A Core Ship From The Start

Chapter 321: Chapter 255: Restless Stirring_1

Meanwhile, on that war-torn planet, life went on as always.

Diamond Town.

Known as a large gathering place for the nomadic tribes, Diamond Town had a safe land of its own. More importantly, there was a small Imu Energy extraction facility beneath Diamond Town.

The so-called Imu Energy was a subterranean energy source that people on the planet discovered. It packed such a punch that they tossed out their old energy equipment completely and shifted entirely to Imu Energy. This was also the main reason for the intense conflict between the Wei’an Government Alliance and the Independent Republic Alliance.

After the Pendulum War ended and the Beast Race invaded, most Imu Energy extraction facilities were either destroyed or abandoned. However, a few were preserved intact and the one owned by Diamond Town was among these. It monopolized the nomads’ use of Imu Energy because of its unique advantage.

But lately, the mayor of Diamond Town was somewhat distressed.

“Sigh …”

Gazing at the dimly lit church ahead, Doctor Berlik took a puff of his cigarette, his eyebrows furrowed. For some reason, workers in the extraction facilities became sick quite frequently. Initially, he thought it was just a common disease, but examination results revealed it to be a very strange illness. Workers who contracted this disease felt difficulty breathing and pain in their lungs first. Then they would start having a fever and their muscles would ache.

This bizarre disease swept over the facility’s workforce in a short span of time, bringing the entire operation to a halt. This was quite a headache for the Mayor. Although he had asked Doctor Berlik to ensure that the disease wouldn’t spread further, the doctor didn’t seem to have any viable solutions. So, they had to isolate all the infected workers and wait to see the outcome.

What troubled the mayor even more was that due to this incident, bad rumors started to spread within the town. Some said that a strange plague had crept into the town. This stirred up fear among Diamond Town’s residents, to the point where the mayor had no choice but to close the town off to prevent these idiots from running away.

What the hell is going on?

Now, only one option remained.

They had to kill all the infected and incinerate them—it was a cruel method, but to prevent this strange plague from spreading across the town, some sacrifices were necessary.

Thinking this, Doctor Berlik looked behind at the fully armed guards and sighed heavily.

“Alright, let’s go in.”

As he spoke, Doctor Berlik donned a gas mask and pushed open the main doors of the church, where the workers were housed. He entered with the guards.

However, upon entering the church, he quickly noticed something was off compared to usual.

Normally when Doctor Berlik walked into the church, he could always hear the infected workers coughing and gasping, as if their lungs had holes in them, wheezing like bellows. But now, the entire church was silent, not a whisper to be heard, causing his heart to sink—had all those chaps died?

If that were the case, they might be spared the final step.

With that thought, Doctor Berlik advanced. However, upon entering the church’s hall, the sight before his eyes left him dumbstruck—the workers, previously writhing in pain on their beds, were now all gone! The beds were cold and empty, not a single soul in sight!

Damn it, where are they?

“Did they run away? Weren’t you guys guarding the door all the time?”

Doctor Berlik bellowed as he reached out to grab one of the guard’s collars. The guard, too, looked surprised.

“I don’t know, Doc, I can assure you no one left …”

“So where did they go? Can they fly or something?”

“No, that…I…”

“Drip.”

Just then, a drop of sticky fluid fell from above and landed on Doctor Berlik’s gas mask. He released the grip on the guard’s collar with a puzzled look and wiped the fluid off his mask. Then he looked up—and was immediately frozen in shock.

On the ceiling of the church were several human silhouettes glowing luminescent, clinging like spiders. Their eyes were balls of light, and even their open mouths emitted light. Judging by the worn-out clothes these luminous humanoid creatures wore, they were likely—the workers who had caught the plague.

“Dear God, what are these things?”

“Ahhhhhhh!!!”

However, before Doctor Berlik had time to react, fluorescent creatures on the ceiling released a beast-like roar then leapt down, flinging themselves directly onto Doctor Berlik. They stretched out their razor-sharp claws, that looked just like those of a beast, and tore through Doctor Berlik’s body immediately.

“Dammit, what are these monsters!!”

The guards at that moment realized something was awry; hastily they lifted their guns in an attempt to exterminate these monsters. Nevertheless, before the guards could act, the creatures that swarmed over from all directions pounced on them directly .

