Chapter 515
A Chance for Survival in Desperate Circumstances
How do I leave?
Jiang Nian's question echoed in the sloping passageway, accompanied by a harsh, metallic background sound.
Manager Wang collapsed to the ground, his fingers gripping the protruding pipe supports on the wall, his face as pale as an iceberg floating outside the platform.
The two Dawn organization intruders had gotten up, but the passageway was tilted at an angle of more than thirty degrees, making it difficult to even stand.
"Look there!" the second intruder suddenly pointed to the end of the passage.
The tilt revealed an access panel that was originally hidden in the ceiling; the cover had fallen off, revealing a dark entrance.
“The main ventilation duct,” Supervisor Wang said breathlessly, “is 1.2 meters in diameter and runs straight to the outer perimeter of the upper platform.”
"Can we leave?" the first intruder asked.
"Theoretically, yes, but there might be something in the pipes..." Manager Wang didn't finish his sentence.
The tunnel shook violently again, its tilt angle increasing to thirty-five degrees. Everyone slid downhill, and Jiang Nian managed to steady himself by grabbing onto an exposed cable with one hand.
"No time to choose!" The second intruder rushed to the inspection port, jumped up, grabbed the edge, and crawled inside.
The first intruder followed closely behind.
"Let's go!" Jiang Nian grabbed Manager Wang and pushed him forward.
Supervisor Wang was clumsy when he climbed into the pipe and almost slipped. Jiang Nian caught him from below and jumped up as well.
The pipes were pitch black, with only the faint green glow of emergency lights in the distance. The air was murky, filled with dust and the smell of burnt insulation.
"Which way?" came the intruder's voice from ahead.
“Upward!” Jiang Nian said, “The platform is tilting to the southeast, and there should be structural support on the northwest side of the upper level.”
The four began crawling inside the pipe.
The pipe walls were slippery, covered with a thin layer of ice. With each step, I had to grip the seams tightly, and my fingers quickly became numb from the cold.
"How much longer until the explosion?" Manager Wang asked, panting heavily.
Jiang Nian glanced at the countdown synchronized with Qin Lao on his tactical watch: "One minute and forty-seven seconds."
The two intruders who were crawling in front suddenly stopped.
"What's wrong?" Jiang Nian asked.
“It’s blocked up ahead.” The first intruder tapped the pipe wall with his hand, producing a dull echo. “Ice, at least half a meter thick.”
"Can it be broken?"
"Tools are needed."
Jiang Nian pulled out a high-frequency vibrating blade from his tactical vest and turned it to maximum power. The blade emitted a low hum and glowed with a pale blue light in the darkness.
"let me."
He pushed his way to the front and plunged the blade into the ice.
Ice melts rapidly at high temperatures, but not quickly enough.
Suddenly, the entire pipe began to tremble violently, not with vibration, but with a kind of regular pulsation.
"It's an energy pulse!" Manager Wang's voice trembled. "The nodes are about to explode in a chain reaction!"
Jiang Nian gritted his teeth and thrust the vibrating blade a little deeper. Spiderweb-like cracks appeared in the ice layer, but it was not yet completely penetrated.
"I'll help." The first intruder pulled out a small plasma cutter, blue arcs crackling as it struck.
The two worked together.
The ice melted rapidly, revealing the metal pipe walls behind it.
"Thirty seconds!" Manager Wang's voice was already trembling with tears.
"It's broken!"
The last layer of ice melted through, and cold air rushed in. But outside wasn't a passageway, but a huge equipment room.
Jiang Nian peeked out.
The equipment room was over ten meters high, with three cylindrical containers side by side in the center, their surfaces covered with a thick layer of frost. The surrounding walls were filled with instruments and pipelines, most of which had ceased operation.
Most importantly, there is a door at the other end of the equipment room with a green "Emergency Exit" sign on it.
"Jump!" Jiang Nian was the first to leap down.
A four-meter drop sent a sharp pain through my knees upon landing. My old injury hadn't fully healed.
The two intruders followed suit, their movements far more professional. Manager Wang hesitated for a moment, then closed his eyes and jumped down, only to be caught by Jiang Nian.
"The door!" The second intruder rushed toward the exit.
But the door was locked.
Jiang Nian took out the green access card he got from Lao Dao and stuck it on the recognition panel.
Outside is the very edge of the platform's lowest level, beyond which lies the sloping, icy sea. Gale-force winds, carrying ice shards, rush in, causing the temperature to plummet to minus forty degrees Celsius.
What's most disheartening is that there are no escape pods at all.
There is only a metal pier extending outwards, its end suspended in mid-air, with churning black seawater and floating ice thirty meters below.
