Only Player

Chapter 189 Infection
"This thing..."

Zhou Yuan looked at the items on the stall and couldn't help but raise his eyebrows.

It was a thin arm belonging to a mushroom-headed monster, used for precision operations. Judging from the wound at the end, the arm was torn off from the body by brute force, and it could not have been more than three days.

There is a bruise on the inside of the arm, and the shape is basically the same as the mushroom-headed monster's palm. It can be concluded that the mushroom-headed monster tore it off itself.

The reason why the mushroom-headed monster committed self-mutilation was because its arm was infected with some evil energy that could not be detected by the naked eye.

Evil, cold, greedy...

Zhou Yuan could feel a malice as deep as the abyss from this evil energy.

Apart from him, even a superhuman like Xia seemed unable to sense the evil energy in it.

"Does this world also have supernatural powers? Could they be the culprit for the eternal night?"

Zhou Yuan pondered for a moment and decided to buy the stump.

This apocalyptic society has a monetary system, but the hunters seem to like bartering. Zhou Yuan decided to follow the local customs and took out a sharp alloy dagger and handed it to the boss, then pointed to the contaminated arm.

The boss took the alloy dagger and waved it a few times, then looked at it carefully and nodded with satisfaction. Then he wrapped the mushroom-headed monster's arm with a piece of rag and handed it to Zhou Yuan.

The moment of contact, item details pop up.

[Name: Infected Mushroom-Headed Monster Forearm]

[Note: This arm contains evil supernatural power and is not recommended for consumption.

It is unknown when it started, but a plague appeared among the mushroom-headed monsters living in the dark. The infected mushroom-headed monsters will die miserably in pain, and the only solution is to cut off the infected part immediately after infection.

If you want to find the source of the plague, you need to go to the dangerous dark forbidden land. 】

"Why did you buy this?" Xia asked curiously.

"Research." Zhou Yuan said, "I want to study the structure of the mushroom-head monster."

"You understand anatomy and biological structure? You are not a doctor, are you?" Xia's eyes suddenly lit up. Doctors are very popular wherever they go. Their status is comparable to that of hunters, or even higher than that of hunters.

After all, hunters also get hurt sometimes.

"I can only be considered to have some knowledge in this area."

"That's not bad. Even if you're half-baked, you can still make a living." Xia said, "Here, if you want to integrate into the family, you have to show your value. It can be knowledge, good looks, or strength, but you can't have nothing. Few families will support idlers."

"I understand." Zhou Yuan nodded to show that he understood that in the last days, resources are scarce in society, and only by demonstrating value can one gain recognition.

He then used his psychic powers on his boss and asked, "Where did you get this arm?"

"On a street in a dangerous area. That place is very remote and there are not many mushroom-headed monsters." The boss answered truthfully under the influence of psychic powers.

"Is there a map?" Zhou Yuan asked again.

The boss took out a folded map from his backpack, spread it out, and pointed to a location in the danger zone.

"This place is even deeper than where we went. How could you come back alive?" Xia said in surprise.

"I'm just lucky. No one else came back except me." The boss sighed.

Zhou Yuan took the opportunity to look at the map.

The map is divided into two major sections, separated by a narrow rift in the middle. The left side is a dangerous area where mutant creatures are rampant, and the right side is a human settlement, which is also a safe area.

The area of ​​the safety zone is very large, almost as large as the new Guangdong Province. The border is circled by green lines. Outside is an area circled by yellow lines, which is not within the safety zone and is somewhat dangerous.

Further out is an area circled by red lines. That is the farthest point the hunters have explored and it is extremely dangerous.

Outside the red area, there are still large unknown areas that have not yet been explored, and the terrain is roughly depicted on the map.

There is no land further away because no one has ever been that far away and people don’t even know whether there is land there.

The area of ​​the danger zone that has been explored so far is much smaller, only one-third the size of the safe zone.

From this we can see that two hundred years after the catastrophe, human exploration of the world was still in its infancy.

"You've walked so far, didn't you find any high-tech relics or books of ancient civilization?" Zhou Yuan asked.

