308: Chapter 309 Decryption

Nobi Dahniao stood before the flawless stasis pod, watching Dr. Jinren floating inside as his brain raced at top speed.

"Wait."

Nobi Dahniao suddenly realized something.

He spun around abruptly, looking toward the entrance of the metal capsule—which was the hole they had blown open yesterday.

"What's wrong?" Dragon Strike nervously raised his shield, thinking Granny had actually spawned.

"We've fallen into a cognitive trap." Nobi Dahniao's eyes lit up.

"If this were a conventional puzzle game, when you've searched every corner of a room, tried all the items, and even used extremely abstract operations, yet still can't clear the level..."

Nobi Dahniao paused, his tone turning exceptionally resolute.

"Then there's only one possibility left."

"The key item to solve this puzzle isn't in this room at all!"

Da Heibi and Dragon Strike exchanged glances, a sudden realization dawning on them simultaneously.

That's right!

The game often had this kind of setup.

You'd find a treasure chest in this area, but the key to open it was actually on another map hundreds of kilometers away, or even inside the belly of some monster killed in the previous quest phase!

"Then where do we go to find the key?" Da Heibi immediately asked.

Nobi Dahniao took a deep breath and pulled out his pv.

"A bunch of mud-legged peasants like us won't find it, but don't forget who's standing behind us."

Nobi Dahniao quickly edited a message in the input box.

"Let's call for backup directly, package all the environmental data of the scene, and send it straight to the big shot. Since he issued this quest, it means he definitely holds hidden plot clues we don't know about."

"Outsource the puzzle solving, let an NPC crack the NPC."

Message sent.

The three of them stood before the serene stasis pod, quietly awaiting a reply from the supreme will of the Shelter.

The message transmission was complete.

Nobi Dahniao watched the "Sending" progress bar on the system panel change to "Delivered".

Ten seconds passed.

Thirty seconds passed.

One minute passed.

"Why hasn't the boss replied yet?" Da Heibi paced back and forth impatiently in place.

In games, players' patience usually didn't exceed half a minute. Dragon Strike leaned against his adamantium shield and yawned:

"The NPC is probably running through a plot sequence or checking the database, we can just wait."

Da Heibi couldn't stay idle.

He walked over to the power pipeline he had unplugged earlier and kicked the edge of the tube with the toe of his boot.

"Clang." The tactical collection bag at his waist collided with the armor plating, producing a crisp, physical clatter.

Da Heibi froze.

He lowered his head and looked at the bag at his waist.

It was filled with crystallized lizard fragments and intact crystals dropped from fighting monsters yesterday.

A bold idea struck his mind like lightning.

"Brothers!" Da Heibi slapped his thigh fiercely, his voice even trembling.

"What's wrong? Did he reply?" Nobi Dahniao looked back.

"No! I've figured it out!"

Da Heibi excitedly untied the collection bag,

"The third law of puzzle games: the proximity principle!"

He grabbed an intact crystal emitting a dim glow and waved it in front of the other two.

"Items dropped by monsters are definitely the key to solving the puzzles in the current area! Didn't we fight so many crystalline monsters yesterday? Aren't these crystals ready-made power sources?!"

Nobi Dahniao and Dragon Strike exchanged glances.

This logic was simply flawless within a game.

"Try it quickly!" Nobi Dahniao immediately ordered.

Da Heibi dropped to one knee, grabbing the circular interface of the power pipeline in one hand and holding the crystal in the other.

The caliber size matched unexpectedly well.

Da Heibi pressed down hard.

"Click."

The crystal snapped seamlessly into the neural connection contact points of the pipeline.

The three of them held their breath, staring intently at the stasis pod.

One second.

Two seconds.

"Hum—!"

Inside the quiet metal capsule, a low physical resonance sound suddenly erupted.

The base of the stasis pod suddenly lit up with a blinding red light.

The pale blue light current that had been flowing steadily instantly turned into a violent dark red.

The blue gel filling the chamber began to boil violently, bubbling profusely.

Dense ancient red warning characters flashed wildly across the transparent outer shell of the stasis pod.

The harsh sound of system errors echoed sharply in the confined space.

However, in the eyes of these three players, this was an entirely different scene.

"It's moving! It's moving!"

Dragon Strike excitedly raised his shield and pounded wildly on the floor.

"Red lights flashing! This is the highest-tier special effect for pulling a legendary item!"

Da Heibi was so excited he was dancing with joy,

"I knew my puzzle-solving logic was spot on! The crystal is the key!"

"We're entering a cutscene! Don't move around randomly, be careful of getting bugged!"

Nobi Dahniao immediately shouted commands in the channel.

The alarm sound of the stasis pod grew increasingly harsh, and the rapidly flashing red light reflected off the three players' faces like ripe crabs.

"Quick, quick, quick, get ready to welcome the god-tier NPC!"

Da Heibi moved nimbly, pulling a long red bandage straight out of his tactical backpack. Dragon Strike immediately understood, stepping forward to pinch one end of the bandage. The two pulled the red bandage taut, stretching it horizontally right in front of the stasis pod to act as a ceremonial red ribbon.

Nobi Dahniao drew his high-frequency oscillating dagger, taking a large stride to the center of the red bandage.

"Come on, start taking screenshots and recording videos!" Da Heibi shouted.

The three of them quickly struck a pose.

