Chapter 210 : The Terrifying Truth of the Lost Connection with the Shelter

Chapter 210: The Terrifying Truth of the Lost Connection with the Shelter

After the meeting was dismissed, Martha quietly leaned against the wall of the corridor, as if she was deep in thought.

When she saw someone approaching, she was stunned at first, then surprise flickered across her eyes.

“Never thought that this time, you would actually stand on my side.” She spoke softly. “In the past, you were always the one most vehemently opposing me.”

The one who arrived was Hyde.

Hyde slowly walked up to Martha and leaned against the wall beside her.

He pulled a cigarette case and a lighter from his pocket, lighting one for himself.

“You were right.” He said softly. “Compared to communication and surface exploration, the Overseer’s foremost duty is to ensure the shelter’s continuation.”

For as long as anyone could remember, the Overseer and the Council had always maintained an oppositional stance.

The former represented conservatism, the latter represented openness.

Since a certain generation, the Overseers had consistently taken the conservative side, and when selecting successors, they also prioritized conservatives.

Martha gestured lightly with her hand. Hyde understood her intention and lit a cigarette for her as well.

At that moment, the two who had opposed each other for years reached a fleeting reconciliation.

Taking a slow drag, Martha spoke in a distant tone.

“When I was still a little girl, I too longed endlessly for the world above.”

“But my father told me—weakness and lowliness have never been the reason for destruction. Curiosity without strength is.”

“For Shelter B9 to have lasted until today is already no easy feat. Toward any unknown matter, we must exercise the utmost caution.”

Hyde shrugged.

Martha’s father had been the previous Overseer, a man even more stubbornly conservative than she was.

Just as Hyde was about to respond, the voice of the shelter’s broadcast suddenly rang out.

It announced that the subway from Shelter L8 would be arriving at the station in fifteen minutes, and asked all residents to make preparations for their arrival.

At once, the shelter was filled with joyous excitement.

Martha and Hyde exchanged a glance.

“Let’s go, we should see what this subway is really about.”

Inside a room, Wendy and her best friend looked at each other in surprise.

“Eh? The subway from Shelter L8?” Her best friend’s eyes lit up. “If they’re here to communicate, maybe they’re also here to arrange marriages! Wendy, you might finally be able to get married!”

Wendy hesitated before nodding—she actually had little expectation for marriage.

For some reason, a faint unease welled up in her heart.

Martha and Hyde soon arrived at the underground station at the lowest level of the shelter.

Because it had not been opened in many years, the station looked extremely aged.

Several rows of flickering fluorescent tubes hung from the arched ceiling, casting a pale bluish-gray light into the damp air. The faded yellow warning line at the edge of the platform was overgrown with moss, spreading across the cracked concrete like veins.

Rusty ventilation pipes sprawled across the corners of the walls, emitting intermittent humming as they circulated the air that reeked of both machine oil and mildew.

The iron tracks extended deep into the pitch-black tunnel, and from time to time, a cold wind carried tiny pebbles through, stirring hollow echoes in the silence.

By now, the station was already packed with people.

Council Members who had voted in favor, along with more than half the residents of the shelter, had all gathered.

Everyone looked extremely excited.

Hyde and Martha exchanged a look and silently stood at the edge of the platform.

As time went by, the subway was about to arrive.

From deep within the tunnel came a low rumble—first a faint vibration, then gradually turning into rhythmic metallic clashes that echoed in the damp air.

Emergency lights on the walls began to flicker. The pale glow cast swaying shadows beneath the tracks. A gust of air laced with the tang of oil and electricity surged out of the tunnel’s darkness, sweeping away the dust accumulated on the platform.

Suddenly, two blinding headlights pierced through the darkness. With a sharp screech of brakes, the massive steel carriages slowly rolled into the station.

This subway train was just as old—its surface marred with scratches and rust, its body patched with countless weld marks that glinted with a coarse, cold light.

The crowd could no longer contain their excitement and rushed straight to the doors of the train.

Yet when they saw what was inside, everyone froze.

The subway was indeed full of people, packed tightly together.

But none of them had any facial features.

They simply stood silently in the carriages.

Judging by their uniforms and insignias, they were indeed residents from Shelter L8.

The residents who had rushed forward retreated slowly, terror etched on their faces.

“This…”

Even the crowd’s excitement died in an instant, and not far away, the Council Members were also frozen in place.

Hyde and Martha looked at each other, both with shock in their eyes.

Before the horrified gazes of everyone, the indicator light above the doors shifted from red to green, emitting a long “beep.”

The pressure valves hissed as they released steam, and the heavy doors trembled before sliding open to both sides.

The crowd snapped out of their daze, retreating in fear, some even turning to flee.

The faceless people surged out of the subway like a tide, reaching toward the faces of the residents.

Hyde saw clearly—when one faceless person touched a resident’s eyes, it was as if performing a trick, plucking the eyes out in an instant.

