Book 3, Chapter 217: Fort 285

The people in the warehouse exchanged looks. The three soldiers had died forty-eight hours ago? This would have been the day before yesterday, so who were the people who had welcomed them?

Chen Chuan turned to the logistics officer behind him. “Wake everyone up. We need to recheck the place.”

The logistics officer saluted him. Then, he ran to the barracks.

Yuan Qiuyuan and Qin Qingque were the first to arrive. When Yuan Qiuyuan saw the three corpses, he gasped before asking, “Captain, is this an anomalous event?”

“I can’t say for certain now.”

Chen Chuan didn’t jump to conclusions because he didn’t see his second self blurring out. Either something else caused it, or the anomaly wasn’t that bad.

Once everyone woke up and they inspected the rest area again, they became sure that no one else had died aside from the three soldiers.

However, after learning about this, they started thinking back on their interactions with the soldiers and found that none of them had had any physical contact with them.

Chen Chuan pondered over this before saying to Yuan Qiuyuan, “Officer Yuan, stand guard here tonight.”

“Leave it to me, Captain,” Yuan Qiuyuan replied with no hesitation.

Chen Chuan then stepped outside the warehouse and said to the other soldiers, “Our mission is to investigate anomalous situations of unknown causes. We’re going to encounter more of such situations in the future, so you need to be mentally prepared for that.

“Officer Yuan, Officer Qin, and I will do our best to take care of everything properly. Those on shift duty should return to your stations, while those who are supposed to be resting, go back and rest. Remember to stay alert.”

“Roger!” The soldiers saluted him respectfully before returning to their posts and the barracks.

The soldiers on shift duty did not see anything else abnormal until the sun rose. In the morning, the team packed up and got ready to leave.

Once they left the rest area and traveled for around ten minutes, Chen Chuan suddenly instructed his driver, “Go back.”

The driver didn’t ask any questions and just turned back.

The other SUVs also received the same order on their Realm Passes. Even though they didn’t know what was going on, they had to obey orders and went back as well.

When they returned to the rest area, the gate that they had shut before leaving was open. Someone was also speaking through the speakers inside and asking them for identification.

They were shocked.

“Captain?” Yuan Qiuyuan turned around looking for instructions.

“We’ll act according to procedure,” Chen Chuan said into his Realm Pass.

Then, he said to Qin Qingque, “Officer Qin, go with them.”

“Roger!” Qin Qingque immediately left her SUV and walked forward with two soldiers.

Nothing went wrong with the procedure. After connecting, the three soldiers who were confirmed dead yesterday walked out to verify their documents.

They did the exact same thing as last time.

Everyone had seen their dead bodies already, though. Chills went down their spines from the bizarre situation.

Chen Chuan got out of his SUV and cast a glance at his second self. Again, he saw no signs of him blurring out. So, he went up to the three soldiers. When the trio saw his uniform, they saluted him. Their expressions and attitudes were no different from those of normal people.

He reached out and tapped the center of their eyebrows. They were stunned for a moment, then collapsed on the ground.

A moment later, something white crawled out of their ears and started squirming away.

Yuan Qiuyuan had followed along, and he stomped down on one. The thing curled up, and after observing it for a bit, he exclaimed in shock, “A vitalized brain?”

Chen Chuan nodded.

Puzzled, Yuan Qiuyuan stared at the three collapsed soldiers. “But they’re just normal people.”

Usually, only martial artists needed to worry about vitalization, since they had mutated tissue. Normal people seldom had such problems, which was why the main force in the forts consisted of normal soldiers.

“They’re normal soldiers, but these vitalized brains might not be theirs,” Chen Chuan replied.

Yuan Qiuyuan was taken aback. His mind quickly grasped what Chen Chuan said, and he looked into the distance. “Did they come from Fort 285?” he whispered.

There were no martial artists here, but Fort 285 had a few of them.

“I think so,” Chen Chuan answered.

After a martial artist’s brain went through vitalization, they would use their original body, but if something happened and it could no longer be used, they would look for another body. They would eat their brain, claim their memories, and become someone else entirely.

This was why the base was so wary of vitalization. It was hard to determine whether something had gone wrong with someone.

Chen Chuan recalled the information he read. Fort 285 had one Third Limit martial artist and three Second Limit martial artists. The three vitalized brains here should have belonged to the three Second Limit martial artists.

“Captain, we’ve got a telegram from Fort 285.” A communications officer brought the telegram over.

