Global Survival: I Got the D-Rank Personnel Simulator

Cooling Tower

Lin Ye picked up the gas mask from the shelf and glanced at it. It seemed to be just an ordinary gas mask.

Those weapons were also just ordinary firearms. The internal structures of both the weapons and the gas masks had been eroded to varying degrees, leaving only relatively intact outer shells.

Lin Ye made a round of the supermarket but didn’t find anything useful.

As he walked out of the supermarket, Lin Ye suddenly noticed that the bicycle he had parked by the road earlier was gone.

”...There are bike thieves in a place like this? I didn’t even hear a sound. With skills like that, you’re stealing a bike here?”

Lin Ye found it strange. He couldn’t have misremembered such simple information, and a bicycle wouldn’t just vanish for no reason. Something must have taken it away.

But there wasn’t a single sound around, and Lin Ye couldn’t find any clues at all.

This place felt like a graveyard of factories, with nothing but abandoned buildings and the thick gray-green smoke continuously billowing from those cooling towers.

Lin Ye took out the Lucky Coin. Since the situation was unclear, he could only borrow a bit of luck.”Heads, enter the factory; tails, follow the road.”

The coin landed on the back of Lin Ye’s hand. It was heads.

Lin Ye approached the nearest factory entrance. A nearly scrapped bicycle was parked just outside the gate.

”...Is this a coincidence?”

Lin Ye didn’t get near the bicycle. He had no idea why it had ended up here.

If someone had done this, what was their purpose?

Staring at the bicycle in front of him, Lin Ye felt a ripple of unease.

Just as Lin Ye was debating whether to enter the factory, the Information Armor suddenly emitted a blinding multicolored light. But this light didn’t affect the surrounding environment; instead, the cooling towers inside the factory were dyed in vibrant colors.

A massive amount of colored smoke surged out of the cooling towers, drifted into the sky, and merged into the gray-green mist.

Eerie sounds came from the multicolored cooling towers, sounds that made one deeply unsettled.

The Information Armor reverted back to the battered Nameless Armor Wreckage. Some of the gray-green mist seeped into the wreckage, beginning to repair it.

Since the Information Armor had been damaged, the effect of the Disaster Hazmat Suit was triggered, and the mist in the sky began to flow faster.

Lin Ye immediately backed away from the factory entrance, his eyes fixed on the distant cooling towers. The Information Armor had just unleashed an information attack, but instead of affecting the surroundings, it had struck the cooling towers inside the factory.

It was as if he had used the information attack from inside those cooling towers.

Lin Ye quickly retreated back to the road. The Disaster Hazmat Suit would trigger some unknown catastrophe. Although he could be immune to the effects of that disaster, the dangers beyond it were unpredictable.

Besides, he wasn’t sure what kind of disaster the suit would cause. This place had no shortage of elements that could turn into a catastrophe.

The flow of the mist in the sky was accelerating. A hint of color had blended into the gray-green fog, making it look strange.

”So, should I enter the factory or not? And which factory should I enter?”

Lin Ye had doubts about the effect of the Lucky Coin. The mist here had likely influenced it somehow.

”Why did that bicycle show up at the factory gate? It’s not like I rode it over there myself.”

”Why did the cooling towers release an information attack from the Information Armor? Could there be another me who rode a bike, entered a cooling tower, and under some circumstances, launched an information attack?”

If that were the case, everything would make sense.

”But why is there another me? Is it an effect of that bicycle? Is the other me still inside the cooling tower?”

Lin Ye’s head throbbed a little. This mist might be more troublesome than he had thought.

The mist in the sky was still speeding up. Suddenly, Lin Ye noticed afterimages appearing in his field of vision.

These afterimages were gradually becoming clearer. The entire world was filled with them. In his field of vision, he could see several identical worlds overlapping at once.

But Lin Ye himself had no afterimage. He seemed able to move freely between these worlds.

”Is this the effect of the Disaster Hazmat Suit?”

”So, this mist can create versions of me that act in other worlds?”

”If this disaster ends and the suit’s effect wears off, will every action I take from now on create another version of me in another world? Will all the effects on those ’me’s’ be reflected back onto me?”

”No, maybe not every action triggers this phenomenon. It should have something to do with that bicycle.”

Realizing the situation, Lin Ye quickly used an Information Collection Card. He needed to leave this area as soon as possible.

[The exit is inside the cooling tower of the 1047 abandoned factory.]

A system notification appeared before Lin Ye’s eyes. He immediately sprinted at full speed along the road. The factory serial numbers were posted on the outside walls, but the factories weren’t arranged in order, so he could only check the numbers of each building on both sides of the road.

The afterimage worlds were slowly merging. The flow of gray-green smoke in the sky was also slowing down. Just before the afterimage worlds vanished completely, Lin Ye finally found the 1047 abandoned factory on one side of the road.

Inside the factory, there were many abandoned workshops, and the cooling tower was located deep within this ruin.

Lin Ye quickly approached the cooling tower. The Nameless Armor Wreckage had turned gray-green, with large amounts of mist merging into it, becoming part of the armor.

Inside the abandoned factory, there was utter silence. Perhaps due to the terrifying environment of this area, Lin Ye hadn’t found a single living thing so far.

This was a true Death Ground. Without the Disaster Hazmat Suit and the Nameless Armor, he would have been killed by this smoke long ago.

The factory’s cooling towers were structures resembling giant chimneys. Just getting close to the tower made Lin Ye feel short of breath, and his throat was a bit uncomfortable. He hadn’t felt this way in a long time.

The base of the cooling tower was piled high with gray-green waste. Lin Ye walked around the tower but couldn’t find an entrance.

He had to use Red Flash, dashing up the side wall of the cooling tower to reach its top, a hundred meters above the ground.

A thick plume of smoke was pouring out of the tower. Just as Lin Ye was about to jump in, he felt a burning sensation on the surface of his body.

The flow of mist in the sky returned to normal. The multiple worlds vanished from his vision. The disaster was over, and the effect of the Disaster Hazmat Suit had come to an end.

Lin Ye quickly leaped into the cooling tower. He fell through the gray-green smoke, but for a long time, he didn’t reach the bottom.