"0835? I feel like I've seen this number somewhere before..."
Zhang Chen paused, muttering to himself.
"Huh? This is a bit strange..."
Xu Ruina called out from inside the room.
"What's wrong?"
Zhang Chen hurried in.
In the center of the room stood a rack.
At first, Zhang Chen thought it was a rack for storing energy crystal cores.
But upon closer inspection, he realized that the rack's shape was eerily similar to a human body.
Moreover, on the rack, at the positions of the neck, hands, feet, and waist, there were distinct restraint devices.
The material on them looked very similar to the handcuffs Zhang Chen had seen in parallel worlds!
"This thing... seems to be used to restrain people..."
Xu Ruina said with a frown.
She was trying to comprehend the mindset of the Progressive faction, who destroyed other worlds and barbarically dragged people from parallel worlds into the apocalypse to become test subjects for the轮回者 (Reincarnators).
But when she saw that the energy source for the energy transmission terminal was a person, she couldn't help but feel a wave of nausea.
"0835..."
Zhang Chen mumbled the number on the door again.
Suddenly, as if remembering something, he took out a [blurred chest badge of himself] from his storage ring.
Although the text on it was no longer legible, a prompt indicated that it could be completed!
Soon, a line of prompts slowly appeared:
[Raven 003 Laboratory, Number 0835!]
"Yes, this is it!"
Zhang Chen exclaimed.
"What?"
Xu Ruina leaned over.
She saw Zhang Chen talking to a blurry chest badge.
"Can you read the words on it?"
Xu Ruina asked, looking confused.
"This is the chest badge the Singer was wearing when I first saw it!"
"It had these numbers on it, but they became blurred after the fight. I still remember the numbers, though!"
Zhang Chen couldn't explain the prompts, so he decided to make up a story.
But the outcome was the same.
"So... this thing isn't used to handcuff people, but to control the Singers?!"
Hearing this, Xu Ruina's expression finally softened considerably.
"That's right. Singers can use their abilities to inject a portion of their internal energy into surrounding low-level creatures."
"These injected creatures immediately begin to slaughter each other, and then the Singer reclaims the energy from the dead mutated creatures."
"To put it plainly, the Singer is like an energy harvester and storage unit."
"It gathers the energy of low-level creatures in the apocalypse into its own body, and then the natives control it to enter this room."
"Ultimately, they drain its energy and transmit it somewhere."
As Zhang Chen spoke, he suddenly hit his palm with his fist excitedly and said, "This explains everything!"
"No wonder Luo Tianyu's position was Maintenance Personnel for the Energy Core in the logistics department!"
"His job was to collect energy using the Singers and then come here to recharge."
"Luo Tianyu was like a shepherd boy, and the Singers were the sheep. When the sheep grew fat from grazing, they were brought back to be slaughtered!"
"But because the boy's abilities were limited, he couldn't let the sheep grow too big, as they would escape his control."
"That's why the Singers' strength was always controlled between mutated level VI and mutated level VII. I suspect that controlling a mutated level VII Singer is the technological limit that the natives can manage!"
Xu Ruina listened carefully to Zhang Chen's analysis and nodded, adding,
"That makes sense. Luo Tianyu, being responsible for charging, wouldn't bring back a battery that wasn't fully charged!"
"After all, traveling in the apocalypse is an extremely dangerous undertaking. Once you leave the base, you must complete the mission!"
"And the natives must also have the ability to teleport Luo Tianyu back to the base. They must have maintained contact."
"It's just a pity that after Luo Tianyu failed, this link became his death sentence, not only taking his life but also cutting off our clues."
Zhang Chen sighed with regret when he thought about finally encountering a native only for them to be dead.
A moment later, he said again,
"It depends on whether Zuo Nan's technical team has found anything."
"If that doesn't work, we'll have to travel to the far north to search for the whereabouts of the lighthouse..."
"If the ice fields of the far north don't have it either, then we'll have to risk going to the Grass Sea to find the old man with the yellow ring that Shirley mentioned, and ask clearly about the mission to end the apocalypse."
"However... waiting for the previous generation of Reincarnators to awaken might take until the colossal stage."
Xu Ruina knew Zhang Chen was worried that the more stages of the apocalypse that opened, the more dangerous it would become, and the awakened Reincarnators would be stronger and more dangerous.
Long-distance travel in a world full of crises was not a pleasant experience.
Zuo Nan and the technical team toiled until dusk before walking over to Zhang Chen, covered in oil.
"Any results?"
Zhang Chen asked quickly.
"The energy transmission device here has indeed far exceeded our understanding, but we discovered that there are surveillance cameras here."
"So, based on the transmission direction of the surveillance cameras, we roughly deduced that the other party is to our north."
"Using positioning methods, we've preliminarily estimated that they are within a range of 8,000 to 12,000 kilometers in a straight line to the north..."
Zuo Nan said cautiously.
After all, he also knew that an error of 4,000 kilometers was quite large...
Zhang Chen immediately brought up the electronic map to check.
The range of 8,000 to 12,000 kilometers in a straight line to the north fell precisely within a part of the far northern ice fields.
Although that area was sparsely populated, within a range of 4,000 kilometers, there were still about a dozen cities that needed to be explored.
"Also... we found this..."
Zuo Nan took out two metal rods and handed them to Zhang Chen.
The latter stared at the two metal rods for a moment, and soon, a line of prompts appeared:
[Transmission Beacon: When activated, it allows one-way transmission from this location to the beacon's destination. The current beacon is invalid, and the destination beacon has been destroyed!]
The Progressive faction acted quite swiftly.
After killing Luo Tianyu, they immediately severed all connections.
"Heh... are they that afraid of me finding them..."
Zhang Chen sneered and said.
"Then... boss, what do we do next?"
Zuo Nan asked softly.
"There's no other way, we have to go north to find them."
"My current strength should not be so great as to make the Progressive faction terrified."
"They must have some other reason for not wanting to face me..."
"Whatever the reason, since you don't dare to meet, I will insist on meeting you!"
Zhang Chen smiled slightly and turned to say,
"Everyone, set off! Head north!"