After being deprived of a certain amount of cognitive ability, the brain became like a gear buried under rust, each movement causing an unbearable weight from the depths of the soul.
The rust on the gear flaked off as it began to move belatedly.
If Wang Yanxing viewed her brain as a semi-abandoned machine, she should now feel the machine’s creaking lament from overexertion.
Wang Yanxing could recognize that her classmate needed help, yet she didn’t overestimate her medical knowledge in the urgency of the situation, fully aware that she alone couldn’t effectively manage her classmate’s condition.
What else could she try?
The gears of thought continued to turn, the rust gradually peeling away.
Finally, Wang Yanxing grasped a spark of inspiration—before entering this strange building, Xu Dengming had mentioned that she was glad she had packed her backpack before leaving.
So, the backpack must contain items Xu Dengming thought would be useful later.
In the darkness, Wang Yanxing opened the backpack based on her residual memory and carefully felt around inside.
Her fingertips touched something hard and cool-a small glass bottle containing liquid.
From its shape and texture, which reminded her of an infusion bottle, it was highly likely that it contained medicine.
Wang Yanxing carefully placed the bottle into the trembling palm of Xu Dengming.
When her rationality was eroded by “seeing,” Xu Dengming was plunged into a vortex of collapsing reason.
Xu Dengming hadn’t forgotten that she carried [Primary Healing Potions].
Just in case, she had placed two bottles in the system and one in her backpack.
…Then she encountered the terrible situation where her entire ability to act was “banned.”
The healing potion, which she could normally retrieve with a thought, now seemed a thousand miles away.
Self-control had drained all her strength, yet it still wasn’t enough.
The moment she saw the objects on the workbench, a flood of indecipherable information began to pour into her brain.
Layer upon layer.
The external information was endless, forcibly occupying every corner of Xu Dengming’s mind, pushing her own consciousness to the very bottom.
Xu Dengming vaguely understood the reason for her dire situation “seeing,” which should have been her advantage, had now become her disadvantage.
Instinct could not be restrained.
But for Xu Dengming, while “seeing” was an instinct, “fate” was another instinct deeply rooted in her soul.
Beads of sweat dripped from her forehead, the wetness in her eyes grew stronger, and the taste of rust filled her throat.
An invisible box opened in the void-
Gathering her last remnants of rationality, Xu Dengming finally managed to unfold [The Box of Fate].
In an instant, she had temporarily sealed away the fate of her “evaporated rationality.”
As the box closed, the moth-like buzzing in her ears immediately became distant and blurred.
Her forehead felt icy cold, and her damp hair clung messily to it.
Xu Dengming was like a drowning person who had finally taken a breath of air at the last moment.
However, this breath wouldn’t last long, its stinginess instantly reminding Xu Dengming of the black-market bosses she had encountered before.
Memories.
[The Box of Fate], like [The Eye of Observation], had been suppressed by the dungeon.
Her shielding of her own misfortune would only last for two to three seconds.
Seizing the brief respite, Xu Dengming immediately opened her system and, racing against time, took out a [Healing Potion].
At the same time, another identical potion was thrust into her hand.
[System: User has used [Healing Potion (Basic)].
Condition restored.
[Resistance to &%#$ increased by 20% for 30 seconds.]
[System: User has used [Healing Potion (Basic)].
Condition restored.
[Resistance to &%#$ increased by 10% for 30 seconds.]
After downing two potions in quick succession, Xu Dengming felt about eighty percent recovered.
Three seconds later, Xu Dengming released her fate.
Fortunately, she had already averted her gaze from the workbench, and with her resistance boosted, she successfully avoided the self-reflection of “why did I fall into the same pit twice.”
Xu Dengming controlled her gaze, preventing it from moving forward.
Though she couldn’t continue to look, the brief glance had forced her to memorize the general situation on the workbench.
What lay on the workbench resembled a piece of dead “flesh.”
Xu Dengming could only recall the approximate position of the “dead flesh,” but she couldn’t vividly reconstruct its color, shape, or texture in her mind.