Chen Chuan read it. It was a jumbled series of codes that made no sense. He handed it to Qin Qingque, and after she read through it carefully, she said, “There’s no message whatsoever, Captain.”

“Could it be those things sending the telegram?” Yuan Qiuyuan asked.

“We’ll know once we go there. There’s no reason to stay here any longer. Let’s pack up. Send a report to the base, then we’ll leave. We want to reach Fort 285 as soon as possible,” Chen Chuan ordered.

Some soldiers immediately went up to put the three soldiers’ bodies in body bags before transferring them into the freezer. Then, they resumed their journey.

Fort 285 was a development outpost. Usually, they were built on important terrain to protect the rear.

Then, they could calmly develop the territory they had claimed for themselves. There were pros and cons to this. In the beginning, they had airships transporting supplies and fighting for them, so they could overcome plenty of problems, but after things stabilized, the base no longer sent airships to support them, and things became harder for them.

If something went wrong with such an important place, the rear wouldn’t be able to carry out certain missions, so they had to figure out what exactly had happened to Fort 285.

The motorcade traveled at full speed. Before 5 p.m., they reached their destination. This time, no one was standing guard outside. They went on full guard, only to find that it was empty inside.

Not only were the soldiers stationed here gone, but also the unit that had been sent to check up on the situation.

Their vehicles were lined up neatly at the center of the fort and the garages. All the weapons in the armory were in their original positions. Everything in the rooms was also tidied and cleaned up. There were no signs of an attack or a fight.

The fort was built based on standard specifications and could house one hundred soldiers, so it felt large and deserted when they came in. They could hear their footsteps echo, causing goosebumps to break out on most soldiers’ skin.

“Send a report to the base telling them that we’ve reached Fort 285 and what we’ve found here. Also, ask them to keep an eye on any telegrams from Fort 285 tonight.”

The communications officer immediately went off to send the telegram.

“There’s around an hour before the sun completely sets. You have half an hour to inspect the fort and clean up. Remember to maintain communication lines with the other units wherever you go,” Chen Chuan ordered.

“Roger!”

The soldiers immediately split into three-man units and spread out.

Chen Chuan turned to Yuan Qiuyuan and Qin Qingque. “Check the defensive equipment and fortifications outside the fort. Pay attention to your vitalization rate and how you feel. Don’t trust the number on your Realm Pass entirely.”

Yuan Qiuyuan and Qin Qingque felt a jolt in their hearts at the implication and voiced their understanding.

After asking them to keep an eye on the other soldiers too, Chen Chuan headed to the office.

He should be able to find some activity logs there. All forts had to keep a record of their activities, so he might be able to find some useful clues.

The office was built the same as the other places. All items were positioned neatly, which made it easy to find the logs. After skimming through the contents, Chen Chuan found that the last log was on the tenth of December, which was two days before the fort started sending the jumbled telegrams.

All the records before this were normal. They mentioned patrols, shifts, organizations, reports, and other things. There was no note about anomalous events. It seemed that the anomaly had appeared so suddenly that no one had had time to react.

However, while reading through a personal journal of the Third Limit martial artist stationed here as a sentry, Chen Chuan noticed that some of the pages were torn off. After a bit of digging around, he found them in the dustbin.

He tried piecing them together and found that they contained some scribbles, a large splotch of color, and some unidentifiable words. Upon seeing it, Chen Chuan could imagine a madman writing them down while mumbling under his breath.

He stared at the papers for a bit and sank into contemplative silence until Qin Qingque contacted him.

“Captain, there are no damages or holes on the walls. I broke a section apart to take a look and found that the fortifications and materials inside the walls are in perfect condition. The water and food in the fridges are stored properly and reach the standard amount required to feed a one-hundred-man company for more than a month.”

Yuan Qiuyuan reported after her. “I checked the outside and saw no signs of anything climbing up or attacking the walls. There aren’t any traces of creatures from the merged space getting close either.

“The plants outside are properly uprooted too. Even though some have grown back, the closest is about one kilometer away from the fort. The trenches and barbed wires set up based on the tactical guidebook aren’t damaged either.”

“Got it. Since there are no problems, come back,” Chen Chuan ordered.

He walked out of the office and looked down at the fort. There was nothing outside, so the problem had to be within the fort. The sun was still out right now, so they didn’t need to worry, but night was going to fall in less than an hour. Things might become different then.

Source: Webnovel.com, updated by NovelKeep