Chapter 10 The Torture Chamber

The area beyond the gate was quite similar to the path they had taken before. The gray walls and floors exuded a deathly stillness, and the overhead lights were arranged at the same intervals, emitting a cold, white glow.

Feng Bujue and Igor proceeded for several dozen meters before seeing a room.

The door to the room was also made of metal and was already open. Igor first peeked inside and, finding no signs of life, entered the room at Jue-ge's instruction and turned on the light switch.

As the lights came on, the scene inside the room was clearly revealed to the two men...

It was a space of about forty square meters, filled with many bizarre pieces of equipment, most of which were torture instruments.

The room was filled with a foul odor. Feng Bujue speculated that it was a mixture of chemicals, blood, and excrement. Various stains on the floor and torture devices served as evidence for his conjecture.

In Jue-ge's style, he would naturally search the place thoroughly, and indeed, he found several valuable props.

After all, this was a "torture chamber," so there were bound to be many things used to injure people. The weapons found here were naturally more useful than those obtained in the operating room.

Thus, a few minutes later, when the two men left the room, Igor had a sharp meat cleaver in his hand...

At this moment, this burly (he was very thin when he first entered the base, but his body gradually changed during the experiments) "Soviet captain," wearing a tattered straitjacket (the straps and connected sleeves of the jacket had already been cut open with scissors in the operating room), barefoot, and wielding a murder weapon, was a veritable demon.

With Jue-ge, the pillar of support, behind him, Igor's fear had eased a lot; moreover... as time went on, he gradually experienced the strength of his body.

Not to mention the already obvious improvements in strength, reaction, and endurance, just now... when exploring the unlit room, he realized... that his eyes also had very good vision in the dark; this night vision ability was obviously beyond ordinary people.

"Hmm... although we found a few usable weapons, there are no plot items..." The two continued on their way, Feng Bujue's thoughts never ceasing, "After coming out of Experiment Room Number One, we've basically been repeatedly turning in the same direction, getting farther and farther away from the 'room behind the mirror'..." Thinking of this, he couldn't help but think, "It feels like... this script is going to be very long..."

His feeling was right. This script had a very large space and a lot of explorable plot; the plot up to the point where the player came out of the gate... was only the beginning.

…………

About four hours earlier, inside the Observation Room.

This was a room separated from Laboratory Number One by only "a mirror."

The interior decoration was mainly white. The consoles, chairs, and computer mainframes all had streamlined designs and could be described as futuristic.

"Attention all units, new project has appeared at the designated spawn point."

Almost at the same second that Feng Bujue was teleported to Experiment Room Number One, a staff member sitting behind the "mirror screen" observing the situation quickly pressed the communication button on the console and issued a report.

In less than five seconds, a woman's voice came from the communicator: "Observer, this is Dr. Cox, please immediately share the data to... analysis rooms 3, 4, and 19."

"I've already taken care of it, Doctor." The observer completed the operation while listening to the other party's description.

"Very good." After a few seconds, Dr. Cox continued, "Okay... I've taken over your data, you can stop operating now."

"Phew..." The operator heard this, breathed a sigh of relief, stood up, stretched, and muttered, "Then I'll go make a cup of coffee and get ready to watch the show..."

At the same time, in another part of the base, in an office.

A refined beauty wearing black-rimmed glasses and a white coat was busily working in front of a console made of virtual projections.

Dr. Cox had a pair of beautiful brown eyes and medium-length black hair. Although she was nearly forty years old, in her time, the signs of aging before the age of sixty were not obvious, so she still looked as young and beautiful as a girl in her early twenties.

"Let me see... what kind of setting will it be this time..." Dr. Cox muttered to herself as she pulled up the relevant experimental data.

【Current Mirror Code: Earth 202】

【Time: October 1949】

【Location: Underground laboratory of the former Soviet Psychotronics Organization】

【Basic Story Background: During a sleep deprivation experiment, five test subjects persisted in a closed environment until the twenty-fourth day, and a "supernatural mutation" accident occurred. Subsequently, all test subjects escaped the experimental area, causing a large number of casualties and paralyzing the base.】

"Hmm... a very typical plot." Dr. Cox spent only a few seconds scanning these contents, then raised her right hand and casually swiped in the empty space beside her, summoning another virtual interface.

"Data display request, ***-3232, password... walnut."

After Dr. Cox said these few words to the interface, a cold, synthesized voice immediately responded:

【Application submitted, verifying password...】

【Password correct, voiceprint recognition complete, welcome to browse the data, Dr. Cox.】

After a few short voice prompts, a floating virtual window popped up, listing a detailed document...

…………

【Project Code: ***-3232】

【Project Level: euclid】

【Special Containment Measures: Due to the special properties of ***-3232, it is currently impossible to establish a feasible containment procedure for it.】

【Description: ***-3232 is a story-type phenomenon that occurs irregularly. There are no clear signs or patterns for its occurrence and termination, and its process seems to be completely random.

There is still controversy among the Foundation's top management as to whether this project actually exists.

Although the project has not shown any direct hostility to existing human civilization or the four-dimensional space, some managers are still obsessed with the idea that the project should be upgraded to keter level—related applications will be shelved indefinitely before the end of the "Observation Project."

According to existing observation records, ***-3232 has the following characteristics:

First, ***-3232 has a higher probability of appearing in the form of horror and thriller, accounting for more than [Data Shielded] percent, and frequently involves other *** projects (contained or uncontained).

