bookbashuk Chapter 144 A Storm Begins from the End of a Floating Stream
Chapter 144 A Storm Begins from the End of a Floating Stream
Directly below the line of blood-red text, half-buried in crimson flesh, was a PDA terminal.
Its casing was riddled with cracks, and there was a long crack on the screen that stretched from the top left corner to the bottom right corner. But the power indicator light was still flashing, indicating that there was still data available for reading inside.
Star pulled it out of the fleshy moss.
It felt sticky and cold to the touch, like organs pulled out of the body cavity of some kind of animal.
She pressed the play button.
There is only one audio log in the terminal.
A young man's voice.
He spoke very fast and his breathing was disordered, as if he was recording while running.
"I am... one of the third group of people led here by Casey."
"He...he told us in the communications that he had found a solution to the Calamity. He said to come and pilot the core; he had a way to start the ship and take everyone away from this hell."
"We believe it."
"Seventeen people. They all believed it."
"Because his voice sounded...so sincere. So warm. He even remembered my name, and my favorite coffee flavor."
The sound of hurried footsteps.
Gasping for breath.
And the faint howls that came from afar.
"But when we reached the end of the corridor..."
"We saw him."
"He can no longer be considered 'him'."
"His body... melted into the wall."
"It's like...like the roots of a tree sinking into the soil. His blood vessels, his nerves, his spine...all extend out and become one with the wiring of this spaceship."
"His face is still there."
"Still laughing."
"That smile... is exactly the same as the one in the communication screen."
"He was happy to see us. He opened his mouth and said..."
"Welcome home."
A suppressed sob could be heard in the recording.
"Then... those bones grew out of the floor."
"Seventeen people."
"Now I'm the only one left."
The voice suddenly became very soft.
"But the strange thing is..."
"Amidst all the fear and madness..."
"On Casey's face, which had become one with the wall..."
I saw tears.
He's crying.
"His mouth was saying 'Welcome home,' his face was smiling, but his eyes... were crying."
"I don't know how to explain it."
"In that body that has been completely transformed into a monster... perhaps a trace of... humanity still remains."
"Something that belongs to 'Casey'."
The recording ends here.
Nihoshi handed the PDA to Xilian.
She didn't say anything.
The group continued on their way, processing the information from the recording as they went.
Casey blended into the wall.
He became part of the spaceship.
He used the communication system to lure survivors to him, then used his skeleton to kill and absorb them.
But deep within that monster, the tears of humanity still linger.
It felt as if an invisible hand was squeezing Hoshino's heart.
If that sea patrolman is right, then thinking about 2845 is tantamount to being infected.
Casey must have thought about it more deeply than anyone else back then.
He studied it. He analyzed it. He tried to understand it.
Then, he became a part of it.
Even so, his tears...
"arrive."
Xing's voice interrupted her thoughts.
Driving core.
The heartland of the P45-class strategic ships.
A blast door, violently torn open, lay across the entrance, its metal edges curled outwards and covered with charred burn marks.
The moment they stepped through that door, everyone held their breath.
The space of the driving core is much smaller than that of the bridge, and it has a circular structure with a diameter of about thirty meters.
The surrounding control consoles, holographic projectors, and dazzlingly complex navigation equipment had all become a breeding ground for some kind of terrifying life.
sarcoma.
There were tumors everywhere.
On the ground, fist-sized growths grew densely like a mushroom colony, making a squelching, sticky sound when stepped on.
On the wall, larger lumps rose up like tumors, making the originally smooth metal surface uneven.
From the gaps in the pipes in the ceiling, strands of dark red flesh hung down like vines, swaying slowly in the windless space.
All the tumors are breathing.
Same frequency.
Same rhythm.
It's like an extension of a giant heart.
"This place..."
The words "March 7th" were almost squeezed out from between his teeth.
"That's disgusting."
Before he could finish speaking...
The changes were sudden.
The fist-sized lumps on the ground suddenly split open at the same time.
From each crack, long, thin, scarlet tentacles, like umbilical cords, shot out.
The tentacles danced wildly in the air for a moment, then converged, intertwined, and merged towards the center at a speed visible to the naked eye.
puff!puff!puff!
The wet, tearing sound was incessant.
In front of everyone, at the very center of that wildly multiplying storm of flesh and blood!
An outline is taking shape.
The first thing to grow is the skeleton.
A white, cold-glowing humanoid skeleton struggled to its feet from the mass of flesh. Its spine, ribs, and limbs—every bone creaked and groaned as it grew, like someone sanding porcelain.
Then comes the muscle.
Crimson muscle fibers wrapped around the skeleton like spider silk, layer upon layer, enveloping the white bones into a twisted human shape.
At last,
It's the head.
A head.
Two heads.
Three heads.
Three heads of different sizes grew out of the neck of the torso at the same time.
The left side of the head consisted only of a skeleton, without flesh, and two eerie green flames burned in the empty eye sockets.
The right side of the head is wrapped in a semi-transparent membrane, through which the beating brain and blood vessels are clearly visible. The middle head...
The most complete.
The most terrifying.
Because it has a face.
A human face.
A smiling face, belonging to Casey.
"Welcome...home..."
Three mouths opened simultaneously, emitting three distinct sounds. The left head emitted a metallic shriek, the right head a baby's cry, and the middle head...
In Casey's voice, she uttered the greeting that had become a curse.
next second.
The dual destiny factors of abundance and reproduction exploded simultaneously within this monster's body.
Its body began to split apart.
Like the frenzied replication of cells in mitosis... one becomes two, two become four, four become eight.
Each clone perfectly replicates the three-headed structure of the original body. Although the size has shrunk, the suffocating sense of oppression remains undiminished.
In the blink of an eye.
The entire driving core was crammed with dozens of three-headed monsters.
They all turned their heads in unison, staring at the five people with hundreds of eyes.
Then......
It pounced on them.
"Gurgle, gurgle, gurgle!!!"
star:?
㳉星：?
Why do I feel like laughing for no reason?
....................................
Happy Lunar New Year's Eve.