Hearing those words, Chen Heng fell silent as his body froze.
Of course, this was just an instinctive reaction and did not mean much.
However, the girl seemed to have misunderstood it.
"I'm sorry."
The girl nodded heavily before standing up and bowing deeply, "He died because of me. If it wasn't for my mistake, he would not have died there and might have been able to come back…"
There was a deep look of guilt and regret on her face.
Chen Heng's body's father had died because of an accident.
In order to retrieve a precious material to obtain some data, he had gone with this girl to a very dangerous place.
Because of their preparations, everything had initially gone quite smoothly.
They had successfully observed their target for a while, but because of a small mistake, they had been infected by the mutated creature's aura.
At the critical moment, his father had pushed the girl away and told her to come to this base to find his son.
As for his father, he had been devoured by the mutated creature and disappeared.
Sitting there and listening to the girl's words, Chen Heng frowned and thought to himself.
Only after a while did he raise his head and ask, "You mentioned a mutated creature?"
His voice was very calm but incredibly clear.
"Yes." Meeting Chen Heng's gaze, the girl nodded seriously as she deeply sighed, "We wanted to observe the mutated creature's changes so we could know what its origin was.
"We were very close to our answer, but in the end, we still failed…"
Chen Heng fell silent for a while before speaking, "Take me to have a look."
He stood up and said, "I want to know what these mutated creatures are like."
Hearing this, the girl stared for a while before nodding.
The scene from before still flashed in her mind.
That strange, holy light, as well as that warm energy still lingered in her body.
This made her feel great trust towards Chen Heng, and she instinctively wanted to listen to him.
After a while, they set out.
Soon, half a month had passed.
"It's here?"
Looking at the open area, Chen Heng felt quite surprised.
They were currently standing on a cliff, with a forest in front of them.
The forest was incredibly big and contained a strange energy, causing people to instinctively frown.
"The aura here… is very dense…" Chen Heng said softly.
"Indeed."
Hearing Chen Heng's words, the girl nodded, "Compared to other places, this area's mutated creature aura is very dense. That is the case for the unknown energy that the mutated creatures possess as well.
"If the effect of the unknown energy on the outside world is rated as a one, it would be rated as at least a ten here, and that is even more so the further in you go…"
Looking at Chen Heng, she said warily, "After arriving here, we need to be careful. Ideally, we should be wearing protective gear so we are not affected by the unknown energy.
"Otherwise, it might be easy for us to mutate…"
As she spoke, she snuck a glance at Chen Heng.
Before, her body had mutated because she had stayed in this region for a long period of time.
If it wasn't for Chen Heng, she might have already become a puddle of bloody water.
Even though she had been saved once, after experiencing that, she had sworn to never experience that again.
Even if Chen Heng could save her again, that intense pain could twist a person's mind.
Moreover, she did not know if Chen Heng would be able to save her again.
As such she had to protect herself.
However, meeting her gaze, Chen Heng shook his head and raised a hand.
Faint light shined out and spread out. It did not do much but covered the area around Chen Heng and the girl, forming a protective barrier.
Following this, Chen Heng once again stretched out his hand.
Faint light appeared in the surroundings, and they could faintly see a black aura that covered this area.
However, when Chen Heng's arm touched that black aura, it seemed to melt and scatter.
Seeing this, the girl was stunned before taking out all kinds of instruments to do analysis.
"Unbelievable…"
She took out a big pile of instruments, on which numbers continuously jumped.
Only after a long time did she confirm the situation, a look of surprise on her face, "When that unknown energy came into contact with you, your energy completely scattered that unknown energy. This is simply incomprehensible!"
After a while, she looked at Chen Heng, her eyes shining, "I'm sure that if you appeared five years ago, perhaps many less people would have died. I have no idea what that energy you have is, to be able to do such a thing."
She spoke in amazement, unable to keep her emotions under control.
In actuality, it was not just her: Even the experts underground all cried out in amazement.
Now, the nature of Chen Heng's energy had been fully displayed.
This energy was like an all-powerful resource. It had powerful effects, be it in healing, attacking, or other things.
None of the energies that humans had discovered could compare to the energy that Chen Heng had.
Even though this unknown energy had plagued humanity for more than ten years and had even forced humanity underground, it had been easily dispelled by Chen Heng's energy.
This caused many people to feel stupefied.
"Don't just stand there gawking…" Chen Heng said softly, "Let's go."
"Okay," the girl nodded seriously and walked forwards with Chen Heng.
They continued onwards and passed through the black forest.
The black forest looked quite unique. All of the trees were black, looking quite chilling.
It was still daytime and the sun hung in the sky, giving off bright sunlight.
It should have been quite bright.
However, the black forest did not seem illuminated at all and instead gave off a dark and cold feeling.
The two of them silently walked through this forest.
