Chapter 127: Tonight's Confrontation
Translator: Pluto Editor: Vermillion
The atmosphere in the arena became very strange after the end of the afternoon match on the seventh day.
Lin Sanjiu wiped her blood-covered face with her hand and her eyes swept over the panicked faces in the audience. It seemed like something had happened outside. Everyone was looking at the screen on their wristbands; anxious people left their seats and quickly headed for the exit; nobody dared to walk near the battle arena. The people looked at the female contestants and started whispering to each other, filling the arena with a vague buzzing noise. There was an occasional cough or a frightened cry while it slowly became clear that something bad had happened.
Groups of soldiers rushed into the arena, were all clad in anti-radiation hazmat suits. The soldiers shouted continuously at the crowd to remain orderly and not to push and step on others. The advertisement on the screen had already been on for quite some time, but the host did not reappear to explain anything. The phrase "Fauxe Camcorder. Keeping your best memories" repeated over and over again.
The situation was so serious that no one noticed that the female contestants did not go back into their capsules.
Li Tao walked over to Lin Sanjiu, who reeked of blood. "What’s going on?" Li Tao asked, perplexed. Lin Sanjiu smiled with a load off her mind. Even though her [Nostradamus’s Card] had a small area of effect about the size of a person’s head, unlike heat which dissipates beyond the area of effect, radioactive particles would quickly disperse into the surrounding. Before this, Lin Sanjiu had already released 26 sieverts of radiation—considering that they might decontaminate the combatant after they bring him back, she was even a little worried that the radiation level wouldn’t be high enough.
But by the looks of things, the two soldiers who were tasked with bringing out the corpse of the scrawny security guard must have died. On that night, Lin Sanjiu stealthily released 10 sieverts onto the ankle of the corpse before tossing it. As expected, two soldiers brought the corpse out, one carried his head and the other his legs. Though he died from his severed throat, his ankle swelled with a greenish-purple coloration due to the radiation and Lin Sanjiu was slightly worried. Thankfully, it went unnoticed.
With the protective glass blocking out most of the radiation, and the residents consuming their anti-radiation gummies for resistance against the remaining radiation, the people in Garden of Eden generally had normal bodies, which stood no chance against a direct radiation exposure. Once the radiation level was above 3 sieverts, the number of people who would get radiation sickness or die as a result would rise exponentially.
Even though Lin Sanjiu did not think too much about it when she executed her plan, she was pleasantly surprised when she realized that the glass dome which once protected the people from radiation also made it difficult for the radiation to disperse into the atmosphere, and might even become a gas chamber which would trap them all.
"It’s radiation sickness." Ever since the Lunar New Year Tournament began, this was the first time Lin Sanjiu’s voice sounded this lighthearted. She turned and looked at the other ten women then whispered to Li Tao, smiling, "You should be tired of this place, right?"
Li Tao blinked as an unfathomable sheen flashed in her black raven eyes.
"We can try to get out tonight."
Li Tao was stunned. Just when she wanted to say something, the advertisement on the large screen disappeared with a snap, leaving only a black screen. Next, Aliba’s exasperated voice rang out, "Due to an emergency crisis, the Lunar New Year Tournament will be suspended now! All audience, please leave the premises in an orderly fashion. Guards, get those mutates back into their capsules!"
Lin Sanjiu laughed before she said to Li Tao, "Don’t sleep tonight."
Li Tao still had a shocked expression on her face, she did not know if she should take Lin Sanjiu’s words seriously. She quickly nodded and followed after Lin Sanjiu. Lin Sanjiu clapped her hands to gain the attention of the other women and raised her voice and said, "Please rest well this afternoon. I still need everyone’s help!"
Even though her voice was loud and clear, and the guards could hear her, she phrased her words rather vaguely. One of the soldiers, who was probably new, let out a sigh of relief after seeing the female contestants return to their capsules following Lin Sanjiu’s lead, "Damn it, that Contestant 97 is really a…"
"She won’t be alive for much longer," an older soldier snorted after ensuring that all the doors of the capsules were properly shut. He waved his hands and the capsules returned to the containment area. "Don’t you know the commanding officers are all desperate now? They don’t have time for these mutates… It won’t be long before they simply order for them to be killed to save us of all this trouble."
The old soldier was right as Aliba was thinking about that right now. The reason being that the commanding officers in the Military and Police Department were now being severely criticized, him especially, as he headed the Tournament Committee. When the public discovered that the first person who died from radiation was a guard, the government officials from other departments used all their means to stir public opinion against the Military and Police Department. They claimed that the department was wasting resources and neglecting their duties, and was so bad at their jobs that there was now a radiation leak plaguing the Garden of Eden. This was on top of the fact that the female posthumans had won the last few matches without much injuries. As a result of this, many people had been heard saying, "The military and police are useless".
The only silver lining was that information about the theft was still hidden from the public. After two phone calls with his superiors, Aliba quickly gave out orders to the various media controlled by their department. They were to condemn Garden of Eden Laboratories for poor management which led to the radiation leakage and for siphoning public expenditure leading to poor anti-radiation facilities and installation. Most importantly, to show the power that the Military and Police Department had, the female contestants would all be beheaded tomorrow morning and there would be a live broadcast of this.
"The management rights of Lunar New Year Tournament must not end up with those guys from the Technology gang," Aliba scowled as he spat gravely, "I don’t care how we do it, they must take the blame for the radiation sickness!"
The vice chief who was hidden in his full anti-radiation hazmat suit nodded firmly. Before he left, Aliba suddenly stopped him. "Remember. You have to be extra careful tonight. Send more men to guard the arena. If those female mutates cause any trouble, you can forget about coming to work. I need you to keep a close eye on them, especially Contestant 97!
Aliba had always been an extremely cautious person. Following his command, groups of fully armed soldiers were sent to guard the arena after that evening.