Baal clutched a notice freshly airdropped by a Defense Army drone, a hysterical, bitter laugh escaping his mouth.
"They dress it up as deep hibernation. Put bluntly, they're stuffing us into cold storage like frozen meat."
Baal abruptly tore the notice into shreds and hurled them against the wall.
"Why the hell should they?! I risked my life escaping the Consortium's illegal mining planet. My wife and children died on the way. Was all that just so I could come to Earth and become a slab of frozen meat?!"
"Star Sea Survivor is a liar! Lin Feng is a liar too! They can't save us at all!"
Rage, resentment, and despair gnawed at his heart like venomous snakes.
Just then.
"Drip."
An unusual dripping sound rang out in the silent pipe.
Baal froze for a moment and looked up.
The third eye on his forehead was a special organ of his species, capable of detecting minute changes in heat and energy in extreme darkness.
He saw, in the shadows at the end of the pipe.
A puddle of black water.
This puddle was not sewage leaking through cracks in the pipe. Its blackness was so utterly pure that it defied physical understanding. Even the sickly green fluorescence from the walls was completely absorbed when it shone on the puddle, without the slightest reflection.
"What the hell is that thing..."
Baal swallowed, instinctively feeling a spine-chilling cold.
He grabbed a rusty iron rod beside him and slowly stood.
The puddle of black water seemed to sense his movement and actually began to writhe slowly across the ground.
It was not flowing. It was "crawling."
Like a living mollusk, it approached Baal little by little.
"Get away! You disgusting bug!"
Forcing down his fear, Baal raised the iron rod and smashed it