She looked at Lin Chen again, studying his ashen face with tightly furrowed brows.
The antibiotics didn’t seem to be working; the dark bruising on his wound…
Infection?
Virus?
Or a mutation triggered by Radiation?
She drew a deep breath of the icy air and focused her mind once more.
This time, her target was not to expand outward, but to explore inward… attempting to “sense” Lin Chen’s status.
The cool mental energy acted like a faint probe, cautiously approaching Lin Chen’s body.
She did not try to touch the icy energy (she had no desire to be frozen again), but instead attempted to perceive his vitality… or rather, to “see” the condition inside his wound.
Concentrate!
Focus even more!
It was like executing extreme maneuvers in a canyon, predicting the landing point of every skill!
Gradually, a vague, frosted-glass-like “image” appeared in the depths of her consciousness:
Lin Chen’s arm wound…
Where the flesh had curled back, the dark, black-blue patterns…
Like living, writhing, proliferating threads of black filaments.
They acted like greedy parasites, constantly draining his life force while burrowing deeper into muscle and bone.
Inside Lin Chen’s body, a pale blue, polar-storm-like energy instinctively fought back against these black filaments.
Every clash weakened him further.
Though wild and powerful, the pale blue energy seemed…
To lack precise “command”?
Like a headless fly, rampaging inside his body, harming enemies but damaging himself almost as much.
This… was “energy disorder”?
This was why he had lost control?
Su Qianqian’s chest tightened.
She could “feel” Lin Chen’s life force rapidly draining in the tug-of-war between ice and black.
The icy blue energy, though violent, was like a double-edged sword—while combating the infection, it was simultaneously destroying him!
What could she do?
How could she help him?
A bolder, almost fantastical thought emerged: what if…
If her mental energy could, like directing teammates in the canyon, slightly “guide” the rampaging blue energy inside Lin Chen?
Even if just to steer it away from critical points, or strike those black filaments more accurately?
The idea was insane!
One misstep could trigger that violent energy, blowing both Lin Chen and herself into icy fragments.
Yet, watching Lin Chen’s breathing grow weaker, feeling the brutal struggle raging inside him…
Su Qianqian’s eyes hardened with determination.
She slowly extended her slightly trembling hand, fingertips hovering just above Lin Chen’s frost-coated arm without truly touching it.
She closed her eyes, concentrating every thought, dismissing all distractions.
The cool mental energy was no longer a probe, but transformed into extremely thin, cautious “threads,” attempting, as if traversing a minefield, to slowly and tentatively…
Touch the edge of the violent, icy-blue storm within Lin Chen.
The moment her mental threads were about to make contact with the energy—
“BOOM!!!”
A deafening, subterranean explosion roared from afar.
Even through the thick cold storage walls and ice, the terrifying shockwave reverberated like a tangible force, shaking the entire facility violently.
The overhead fluorescent lights flickered wildly; dust and ice shards rained down.
The explosion’s origin…
Revealed itself as the Radiation outbreak epicenter marked on the map—Jiang City Central Hospital (Old Campus)!
This sudden upheaval disrupted Su Qianqian’s intensely focused mental guidance.
She let out a muffled groan as her mental energy collapsed instantly, her head stabbing with sharp pain.
The wild icy-blue energy within Lin Chen, already uncontrollable, seemed to react to the external explosion like a startled beast, suddenly rampaging even more violently.
“Ugh—!”
The deeply unconscious Lin Chen emitted a tortured, primal roar.
His body arched violently!
An even more violent, more freezing aura erupted from him, radiating outward!
“Crack! Crack! Crack!”
The heavy ice wall covering the door instantly doubled in thickness.
The ice seemed alive, spreading like frenzied vines up the cold storage ceiling and along the western walls.
Within seconds, the temperature inside the cold storage plummeted to well below zero.
Large flakes of snow formed in the air.
Su Qianqian’s breath instantly crystallized into frost.
Worse, the out-of-control icy-blue energy, like a runaway stallion, partially traced the “threads” she had mentally guided, snapping back toward her like icy serpents.
“Pff!”
She was struck hard, coughing up a small mouthful of blood, which instantly froze into crimson ice beads midair.
She felt as if her brain had been pierced by countless ice needles; her thoughts froze instantly, and her consciousness sank into cold darkness.
In the final moment before she lost awareness, through blurred vision, she saw Lin Chen’s tightly shut eyes…
Seem to open slightly…
A flash of icy-blue light flickered and vanished…
Outside, Brother Qiang and the others were also terrified by the massive explosion and the sudden intensification of the cold, stumbling backward in panic.
“Damn it! The hospital exploded?! This ice… why is it thicker again?! What the hell are they doing in there?!” Brother Qiang’s voice trembled with fear.
Glasses Guy stared intently at the red flame icon on his phone, representing Lin Chen’s location, wildly flashing with energy spikes, and at the expanding icy-blue snowflake symbol beside it. His face was as pale as paper.
Behind his lenses, his eyes were filled with terror and… near-crazed greed.
“Energy… a more powerful energy has erupted… This is no ordinary superpowered person… it’s a ‘Radiation’ adaptant!
Absolutely!
Capture him… no, obtain him… then we can…” He muttered to himself, voice trembling with excitement.
Inside the cold storage, frost raged and cold imprisoned all.
Outside, danger lingered, and greedy eyes sought substance in the shadows.
The explosion that shook all of Jiang City had sounded the horn of the apocalypse.