bookbashuk Chapter 143 A Storm Begins from the End of a Floating Stream
Chapter 143 A Storm Begins from the End of a Floating Stream
The moment I stepped out of the database, the temperature in the air dropped several degrees.
The dark red flames in the corridor were still burning, but the heat seemed to have been mostly absorbed by something, leaving only a dry, cold chill, like that of a morgue.
Mihoshi walked at the very front.
Her long, grey hair cascaded over her shoulders, gleaming with a cold, silvery light in the crimson firelight. Her steps were steady, each one perfectly synchronized, like a precisely calibrated machine.
But her heart was beating very fast.
It's almost twice as fast as usual.
The source of the spread of 2845.
These words were like a red-hot iron nail, driven deep into her mind, piercing her a little deeper with every step she took.
She could feel her brain working at an unstoppable speed, trying to analyze and understand every word in the document.
The more I think about it, the deeper it gets.
The deeper you go, the more dangerous it becomes.
But she just couldn't stop.
Watch your step.
The sound of Sunday came from behind.
The star bowed its head.
Then it stopped.
About three steps in front of her, a white bone pierced straight out of the metal floor, like a withered tree growing in scrap iron soil.
The bone was about the thickness of an adult's forearm, and judging from its shape, it should be a human tibia.
Its top still retains the complete knee joint surface, smooth as porcelain.
At its junction with the floor, a ring of scarlet fleshy tissue, like melted wax, solidified around it, firmly welding the skeleton to the metal surface. The fleshy tissue was still pulsating slightly, and with each contraction, a trickle of dark red liquid seeped from the gaps.
"This is......"
March 7th's voice trembled noticeably.
"Human bones?"
"Um."
Xing walked past Xing and squatted down to examine her closely.
"A whole tibia. Very well preserved, with no signs of weathering or corrosion."
She reached out, as if wanting to touch the layer of scarlet connective tissue.
"I smashed it!"
"Don't move."
Hoshi grabbed Hoshi's wrist.
"Look ahead."
Hoshi followed Hoshi's gaze.
His pupils contracted sharply.
In the corridor ahead, dozens of identical human bones stood densely packed together, near and far.
Tibia, humerus, ribs, finger bones... all sorts of bones of different shapes pierce out from the ground, walls and even the ceiling, like a strange white forest.
The base of each bone was enveloped in that scarlet fleshy tissue, like a network of blood vessels connecting the entire corridor.
"They are connected."
Xi Lian closed her eyes, opened her arms, and felt the fragments of memory flowing through this "bone forest".
"All bones...share the same circulatory system."
"Touching one is the same as touching them all."
Xing slowly withdrew her hand.
"Okay. Be careful."
She gripped the fire spear tightly and turned the flame to its lowest setting.
"Go through it. Don't touch any of them."
The five of them carefully made their way through the bone forest.
As Hoshi dodged a scapula that jutted out from the wall, his gaze swept over the remaining marks on its surface.
Those marks... look like they were left by fingernails.
Densely packed, layer upon layer, it's like a dying person carving their last words on their bones.
Unfortunately, the engravings were too messy to make out any meaningful characters.
"Casey."
Mohoshi silently repeated the name in his heart.
The weak, manic voice from the communication channel echoed in her ears once more.
"Hey, you're finally here."
"We've been waiting for you."
A human whose nervous system has been completely rewritten by the scarlet plague can still operate communication devices, accurately pinpoint the frequency of visitors, and speak in logically complete sentences.
Is he alive?
Or, to put it another way, does the concept of "living" still have any meaning for Casey now?
The answer was clear to me.
Everyone knows this.
The "Casey" who was panting in a corner of this giant ship at this moment was no longer a person.
He's more like a piece of clothing.
A tattered, blood-stained human skin garment worn by the scarlet plague...
"Aaaaaaaahhhhhh!!!"
Sudden.
A roar came from the end of the corridor.
The sound was extremely piercing, like throwing a hundred cats into a tin bucket at the same time. It pierced through the metal walls, causing a series of resonances throughout the ship's interior, making the floor beneath our feet tremble.
Everyone's hair stood on end at the same time.
"What is that?!"
On the seventh day of the third month, her bow was fully drawn, and the cold light of the icy crystals illuminated her pale face.
"Direction... is in the driving core."
Sunday's wave of order perception quickly pinpointed the source of the sound.
"Two hundred meters away from us."
The roaring did not stop.
Wave after wave, like some enormous creature enduring unbearable pain, or...
Awakening.
"Walk."
Mohoshi quickened his pace.
"Whatever it is, it already knows we're here."
The deeper you go, the denser the bone forest becomes.
In the end, the corridor was almost completely blocked, and the five people could only squeeze through by hugging the wall sideways. The white bones protruding from all directions gleamed with a cold, porcelain-like light under the dark red firelight, like a maze built from human remains.
Just as he was passing through a particularly narrow gap, Hoshino caught a glimpse of a line of words on the wall out of the corner of his eye.
She suddenly stopped in her tracks.
The words, written in some kind of dark red liquid, were crookedly engraved on the metal wall on the left side of the corridor.
The characters are very large, each one as wide as a palm, and the strokes are messy but the force is extremely deep, almost carving grooves into the alloy surface.
There are only five characters.
"He is inside the wall."
"He".
The character "He" has the radical "示" (shì).
A pronoun used to refer to deities.
As Hoshi stared at the words, he felt a throbbing pain in his temples.
Look here.
Xi Lian squatted down on the ground below the wall.
....................................