"Where's the escape pod?" The first intruder grabbed Manager Wang by the collar. "You said there's an escape pod on the east side of the ground floor!"
"Yes, yes, there is!" Manager Wang stammered, "But this is the west side of the ground floor! We've gone the wrong way!"
"Turn around!" The second intruder turned around and charged back.
But the door to the equipment room suddenly closed and locked automatically. Through the observation window, you could see that the surfaces of three cylindrical containers inside were turning red, and the frost was melting rapidly.
"They're going to explode!" Manager Wang slumped to the ground. "Those are backup coolant storage tanks. They'll explode if they get overpressured..."
"Get cover!" Jiang Nian roared.
There was no cover.
The pier was suspended in mid-air, the equipment room was about to explode, and the only shelter was a low railing around the edge of the pier.
"Go into the water!" the first intruder suddenly said.
"what?"
"Jump into the sea! The icy water can cushion the impact of the explosion; it's better than being blown to pieces here!"
Jiang Nian looked down.
The black seawater churned, and the floating ice floes collided with each other, making a loud crunching sound. The water temperature was at least minus five degrees Celsius; a person who fell in would suffer hypothermia within three minutes.
But it's definitely better than staying.
Manager Wang clung to the railing, his legs trembling like a leaf: "I can't swim..."
"Just hold your breath!" Jiang Nian pushed him down, then climbed over the railing herself.
Three seconds later, the icy seawater engulfed his entire body.
A muffled explosion came from above.
Even underwater, he could feel the shockwaves piercing through the water, tumbling him several times. Debris and ice shards rained down into the sea, creating countless bubbles around him.
Jiang Nian strives to move upstream.
As he broke through the water, he gasped for air, the cold air burning his lungs. Looking around, he saw debris and oil slicks floating on the sea, and in the distance, a platform was slowly tilting, flames shooting out from multiple gaps.
"Manager Wang!" he called out.
“This, here…” A few meters away, Manager Wang clung to a piece of floating ice, his face pale and his lips trembling.
Jiang Nian swam over and pushed him onto a larger piece of floating ice.
"Where are they?" Manager Wang asked.
Jiang Nian looked around.
About twenty meters away, two intruders also surfaced and were swimming towards an ice floe. Their equipment was clearly waterproof, and they moved much more easily than Jiang Nian.
"The box!" the first intruder shouted. "Is the box still there?"
Manager Wang then remembered the silver briefcase and frantically checked it. The briefcase was still in his arms, well-sealed, and hadn't gotten wet. "Give it to me!" The intruder began swimming towards him.
"Stay put!"
The two sides stood facing off for a few seconds.
Suddenly, an even bigger explosion came from deep within the platform.
This time it wasn't a muffled thud, but a deafening roar. The entire platform broke in half, the upper part slowly tilting and crashing into the sea, creating waves tens of meters high.
The waves crashed in, and everyone was submerged.
Jiang Nian clung tightly to the ice floe, only surfacing again after the wave subsided. Manager Wang choked on several mouthfuls of water and lay coughing on the ice.
The two intruders were also separated, but they quickly reunited.
"Look over there!" the second intruder suddenly pointed towards the platform wreckage.
At the point of fracture, several spherical escape pods ejected, tracing parabolic arcs as they fell into the distant sea. Immediately afterwards, more escape pods sprang out, like scattered pearls.
“Someone escaped,” Jiang Nian murmured.
"Our mission has failed," the first intruder said coldly, "but at least the box is still here."
He looked at Jiang Nian again: "This is your last chance. Hand over the box, and we might spare your lives."
What if I say no?
“Then we’ll all die here.” The second intruder raised his hand, holding a remote control. “We have explosives in our equipment, enough to shatter this ice floe. The sea is forty degrees below zero; without ice floes, you won’t last ten minutes.”
Jiang Nian stared at the remote control.
Manager Wang gripped the box tightly, his voice trembling, "Give it to them...we can't beat them..."
silence.
Only the howling of the cold wind and the crackling of the burning platform wreckage in the distance could be heard.
“You can have the box,” Jiang Nian said slowly, “but I want to keep the storage module.”
"The storage module is destroyed."
"That's something I need to worry about."
The two intruders exchanged a glance.
“Okay,” said the first intruder. “Throw the box over here.”
Jiang Nian looked at Manager Wang: "Give it to him."
Manager Wang gritted his teeth and forcefully threw the suitcase. The suitcase arced through the air before being caught by the first intruder.
“Inspect,” the second intruder said.
The box was opened, revealing dozens of neatly arranged data storage units and a separate encryption chip. The first intruder quickly scanned the contents and nodded: "The algorithm is complete."