Then, the faceless one casually pressed the eyes onto its own blank face.

But they were not properly placed—one eye landed crooked on where the mouth should be, the other was fixed high on the forehead.

Yet once they were in place, the eyes became truly its own, even blinking flexibly.

“This…” Hyde’s heart jolted in alarm.

He looked more closely and saw that the Faceless People were wildly plundering the residents’ facial features—some snatched ears, some seized noses, some tore away mouths.

The stolen features were crookedly fixed onto their once-empty faces.

Once they had organs on their faces, the Faceless People gradually became animated.

A dreadful suspicion instantly rose in Hyde’s heart.

This was clearly a substitution game.

The Faceless People took facial features to return to human form, while the residents who lost them became Faceless People, both sides swapping identities.

But soon he realized something was off.

Some Faceless People had seized many eyes, while others had collected several mouths.

These grotesque additions, haphazardly affixed to their faces, made one’s scalp tingle just to look at them.

“What are you still standing there for?” A sharp shout came from beside him.

It was Martha’s voice.

The Overseer was currently straining with all her might to close the station gates.

Hyde snapped out of his daze, quickly moving to Martha’s side and calling for the surviving Council Members and residents to retreat.

The Faceless People all noticed this and surged toward the gates like a tide.

Several of them already had facial features, though none were set in the right places.

The station gates were heavy and slow, taking dozens of seconds to shut completely, while the Faceless People were already charging.

Before Hyde could react, several people rushed forward, holding back the foremost Faceless People.

Looking closely, he saw they were Council Members.

Among them were an elderly female Council Member and a younger one.

“We were wrong! Now we must take responsibility for our actions!” the young Council Member shouted, turning his head.

The words had barely left his mouth before several Faceless hands pressed against his face.

In an instant, all his features were ripped away.

And not just the Council Members—more than a dozen residents also spontaneously formed a human wall, pressing themselves against the front.

Thanks to their sacrifice, the gates finally shut tight.

The survivors collapsed to the ground in exhaustion, their bodies trembling.

It had to be said, the scene just now had been too horrifying.

“What in the world happened to Shelter L8?” Hyde muttered instinctively. “Could it be that all seven missing shelters ended up like this?”

“I don’t know.” Martha shook her head.

At this moment, the Overseer’s forehead was drenched with sweat.

“We must tally the residents killed in this attack,” she said slowly.

As Hyde nodded, another realization struck him.

With all the Council Members now dead, there was no one left to oppose Martha in future meetings.

A grim irony indeed.

After resting for a while, the crowd slowly rose and began to return.

Hyde and Martha stood side by side once more.

“Judging from the Faceless People’s behavior, their ability goes no further than stealing facial features.” Hyde spoke slowly. “It would be nearly impossible for them to break through the station gates.”

Martha, however, was far more cautious.

“Even so, the station gates still need reinforcement,” she replied. “This matter will be given the highest priority.”

At the thought of the fallen station, both of them fell silent.

Whether willing or not, their transport link with the other shelters was now completely severed.

Together with several residents, they boarded the elevator and slowly ascended to the previous level.

Many survivors remained, waiting in line for the elevator.

Some, unwilling to wait, chose to take the shelter’s stairwells.

As the elevator doors closed, Hyde happened to catch sight of this.

A vague unease stirred in his heart, though he could not say why.

The elevator rose slowly, accompanied by gentle music that soothed the survivors somewhat.

Then, Hyde’s pupils suddenly dilated.

“It’s over… it’s over…” he murmured in a daze.

Seeing his expression, Martha seemed to sense something too, her heart sinking.

“What is it?” she asked.

“The emergency stairwell!” Hyde cried out. “The station has emergency stairs! They connect directly to the shelter!”

At his words, the elevator instantly fell into silence.

Everyone’s faces turned deathly pale.

Martha was the first to recover.

“Summon the security officers immediately! We must defend the shelter!”

She instantly chose to stop at the nearest level. The doors opened, and she rushed out.

Hyde and the residents followed close behind.

“What should I do… what on earth should I do now?”

He thought anxiously as he ran.

Then it hit him.

“Wendy!”

Inside the room, Wendy and her best friend, who had been talking, suddenly heard terrified screams outside.

Opening the door in confusion, they were greeted with a chilling sight.

A group of Faceless People, origin unknown, were reaching out to snatch away the facial features of the shelter’s residents.

Some had faces full of ears, some had faces full of mouths, and some had faces covered entirely with eyes.

Her best friend let out a terrified scream.

“Ah!”

Wendy tried to grab her hand to run, but the other girl’s legs had already gone weak as she collapsed to the floor, while the Faceless People surged forward.

Wendy had no choice but to turn and flee, while countless hands pressed down on her best friend’s face.

The shelter had already fallen.

The security officers fired their firearms, but soon discovered the Faceless People could not be killed at all.

