Chapter 1006 - 420: Source of the Anomaly_2

Chapter 1006: Chapter 420: Source of the Anomaly_2

He Yi opened the communicator after listening and said, "I’ll inform the surface exploration team right away; someone had previously visited Collette City during their investigation."

Wu Chang interrupted, "We don’t need to call too many people, just bring one exploration team member familiar with Collette City."

"You know how troublesome the Soul-Eater Dog is, there might be more problematic things there; more people would just be a burden."

He Yi nodded, activated the mecha, and flew towards the underground level.

Twenty minutes later, at the underground shelter exit, He Yi returned with a man whose hair was half-white and looked nearly 60 years old.

He Yi introduced, "This is Wu Zhuoqun, the longest-serving member of the surface exploration team. He started exploring the surface at the age of sixteen and ventured as far as 1000 kilometers away to underground shelter number 67. No one is more familiar with the surface conditions than him."

Wu Zhuoqun is nearly sixty but still robust; he is one of the best mecha pilots in the underground shelter and the captain of the surface exploration team. Even if He Yi goes to the surface with the team, he must follow his command.

Wu Chang, Erin, He Yi, along with Wu Zhuoqun, familiar with the surface, make up the four members heading to Collette City.

Technically, there are five people. He Yun, to ensure the underground shelter’s operation, didn’t join them physically but split part of her consciousness into a drone, accompanying the group in action.

After a brief preparation, He Yun opened the underground shelter’s exit, and the group left the underground shelter, heading towards Collette City.

Among them, He Yi and Wu Zhuoqun piloted the mechas, Wu Chang’s Peace Envoy was still being updated at Hymn Company, so he had to stand with Erin atop He Yi’s white mecha.

He Yi’s mecha is named "Tyrant", with a black-gold color scheme, the main area being black. Due to He Yi’s excellent driving performance, He Yun customized the mecha for him, appearing larger and more bloated than typical mechas.

Although it lacks agility, it compensates with faster linear speed, more power, and more fierce firepower.

With He Yi’s driving skills, on the underground shelter plane, he is unmatched; owning "Tyrant" makes him equivalent to a mecha battalion on his own.

Before owning Tyrant, facing the extreme believers attacking the underground shelter, He Yi could only choose to close the shelter, cutting off trade with other underground shelters.

After acquiring Tyrant, he single-handedly eradicated the group of extreme believers attacking the underground shelter to test the new mecha’s performance.

Moreover, he expressed dissatisfaction, stating the opponents were too weak; if their numbers were three or four times more, it might give him a chance to showcase Tyrant’s true prowess.

Such a disparity clearly shows Tyrant’s powerful performance.

To conserve energy, the two mechas traveled in terrestrial mode; the surface terrain was terrible, and it took them three hours to reach the outer layer of Collette City.

Using the administrator’s perspective from above the planet, Wu Chang couldn’t detect any anomalies in Collette City, but upon arriving in front of it, without entering, he could sense spatial abnormalities here.

Its existence seemed to wander in the plane, as if it was separated.

He signaled He Yi to be cautious, and the four slowly entered the city.

At this moment, the surface purification generators had stopped working, and the surface people hidden in the shelters emerged from the buildings.

Surface people are essentially the abandoned ones.

With the resources of human society then, only two hundred underground shelters could be built, each with strict entry headcount limits. Only within the healthy population could the underground shelter resource cycle be maintained without collapse.

Originally, each underground shelter could accommodate two million people; all shelters combined could only shelter four hundred million people.

This number was merely fifteen percent of the world population at the time.

Those who couldn’t enter the underground shelters were abandoned, left to live or die on the surface.

In the first decade, under severe pollution, large numbers of humans died daily.

However, with incredible adaptability and genetic adaptation potion researched by some scientists left on the surface, people gradually adapted to the harsh living environment, forming a unique societal rule on the surface.

As a price for adapting to the pollution, surface people’s appearance now greatly differs from ordinary humans.

Their bodies have become huge, averaging more than three meters in height; their skin surfaces show a reddish-purple or black-yellow rock-like keratin texture, with fluorescent glimmers faintly visible amid the keratin’s patterns.

To adapt to the harsh environment, their facial features changed significantly, with high foreheads, insect-like transparent keratin layers on eye surfaces, and enlarged ear flaps to absorb sound.

In short, if the surface people’s appearance were shown to underground shelter residents, claiming they were humans, they would never believe it.

Even though surface people’s bodies have undergone tremendous changes, the number surviving remains pitifully low and continues to decrease over time.

Erin saw the surface people, her eyes showing compassion; she could see their souls still belonged to humans, but the changes have already embedded into their genes.

Her Light Magic can heal illnesses but cannot reverse genetic changes; even if she intervened, she couldn’t restore these people to their original form.