Ren Yi floated within the empty isolation chamber. Under the incandescent lights, the wound in his torn mist slowly curled and healed itself.
He did not rush to move. Instead, he spread his perception as fine as a spiderweb, examining the land ship named the "Conqueror."
Boom—!
A dull, violent tremor struck again. This time, the entire metal beast emitted a tooth-grinding screech of friction.
Having found its prey vanished into thin air, S-099 was clearly not content to remain still.
In Ren Yi's perception, the land ship currently resembled a flask filled halfway with water. Unfortunately, this "water" was alive—a black tide possessed of a violent will.
It surged and crashed frantically within the lowermost containment chamber, attempting to completely overturn and shatter this "flask" of civilization.
The control room was already a scene of total chaos.
The alarms were no longer intermittent chirps but had merged into a single, piercing wail.
Most of the screens were black due to the destruction of the external cameras. On the remaining monitors, red warning signals flashed like a frantic pulse.
"Hydraulic system damaged by 40%! Chassis armor is deforming!"
"S-099's proliferation speed has exceeded the containment chamber's capacity! It's leaking into the maintenance tunnels!"
"Doctor! The pressure levels are about to blow!"
The staff were pale, their fingers moving in a blur across the consoles.
B-117 stared fixedly at the progress bar representing containment depth, her voice nearly breaking into a sob. "It's trying to find the target that just vanished... It's hungry again!"
Dr. Cyril stood at the center of the command station. Her hair, once neatly tied back, looked somewhat disheveled in the red light.
She stared intently at the expanding, twisting shadow of flesh on the screen. A flicker of struggle crossed her eyes, but it was quickly replaced by a cold, clinical rationality.
"There's no other way." The doctor closed her eyes and took a deep breath, her voice sounding surprisingly calm.
"Since it didn't get to eat that 'feast,' let's feed it some 'fodder' instead."
Ren Yi soon learned that the "fodder" she referred to were the backup Anomalies with B-prefixes.
"Open gate B-072," the doctor ordered. "Push it down."
Following the command, another compartment at the bottom slid open silently.
An Anomaly locked in a lead-lined box, which continuously emitted an eerie frequency, was pushed by a mechanical arm and fell vertically into the sea of black flesh.
Almost instantly, all the crashing sounds stopped.
In his perception, the frenzied mass of flesh was like a pack of sharks sensing blood, instantly submerging the "fodder."
Accompanied by a scalp-numbing sound of chewing and digestion, S-099's surging momentum gradually leveled off.
The black tide began to recede, the flesh reorganizing into a viscous liquid that retracted bit by bit into the dark depths.
About half an hour later, the vibrations in the base ceased completely.
The doctor looked at the monitor wall, most of which was dark. Her gaze seemed vacant, as if she were contemplating something within those black silhouettes.
B-117 waited beside her for a long time. Only when the doctor's fingertips twitched slightly did she speak softly.
"Doctor, about the emergency feeding... Our 'low-utility' Anomalies, aside from B-013 which showed abnormal activity earlier, have all been used up."
She glanced at a corner of the screen.
There, the runner B-406 sat in a sealed compartment full of cold, hard mechanical structures, undergoing full-body decontamination and radiation checks.
One of his mechanical eyes had blown out again during the overloaded grab; currently, a mechanical arm was installing a new lens for him.
On another screen, the "Withered Claw" that had performed so well was placed in a special vibrating liquid, being carefully inspected for abnormalities by several technicians in hazmat suits.
"The remaining Anomalies are those with high utility currently undergoing critical experiments, or backups that serve as logical counters to suppress S-099 itself."
B-117 reported with her head lowered, her tone filled with worry.
Dr. Cyril finally snapped out of her contemplation and rubbed her brow. "I understand. I will apply to headquarters for replenishment."
"How much longer until we reach the Red Tide riverbed?"
"Ten days," B-117 answered cautiously.
"That should be enough. Just have headquarters send two more Anomalies to us along our supply line."
The doctor nodded, as if those lethal entities were merely dry rations that could be requisitioned at any time.
"As for the losses here, report them accurately. However, I will personally write the encrypted report regarding the resonance details between B-013-A and S-099."
"Then... what about B-013-A and the remnants of the Red Ring Tribe?"
Dr. Cyril had already turned to walk toward her office, her cold voice drifting back through the air.
"Leave them for now. Delete Evans's file. As for that old Tribal Chief... as long as he doesn't die, keep him in the medical wing."
"Increase surveillance on B-013-A. For now, do not allow any physical contact."
The land ship emitted a dull roar once more.
After confirming that S-099 had entered a stable digestion phase, the massive iron beast began to move slowly across the wilderness again, advancing toward the Red Tide riverbed.
Having confirmed that the surroundings were temporarily safe, Ren Yi finally had a chance to sort through the information he had snatched back from the jaws of death.
At the moment a "small piece was bitten off" by that mass of flesh, not only was his body damaged, but his perception had finally touched S-099's true form.
That contact had triggered the Anomaly Appraisal app.
Ren Yi opened the window that had popped up in his consciousness.
The first thing he saw was not clean text, but large swathes of black redactions and deliberate obscurations.
It was as if this file had been reviewed and censored by countless people.
What concerned him even more was that the format of this file was completely different from those he had seen before.
【Anomaly File: S-099 (*S-002)】
Special Note: S-099 is the only S-rank Anomaly in the known human sequence born under profound human intervention.
Therefore, its numbering follows a non-sequential method. The final digit is labeled as "99" in a reverse-order format, rather than being the 99th in sequence.
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