffocating swamp, breathing quickly and with difficulty, as if he had been slowly suffocating for a century.

After a long time, five cool breaths brushed over his head, and a blood-stained hand groped and grasped the hem of his clothes.The silver-haired young man pretended to be surprised in a voice so weak that he was dying: "I didn't scold you, why are you crying?"

Xia You belatedly raised her head, only to realize that she had already burst into tears.

The sky collapsed, and the high city wall built in his heart collapsed, leaving only laughable debris on the ground.Those words that have never been uttered due to self-esteem, those words that were firmly suppressed by prejudice, and those words that I thought I would never need to say, all came rushing in like a torrent, breaking through the barriers of arrogance when I was young, and I was about to say it.

"...Please..." Xia You said tremblingly, "Please, don't go."

It is the countless voices that have been lost in countless decades, in the deep darkness of the Great Hole, in the cold incandescent lights of the three-block prison, in the sleepless bedrooms and the desolate nights lit by wildfires since childhood.He finally spoke for his young self, facing the gods whom he had killed countless times, and desperately uttered the only begging.

Tears welled up in his eyes, Xia You wanted to turn his face sideways, but was pinned in place by five suddenly intensified forces, and could only look at him with a messy face.

"Listen," Wutiao didn't dodge, his blue eyes were still as bright as the sky and the sea, "Although I don't know what you're thinking, but I don't die so easily."

And Xia You leaned over suddenly when he said the last word, covering those cold and pale lips.

I love you.He thought sadly and hopelessly.

I love you.