Chapter 1333 The Terrifying Spore Cloud
Hissing... hissing...
An extremely subtle, dense sound suddenly came from above, landing on their helmets, the epaulets of their combat coats, and the fabric of their clothes.
It sounds like... an endless stream of extremely fine grains of sand or salt are falling from the sky.
Wang Tiezhu and Li Xiaohai simultaneously felt a cool sensation on their faces, followed by a slight, extremely unsettling itching sensation on their exposed necks, the backs of their hands, and other areas.
The sensation was faint at first, but quickly became clear and intense, as if countless invisible needles were gently pricking at it at the same time, or as if something extremely tiny was trying to burrow into the pores of the skin!
"Holy crap! Hail protection!! Quick!!"
The instincts and discipline honed over nearly two years of post-apocalyptic survival erupted at this moment!
Wang Tiezhu roared, and almost the instant he felt the itch, his right hand flashed to his tactical waist pack, pulled out the gas mask, and completed the donning and airtightness check in less than four seconds!
Li Xiaohai's movements were equally swift!
The risk of direct inhalation was eliminated, but the chill in their hearts instantly plummeted to freezing point!
The rustling sound didn't stop; instead, it became even more intense!
Countless tiny, dark particles, almost invisible to the naked eye, poured down from the churning "clouds" like a living dust storm, enveloping the entire watchtower and the surrounding area!
The two frantically tried to remove their tactical backpacks and take out their lightweight chemical protective suits.
But it was too late.
Wang Tiezhu first felt that the itching sensation on his face and neck was rapidly turning into a burning sensation, followed by a strange...numbness.
He was horrified to see that tiny, dark red spots, no bigger than pinheads, were appearing on the back of Li Xiaohai's bare hand at a speed visible to the naked eye. Those spots seemed to be alive, wriggling and expanding slightly!
"Ah—!" Li Xiaohai let out a short, painful gasp.
Wang Tiezhu looked down at his hands and saw the same chilling spots.
He tried to move, but found that his fingers were becoming stiff and unresponsive.
A strange, cold, tingling sensation is penetrating deep into the muscles along the skin.
"Brother Tie... Brother Tiezhu... I'm so itchy... There seems to be something moving inside..."
Li Xiaohai's voice was choked with sobs and uncontrollable fear. He tried to scratch his neck in vain, but his movements became clumsy and powerless.
Wang Tiezhu wanted to answer and comfort his comrade, but he found his throat tightening and his breathing becoming difficult.
At the edge of my field of vision, I saw flickering, ominous dark spots of light.
He could clearly feel something frantically burrowing into and taking root inside his body, through his pores, or even his mucous membranes.
That's not a simple infection or poisoning, but a kind of... parasitism.
A cold, greedy, and malicious life form is growing wildly, using their flesh and blood as a breeding ground.
The "wriggling" sensation under the skin became more and more obvious. The dark red spots quickly merged into one, the color deepened, turning into a purplish-brown, and began to bulge, forming small and disgusting granular protrusions.
Li Xiaohai was already unsteady on his feet and slid down against the railing of the watchtower. His eyes were wide open in terror, and fine, spiderweb-like dark red blood vessels began to creep up the whites of his eyes, while his pupils were dilating.
Wang Tiezhu struggled, using his last bit of strength to try to press the alarm, but his arm felt as heavy as lead.
He felt his consciousness being enveloped and dragged by a cold, viscous darkness.
The rustling sound in my ears seemed to transform into countless tiny, greedy whispers.
In the moments before he completely lost consciousness, the last thing he saw in his blurred vision was the extreme fear and pain remaining on Li Xiaohai's face, which was covered with strange protrusions and was no longer human, as well as his own stiff arm, covered with dark brown particles, which was also undergoing a terrible transformation and could not reach the alarm button.
On the watchtower, the sickening, minute sounds of flesh deformity and mucus secretion replaced the brief screams, mingling with the incessant rustling of spores falling.
Woo-woo-woo-woo!!!
The piercing alarm suddenly blared across the empty wilderness. It didn't build up gradually, but rather burst forth abruptly from the direction of Watchtower No. 2, like a lit fuse, instantly detonating the entire defense zone!
The sharp, urgent, and extremely penetrating electronic alarms rushed from one sentry post to another, creating a terrifying symphony of death in just a dozen seconds!
The dormant reconnaissance battalion's defense zone was completely torn apart.
At the same time, all the pre-installed red rotating alarm lights on the roof of the main battalion building, the outer walls of the dormitories of each company and platoon, the entrance to the garage, and even the key nodes of the outer fortifications were activated!
