Chapter 578 came true!
The heavy alloy gate blocked out the outside world, but it could not block the pervasive roar of death.
Inside the base, scarlet alarm lights spun and flashed wildly like the bloodshot eyeballs of a dying beast, cutting the terrified faces into fragments of light and dark.
The filtration system emitted a dull, teeth-grinding roar as it desperately squeezed out the last bit of purification power, and the air it exhaled carried a strong, pungent smell of chemicals.
Instead of calming people's hearts, it seems more like a precursor to a poisonous gas leak.
In the first five hours.
The base commander was like a high-speed spinning top, suppressing the growing chill in his heart and shuttling between the chaotic passages and the core control room.
A hoarse voice came through the PA system, repeating over and over again "the base is securely protected", "stay calm", and "obey orders". These words she herself almost didn't believe.
The technicians were ordered to stare at the monitoring screens, sweat soaking their backs - the good news was that the base's protection system fluctuated violently but had not yet collapsed, and the thick alloy shell temporarily withstood the physical erosion of the black fog.
The better "news" was that the red dot on the monitoring screen, representing the fog ghost's life signal, was dead silent.
Deep in the black fog, there seemed to be only pure, all-annihilating death, without those familiar, ferocious hunters.
The tide of panic seemed to be temporarily contained by this brief illusion of safety. The suppressed crying around gradually became quieter, and the pushing and shouting became less frequent.
The canteen even distributed lunch on time as instructed by the base commander - a thin paste containing white flour, diced vegetables, and crushed luncheon meat.
All these things were boiled together and gave off a strange smell, but at this moment they became a symbol of "business as usual".
"See! I told you it's okay!" A man with a face full of flesh was holding a dinner plate. His voice was deliberately raised, saliva was flying, and his eyes swept across the floors of the player's residential area provocatively.
"Isn't it just that the sky is dark again? What's the difference between this and the white fog and the red fog before? Hiding in the house and pretending to be ghosts, bah! Cowards without balls! Base commander, you take them too seriously!"
Someone nearby immediately echoed, with the bravado of someone who had survived a disaster: "That's right! Is our fortress a vegetarian? We have food and drink, it's very safe! Those people are just scared out of their wits, they scared themselves!"
The base commander's hand holding the dinner plate paused slightly, and his knuckles turned white.
The soothing smile on her face disappeared completely, leaving only heavy fatigue and a trace of suppressed rage.
She looked up at the closed doors with a complicated expression. Finally, she sighed tiredly, her voice so low that only she could hear it: "It's best...it's really like this."
Lunch time became some kind of absurd "victory celebration".
Ordinary people chewed bland food, exchanged looks that said "it's okay" and "it was just a false alarm" with each other, and their tense nerves relaxed a little bit with the warm paste and the comfort of their companions.
Black fog? It's just a thicker fog.
It doesn't matter if you can't see it clearly, as long as this thick alloy wall is still there, as long as the light above your head is still on, as long as the next meal of porridge can be delivered to you on time...
The base is safe.
After the meal, the base even restored some "order".
Soldiers took turns, the survivors cleared the passages under supervision, and the maintenance team checked the pipelines and began their work as usual, as if the black tide outside that swallowed the world had never existed.
**……**
“Beep! Beep, beep, beep!!!!”
An unprecedented sharp alarm that pierced the eardrums suddenly and violently exploded from the core monitoring room!
It is no longer the previous overload warning, but the highest level beep representing a drastic change in the environment and the system is on the verge of collapse!
Under the pale fluorescent light of the screen, the monitoring supervisor's face instantly lost all its color, as if it was covered with a layer of chalk!
He stared at the curve on the central screen that was soaring upward like a mad bull out of control. The value representing the concentration of toxic gas in the air inside the base was being refreshed at a speed that would make one's heart stop!
"No... Impossible!" He made a strange hoarse sound in his throat and rushed to the control console. His fingers trembled as he frantically typed to check. "Instrument failure? Calibrate! Calibrate now!"
A few seconds later, the technician in charge of calibration looked up with a pale face and a trembling voice: "Supervisor! The calibration is correct! The concentration of poison gas... is still soaring!
It’s already…twice the previous peak! And…it’s still rising!”
"Quick! Notify the base commander! Highest alert! Quick!" The supervisor's roar was broken, and despair instantly filled the entire monitoring room like cold venom.
The news spread like a plague, instantly penetrating the door of the base commander's office.
The report on serum inventory in the base commander's hand, marked with a huge red "Insufficient" word, fell silently onto the cold metal floor.
Her straight back shook slightly when she heard the report. Her heart seemed to be grasped by a cold iron hand, and then fell heavily into the bottomless abyss.
Sure enough... they were right!
It's not a false alarm! It's a real disaster!
"Supreme protection order! Now! Immediately!" The base commander's roar instantly tore through the silence of the office, with an almost crazy urgency.
"Seal off all non-essential areas! All survivors! Immediately put on the basic protective masks issued! No wet cloths!
Quick! All soldiers! Protective suits at the highest level of sealing! Check! Check again! Everyone move——!”
The little bit of "order" that had just been restored collapsed like a sand castle in the face of an even more violent tsunami of despair!
The orders were passed down through the radio and the soldiers' shouts, but it was more like a countdown to the Last Judgment Day.
Panic began to spread at ten times the speed before, instantly engulfing everyone!
At this moment, the player residential area is still as silent as ever.
Xiao Jin sat cross-legged on the cold metal floor, like an unchanging rock.
Inside the thick, fully enclosed protective suit, sweat had already soaked through her clothes, sticking sticky to her skin, and every breath was accompanied by a damp and stuffy feeling.
The low and steady hum of the generator was the only sound in this sealed metal coffin. Xiao Jin even took out an air conditioner.
After connecting to the power supply, the air conditioner began to continuously provide her with life-sustaining cold air.
Under the helmet visor, Xiao Jin's eyes were as sharp as ever. Through the multiple layers of lenses, he calmly monitored every breath of air flow in the room.
At the same time, she also caught the increasingly frequent and heavy sound of running footsteps and the hoarse roars of the soldiers outside the door.