Under the darkness of the night, gunshots and flashes in the church were incessant, and then… everything quieted down again.

The sudden and small accident that happened on this planet did not affect the current situation…. at least not now. As for Duanmu Huai, he didn’t care about the accident happening in a small nomadic tribe on the planet because, after all, he was currently… running around after Claire.

After rescuing Claire, everyone introduced themselves to each other. Claire said she was there to find her brother, but it turned out that Marvin had told Claire that her brother had gone on an outing weeks before… well, Claire’s expression at the time was one of dumbfoundedness. After all, she came to this city only because she couldn’t contact her brother and was worried about him. When she encountered the zombie crisis, Claire was quite nervous, fearing that her brother might also be involved.

As a result, after all her struggle to get to her brother’s workplace, she is told that he took a paid holiday and went on an outing?

Will it be a piece of cake to tell her with a phone call?

Duanmu Huai doesn’t know whether Claire wants to slap her brother silly for not informing her. Anyways, now that she has come in and doesn’t seem to be able to get out, everyone has to live under the same roof… Meanwhile, according to Marvin, the police station has a secret underground passage. They could leave through this underground passage and then find a way to escape the city.

The entrance to the safe passage is in the police lobby, but it requires three badges to open. What Claire needs to do next is naturally to find these three badges… As for Duanmu Huai, he naturally becomes her bodyguard.

So the two of them are walking like that in the corridor of the police station. Duanmu Huai walks heavily ahead, hammer in hand. Seeing a zombie, he slams it directly with the hammer, smashing the other’s head to pieces. And Claire was following behind him, on guard around her.

“You’re really something.”

Watching Duanmu Huai swing the hammer again and knock the zombies to the ground, Claire couldn’t help but admire him. At first glance, she was a little afraid of him because of his murderous appearance. Plus, he was dressed in prisoner clothes, which made people think of incarcerated felons. Of course, with the current state of the city, they have no care for such things. After all, he is a human being.

Better than the zombies that only howl anyway.

But what Claire didn’t expect was that Duanmu Huai had such strong combat skills. Claire had seen how dangerous these zombies were on her journey here. Even though they moved slowly, they were hard as nails; even if she shot them in the head, it was hard to kill them.

But with Duanmu Huai, a wave of the hammer would smash the zombies into pieces. The scene may be bloody, but at least they didn’t have to worry about them rising again.

“I’m just used to it. Thankfully, for dealing with these creatures, close-range weapons work better.”

“I wanted to use them too, but alas… ”

Hearing Duanmu Huai’s response, Claire laughed a bit shyly. She was a girl, after all, and was not as strong as a man. Duanmu Huai could easily crush a zombie’s head, but Claire estimated that even if she swung all the way, she could not kill the other. Anyway, being behind such an intimidatingly tall and powerful man like a beast did make Claire feel safe.

However, as the two of them were walking through the corridor, something unexpected happened.

“Bang!!”

The ceiling of the corridor behind Claire crashed down, and then a silhouette jumped down from above. At the sound, Claire, who responded quickly, spun around and took aim. Then, she opened her eyes wide in surprise.

“What, what is that?”

Under the illumination of the flashlight, Claire saw a strange creature crouching on the ground. It looked like a human but had no skin, and the alternating red and white muscles underneath were clearly visible. The creature had no eyes on its head, and when it opened its mouth filled with sharp teeth, a long tongue shot out, aiming directly at Claire. She didn’t have time to dodge and was immediately choked by the creature’s tongue!

“Arghhh——!”

However, before Claire could resist, Duanmu Huai turned around, grabbed the creature’s long tongue and gave it a tug. The next moment, Claire saw the creature being pulled over like a yo-yo by Duanmu Huai. He then stretched out his hand, grabbing the creature’s head and squeezing hard.

“Splurt.”

The creature’s body shuddered violently before slumping down, while the tongue that had tightly coiled around Claire’s neck also untied.

“You aren’t hurt, are you?”

Duanmu Huai threw away the creature, whose head he had crushed, turns his head to look at Claire. She looks at him, her face pale, and nods her head.

At this moment, in Claire’s mind, the man in front of her was far more terrifying than that mutated creature.