Martha stood inside the monitoring room, watching scenes unfold within the shelter, sweat pouring down her forehead.

As Wendy was running in panic, a voice suddenly came from ahead.

“Wendy!”

She looked up and saw it was her father, Hyde.

At that moment, Hyde carried a backpack in one hand and held a gun in the other, his face filled with urgency.

Father and daughter reunited and fled together.

“Where are we going to escape to, Dad?” Wendy asked in a panic.

Hyde hesitated for a moment, then spoke faintly.

“To wherever you want to go.”

Wendy was slightly stunned.

To the surface?

Father and daughter finally escaped unharmed to the first level of the shelter.

There were no facilities here, only a heavy gate.

Hyde immediately entered the code.

But the gate required several minutes to open.

The two of them waited anxiously by the gate.

From afar came terrified screams and the sound of gunfire.

Just then, footsteps echoed from the stairwell.

They turned and saw a middle-aged man in a Shelter L8 uniform slowly approaching.

When Hyde saw his face, his expression darkened.

Though his body bore the traits of a middle-aged man, the facial features belonged to a young woman.

He had clearly once been a Faceless Person!

But unlike the others, the features on his face were neatly arranged—that was why Hyde and Wendy had not noticed it immediately.

Under their gaze, the man slowly spoke.

“Hello sir, I am Jackson, Overseer of Shelter L8.”

Hyde aimed his gun at him and said coldly.

“What is going on here?”

“This is the game Lord Miwei asked us to play.” Jackson replied faintly.

Hyde’s face changed drastically upon hearing this.

“Hasn’t Lord Miwei always blessed all the shelters of the Steel Covenant? For so many years, we have devoutly worshiped Him.” He muttered blankly. “Why would He do this?”

They were referring to the Wasteland God “Miwei.”

Jackson shrugged, the young woman’s features on his face showing a trace of helplessness.

“Who knows? Perhaps from the very beginning, we were nothing but His caged playthings.”

Seeing Hyde freeze in shock, then clench his teeth in fury, Jackson shrugged once again.

“You can’t blame us—we had no choice. Previously, Shelter A2 took our features by this very method. And the only way to recover them was to take from others.”

Before his words faded, several bullets struck him.

Yet Jackson remained unfazed.

“After becoming Faceless, we gain bodies that are ageless and undying,” he explained. “In a sense, it’s not bad. But inside, you will be consumed by endless hunger for features. You’ll wish for as many eyes, noses, and ears on your face as possible.”

He paused briefly.

“In fact, I can hardly hold back anymore.”

Under their horrified gazes, Jackson suddenly lunged forward.

With one minute left before the gate opened, Hyde had no choice but to grapple with him.

He deliberately pinned Jackson’s hands, not allowing them to touch his own face.

Wendy quickly snapped out of her daze and rushed forward to help. Father and daughter together managed to restrain Jackson.

Sixty seconds. Forty seconds. Twenty seconds.

As the time passed, the shelter gate slowly opened, and hope began to kindle in their hearts.

Then, footsteps suddenly echoed from the stairwell.

Wendy turned her head and her heart sank.

Though it was a group of Shelter B9 residents, their faces were already “missing parts.”

One one-eyed resident looked greedily at them.

With his mouth gone and unable to speak, he could only raise a finger toward them, signaling the others to charge.

Hyde immediately understood, signaling Wendy to take his backpack, while he heaved Jackson with all his strength and hurled him at the stairwell entrance, knocking down several residents.

“Go!” he roared hoarsely.

Wendy snapped back to her senses, grabbed the backpack, and dashed toward the gate.

As she ran, tears streamed from her eyes.

“Dad!”

The young girl had finally reached the surface she had longed for.

Through parting.

The sky, the sun, the clouds, the earth, the plants and trees—

Everything before her eyes appeared so wondrously new.

But Wendy could not afford to care; all she could do was run.

She did not know how long she ran before she finally stopped.

She now stood at the edge of a small town, where movement stirred within.

Looking closely, she saw giants moving about.

Wendy froze in disbelief.

“Has the outside world… become like this?”

She quickly found a house to hide in.

Learning how to survive was the first lesson of life on the surface.

Wendy opened the backpack and discovered it was filled with emergency rations and bottled water.

Enough to keep her alive for some time.

Meanwhile, back at Shelter B9—

Hyde had already become one of the Faceless People.

A burning hunger for facial features consumed his mind.

And one phrase.

“This game is fun. I want you all to play.”

The words repeated endlessly in his mind, making his scalp crawl.

What was worse, Hyde realized his reason was gradually slipping away.

He understood he would eventually become nothing more than a monster obsessed with stealing features.

Before that happened, he closed the shelter gate, sealing all the monsters inside.

Leaning weakly against the wall, Hyde was overcome with an immense helplessness.

“Lord Miwei… have You abandoned us?”