"There are many of them…" Chen Heng raised his head as he looked around and spoke softly.
His voice was very soft, and the girl looked at him in confusion.
"There are many things hiding here," Chen Heng said, "They are everywhere."
"It should be those mutated creatures…"
Hearing Chen Heng's words, the girl became quite nervous and asked, "Will there be any problems?"
"No," Chen Heng replied as he shook his head, "Dealing with them will not be difficult, and it will only be a bit troublesome."
"That's good," the girl felt much more at ease hearing Chen Heng's words.
After being with Chen Heng for this long and seeing his power, she had great confidence in him.
From how she saw it, he was so powerful that he was not like a human.
On the way, many mutated creatures had attacked them, including Corpse People who were incredibly powerful and had great vitality.
However, they were barely able to make a ruckus in front of Chen Heng before being cleared out easily.
After walking with Chen Heng for so long, she was already used to this and had great faith in Chen Heng.
This black forest was very big, and it took the two of them a long time of walking to reach another place.
Standing there, Chen Heng paused and looked ahead.
In front of them was a large crowd of buildings.
It seemed that before the catastrophe, this had most likely been an industrial park.
However, its previous prosperity had disappeared and had become a different scene.
In the surroundings, there was also some blood and some corpses.
It seemed that this place had also gone through a calamity at the start.
"This is Kelong Mountain Industrial Park, and it was a very important place before the catastrophe," the girl said softly as she looked at the buildings, "When the catastrophe began, this was one of the key places.
"Back then, the mutated creatures came from five places, and this was one of them."
She continued to explain, "Of course, after so many years, most of those mutated creatures most likely would not be here anymore. Otherwise, we would not dare to come here to investigate."
"What did you come here to investigate?" Chen Heng asked the girl.
He was quite curious about this.
Back when the catastrophe had first descended, everyone in the world had been desperately researching, but they had not been able to discover anything.
Since that was the case, why had they come here to investigate so many years after humanity had retreated underground?
This body's father had not told him his goal back then, so Chen Heng did not know the specific circumstances.
"We came here to investigate because of an unexpected discovery…"
Standing in front of Chen Heng, the girl sighed and said, "About half a year ago, some researchers discovered some videos in which we recorded some unique lifeforms.
"They had similar appearances to Corpse People, but different from the Corpse People, they had intelligence.
"In those videos, we found that those lifeforms and the unknown energy seem to be connected, so we came to investigate."
The girl sighed before continuing, "By now, even though it has been many years, we still have not worked out why those mutated creatures appeared. As such, we decided to try to figure this out—that was the only thing we could do."
"The reason why the mutated creatures appeared…"
Chen Heng frowned.
Indeed, it seemed that despite so many years having passed, humanity still had not worked this out.
Undoubtedly speaking, this catastrophe did not seem like it was naturally-formed.
Those mutated creatures' unique compositions and their ridiculous evolution abilities were not things that creatures in nature had.
Back then, there had been people researching this, but even now, they had not unravelled the mystery.
So what was the truth?
"In actuality…"
Standing before Chen Heng, the girl hesitated for a moment before continuing, "During that investigation, we did find some things."
She turned and looked at the buildings as she said, "In those buildings, we found some unique things, as well as traces of intelligent life.
"However, before we could do more research, we were found by some mutated creatures and fell into danger."
This was why she was willing to come with Chen Heng to this place.
Since they had almost reached the truth, she was unwilling to give up halfway like that.
After all, in order to obtain this truth, too many people had sacrificed themselves.
Now that she had this opportunity, she naturally wanted to come back to see just what the answer was.
In order to find out the truth, even if she died here, it would not matter.
That was why she had not refused and came here with Chen Heng.
"Is that so…"
Hearing this, Chen Heng nodded and was able to understand her emotions.
Following this, he did not say anything else and turned as he walked forwards.
After walking for a few moments, he stopped and looked around.
From his perspective, there was nothing special about this place.
If there was anything abnormal about it, it would be that these buildings were all very old and looked like they had been in disrepair for many years.
However, in the current world, this was not surprising.
After all, the catastrophe had come, and there were very few survivors living on the surface.
However, what did surprise Chen Heng was an aura lingering in the surroundings.
After stepping into this region, Chen Heng could sense that there seemed to be many formless gazes secretly observing him.
However, when he wanted to find the sources of those gazes, they completely disappeared.
"It is indeed quite strange…" he inwardly thought to himself as he continued forwards.
Apart from those gazes, the unknown energy became much denser as well.
The girl clearly sensed those changes and took out some measuring instruments, causing her expression to become grim.
"It's 1,000 times the amount of the outside world…" she said as she looked at Chen Heng.
1,000 times…
That meant that after entering this region, the rate at which people would be infected by the unknown energy would be 1,000 times faster than outside.
It seemed that for ordinary people, they would not have to spend very long in this place to become mutated.