“Very good.” The second intruder put away the remote control. “Transaction complete. Good luck.”
The two turned around and prepared to swim towards another, larger ice floe in the distance.
Just then, something unexpected happened.
A faint blue light suddenly appeared beneath the sea surface.
The light expanded rapidly, turning the surrounding seawater, which stretched for dozens of meters, into an eerie blue. The water temperature rose sharply, and the floating ice began to melt.
"What is that?" Manager Wang asked in alarm.
Jiang Nian looked down into the water.
The source of the light was deep within, at least twenty or thirty meters away. But one could vaguely see that it was a huge, regular geometric shape, slowly rising.
"It's the anchor point!" Supervisor Wang screamed. "The anchoring device of the pile foundation! The platform exploded, but the anchor point is still activating!"
Before the words were even finished, the sea suddenly swelled up.
A massive metal structure, over fifty meters in diameter, burst forth from the water, creating towering waves. It was a regular hexagon, its surface covered with intricate energy patterns that were now emitting a blinding blue light.
The two intruders were also stunned by the sight.
“It seems the platform’s self-destruct mechanism didn’t work properly,” the second intruder quickly analyzed. “The anchoring device for the pile foundation is an independent system; the platform explosion actually triggered its emergency activation protocol.”
The metal structure rises completely above the water, reaching a height of over fifteen meters. It resembles a miniature steel island, silently suspended beside the burning wreckage of the platform.
Even more bizarrely, a circular entrance opened in the center of the structure, from which a soft white light emanated.
Supervisor Wang's eyes widened. "Access channel! The anchor point is summoning the key!"
"The key?" Jiang Nian frowned.
“The anchor point requires a biometric key to be fully activated,” Manager Wang said rapidly. “The platform’s system has your genetic markers pre-set! It recognizes you as the key!”
Almost simultaneously, Jiang Nian felt a familiar throbbing deep in his chest.
“We can’t get away from it.” Jiang Nian stared at the entrance.
His body was involuntarily drawn closer. It wasn't being controlled, but an instinctive desire, like a person in the desert seeing an oasis.
"Stop him!" the first intruder suddenly shouted. "If he activates the anchor point, the organization's triangulation system will be complete!"
Both men raised their guns at the same time.
But it was too late.
Jiang Nian leaped into the sea, not swimming towards the floating ice, but towards the huge metal structure.
"Jiang Nian! Come back!" Manager Wang shouted.
The bullet entered the water, but its speed decreased significantly underwater, allowing Jiang Nian to easily dodge it. He swam with all his might, the marking system surging within his body, providing him with extraordinary strength and speed.
The 30-meter distance was covered in less than 20 seconds.
There were steps at the edge of the metal structure; he climbed up and stood in front of the entrance.
White light emanated from within, warmer than a frigid Arctic night. He could feel something calling to him from within.
"Jiang Nian! Don't go in!" Old Qin's roar almost shattered eardrums. "That's a trap! The anchor point will completely activate your marking system, and then you'll never be able to escape the organization's control again!"
"What if I don't go in?" Jiang Nian asked breathlessly.
“The anchor point will continuously release summoning signals, and your synchronization rate will keep rising until it completely gets out of control.” Old Qin’s voice was bitter. “Moreover… moreover, according to the data we just cracked, this anchor point is connected to two others. Once this one is activated, the other two will also start up synchronously.”
"Triangulation complete."
“Yes.” Elder Qin paused. “The coordinates of Guixu will be locked. At that time, the organization can open the passage at any time.”
Jiang Nian looked back.
On the sea, Supervisor Wang lay prone on an ice floe as two intruders swam toward him. In the distance, escape pods were scattered across the sea like fireflies, some already opened, and the surviving technicians stood on the top of the pods, staring blankly at the burning platform.
Further away, the sky began to lighten, and the aurora borealis danced slowly in the night sky.
A new day is about to begin.
But he may not see the sunrise.
"Elder Qin," Jiang Nian said calmly, "can the data in the storage module be transmitted back to the base?"
"Yes, but it will take time to decrypt. Also, the module is severely damaged, and I'm not sure how much can be recovered."
"I'll do my best." Jiang Nian took a deep breath. "Also, tell Chief Bai and Instructor Yang..."
He paused.
"Thank you."
After saying that, he turned and walked into the white light.
The entrance closed behind us.
The metal structure began to sink, slowly disappearing into the sea. The blue light gradually faded, finally vanishing beneath the surface, leaving only ripples spreading outwards.
"He's gone in," Manager Wang murmured. (End of Chapter)