Global Awakening: Apocalypse Ender's Chronicle Chapter 1318: Floating Island’s Survivors

The rats remained around the unconscious woman while Fiona shifted her attention elsewhere.

There were still too many unexplored areas.

Nearly an hour later, another rat discovered something.

This time, it wasn’t a laboratory.

It was a massive storage chamber filled with rows of metallic containers. Most of them were empty, while several had been damaged beyond recognition. Dust covered the floor, and many of the containers had clearly not been opened for a very long time.

Then one rat climbed onto one of the larger containers and began sniffing around a small ventilation opening.

Something moved inside.

Fiona immediately got the information from the rat and focused on it.

"Someone’s inside."

More rats quickly gathered around the container. They searched for a way to open it before one of them discovered a manual release mechanism hidden beneath a damaged panel.

Fiona immediately gave the command.

"Push that."

The rat placed its tiny paws against the mechanism. Another joined it, followed by several more.

Working together, the rats managed to force the mechanism downward.

Click.

The container opened.

A man immediately collapsed onto the floor.

He was extremely thin, with pale skin and sunken cheeks. Several strange metallic patches covered portions of his neck and chest, and faint scars ran across his arms.

For several seconds, he didn’t move.

Then his eyes opened.

He immediately panicked.

"W-Who’s there?"

A rat climbed onto his chest.

The man stared at it in confusion.

"...A rat?"

The rat’s mouth opened.

"Don’t worry. We’re here to rescue you."

The man froze as she heard a female voice coming from the rat. However, he soon confirmed that its mouth wasn’t moving at all. The voice felt more like telepathy or sound coming from a speaker.

His expression became even more confused.

"W-who are you? Are you a Rat Mage or something?"

"It’s not the rat. I’m using the rat to communicate with you."

"...What?"

"It’s complicated."

The man remained silent for several seconds before finally asking, "Are you human?"

"Yes."

That single answer seemed to calm him.

The man’s tense expression relaxed slightly, and he closed his eyes.

"Thank God."

Fiona smiled faintly through the rat.

"Can you walk?"

The man tried to push himself upright. His arms trembled violently as he struggled to stand, but he barely managed to remain upright for a second before collapsing again.

"No."

"Then don’t force yourself. Help is coming."

The rats gathered around him, keeping him from falling against the cold metal floor.

The man’s eyes slowly became wet.

"Are there... other survivors?"

"We’ve already found a couple of them..."

The man swallowed.

"Then maybe..."

He couldn’t finish the sentence.

Fiona understood what he wanted to ask.

Perhaps he was thinking about the other people who had been brought here. Unfortunately, she couldn’t promise that any of them were still alive.

"We’re still searching."

The man nodded weakly.

The rats remained beside him while Fiona continued exploring the facility.

***

Another hour passed.

By then, Fiona had already discovered dozens of empty laboratories. She had also found evidence that the facility had been used for far more than simple experimentation.

There were rooms filled with mechanical components designed to be implanted into living bodies, chambers containing biological samples, and strange tanks filled with unknown fluids. The deeper the rats went, the more disturbing the facility became.

Then one of Fiona’s rats discovered something unusual.

A massive underground chamber opened up beyond a collapsed corridor.

The room was almost the size of a small stadium.

Hundreds of mechanical pods stood in neat rows throughout the chamber.

Most of them were empty, while several had been destroyed... But others still contained some unconscious people or perhaps corpses at this point.

Fiona’s expression immediately became serious.

"Everyone, stop searching the other areas."

Without any more hesitation, she redirected a large number of rats toward the chamber.

They poured into the room through every available entrance.

Fiona carefully inspected the pods through their eyes.

Most of them contained nothing but corpses.

Well, it wasn’t surprising since some had been empty for years. It was already a miracle that he had discovered living humans at this point despite being mutated.

Others contained bodies that had clearly been abandoned in the middle of whatever experiments had been performed on them.

Soon, Fiona’s expression gradually became heavier. She expected to find a few living humans from so many bodies in the container...

She mused.

Then, a few minutes later, one rat reached the far end of the chamber.

It discovered another sealed pod...

’Kyu?’

Just like that, the rat sent the information to Fiona with a high-priority message...

Almost immediately, Fiona was already looking at it.

Inside the sealed pod was a woman.

She seemed to be barely alive, considering the heat or the life force that the rat was able to sense from her...

Her breathing was extremely weak, and several mechanical components had been attached to her spine. Unlike the others, however, she seemed like a complete but frail woman...

There were no mutations or modifications on her body.

Fiona immediately focused on her and used her own skill... She couldn’t just rely on the rat’s skills at this point...

Soon, she got the information she needed.

"She’s alive."

The rats gathered around the pod.

This time, Fiona didn’t order them to break it immediately.

She had already learned from the previous survivor that these machines could be dangerous even after their power had disappeared.

Instead, she ordered the rats to search for a manual release...

Several rats climbed over the surrounding machinery until one discovered a small emergency lever.

Fiona carefully examined the mechanism through its eyes.

"Open it."

Just like that, the rat pulled the lever.

Whoosh~

The pod hissed as cold vapor escaped from the opening.

The glass door slowly moved aside, and the unconscious woman collapsed forward.

Once again, several rats immediately rushed beneath her and prevented her from hitting the floor.

She was still breathing.

Fiona immediately contacted the medical team.

"Another survivor."

The message was relayed through a rat carrying a communication device, and the rescue team soon arrived.

As the medics carefully lifted the woman onto a stretcher, Fiona watched through the rats.

"We’ve done really well, huh..."

Gerald had been rescued... Then they had found the unconscious woman inside the laboratory.

The man trapped inside the storage container had also survived... and now they had found another woman inside the underground chamber.

Four survivors.

Fiona had expected to find a few people at most.

She hadn’t expected to discover this many...

And the facility was still far from fully explored.

"Continue searching."