EDEH Chapter 121

An officer who hadn’t caught on asked: “Who is Ivan Kolby?”

 

Ling Gen, who had read the rift-related materials, felt dizzy. He instinctively grabbed the nearby handrail and said after a long while: “Over a hundred years ago, before the meteor season arrived, the government at that time sent down a research team. There was a researcher named ‘Ivan’ who was left at the two-thousand-meter base in the rift for support. But… this is impossible, right?”

 

The communications room fell into silence.

 

The old general and Huo Yanji had obviously heard this once before and were relatively calm without much reaction.

 

Sang Jue was a bit confused. Was this Ivan Kolby referring to the owner of “Ivan’s Bored-to-Death Underground Work Diary”?

 

“There are so many people named Ivan, it’s not necessarily the one from a hundred years ago…”

 

Someone still tried to argue, but it seemed weak.

 

When restarting the Dawn Plan 2, to avoid more losses, everyone who went down except Huo Jiangmian were ordinary civilians.

 

They had no reason to know the names of other military personnel. From beginning to end, only Deputy Leon was at the base for support. Where would a soldier named “Ivan” come from?

 

This audio was recorded; half an hour had passed since the actual real conversation.

 

When Deputy Leon transmitted the recording back, for caution’s sake, he still checked the military roster but found no soldier named Ivan Kolby.

 

There was still a large segment of audio, but no one suggested continuing to play it.

 

They were still digesting this bewildering information. How was this possible? How could they from a hundred years later be talking with someone from a hundred years ago!?

 

This was too incredible.

 

“Continue.”

 

Rough fingers pressed the play button. Leon in the audio was obviously also stunned.

 

Fortunately, Deputy Leon didn’t know who Ivan was, so his emotions didn’t change much. He answered: “I am Deputy Leon, the person in charge of base support. You can tell me about any problems. Is the general beside you?”

 

“Buzz buzz…” After a long while, that uneasy, confused voice sounded again. He seemed completely unable to hear Leon’s voice: “Buzz… Ivan, thankfully you didn’t come down… This isn’t the truth I wanted to explore, I… I…”

 

“Simply can’t believe everything I’m seeing…”

 

“Maybe I’ve gone crazy too.”

 

The rest was basically this person’s mad rambling, sometimes lucid, sometimes sinking, but almost no effective information could be extracted, nor did he describe what he actually saw.

 

Like a mentally disturbed madman.

 

Sang Jue asked quietly: “Is this person Dr. Luce from Ivan’s diary?”

 

Huo Yanji said: “Sounds like it.”

 

The safe zones no longer had materials from that mission underground a hundred years ago, but 007 had them. Huo Yanji had organized everything and submitted it to the research institute.

 

The research institute also had a copy of the same audio and was doing audio comparison to confirm whether this person was Dr. Luce who had a life a hundred years ago.

 

Two audio segments, though very short, contained potential truths that were hard to believe.

 

After the communication was suddenly cut off, what followed was Deputy Leon’s report.

 

He tried calling back multiple times but got no response, whether from this strange man or from Huo Jiangmian’s team.

 

Someone was still muttering skeptically: “How is this possible?”

 

“Could it be that time flows differently underground than on the surface? People who went underground a hundred years ago aren’t dead yet and are still down there?”

 

This was too science fiction.

 

To be precise, too fantastical.

 

In the same space, how could time flow differently? This wasn’t making a movie.

 

But everyone couldn’t think of a reasonable explanation for the moment. This completely exceeded their cognitive range.

 

Huo Yanji suddenly seemed to remember something and asked: “Sang Jue, was the speaker in that audio from a week ago Huo Jiangmian?”

 

Sang Jue answered without thinking: “No.”

 

Everyone: “…”

 

Ling Gen questioned: “Why didn’t you say so earlier?”

 

“You didn’t ask me who it was at the time.” Sang Jue wasn’t human; he had no collective spirit of dedication, mumbling: “You need the right attitude when asking dragons for help.”

 

The word “dragon” was said very clearly, though almost no one noticed.

