Chapter 72 66: Endless Darkness

There was nothing.This was completely beyond Xu Xiaoyou's expectations.

She originally thought that within the heavy Alchemy Armor, there should at least be a body of flesh and blood, even if it looked terrifying, she was mentally prepared even if it was full of eyeballs.

But there was nothing inside, absolutely nothing. What on earth was supporting the operation of this set of Alchemy Armor?

And what was making it produce sounds and think?

Ghosts?

The strange feeling arose as she thought about how she had been grappling with armor akin to a ghost.

Xu Xiaoyou tried to lift its heavy body, but just as she managed to lift it off the ground, the entire Alchemy Armor collapsed like a sandcastle, scattering to the ground with components falling everywhere.

Holding an arm several times larger than her head, she watched as bright red liquid continuously flowed out from its seams, leaving Xu Xiaoyou a bit perplexed.

She thought of something and suddenly asked:

"Anya, when your claw pierced its neck just now, did you feel anything substantial?"

The moment she asked the question, Xu Xiaoyou realized she had asked a foolish question.

Other than conditioned reflexes and commands like launching attacks, Anya probably wouldn't understand what she was saying.

Just as she was thinking that, Anya tugged at her clothes and slightly opened her mouth:

"Yes, Xiaoyou… yes."

Xu Xiaoyou was stunned.

Did she just hear that correctly?

But she quickly realized it was the effect of the Language Artist; she could translate and communicate across all languages, and it apparently included animal languages as well.

Does this mean she could communicate with other animals in the future?

Like birds, hamsters, and the like.

Being favored by small animals is definitely a plus.

"Anya, I felt it, its body." Anya said.

"There is someone inside it."

Listening to Anya's stumbling organizational attempt, Xu Xiaoyou was pensive.

She gazed at the pools of blood filling every alleyway, submerging her calves, recalling everything from before.

If that's the case, could it be that after these Dissectors die, their bodies dissolve?

Was Alley No. 5 the bizarre entity itself, and these Dissectors merely the derivatives inside it, like regenerating organs?

Xu Xiaoyou suddenly came up with a frightening hypothesis.

Doesn't this mean that these Dissectors can't be killed at all?

Even if killed, their bodies would dissolve into blood and flow with the red tide, regenerating flesh in some corner.

If that's the situation, then forget about a dozen Cleaners from Qingfeng Office, even if Cosmic Heavy Industries' armed forces came to suppress them, they likely couldn't cleanse these eerie creatures.

The more she thought, the more horrifying it became.

Xu Xiaoyou stood up, and just as she planned to leave, her gaze swept across the Alchemy Armor scattered on the ground.

Soon, looking at several travel bags filled to the brim, Anya's mouth twitched.

The phrase "man dies for wealth" manifested perfectly in Xu Xiaoyou.

Xu Xiaoyou laboriously wiped the sweat off her forehead and waved her hand, and all the travel bags in front turned into light, becoming cards that flew back into her hand.

As soon as she touched the cards, the girl nearly stumbled and fell.

"So heavy…"

Although turning them into cards reduced a lot of weight for easy carrying, that set of Alchemy Armor still weighed over a hundred pounds when tucked into the cards, something she couldn't handle at all.

She glanced at Anya.

"Anya, Xiaoyou is annoying…" the little girl muttered.

Xu Xiaoyou looked around as she walked down the street.

The huge city was still deserted, the once bustling commercial street now reduced to deadly silence, the advertisements on the large projection screens flickering, and the girl's footsteps echoed.

It had been nearly twenty minutes since she entered Alley No. 5, still not seeing its edge, and she had encountered just a few scattered Dissectors.

She didn't intend to keep battling those wandering Dissectors, often taking a detour whenever she spotted them.

Her clothes were covered in thick red liquid, squelching with every step, making it unbearably uncomfortable. Xu Xiaoyou just wanted to leave this place quickly and head home for a proper bath.

Staring at the blood-red crescent moon in the sky, Xu Xiaoyou felt a little lost.

It had been twenty minutes since the descent of Alley No. 5. Even in Zone Nine, under government jurisdiction, there were no City Guard Hall members maintaining order. Nearly half of Zone Nine had been engulfed in it. In the history of Corrupt Nest City, such disastrous events had rarely occurred, and the government shouldn't ignore the lives of nearly ten thousand people.

This scandal simply could not be concealed; although the current mayor was a puppet propped up by Cosmic Heavy Industries, he wouldn't be foolish enough to ignore a Nest City phenomenon of such scale, unless he was prepared to be swallowed by public outrage and bombarded by societal clamor.

Not to mention the residents of Corrupt Nest City, even the Cleaner Association would demand accountability.

Xu Xiaoyou raised her head and looked into the distance, finding only void, as if the city's outskirts had been entirely devoured and shrouded in a pitch-black fog, the sky in a blood-red chaos.

Outside, there wasn't a single sound, as if a wall had separated it into two worlds.

Moreover, all this was exceedingly bizarre.

The more she thought about her previous experiences, the more something seemed off.

From the arrival of Alley No. 5 to when she entered, it only took two minutes,

A district housing nearly ten thousand people had turned into a dead zone in just two minutes?

Within just two minutes, those Dissectors managed to knock on every door and clear out all the residents in the area?

That was over ten thousand people!

While pondering, Xu Xiaoyou was suddenly pulled into an alleyway, with her mouth covered and pressed into the corner. Before she could speak, the figure gestured to hush.

"Shh, shh, shh, quieter, if they find us, we're done for."

A dozen wandering Dissectors emerged from the distant street corner, seemingly sensing something, with sounds of heavy breathing resonating from under their metal masks, their scarlet eyes searching the surroundings.

Her eyes gradually adjusted to the dark, and when she looked intently, there was a woman.

The woman's face was layered with dust, her hair matted, clothes drenched in blood, harboring a chasm of a wound on her waist and abdomen, tightly bandaged.

Xu Xiaoyou subtly nodded.

"Have that little one take her claws off my neck first." The woman said.

"Anya."

Xu Xiaoyou whispered a reminder, and Anya withdrew her claws, still eyeing the woman warily.

Once the Dissectors had left, the woman breathed a sigh of relief as if a burden had been lifted:

"Why are you running around the city, are you crazy?"

"Don't you know how dangerous those things are?"

"Getting caught by them means certain death."

"Is that your sister next to you?"

"I'm an adult." Xu Xiaoyou murmured. "Not a child."

The woman seemed not to have heard her, muttering neurotically to herself.

"Gone far away..."

"They finally went far away."

"But what's the difference between being alive and being dead?"

"We've all been abandoned, everyone's going to die."

Her dark eyes were overshadowed by a gray despair as she trembled, speaking so softly only she could hear:

"It's been a month already..."

"Why hasn't anyone come to rescue us?"