Second, when ***-3232 appears, it will inevitably teleport one to six humanoid creatures—namely "***-3232-1"—to the site of occurrence; their teleportation methods are varied and the principles are unknown.

Third, all ***-3232-1 observed so far are young humans over the age of sixteen, with a male-to-female ratio of 6:4, and more than 90% are of Asian descent. The appearance of ***-3232-1 is generally handsome, especially women; their clothing spans a wide range, and the examples observed so far include but are not limited to—special forces uniforms, suits, bathrobes, medieval armor, ancient Chinese armor, various casual clothes in the style of the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries, and various costumes of fictional characters taken from novels, comics, and film and television works.

Fourth, some ***-3232-1 will exhibit special abilities, such as super strength, releasing tangible energy, teleportation, [Data Shielded], etc.; the types of these abilities are very diverse, and the performance of each individual is different. So far, the most common is the ability to "access items from a subspace that we cannot observe."

Fifth, ***-3232 communicates with ***-3232-1 in some way we cannot know and gives them "missions"; "missions" can be plural or conflicting. When receiving conflicting missions, ***-3232-1 will attack each other and spare no effort to kill each other.

Sixth, the vast majority of ***-3232-1 will show disregard or even indifference to their own lives when "in a situation where death is inevitable" or "to help their companions achieve their missions."

Seventh, when ***-3232 occurs, it will have some kind of mental influence on all things involved in it. People affected by this influence usually ignore the strange names and appearances of ***-3232-1 and can understand the various languages they speak, even if some of these words are never heard by those affected. It is not until ***-3232 terminates that the affected will realize the previous anomaly.

Eighth, ***-3232-1 has a fairly high probability of dying or suddenly disappearing during the existence of ***-3232, the latter situation mostly occurring when ***-3232-1 is frightened, after being frightened, and when in dire straits; when all ***-3232-1 die or disappear, ***-3232 will immediately terminate.

Ninth, when all ***-3232-1 have the same mission goal, the completion of one mission will trigger the termination of ***-3232 and cause all ***-3232-1 to disappear together. When ***-3232-1 has conflicting mission goals, one or one party must be the ultimate survivor to trigger this effect.

Tenth, the corpses of ***-3232-1 will disappear within seconds of their death, and attempts to collect their DNA have all failed.】

【Appendix: Observation Project—Even if we cannot contain ***-3232 for the time being, with the Foundation's existing technological capabilities, we can completely induce it to occur by creating some "environments suitable for the appearance of ***-3232" and observe the entire process, and even intervene to a certain extent. This will help us to understand the various characteristics of this project in more detail, and maybe one day we can control and utilize it.】

【Note: All members of the Overseer Council (overseer_Council) please read document 3232-o5】

【Document 3232-o5: Okay, let me get straight to the point. We are facing something projected from worlds parallel to or higher in dimension than us. For them, this may be some kind of entertainment or a simulation test or something. But for us, this is not fun at all! Because ***-3232 has the potential to bring in various keter-level projects from other universes. If you don't know what I'm talking about, then go read document 3232-L! This will let you know that the guys who proposed the "Observation Project" are simply playing with fire and burning themselves.】

【Document 3232-L: Transcript of Agent Steven's recording—

Time: [Data Shielded]

Location: [Data Shielded]

I think we've been set up. This guy is definitely not an ordinary D-class personnel, and his name is probably not Rudy Austin.

I don't know how he passed the review, I only know that this guy is very powerful, so powerful that it makes people shudder...

When the power outage occurred, he was standing in the room of ***-173, but he actually managed to escape...

He knows how to subdue 173 with 294, and I don't know what he did at 738; our security team doesn't know the information about 106, but he seems to know it all; in addition, he also knows how to use 1998, and seems to be unaffected even when affected by 513...

Although he was arrested after being affected by 055, the result was... he turned around and subdued Commander Kozmo during the interrogation process and took the opportunity to enter the emergency security通道.

He and Billy... oh, sorry... and Anomalous-01 obviously know each other. I think he used 914 to process that puppet, strengthening the latter's spatial ability, so he escaped the base.】

【Note: For other activity records of the project, and examples suspected to be caused by the project, please refer to the "Observation Project."】

…………

As the main advocate and executor of the "Observation Project," Dr. Cox had naturally seen this document more than once.

Among the known and confirmed ***-3232 activity events, the one recorded in Document 3232-L caused the greatest loss to the Foundation, and the Foundation at that time had not yet confirmed... or rather, had not yet realized the existence of ***-3232 at all.

However, the situation is different now.

This... is the "future"—a full two hundred years after Feng Bujue's "Ultimate Rescue."

The Foundation of this era has the technological level to operate "Mirror Space" (mainly because they have made breakthroughs in their research on ***-1733). They can simulate or reproduce something that happened in a parallel universe in a specific environment.

For example, the script that Feng Bujue is in right now is actually a "micro-universe" simulated by the Foundation in a huge facility. In a sense, this is similar to the "script world" generated by Thriller Paradise, except that its scale is much smaller.

Click—

A little over a minute later, the lights in Laboratory Number One came on.

At this moment, Dr. Cox looked at Jue-ge in the monitoring screen, and Jue-ge was also looking at the one-way mirror in Experiment Room Number One... The two formed a peculiar eye contact.

"Heh..." The doctor looked at this "experimental product" and whispered to herself, "Good luck, sir... let me see what you can do..."