"The disaster there was severe, and everything was destroyed by the catastrophe war and burned to ashes and debris. I only found a piece of newspaper scrap, and nothing else." The boss took out a transparent box from his backpack, which contained a piece of old newspaper scrap. However, the annoying thing was that this piece of newspaper scrap was a picture part, so nothing could be seen.

"Boss, there's no use for you to keep this thing, why not give it to me?" Zhou Yuan said with a smile.

"Then I'll give it to you." The boss had a good impression of Zhou Yuan and readily gave him the fragments and the box.

Zhou Yuan and Xia wandered around the market for a while but didn't find anything useful.

"I'm hungry, let's go eat." Xia rubbed her stomach. The journey of escape had consumed a lot of her energy.

"I don't have much appetite. I just want to rest."

"Then let's go to the hotel where we usually stay."

·
After checking into a room at the hotel, Zhou Yuan immediately closed the door and placed the arm of the mushroom-headed monster on the table for a detailed inspection.

"Such an evil energy, even more evil and cold than the Satan I encountered in the movie world before..."

Zhou Yuan felt it carefully and couldn't help but get goose bumps all over his body. It felt like he was peering into the abyss of nothingness.

He took out the Palu Ball and summoned Fang Qing, so that he could sense the negative energy and evil spirits more clearly.

Zhou Yuan briefly introduced the world view of this dungeon to Fang Qing, who stared at the broken arm with a deep frown, also feeling a strong discomfort. After a long while, he said:

"This energy gives me the feeling of a dark and damp parasite that will wantonly absorb the life force of the infected person. It is also very aggressive and will infect the person once it comes into contact with them. However, the energy on this arm has almost dissipated. As long as you don't eat it directly, there will be no danger.

Well... since superhumans were born after the catastrophe, other species must have evolved, but evolving this kind of ability... is really incredible."

"If you want to find out the source of this power, you have to go deep into the danger zone. For a shadow-type Beyonder like me, this is not a big problem..."

Zhou Yuan paused for a moment and said, "We'll set off after we gather some more intelligence."

Up to now, the system has not prompted to enter the next stage of the task, probably because the intelligence collected is not enough.

He then took out the transparent box containing the newspaper fragments, opened it carefully, and cast [Secondary Restoration Technique] on the newspaper fragments.

A moment later, a complete newspaper appeared on the table.

Zhou Yuan couldn't understand the words above, but the Eye of Identification could act as a translator.

[Daily newspaper on April 10365, 4.

The famous singer and the famous actor announced their marriage;
forest conservation policy implementation;

The Sky Garden project has officially started and is expected to be completed within two years;
Hyperion Technologies has made significant breakthroughs in the field of genetic modification, claiming that humans will gradually evolve into superhumans in the future;
...]

Zhou Yuan looked at the only picture in the entire newspaper, which was two half-human portraits that took up most of the newspaper, a man and a woman, obviously the celebrity couple mentioned in the news.

"The fact that gossip dominated the main pages shows that society was very stable at the time," Fang Qing analyzed.

"Indeed, so this also shows that the disaster happened without any signs."

Zhou Yuan said in a deep voice, "I learned from Xia and Qiao that it is now June 10571, 6, which is exactly the 23th year after the Cataclysm Era occurred.

The specific time of the catastrophe was April 10365, 4.

That was the day after the newspaper went on sale.”

"This..." Fang Qing was stunned.

The world was all good and sound one day, and all dancing and singing the next day, it was all destroyed. This is really...

"The only useful news in this newspaper is that Hyperion Corporation has made a major breakthrough in the field of genetic modification... It is very likely that superhumans like Xia and Qiao are the products of genetic modification, and those mutant monsters may also be the same."

Zhou Yuan thought of the previous [Night Grass], which could reproduce in large numbers in the dark without light. This was obviously a targeted genetic modification.

Plus the hibernation capsule produced by Hyperion Technologies that crashed a year ago...

A guess gradually formed in Zhou Yuan's mind: Perhaps Hyperion Technologies did not suffer much loss during the Cataclysm. They hid themselves and have been operating in secret, influencing the world.

If we find the hiding place of Hyperion Technologies, we may be able to solve all the mysteries.

(End of this chapter)