If she tried to recall too vividly, the sensation of her rationality evaporating under the flood of information would return.
In the midst of misfortune, there was a silver lining.
Much of the information that had been unexpectedly forced into her mind was related to the current dungeon.
Xu Dengming now vaguely understood the nature of the “dead flesh” before her and what she needed to do next.
The faction represented by the pale blue prompt wanted Xu Dengming to take the “dead flesh” and place it elsewhere.
The earlier incident had been purely accidental; they hadn’t intended to directly erode the person responsible for removing the “dead flesh.”
If not for Xu Dengming’s unique eyes, the information she received would likely have remained at a level that was extremely irritating but not enough to drive her completely insane.
Through a twist of fate, she had managed to calm down from the brink of madness.
Xu Dengming lowered her head slightly, as if carefully observing the texture of the floor.
Maintaining this humble and reserved posture, she stepped closer to the workbench and then flipped over a pair of thick, dust-covered gloves from the side of the bench and put them on.
These gloves had been forgotten with the abandonment of Factory Area 17, only to be rediscovered and put to use today.
The information that had flooded her mind told Xu Dengming that the thick gloves could temporarily isolate the effects of the “dead flesh” on the holder, with an effective duration of about 10 minutes.
The dark air was filled with a chilling coldness, growing increasingly intense, as if the red faction was issuing a warning.
Xu Dengming pressed her right ear, as if trying to block out the noise around her.
At this point, she no longer had the luxury of hesitation.
After entering the abandoned Factory Area 17, Xu Dengming was destined not to side with the faction represented by the pale red prompt.
Her reserved demeanor contrasted sharply with her decisive actions.
She reached out and accurately picked up the “dead flesh” from the table.
“Buzz-“
The eruption of a volcano, the flow of magma, and the sound akin to the flapping of moth wings exploded in Xu Dengming’s ears in an instant.
Behind her, Wang Yanxing’s gaze remained fixed.
She was stunned, lifting her head in confusion, gazing into the void as if searching for something.
Outside the abandoned factory area No. 17, the pale-faced reserve employees began to stir.
More and more people turned their attention to the forbidden zone of the abandoned factory area No. 17, which should not have been seen by the ignorant.
The “dead flesh” could be considered a battery for the instance.
When the “dead flesh” left the workbench, the pale blue protection over the factory area gradually disappeared, and the entire compound began to feel as if its restraints were loosening.
The wind that once swept across the land vanished, yet the green bushes started to sway.
Without needing to rely on the temporary employee card for further prompts, Xu Dengming knew she could leave through the back door now, and the factory area would use its remaining strength to block the hostile reserve employees as much as possible.
At her speed, she could complete everything required by the pale blue text in about five minutes.
The “dead flesh” was heavier than it appeared.
Even with gloves as a barrier, a numbing sensation began to spread from the palm of Xu Dengming’s hand where it made contact with the “dead flesh.”
With nearly half her arm paralyzed, the corner of Xu Dengming’s lips curled up, and she let out a soft chuckle.
Her voice carried an unmistakable tone of mockery.
Xu Dengming: “No wonder they immediately united to shut down the employees’ thinking abilities upon entering. If even a tenth of their suspicion remained at critical moments, it would be hard to ensure they’d continue to act according to the prompts.”
As for Xu Dengming, who retained all her suspicion, her choice was self-evident.
Xu Dengming didn’t run away.
Instead, she used her free hand to grab Wang Yanxing, ensuring her classmate wouldn’t lose direction in the chaos, and then placed the “dead flesh” into her system space.
She decided to take the item herself, neither handing it over to the blue faction nor the red faction.
[System: Detecting???……]
The system, usually adept at staying silent, began to flood with garbled code due to the user’s sudden action.
The personal space turned into a soup pot placed on a stove, its lid continuously lifted by the steam, constantly at risk of being blown off entirely.
The power of the “dead flesh” was too strong.
The system bluntly showed its limitations, unable to suppress it for long.
