Hunter of Mysterious Creature

"Hey, that actually makes a lot of sense." The fisherman nodded vigorously. "Otherwise, we wouldn't have come this far without seeing a single person or corpse."

After dealing with Shino, the three continued through two more blocks by following the red lights until a rock wall appeared in their view.

Unlike the first floor, the second underground level of the Nameless Island Research Institute was not a network of tunnels and caves but a gigantic, hollowed-out underground space. A thirty-meter-thick rock wall divided this massive space into two areas: the "living zone" and the "working zone."

Through a passage carved in the rock wall, one could reach the laboratory area.

At the end of the passage, a three-meter diameter metal airtight door was embedded in the rock wall. The door was solid and thick, with a rough casting texture on its surface. Cross-shaped strengthening ribs ran horizontally and vertically across the front of the airtight door... Yet, somewhat helplessly, the fisherman walked around the door and found no valve to open it.

"How do we open this door?" The fisherman scratched his head. "Or can it only be opened from the other side?"

"The opening and closing of the airtight door are controlled by mechanical structures embedded inside the rock wall, which extend all the way into the research institute's security center," Shino said. "As for the security center, it is indeed on the other side of the rock wall."

"Doesn't that mean we can only break the door open by force?" the fisherman said.

"...This airtight door, if I remember correctly, is already two meters thick," Shino sighed. "And it's made of extremely hard tungsten alloy, not the common steel alloy... Haven't you noticed that after all these years, it hasn't rusted at all?"

"Sun Hang, isn't your ability to manipulate metal?" The fisherman suddenly slapped his forehead. "You should be able to find a way to open the door, right?"

"I'll give it a try." Sun Hang stepped forward and placed his palm on the heavy airtight door.

A few seconds later, he retreated with a serious expression.

"What's wrong? It didn't work?" the fisherman asked, a bit disappointed.

"No." Sun Hang shook his head. "There's something big behind the door. I'm not sure if it will come out once I open it, so you guys better get ready first."

"Oh? Something big? How big?" The fisherman shivered and instinctively drew the short knife from his waist.

"I'm not sure. In terms of aura intensity, it's much stronger than the Shino just now," Sun Hang said.

Sun Hang was puzzled. They were guided to this door by the red lights. If the entity controlling the red lights wanted to see them, there should be no reason to block their passage here.

According to the design blueprint of the Nameless Island Research Institute, there were a total of five passages through the rock wall like this one... Could it be that even stronger entities lurked in the other four passages?

"I wonder where those Angsa people went," the fisherman suddenly said.

In the gloomy Hunter's subjective view, his companions were no match for Shino, and logically, they should have all died under Shino's tentacles. However, Sun Hang and the others only found one Angsa Hunter and two Indian Hunters' corpses near the elevator, which meant some Hunters managed to escape Shino's territory alive.

But the route guided by the red lights did not align with the escape traces left by the Hunters. The fisherman had asked Sun Hang whether to follow the red lights or continue trailing the Angsa Hunters, and after considerable thought, Sun Hang had chosen the former.

"Did those Angsa Hunters flee blindly, notwithstanding the messages on the two slips of paper?" Sun Hang felt not a trace of malice from them; in fact, there was an inexplicable sense of familiarity...

The ambiguous tone was more akin to that of lovers... no, accurately, it was more like a family member's confession...

Sun Hang shuddered suddenly, as he recalled what that strange familiarity he felt earlier was!

It was a feeling of shared ancestry!

The thing that tainted Shino and the memetic infection that turned Sun Hang into an infected... they had the same origin.

Sun Hang's breathing became slightly more rapid.

His infection was undoubtedly not an accidental event!

And what he was first infected with wasn't the meme of Taotie!

Separated by thousands of kilometers between the Nameless Island and Dubhe Tower, it was that thing that had spanned the distance to find him... or had he been infected on the Nameless Island before crossing thousands of kilometers to reach Dubhe Tower?

Sun Hang fell into deep thought.

What kind of person was he in the past—a hapless fool with rotten luck? Or an escapee experiment subject from some research institute?

However, if he was an experiment subject, then Dubhe Tower should have a file on him.

No matter how his ability could alter his appearance, if the frequency of the meme was fixed, Dubhe Tower shouldn't be unable to detect his true identity.

A bold idea suddenly popped into Sun Hang's mind.

"Am I really human?"

But in the next instant, that thought bizarrely vanished from his mind, as if erased by an invisible rubber.

"Sun Hang, you decide." The fisherman's voice came from the side. "Do we open this door or choose another passage?"

"Huh?" Sun Hang woke up with a start, looking somewhat blankly at the airtight door right in front of him.

"What's wrong with you? You seemed...distracted?" Shino asked with some concern. "Are you alright?"

"No, I'm fine." Sun Hang waved his hand. "I seemed to have remembered something just now..."

"Something? What was it?"

"I wish I knew...they flashed through my mind, but I have no recollection now," Sun Hang frowned. "It was just a few seconds ago, yet I can't remember a thing."

"Is it related to the entity behind the door?" the fisherman asked, curious.

"It shouldn't be."

"Then don't worry about it for now. The current situation is more important," the fisherman said.

"Yeah." Sun Hang nodded, taking a deep breath. "I'm going to open the door now. You all be ready."

"OK!" The fisherman stepped back two steps, holding the short knife in one hand and placing the large-caliber hunting pistol on the wrist holding the knife with the other.

Shino raised the submachine gun Huangfu Sha left behind and set the shooting mode to fully automatic.

Sun Hang moved to the side of the airtight door, placing his palm against the protruding edge of the rock wall.

As a teeth-gritting sound of gear meshing echoed, the rock wall slightly shook, and a fine shower of dust rained down.

The heavy airtight door began to turn.