Hunter of Mysterious Creature

"The intelligence of the Siberian Federation... Fisherman, you're a Siberian, aren't you?" Sun Hang glanced at the fisherman beside him.

"Why are you looking at me? I don't know anything," the fisherman said helplessly, "When the Siberian Federation fell, my grandfather wasn't even born... To be honest, my Russian isn't as fluent as my Northeastern dialect."

The current Siberian Autonomous Region is just a small piece of land in the Far East region that was originally part of the vast Siberian Federation, occupying only about one-twentieth of the entire federation's territory.

And the capital of the Siberian Federation, St. Petersburg, fell over a hundred years ago under one wave after another of bizarre creature attacks, like a tidal wave.

The Far East region survived solely due to its immense strategic depth, forcibly halting the eastward invasion of the bizarre creatures.

"But how did these Angsa people get the intelligence?" Shino frowned, "St. Petersburg has long been a forbidden zone for humans, and in the past century, humans have never ventured into the region west of Lake Baikal... It's really strange..."

Lake Baikal, mentioned by Shino, is a large freshwater lake located in the southern part of the East and West Siberian Plain, also known as the North Sea. It was once a part of the Golden Age of Tang's territory but was later occupied by the Siberian Federation's predecessor—Tsarist Russia Empire—and became their land.

Lake Baikal is the world's deepest lake, formed by tectonic rift collapse, with its deepest point reaching 1,600 meters. When the Siberian Federation fell, the remnants of the Siberian Federation's army and the reinforcements from the Xiazhou Federation fought desperately in the Lake Baikal Region to repel the pursuing bizarre creatures, paying a heavy price.

Since then, Lake Baikal has become the northwestern border of the Xiazhou Federation.

A city composed mainly of refugees and former soldiers of the Siberian Federation gradually emerged on the tundra east of Lake Baikal. This entire land, including this "Lake Baikal City" and extending all the way to the Okhotsk Sea in the east, is today's "Siberian Autonomous Region" division.

That is to say, although the "Siberian Autonomous Region" is considered a frontier city-state of the Xiazhou Federation, only the area around Lake Baikal City is truly a border area. Other places, including the coastal area where the fisherman lives, aren't much different from the stable Central Plains Region.

"If we have a chance to capture one alive, we should question them." The fisherman said, "In my impression, these Angsa people are cowards who bully the weak and fear the strong. When the time comes, with a little persuasion, they'll definitely spill all they know."

As for when Dubhe Tower comes to investigate afterward, it should be the responsibility of those Angsa Hunters, not theirs.

"This approach is indeed feasible." Sun Hang nodded, "The real problem is... there may not be any alive left."

"Uh..." The fisherman was stunned, and his voice suddenly became softer, "These Angsa people... shouldn't be that easy to be wiped out, right?"

"That's hard to say." Shino shook his head and glanced at the half-body "stuck" in the wall, "Looking at this guy's frantic escape, they clearly ran into big trouble down there."

"Hiss... should we still go down?" The fisherman shrank his neck.

"Yes." Sun Hang said without hesitation, "If you're concerned, you can return to the surface."

"Not necessary." The fisherman shook his head, "I don't want to be a coward. Since you've decided to go down, I'll go down with you! On the other hand, Shino, you're not technically a combatant. Maybe you shouldn't go."

"I still want to go take a look." Shino said, "Those archives left over from back then."

As a researcher at Dubhe Tower, those things attract Shino as much as a starving ghost seeing a sizzling steak or a lecher seeing a stunning beauty in the nude, especially when he's just one step away from the truth. Now, to give up, he wouldn't agree no matter what.

Shino's mind was made up. He had brushed with death numerous times along the way; since he managed to get here, perhaps it was the will of the gods—don't think scientists aren't superstitious. The deeper their research into the bizarre, the more they believe in the existence of deities.

When something cannot be explained from a scientific level, many scholars either drive themselves insane or turn to embrace theology.

The files in those underground archives, even if it costs his life, Shino thinks it's worth seeing even just once.

He suddenly remembered an ancient saying from Xiazhou.

"To know the truth in the morning, one can die content in the evening."

...

The three of them continued along the tracks, and as they approached the central area, the space around the tracks became increasingly spacious, with various infrastructures becoming more complete—where they were now seemed less like a subway tunnel and more like an underground commercial street with a light rail, or even an underground town.

"Wow, incredible," the fisherman said as he walked, glancing around, "Though it can't compare to Chunming City, it's still hard to imagine how such an underground world was built with the engineering technology and productivity of over a hundred years ago..."

"With the strength of the two strongest countries in the human world, this is no difficult task," Shino said, "If you ever have the chance to go to Chang'an, you can visit the Mausoleum of the First Qin Emperor, now that is truly shocking."

"I'll go if I get the chance." The fisherman nodded, "Speaking of which, what are these uniformly white-painted houses for? I feel like they aren't for people to live in, there's not even a window... Even though it's underground, a house with no windows would suffocate anyone, don't you think?"

"This entire block is an experimental zone," Shino said, "You can also call it a drill zone."

"Drill zone?" Sun Hang asked curiously, "Is this a training ground?"

"That's not an inaccurate understanding," Shino nodded, "If I remember correctly, this area should be section F on the first basement level, which has four drill zones, A, B, C, and D, corresponding to the desert, forest, icefield, and city terrains respectively. What we're seeing now is D zone, representing the city terrain."

Sun Hang remembered clearly that the underground area of the Nameless Island Research Institute was more than twice the diameter of the surface building complex, and its furthest edges had already extended beyond the basin—the ruin on the surface really only counted as the tip of the iceberg.