Chapter 346 342: Signal

Although Zhang Wenda knew what the other party wanted, he didn't produce it rashly. He wasn't sure how to use the item and hadn't paid it much mind recently, but he understood its value.

A Qianxi who used this ability could become immune to most effects. If he wanted to confront 1999 in the future, this item could prove invaluable.

Seeing the entity's state, Zhang Wenda thought for a moment. He decided not to refuse outright, but to probe it a little first.

"You can sense its pulsation? So you're saying it's constantly changing? How are you able to sense that?"

"It is summoning all of us." As the concrete head uttered these cryptic words, the sphere floating in the air began to change again, morphing into a spiky, hedgehog-like mass.

Although he didn't understand what it was saying, Zhang Wenda's interest was piqued. 'It seems to know something about 1999?'

He wasn't sure if it was true, but one thing was certain. The ability to see past all the bizarre, kaleidoscopic phenomena, to know that the root of everything was 1999, and to precisely sense that a part of it was on his person—that alone was remarkable. This concrete head from Area 3 was no simple entity.

With a flip of his hand, Zhang Wenda had the Little Black Cat toss out the Golden Ball from his Inner World. As the golden light illuminated the area, he could even hear the voice from the entity's radio grow heavy, as if panting.

Seeing that it was taking the bait, Zhang Wenda immediately spoke again. "You want this? I might consider it. But first, I need to know what you plan to do with it, and how much you know about it."

However, faced with the Golden Ball, the entity seemed instantly mesmerized. It lost all desire to communicate and simply lunged forward, reaching out to snatch it.

Zhang Wenda blurred into an afterimage and shot backward. "Don't make me put you down! Do you really think I'm some kind of pushover?!"

But he had barely finished speaking when the creature raised its hand. The cement on the ground instantly surged up, wrapping around his legs and pinning him to the spot.

Seeing this, Red roared in fury and charged. "You're fucking asking for it!"

As the entity waved its staff, slabs of concrete rose from the ground one after another, quickly forming a thick wall. Its abilities seemed to be inextricably linked to the environment of Area 3.

But that couldn't hold Red for long. Red quickly shattered the concrete wall and charged toward the block-headed figure.

"Don't kill it!" Zhang Wenda instantly switched places with Red, halting the attack aimed at the creature's head. He redirected the blow, slashing toward the right hand that gripped the wooden staff.

But as the sharp scythe sliced through, Zhang Wenda discovered its arm was also made of concrete, reinforced with metal wires. 'No,' he realized, 'it's not just the body. Even the clothes are concrete.'

The severed arm, still clutching the wooden staff, hit the ground and shattered the shoddy concrete floor on impact.

"Concrete?" Seeing that the radio was just a concrete shell, Zhang Wenda immediately sensed something was wrong. 'How can something made of concrete produce sound?'

"It's a consciousness form! Over there!" Hearing the warning from above, Zhang Wenda whipped around to see the block-headed figure rising from the ground behind Red, its right hand reaching for the Golden Ball that Red now held.

Zhang Wenda instantly switched back and slashed behind him. The weapon, sharp enough to cut through steel as if it were mud, passed effortlessly through the creature's body, only to reveal more concrete inside.

'This is another fake! The real one is already hiding!' Zhang Wenda understood immediately. He leaped into the air on a cluster of thoughts, preventing the entity from binding him from below.

After a quick scan of his surroundings revealed nothing, the battle-hardened Zhang Wenda instantly deduced where it was.

"The creature is underground!"

Others might have found this situation difficult, but Zhang Wenda was different. He had a Youth Palace on call.

The massive Youth Palace materialized in the air and dove unhesitatingly toward the ground. "Capture it! I want it alive! I'm going to pry every last scrap of information from its mind!"

As the ground heaved and buckled, Zhang Wenda could feel the struggle unfolding beneath him. A few seconds later, the Youth Palace forced the block-headed creature out of the ground—right where Zhang Wenda was lying in wait.

This time, when the scythe sliced through its body, it was met not by concrete, but by a dark brown liquid. Its arms and legs were severed, and it collapsed to the ground like a broken doll. It was over.

Zhang Wenda walked over to it and sized up its cracked, block-shaped head. "What was all that trouble for? Acting like you actually stood a chance against me."

He nudged it with his foot. "Speak. Stop playing dead. Tell me everything about this 'thing from beyond the borders' you mentioned. And what exactly is this 'pulsation'?"

But there was no reaction. The entity remained motionless.

Yellow, who was watching the show from the sidelines while holding the Black Cat, pointed out, "It doesn't even have a mouth. How is it supposed to answer you?"

Only then did Zhang Wenda remember that this thing needed a tool to communicate. He glanced around before picking up the radio-staff from the severed hand on the ground.

He fiddled with it for a moment, unsure how to get the limbless creature to use it. It couldn't be used without a hand to hold it.

Just as Zhang Wenda was trying to figure out a way to reattach the creature's hand, a female voice suddenly cut through the static of the radio.

It was quick and buried in static, but Zhang Wenda recognized it instantly. It was Hu Maomao's voice!

He immediately forgot about the block-headed creature, focusing all his attention on the sounds coming from the radio.

The radio sounded incredibly cheap. It was filled with hissing static, and the occasional voices that came through were muffled and indistinct.

To get a better signal, Zhang Wenda flew into the air, cupping the radio in his hands. When he got underneath the giant highway overpass, the sound finally grew a little clearer. He could at least make out scattered fragments of human voices.

"A31... We are retreating..."

"Observing... effect..."

"1, 3, 5... atomic shells... magic numbers... lore of the dream-bestowed..."

Zhang Wenda could just about tell that the device was picking up all the signals in the airspace above Area 3. Judging by the number of transmissions, Area 3 was far more active than he had imagined.

He just couldn't yet determine what each signal represented, or who was broadcasting it.

Zhang Wenda ignored the incomprehensible fragments and began moving through the air, trying to find a spot with a clearer signal.

After a few minutes of this, a young girl's faint voice suddenly cut through the static on the radio.

"Hello? Is anyone receiving me? Codeword: 1413232. The swift seeks its nest. If you walk the same path, you should know who I am. Please contact me as soon as possible. I can receive any frequency, radio or psionic."

"If you are not one of us, you can also contact me if you see a young man in a leather jacket with a digital watch on his right wrist, or a cat-girl with one ear. I will pay a heavy price for that information. I repeat, 1421."