Hunter of Mysterious Creature

"The other thing you mentioned, could it be the 'Protective Talisman' those Angsa hunters carry?" Shino's eyes lit up as he asked.

"That's right." Sun Hang rummaged through the dead man's pockets and retrieved two sealed plastic bags.

Inside the plastic bags were a blood-stained severed finger and a slightly dehydrated, shriveled eyeball.

Within these two items, there was a very faint memetic fluctuation that showed no signs of dispersing.

This should be the manifestation of the "memetic activation" and "memetic solidification" abilities mentioned by that gloomy man. According to Sun Hang's judgment, the meme within the severed finger and eyeball could remain uncontrollable for at least ten more hours.

If this ability is applied to an infected person, there's more than a 90% chance that the infected would turn into a ghastly corpse. However, if it's only applied to some dismembered body parts, the danger is almost negligible.

Even if the severed finger and eyeball turned into real deceitful objects, they would hardly pose any threat to the Hunters because of the memetic properties they carry.

Instead, they might become a piece of deceitful equipment with a "permanent curse shielding function."

However, that gloomy man's ability deterred Sun Hang a little — it seemed more like an auxiliary ability on the surface, but in the internal conflict among Mysterious Creature Hunters, it's an ability no hunter wants to face.

The cost to enhance power is the loss of control over the infection process. Even if one could kill him during his enhanced state, after breaking through the safe threshold of the infection process, the hunter affected by his ability would fall into the abyss of complete deceitful transformation... and for the current human civilization, this process is entirely irreversible.

In other words, the baseline of this guy's ability is a one-for-one... If he has some powerful means of self-protection, able to withstand the opponent's violent attack in a memetic activated state, then during a civil conflict, he would be terrifyingly powerful.

Especially since Sun Hang didn't know the method and medium through which he exerted his ability — assuming his ability can be remotely executed or activated at a timed interval, it would be even more abnormal.

He could totally release his ability secretly while the opponent wasn't paying attention, then escape long before the ability took effect... Under such circumstances, the negative effects brought about by the ability would be almost negligible.

Sun Hang had already made up his mind that should he encounter this person, he wouldn't waste any words and would have to take him down immediately.

"You're in luck, take them." Sun Hang tossed the two plastic bags to the fisherman and Shino.

"What about you?" Shino caught the plastic bags and asked.

"I told you, I have another way." Sun Hang said.

"Well... since fate has put these things in our hands, I feel like if we don't go down with you, it'd be a shame with such luck." The fisherman suddenly said, "I've changed my mind, I'll go with you to see what those Angsa people are up to."

"I'll go with you too." Shino said.

"What about her?" The fisherman looked at Huangfu Sha lying in the truck bed.

"Find an exit and send her to the surface." Shino said, "The surface is relatively safer now... Without plasma, we can't do much for her injuries. Rather than letting her face danger with us, it's better to leave her in a safe place."

"Makes sense." The fisherman nodded.

...

The three made their way along the track for another few hundred meters, and finally saw an exit leading to the surface — but it wasn't a normal entrance, rather a gap blown open by a falling shell.

As Yang Qi had said, under the fire cover of the destroyer, the surface parts of the research institute's ruins were almost leveled, and what they could see with their eyes couldn't find a building still intact. Flames and thick smoke spread among the rubble, a tall tower crane was cut in half, its large steel structure twisted like a pretzel, lying right in the middle of the street.

The fisherman found a wall that seemed relatively sturdy, placed Huangfu Sha at the corner of it, and slipped a distress beacon into her hand.

Each of them carried a few of these distress beacons, which could periodically send out a radio signal to help rescuers find victims buried in the rubble... Although this device was nearly useless on the Nameless Island, it was the only thing the fisherman could do for her.

"Let's go." The fisherman glanced at Huangfu Sha's face, which was pale with bloodstains, "Hopefully, you can pull through."

The three of them retraced their steps back underground.

"According to the structure diagram of the Nameless Island Research Institute and the plan for later expansion projects, this first subterranean level can only be considered a 'non-core area'," Shino said as they walked, "The real 'core' of the institute only begins at the second subterranean level. Apart from various laboratories, there is also the archive room storing loads of documents and files... those files are our trial targets."

"Do you think the Angsa hunters' target are these files, or something else?" The fisherman asked, turning his head, "Sun Hang also said that they're not here just for the trial to advance..."

"Hard to say, but I also tend to think they have ulterior motives." Shino said, "Sun Hang, what do you think?"

"I think... what they're looking for might be the culprit that caused the Nameless Island incident back then..." Sun Hang pondered for a moment and then spoke slowly.

"Culprit?!" Shino was first surprised, then slapped his thigh hard, "Yeah, why didn't I think of this earlier! If it were a deceitful object, it must possess extremely powerful force... those Angsa hunters might know about this deceitful object or know the way to contain it, which is why they participate in this trial... Using the guise of a trial, they can come to the Nameless Island so openly..."

"Hey, hey, aren't you overthinking this?" The fisherman glanced at the excited Shino with some helplessness, "If even your Dubhe Tower doesn't know about it, how could those Angsa people know?"

"That's hard to say, the Nameless Island Research Institute was established before Dubhe Tower, and the existing intelligence of Dubhe Tower is completely inherited from the Xiazhou Federation… Meanwhile, this research institute, including its projects, is a product of the cooperation between Xiazhou Federation and the Siberian Federation, which means, the part of the intelligence belonging to Siberian Federation is long lost to the annals of history following the downfall of the Siberian Federation."

Shino paused, then continued, "Perhaps, they coincidentally obtained that part of the intelligence."