Chapter 129: The New Pollution Zone
An Se withdrew his mental power and smiled at Yasuo.
“Your mental barrier is intact, and the residual pollution energy is below the safety threshold. Your condition is relatively stable, though you’re a bit weak from excessive blood loss. You’ll be fine after a couple of days of nutrient infusions.”
Yasuo nodded. He let out a sharp hiss of pain as the movement pulled at his wound, but his voice remained as stubborn as ever.
“I told you I was fine. A small injury like this is nothing.”
“A small injury?”
An Se raised an eyebrow and used a pair of tweezers to lift a black, unidentifiable object from the tray, shaking it in front of him.
“Debris from a Polluted Entity was embedded in the gaps of your flesh. If we had waited any longer to treat this and allowed it to fuse with your wound, you could have kissed this chunk of meat goodbye. You call that a small injury?”
Yasuo was left speechless and closed his mouth grumpily.
“Is that debris from a Polluted Entity?”
Su Tang asked in shock. she had assumed it was just gravel or something from the pollution zone; she hadn’t expected it to be fragments of a monster. Why hadn’t Yasuo told her? If she had known, she would have worked even faster.
An Se nodded slightly.
“It seems you encountered quite a bit of trouble during this excursion.”
Yasuo pursed his lips and glanced inadvertently toward Su Tang. He hadn’t wanted her to worry, which was why he hadn’t said much, but now it was impossible to hide.
She stood beside the operation table with a look of worry on her face. The sunlight fell upon the crown of her head, and the crystal necklace at her throat shimmered with fragmented light, sending a wave of warmth through his heart.
That warmth didn’t last long before it was frozen over by a cold glare from Mo Xiao.
Yasuo stiffened, then raised an eyebrow to return the stare. Neither of them were currently on a team with Su Tang, so who was more “noble” than the other?
Their eyes clashed silently in the air, thick with the scent of gunpowder.
“That’s enough,” An Se interrupted helplessly. Wherever there were too many Sentinels, there was bound to be trouble.
“Yasuo, let’s talk business. The White Tower sent you to scout that newly discovered pollution zone. What were the results?”
Mentioning the mission, the playfulness vanished from Yasuo’s face, replaced by a solemn expression.
“The situation is worse than we expected. Once we arrived, we realized that the new pollution zone detected by the Aviation Department was only the starting point. As we investigated deeper, we found that it wasn’t just there—three adjacent areas that were originally safe have also become pollution zones, and they show a trend of spreading outward.”
“Three more areas?”
“Did you find the specific cause?”
Generally speaking, an area is classified as a pollution zone because a large number of mist-producing Polluted Entities reside there, or because the environment has suddenly undergone a mutation that draws surrounding monsters to migrate.
What exactly was happening with three new pollution zones that were still expanding?
“We didn’t find the cause, but this is definitely not normal.”
Yasuo shook his head, his tone deepening.
“I originally wanted to continue the search, but as we went deeper, the color of the mist became darker and darker. We even encountered red mist. Fearing further complications, I brought the team back first.”
Red mist.
Hearing those words from Yasuo, Su Tang’s heart skipped a beat. She looked up and met An Se’s gaze.
“Are you saying there is red mist in that pollution zone?”
Su Tang’s expression was incredibly serious, and Yasuo nodded.
“What’s wrong? By the look of it, do you know what that stuff is?”
Su Tang looked at An Se, who proceeded to explain the matter regarding the red mist.
“If that’s the case, we should speed up the investigation and find the cause of the red mist as soon as possible. If this mist is allowed to continue developing, the situation will become uncontrollable.”
An Se nodded and used his bracelet to pull up the White Tower’s newly updated regional map. His fingertips slid quickly across the screen, marking the locations of the four new pollution zones.
The red markings looked like three malignant tumors, standing out painfully against the safe green areas.
“Look here. These four areas are distributed in a perfect square. The area they surround happens to be the essential route for the White Tower’s resource circulation.”
Mo Xiao enlarged the map, his eyes sharp.
“The White Tower map is updated every two days. I remember seeing it the day before yesterday, and the range wasn’t this large. At this rate of expansion, the transport lines will be completely cut off within a week.”
Yasuo pursed his lips.
“I just came from their office. I expect they’ll call us for a meeting later to discuss these pollution zones. Regardless, dealing with these things is now set in stone.”
The scope of these pollution zones was incredibly broad. If they were going to clean them out, the scale of the operation would be massive.
An Se glanced at Su Tang thoughtfully and displayed his latest research.
“Inspired by Su Tang’s last purification for Zhan Ye, I’ve improved a type of barrier specifically designed to counter that red mist. Although we haven’t yet developed a way to completely decompose it, this barrier can stop its expansion. I’m having my subordinates speed up production now so we can be prepared before the operation begins.”
Just as An Se finished speaking, a sharp alarm rang out from the room’s communicator.
Mo Xiao walked over quickly to answer. As time passed, the gravity of his expression increased.
It was clearly bad news.
Su Tang sat to the side, waiting for Mo Xiao to finish. He hung up and turned to the group.
“Emergency notice from the White Tower. The aviation crew just sent back news. By extending the path Yasuo and his team scouted, they discovered a larger core area within the perimeter of the four pollution zones.”
“A core area?”
Yasuo sat up straight, ignoring the pain in his wound.
“What’s the situation?”
He had guessed there might be something else there, but on what basis had the White Tower designated it as a core area?
“According to the crew, it’s entirely filled with red mist.”
Mo Xiao’s voice was cold. “Preliminary tests on samples collected show the concentration of red mist there is ten times that of the other pollution zones. Furthermore, a stable energy field has formed there. It seems to be pumping energy into the four new zones, acting as the source of all the pollution.”
Su Tang’s heart sank. She instinctively touched the crystal necklace at her throat; the cool touch helped her calm down slightly.
“So, the four newest pollution zones all spread out from this core area?”
“Highly likely.”
An Se quickly pulled up the aerial photos sent back by the crew. The screen showed a patch of piercing scarlet, as eerie as an unhealed, bleeding wound.
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