With a smile on his face, Nobi Dahniao raised his blade and brought it down. With a swish, he cut through the red bandage.

"Celebrating Team Big Bird for successfully cracking the ancient ruins!"

"Welcome Dr. Jinren to join the Shelter faction!"

Facing the stasis pod that was continuously flashing error red lights, the three of them frantically took group photos as mementos.

Da Heibi had even started planning out his shopping list for those 100,000 points in advance within the squad voice chat.

From their perspective, the door of this stasis pod would slowly open in the next second accompanied by a divine light.

That god-tier NPC with perfect modeling would walk out of the pod door, issuing higher-tier quests to them and offering top-grade equipment.

The fruits of victory were close at hand, and everything was progressing steadily according to the most perfect plot.

Inside the metal capsule.

The harsh system error sound came to an abrupt halt.

The frantically flashing red light went out suddenly, like a light bulb whose power was instantly cut off.

On the base of the stasis pod, the crystal that Da Heibi had forcefully jammed into the pipeline interface let out a faint "crack" sound.

The surface of the crystal was covered in cracks, then turned into a pool of grayish-white powder, completely scattering across the metal floor.

The boiling pale blue gel stopped churning.

The entire sealed space plunged back into a death-like silence.

The three players who were striking poses for photos froze in place.

"Is that it?"

Da Heibi maintained his V-sign pose, blinking his eyes.

He looked at the completely motionless stasis pod, then at the pool of powder on the ground.

"Did the cutscene bug out?"

Dragon Strike put down the red bandage in his hand, stepped forward, and tapped the transparent bulkhead with his armored-gloved hand. "Hello? Wake up? Fellow townsman, checking the water meter."

Inside the stasis pod, that perfect Dr. Jinren still had his eyes closed.

There was no sign of awakening, and the door of the stasis pod did not open either.

Not only that, even the pale blue energy streams that had originally maintained the operation of the stasis pod completely dimmed out at this moment.

"Da Heibi, what kind of terrible idea is this of yours."

Nobi Dahniao put away his dagger, his face darkening,

"This isn't charging it at all; you clearly plugged in a virus-infected USB flash drive and crashed their system!"

"No way."

Da Heibi scratched his helmet somewhat guiltily,

"Aren't puzzle games always designed with tropes like this? Put in an item, trigger the mechanism. With such a big commotion just now, I thought we were about to pull a legendary item."

"Pull my ass." Dragon Strike sighed, "Well, now the machine is completely powered down, and this quest is completely bugged out."

The three of them slumped dejectedly, preparing to open their communication panel to continue seeking help from the big shot of the Shelter.

Right at this moment.

An exceptionally eerie feeling descended without warning into this confined metal capsule.

The first thing to show abnormalities was the temperature.

This was inherently an absolute zero vacuum ruin.

The players could only maintain their body temperature by relying on the constant temperature life-support system inside their Power Armor.

But at this moment, the three of them simultaneously felt a piercing chill.

That wasn't a drop in temperature on a physical level.

It was a sinister cold that felt as if it would freeze the soul directly.

The chill ignored the thermal insulation layer of the Power Armor, slithering up along the spine like a cold venomous snake straight toward the back of the head.

"Da Niao..."

Dragon Strike's voice suddenly began to tremble in the squad channel,

"Don't you think... it feels like something extra has appeared here?"

Nobi Dahniao didn't answer.

His gaze was fixed on the pv panel.

In the upper right corner of the panel, the green bar representing sanity value, which was originally at maximum status.

But at this very moment, the sanity value began to drop crazily at a terrifying speed visible to the naked eye.

[Warning: High concentration of unknown mental corruption detected.]

[Sanity - 10]

[Sanity - 20]

[Sanity - 35]

"Something's wrong!"

Nobi Dahniao reacted abruptly, his voice turning sharp,

"The energy pipeline of this stasis pod isn't used to maintain stasis at all! It might be using the energy of the Golden Men to suppress something!"

Stuffing crystals containing Warp energy into the interface didn't crack the password for the awakening program.

Instead, it forcibly disrupted the balance of the energy circuit and let out whatever was being suppressed beneath the metal capsule.

As soon as those words fell.

White mist began to seep out from the metal floor beneath the stasis pod.

The mist was very faint and translucent.

It was unaffected by the vacuum environment whatsoever, spreading and intertwining slowly across the floor like it possessed self-awareness.

"Guard! Prepare for combat!"

Da Heibi reacted extremely quickly, instantly raising his Bolter and aiming the muzzle at the white mist on the ground.

Dragon Strike immediately raised his adamantium riot shield, propping it up at the very front of the three and forming a standard tactical defensive formation.

The mist gathered more and more.

Finally, on the right side of the stasis pod, the white mist slowly rose and condensed into a silhouette that defied description in words.

That was a hazy white existence.

It had no fixed form.

It looked like a huge jellyfish in the deep sea, or like a mass of constantly writhing, twisting white static snow.

It had no eyes, no limbs, and not even a substantive torso.

It was just like a ghost, formless and substanceless.

Yet inexplicably, all three players present could clearly feel its existence.

That was pure malice.

A sense of high-dimensional gaze surpassing the three-dimensional physical universe.

As long as one's gaze fell upon it, endless despair and terror would uncontrollably well up deep within the brain.

As if it were the embodiment of the concept of death.

"What on earth is this thing..."