Catastrophe Containment Facility
Chapter 693 - 683: Mist Attack

Chapter 693: Chapter 683: Mist Attack

Half an hour earlier, near the hotel where superpower users from the various regions were being accommodated.

Stein, wearing a brown coat, sneaked into a residence and, without hesitation, used a silenced pistol to kill the entire household.

He then went to the cellar and, wielding a sledgehammer, smashed a wall to reveal an ancient tunnel behind it.

The tunnel was covered in cobwebs, and the floor was piled with a thick layer of dust, indicating that it had been at least a hundred years since anyone had set foot in it.

Stein cautiously made his way to the end of the tunnel and saw a large metal door carved with patterns of eyes and tentacles.

At the bottom of the door, there was a stone slab with a nine-square grid, eight of which were movable tiles, and the last was empty.

Stein spread out his palm, where he also had a small cube that appeared to be the missing piece from the puzzle.

It seemed that the eight movable tiles constituted a puzzle, and the piece Stein held was the key. By arranging the tiles correctly and inserting the piece in his hand, he would be able to take out whatever was behind the door.

The cube in Stein’s hand was provided by Bai Du, who had also explained to him how to solve the puzzle.

However, Stein was puzzled as to why Bai Du did not come to open the door himself despite the lack of danger along the way, instead sending Stein to do it.

Although Stein had signed a contract with Bai Du that guaranteed no harm would come to him here and that Bai Du would immediately reveal the method to evade the Hound upon completion of the task,

Stein still felt a vague sense of unease. Therefore, Stein’s body slightly wavered as he adjusted his timeline, propelling himself five minutes into the future.

This way, should there be any complications, he could promptly return to five minutes earlier to avoid any risks.

With a ready solution at hand, the puzzle was not difficult; Stein easily assembled it and then carefully placed the piece from his hand into the solitary gap.

After the tile was placed, the square stone slab began to rotate, and subsequently, the entire iron door with the eyes operation like a complex piece of machinery at high speed.

Following a somewhat sci-fi sequence of events, the massive iron door finally opened, and Stein glimpsed what was inside.

The iron door was exceptionally thick, over a meter wide, made of a special metal that most superpower users could scarcely budge. The space behind the door was not large, merely a small room two meters in height with both length and width measuring only a meter.

The only contents of the space were a distorted skeleton and a small iron box.

The inner side of the door was covered in scratch marks; it seemed the skeleton had been alive and trapped within this confined space.

In such a cramped space where one could not even lie down, death came as if one had been buried alive.

No matter the fate of the skeleton, it bore no relation to Stein; all he had to ensure was that he did not meet the same end.

To avoid being caught by the Hound, Stein could, with a smile on his face, consign others to such a confined space.

The small box inscribed with complex inscriptions was Stein’s objective. Judging from the patterns and inscriptions, the artifact seemed to be related to fog.

When Stein took the box into his hands, he realized that no matter what he did, he could not open it. And, whether it was an illusion or not, the fog around him seemed to thicken.

Bai Du had only asked Stein to retrieve the box, not to hand it over to him, so Stein considered his mission accomplished at this point.

Then, Stein scattered a handful of sand on the ground and, closing his eyes, silently uttered a somewhat tongue-twisting name, which, according to Bai Du, was the means of contacting him.

After reciting the name, Stein explained the origins of the matter once more, and the sand changed its shape, revealing a line of characters.

Upon seeing those characters, Stein’s face turned dark.

The characters described a method to escape the pursuit of the Hound, but that method was for him to become a captive to someone else willingly!

He desperately wished he could find Bai Du right then and let him get a taste of the Hound.

However... if that was the only way to escape the pursuit of the Hound, Stein wouldn’t mind giving it a try.

...

The devastation of the streets weighed heavily on Wen Wen’s heart.

He had thought that Bai Du, upon seeing several True-order Masters arrive, would wisely choose to flee upon realizing the fight was unwinnable; he never anticipated Bai Du would boldly initiate combat, leading to this horrific catastrophe.

Wen Wen heaved several long sighs, leapt up, and moved to the edge of the ruins where a small pharmacy lay, with the True-order Masters gathered there.

As soon as he entered, Wen Wen saw the ash-covered faces of the True-order Masters.

Xun Qing’s arms were both bandaged, Kikujuro was lying face down on the ground with his back a gore-streaked mess, George’s shield was riddled with cracks, Chaikov was missing several teeth, and the True-order Master from the Aifei Region had simply turned into a mummy.

The seven of them had ganged up on Bai Du, and this was the outcome they ended up with; the physical injuries didn’t matter much to them, but the psychological damage they’d sustained was far greater than any physical pain.

The true visages of seven True-order Masters, which would be extravagantly powerful anywhere, and who could walk side by side in any place of the Federation, had unexpectedly met a pervert capable of taking on seven at once.

But Bai Du hadn’t had it easy either; his injuries were much more severe than those of Xun Qing and the others, and it would take quite some time before he could emerge to wreak havoc again.

After all, the seven of them had come prepared, whereas Bai Du had no advance knowledge of the ambush. More than ten Cataclysmic Traits possessed by the True-order Masters, each capable of inflicting serious unexpected harm on Bai Du.

If Bai Du hadn’t been so formidable, he would’ve been definitely left behind here.

Upon entering the ward, Wen Wen was bombarded with questions from Xun Qing and the others, after all, the intelligence about Bai Du had been discovered by Wen Wen.

But Wen Wen insisted that he had merely stumbled upon Bai Du by chance and then was scared off by him, carefully avoiding any mention of the negotiation between himself and Bai Du.

Fortunately, Wen Wen had previously offered intelligence about Illiyat, so his account did not arouse suspicion; even they couldn’t believe that a pervert like Bai Du could exist below Catastrophe Level.

They had only exchanged a few words when George frowned, pushed the pharmacy door open, and stepped outside, then beckoned to the people inside.

"Come out and take a look, something seems off."

The moment Wen Wen stepped outside, he noticed the anomaly; the fog seemed to be much thicker than before.

Although Nim City was always enshrouded in fog, the density of the fog was stable at different times; now should be when the fog was at its thinnest in the day, so why did it look much thicker than even at dawn?

This fog was clearly abnormal, but no one could sense traces of Supernatural Power within it.

Not being able to sense it didn’t mean it was a good thing, it meant that the source of this fog was even more secret than they had imagined.