Xu Dengming and the system were bound together, and the steam escaping from the pot directly touched her.
A heavy, strange, and chaotic force began to flow into Xu Dengming’s body.
She became like a leaf, passively swept into a turbulent river, rising with the waves at times and sinking rapidly at others.
The river continuously impacted Xu Dengming’s soul, flowing through her veins.
Countless destinies unfolded before her eyes, intricate details like stars entangled in long threads of mist.
Without Xu Dengming actively opening it, the [Eye of Observation] naturally opened without any effort.
A long glow flowed at the bottom of Xu Dengming’s vision, and bright red blood slowly trickled down from the corner of her eye.
A sound akin to a mirror shattering echoed in the void, and in that instant, Xu Dengming accurately captured the change in her own destiny.
She successfully intercepted the most crucial part of her and Wang Yanxing’s destinies and sealed them into an invisible box.
The box could only store the destinies of two targets at most, and the duration was shorter than when storing just one person’s destiny.
If it weren’t for Xu Dengming…
She tossed the “dead flesh” into her system space, causing the dungeon to show signs of losing control and collapsing.
Her attempt was doomed to fail from the very beginning.
Even so, manipulating fate with such precision was not something Xu Dengming could normally achieve.
However, while the “dead flesh” eroded her rationality, it also enhanced the effectiveness of her abilities.
What Xu Dengming had sealed away was the part of fate that was “in the Nest Park.”
An ant that had “been climbing uphill” would stop in its tracks, and a trainee employee who had “been in the Nest Park” would naturally be ejected from the dungeon.
Xu Dengming felt the scene before her eyes distort and overlap.
The No. 17 abandoned factory area completed the entire process of collapse and weathering in just a few seconds, turning into a pile of fine sand.
Some of the sand fell on Xu Dengming’s clothes, while some passed through her body.
The sign at the entrance could no longer serve as a barrier.
The trainee employees with snow-white faces approached their target expressionlessly, one after another, stretching their necks toward the person who had hidden the “dead flesh.”
Drifting coral polyps were foraging in the seawater, their transparent tentacles fluttering in the air.
At the moment she was submerged by the coral polyps, Xu Dengming saw sunlight.
It was sunlight from the real world, outside the dungeon.
Normally, once Xu Dengming ended her interception of fate, the target would return to their original life trajectory.
But when she left the dungeon, the “dead flesh” was also taken out of the dungeon.
After the connection between the two was severed, the place that had trapped them lost a significant portion of its power, greatly reducing the inevitability of Xu Dengming’s fate of “being in the Nest Park.”
This unfortunate fate was erased from Xu Dengming’s life as abruptly as a car accident.
The moment she escaped the dungeon, Xu Dengming also felt the “dead flesh” struggle weaken, and it was completely suppressed by the backpack in just a few seconds.
Xu Dengming felt the newly acquired power and adrenaline drain from her body-the threads of fate disappeared, and her skills returned to their original state.
[System: Alert temporarily lifted after detection.]
The prompt that refreshed at this moment was brief and dry, inexplicably giving Xu Dengming a sense of listlessness.
Of course, as the one who had recklessly retrieved the dangerous item, Xu Dengming could understand the system’s feelings…
[System: Due to an unknown attack, the system will undergo restorative maintenance. Some functions may experience delays during this period.]
The system mercilessly blocked the unreliable user.
After confirming her successful escape, Xu Dengming finally had the strength to survey her surroundings.
She was lying in a pile of straw that emitted a strange odor, temporarily weakened from overusing her skills.
Besides Wang Yanxing, there were other people nearby.
One of them was wearing a familiar uniform, with a black jacket and boots, and a management bureau emblem hanging on her chest.
When she saw Xu and Wang beside her, her eyes were filled with astonishment.
Almost at the same time, a large number of surviving employees appeared around them.
After a full three seconds, the officer in black uniform finally reported through the walkie-talkie on her collar,
“Team leader, a large number of survivors have been discovered in the LA-8769 area.”
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Tftc!