 

“Mm, I was careless.”

 

Huo Yanji soothingly pinched the back of Sang Jue’s neck and frowned.

 

In the last audio, they couldn’t hear any sound—complete silence, with only Sang Jue able to hear the voice on the other side. So everyone assumed the person on the communication end was definitely Huo Jiangmian.

 

Mainly because there couldn’t be anyone else underground.

 

Huo Yanji organized his thoughts and asked in words Sang Jue could understand: “You just said this first audio segment feels different from the one a week ago. Do today’s two audio segments feel the same?”

 

Sang Jue thought for a moment and nodded: “Pretty much.”

 

Despite humanity’s technological development, there were still too many natural phenomena they couldn’t understand. For example, many animals could hear frequencies humans couldn’t, just like how many animals could sense and begin fleeing before natural disasters arrived.

 

Theoretically, any environment except a vacuum would definitely have sound no matter how quiet. They felt the audio from a week ago was deathly silent only because the background sound frequencies weren’t within their perceptual range.

 

But Sang Jue could.

 

But what did inconsistent background sound frequencies represent?

 

Sang Jue understood nothing. He could only make judgments but couldn’t provide answers to the mysteries behind them.

 

“The last audio connection might also have been this Dr. Luce…”

 

“No, the voice was different.”

 

Sang Jue had said this before. He secretly thought—a group of officers who didn’t listen carefully to what dragons said.

 

After pondering for a moment, Huo Yanji suddenly said to his subordinate: “Go get an audio recording of General Huo Feng from the past.”

 

“Yes.”

 

As soon as he spoke, the military officers who understood his implication immediately felt a spine-chilling sensation.

 

Huo Yanji said calmly: “Just making a deduction.”

 

Today’s two audio segments had consistent background sound frequencies. Could they assume that the audio from a week ago and today’s audio came from different time periods?

 

Further assuming that none of the current three audio segments came from Huo Jiangmian’s communication station, and under known conditions, humanity had gone underground three times—if it wasn’t Huo Jiangmian’s team or Dr. Luce’s team, it could only be the mission from over ninety years ago—

 

Huo Feng’s team.

 

Soon they received a video transmitted from subordinates.

 

The video played on the big screen, gray-white light illuminating everyone’s complex expressions.

 

There were many photos of Huo Feng in history, but videos and audio of him were pitifully few. Now that the truth was revealed, everyone suddenly realized Huo Feng was like a puppet controlled by the highest political power of that time—possessing powerful combat ability but no independent thought, unable to distinguish whether he lived in reality or hallucination even before losing control.

 

This video was an oath after a major disaster. Having been preserved for so many years, the pixels were poor and the video was gray-white.

 

Huo Feng, who had turned the tide, walked onto the platform of honor as surrounding cameras focused on his stern, silent face.

 

Cheers erupted from below. After a moment, Huo Feng lifted his heavy eyelids, his dark pupils showing no emotion, simply saying: “Humanity never surrenders.”

 

At this moment, from an observer’s perspective, Huo Feng showed no passion in either expression or words.

 

But the survivors of that time couldn’t feel it. They only felt excited and inspired, with cheers filling the venue and hope for the future.

 

They repeatedly shouted: “Humanity never surrenders!!!”

 

But Huo Feng, who first spoke these words, lowered his eyes and quietly, silently looked at his hands that had slaughtered countless monsters.

 

What was he thinking then?

 

Immersed in his underground experiences? Or struggling between hallucination and reality, not knowing whether monsters had become him or he had become a monster?

 

Ling Gen, being a deviant, had an unclear expression. After a while, he pulled at the corner of his mouth.

 

Seeing his genetic father, Huo Yanji showed no reaction.

 

Huo Feng somewhat resembled him but had harder features. He looked nothing like Huo Jiangmian, perhaps because Huo Jiangmian inherited more egg cell genes.

 

Huo Yanji asked Sang Jue beside him: “Is this the same person as the audio owner from a week ago?”

 

With just one phrase “Humanity never surrenders,” it was hard to distinguish.