The blinding red light flashed and spun wildly, splashing a thick, flowing, ominous color, like real blood, onto the rough concrete floor, the gray walls, the cold barbed wire, and even the soldiers' faces, which were blank and quickly replaced by fear when they were startled awake from their sleep!
“Enemy attack—!!!”
"All personnel on Level 1 combat readiness!!!"
"All personnel, fully equipped with full-body chemical protective gear!!!!"
...
The orders broadcast over the camp's loudspeaker instantly drowned out the initial chaos, but also instilled a deeper sense of panic within it.
In the battalion headquarters duty room, less than thirty seconds ago there was only the static of the radio and the occasional whispers of the duty officer, but now it was like a boiling pot!
"Tower 2! Tower 2 has lost contact! Last communication was 'Unidentified floating object attack'!"
"Tower 3 reporting! A large unidentified cloud-like object has appeared in the western sky! It is rapidly covering the airspace above the camp!"
"Visual confirmation at Tower 1! Something is...falling! Like dust, but something's wrong! Lots! Very dense!"
"Emergency call from forward outpost 7! Sentry has severe skin abnormalities! Requesting medical assistance! Repeat, requesting medical assistance! They...they're melting?!"
...
The calls coming from the radio grew more urgent and terrifying with each passing moment. The duty officer, his face ashen, roared into the microphone, "Attack confirmed! Is it a biological agent? Or a mutated biological attack? Was there any accompanying ground impact?!"
"Unable to confirm! Unable to confirm! The clouds are descending! The falling debris is slightly corrosive, and it causes a strong burning and numbing sensation upon contact with skin! Ah—!"
A short scream came from a sentry post's channel, followed by a chilling sound of flowing liquid and something tearing apart, before the communication abruptly ended.
"Get the medical platoon! Chemical defense unit! Quickly! Order all exposed personnel to immediately put on full protective gear! Hurry!" The deputy battalion commander on duty had bloodshot eyes and slammed his fist on the table, making the map cup jump.
Meanwhile, in a private room in the corner of the corridor, Gu Chengyun almost reflexively sat up from his bed the moment he heard the alarm blare.
My heart rate spiked to 180 beats per minute the instant the alarm went off, and all the blood in my body seemed to rush to my head and then quickly cool into ice.
The blinding red light flashed and shone wildly through the cracks in the door and the gaps in the curtains, cutting and flickering wildly in his room. The family photo slipped from his fingers as he suddenly sat up and fell silently onto the cold floor.
Without the slightest hesitation, relying on the muscle memory he had developed during his military academy training, he quickly put on his training uniform and combat boots, grabbed the ammunition pouch next to his pillow and hung it on his body with astonishing speed.
"Instructor! Instructor!" Clerk Liu's scream and the knocking on the door arrived almost simultaneously.
Gu Chengyun flung open the door, and the piercing alarm and the frantically flashing red lights in the corridor crashed in as if they were real. Xiao Liu's young face was distorted and deformed under the red light.
"What's going on?! Explain yourself!" Gu Chengyun's voice was hoarse but unusually stern, instantly overshadowing the clerk's panic.
As he quickly shoved the pistol into its holster, his eyes, peering through the window at the end of the corridor, caught sight of the chilling scene outside:
The western night sky, which should have been dotted with dim starlight, was now covered by a huge, dark, seemingly living "curtain" that was surging and swallowing the sky at a visible speed, pressing down on the camp!
Countless tiny specks of "dust," eerily reflective in the red alarm light, poured down from the curtain, dense and silent, yet more chilling than any hail of bullets.
"Spores! It's a spore cloud! Coming from the direction of Jinling City!" Xiao Liu's voice was panicked and somewhat incoherent:
"Tower 2, Tower 3... all signals are gone! Frontline outposts report that the person who came into contact with that gray guy has skin... his skin is starting to rot and grow growths! Battalion Commander Gao has already gone to the command room! He told me to call you, quick! That cloud, that cloud is coming down!"
"Where's the chemical defense order?!" Gu Chengyun shouted sharply, his feet already moving, his bare feet treading on the cold, rough cement ground as he sprinted toward the battalion command post.
The cold ground stimulated his feet, but it also made his mind, which was still a little groggy from being startled awake, even clearer.
"It's down! It's down! But... but the people on the outside can't keep up! We've lost contact!" Xiao Liu ran after them, his voice ripped apart by the alarm.
