Apocalypse Survival: Starting with a Shelter

Su Wu shifted his focus to a half-open door adjacent to the hall, using the detection equipment on the construction robot.

Despite the shelter's air conditioning maintaining an ambient temperature of 26 degrees Celsius in most areas, the temperature in the adjacent room reached an abnormal 45 degrees.

Carefully maneuvering the construction robot, Su Wu pushed the door open, rifle at the ready. Inside, a spherical object composed of pale purple crystal and rock came into view.

"What is that thing?"

Su Wu frowned, puzzled. Noticing no immediate movement in the room, he refrained from making rash actions. Instead, he scanned the entire room, feeding the data into the vehicle's onboard AI for analysis.

Within half a second, a stream of data and hypotheses appeared on the screen. Su Wu skimmed through it, quickly grasping the key points.

All the plastic-packaged food in the room had vanished, and the floor bore traces of bones and other residues, corroded by an unknown substance.

"Did some kind of creature devour people whole, bones and all?"

The evidence left little room for doubt. As Su Wu shifted his attention back to the massive spherical object in the center of the room, his gaze turned wary, treating it as a potentially dangerous, unknown organism.

He directed the construction robot to aim its rifle at the object and fired.

With a loud bang, sparks flew as the bullet struck, leaving a shallow dent on the sphere's surface.

The attack was effective but lacked sufficient force. Su Wu ordered the construction robot to retreat slightly and attach a grenade launcher beneath the rifle.

Another shot followed. The resulting explosion blasted away part of the sphere's outer layer, revealing what appeared to be muscle-like biological tissue beneath.

The exposed tissue began to writhe, reacting to the damage. However, after observing for a few seconds, Su Wu noticed that the movements seemed involuntary rather than defensive.

He exhaled a sigh of relief, his tension easing.

"If it can't withstand bullets and grenades, it's just another ordinary organism. No need to be afraid."

With fear subsiding, curiosity took hold. Su Wu debated his next steps and decided to adopt a conservative approach: study the remains rather than attempt to capture the organism alive.

Deploying a reconnaissance drone from the miniature mech, Su Wu silently guided it through the vehicle's airlock and towards the shelter.

Meanwhile, additional combat units from the ground assault group advanced on the shelter. The flame-throwing crawler at the entrance entered the facility, replacing the construction robot to attack the sphere.

High-temperature flames engulfed the exposed muscle tissue, continuously bombarding it with heat.

However, the tissue displayed extraordinary resistance, writhing unaffected for several minutes. Only when the first flame-throwing crawler ran low on fuel and a second unit took its place did the organism's defenses finally falter.

The muscle layers began to char and peel away, revealing an inner structure resembling brain tissue.

At this stage, the defenses crumbled entirely. Within seconds, the exposed tissue was incinerated into ash.

When the flames subsided, all that remained of the sphere was its outer shell, a mix of amethyst-like crystal and rock. The once-glimmering crystal was now dim and cracked.

"The temperature has stabilized. It should be safe now."

After confirming through various data sources that the organism was neutralized, Su Wu instructed the construction robot to clean up the scene.

Out of caution, he decided not to bring the remnants back to the base vehicle. Instead, the construction robot transported the lab equipment from the vehicle to the shelter for on-site analysis.

During this time, the construction robot continued to search the shelter, confirming no other creatures were present and attempting to retrieve surveillance footage for additional information.

Hours passed in methodical activity.

By dawn, Su Wu, who had stayed awake all night, received a detailed analysis report.

"This thing… came from deep underground?"

Whether he wanted to believe it or not, the analysis confirmed that the organism likely originated from the asthenosphere, a layer between 70 and 250 kilometers beneath the Earth's surface in the upper mantle.

This region, where magma forms, maintains average temperatures exceeding 700 degrees Celsius—conditions thought to be inhospitable to any form of life.

"Is this an isolated case, or are there more of them?"

Su Wu's expression turned grim as he realized the implications. If this were a lone specimen, it might not be a cause for alarm. But if similar organisms existed throughout the mantle, it could spell disaster.

The surveillance footage recovered from the shelter deepened Su Wu's unease.

The organism had initially been the size of a fist, appearing in a crack in the shelter's wall following a massive earthquake several weeks prior.

The shelter's owner had placed it in the storage room, where it gradually consumed nearby organic materials, growing to the size of a basketball within ten days.

At this stage, the organism underwent a significant evolution, transitioning from a plant-like state to an animal-like one. It gained active predatory abilities, capable of firing fine, blood vessel-like red threads to ensnare nearby humans.

The threads secreted potent anesthetics, rendering victims unconscious and allowing the organism to dissolve and consume them at leisure.

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