 

But after recalling for less than a second, Sang Jue answered with certainty: “Same person.”

 

The communications room immediately erupted in disbelief.

 

Ling Gen suggested: “Why don’t you listen to that voice from a week ago again before making a determination?”

 

“No need, I won’t be wrong.” Sang Jue didn’t look at him, very directly expressing his dislike: “I don’t want to listen to you either.”

 

So people who didn’t smell bad could still be so annoying to dragons.

 

Ling Gen: “…”

 

Fine, he had completely offended him.

 

“Send everything to the research institute for audio frequency identification. Results should be available in a couple days.”

 

·

 

Everyone no longer knew how long they had been walking in this dark world, completely losing concept of time. Initially they could roughly estimate—three days, five days, ten days…

 

And now, besides mechanically fearful forward progress, their minds could no longer hold anything else.

 

Though they saw no terrifying existence and encountered no monsters, just this day-after-day advancement was enough to crush everyone’s nerves.

 

Even the brightest flashlight could only illuminate ten or so meters ahead; beyond that remained only darkness. Apart from their own conversations and footsteps, no other sounds could be heard.

 

They seemed isolated in a vast dark room, with some indescribable strangeness and fear contaminating them, eroding their sanity.

 

Initially, they just felt physically uncomfortable, as if their hearts were gripped by large hands, making breathing difficult.

 

Gradually, their reactions became sluggish, their companions’ presence grew weaker, as if only they themselves walked alone in endless darkness, with heartbeats growing increasingly violent.

 

“Thump…”

 

“Thump…”

 

Huo Jiangmian’s complexion was equally poor. Under current circumstances, any strategy was useless. They could only continue forward—either wait for death, encounter other beings, or be lucky enough to find their way back to the elevator entrance.

 

Food and water were still relatively sufficient, but without time concepts, everyone was panicked, wanting to eat frequently for fear of starving themselves.

 

Before the last meal, they had counted—eighty-one people at that time.

 

But currently there were eighty-three.

 

At Huo Jiangmian’s call, everyone stopped to rest and reorganize, wolfing down compressed biscuits. Though hard and choking, food going down their throats and filling their stomachs gave them a sense of being alive.

 

Huo Jiangmian didn’t eat. He slowly walked into the crowd, unobtrusively observing everyone.

 

During the previous count, he had used his own secreted touch-tentacles to mark everyone. Theoretically, extra people wouldn’t have these marks.

 

Hard-soled military boots stepped on the uneven ground as cold gazes slowly passed over everyone.

 

When counting to the sixty-second person, Huo Jiangmian stopped at a distance.

 

He stared fixedly at a man who, like everyone else, was carefully eating while avoiding his oxygen mask—silent, wordless, tense expression, even cold sweat from fear sliding down his temples.

 

He looked no different from normal people. Even with Huo Jiangmian’s years of experience distinguishing humanoid creatures, he couldn’t make an immediate determination.

 

But this person’s protective suit indeed had no mucus markers.

 

To avoid accidental injury, Huo Jiangmian still tried to approach for confirmation. The other seemed unaware of his approach, continuing to silently chew compressed biscuits.

 

However, the moment Huo Jiangmian raised his hand to touch this person’s shoulder, an unexpected change occurred.

 

This person in protective gear crumbled like weathered stone.

 

Before disappearing, he even turned his head slightly, blue-gray pupils looking at Huo Jiangmian with confusion.

 

In less than ten seconds, what had been a living person vanished completely, leaving no trace—no blood, no corpse.

 

“…”

 

Those who witnessed this scene completely broke down. Some let out sustained screaming, others tore off their oxygen masks and ran straight to a nearby shallow cliff, jumping without hesitation.

 

Huo Jiangmian’s tentacles followed closely but were still a step too slow, failing to catch them.

 

The originally silent environment became even more silent. Everyone’s breathing seemed to stop simultaneously while urgent heartbeats exploded in their ears: “Thump…”

 

“Thump.”

 

**

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T/N: change in schedule- 2 chapters per week