Chapter 76: Ancient Temple, Deep Woods
Standing at fifty-six and looking back, felt that he had undoubtedly weathered his share of storms.
He had not been a genius who found fame young; he could only be considered an ordinary student with decent grades.
But through his love of academia, through single-minded stubbornness, he had actually managed to achieve a modest measure of success, becoming what others called a towering figure in his field.
He had also been fortunate enough to participate in several major national-level projects, and the doctoral and master's students he had mentored were scattered across major research institutes and key enterprises.
Walking this path, he felt that whether in career achievements or life ideals, there was nothing left to regret.
In terms of worldview, he was long past being that rash, hot-blooded youngster.
He knew well that the world was impermanent, and that one should remain unperturbed by favor or disgrace.
He understood that so-called experience always has its limits, and he knew clearly that no matter how self-consistent the explanatory system humanity constructed for itself, the world could, in the very next second, ruthlessly slap you across the face.
But he had never expected that this slap would actually come within his lifetime—and never that the blow would be this vicious!
When at the , his usual colleagues and his most cherished students, eyes bloodshot, came howling and lunging at him, this old professor who had prided himself on refinement his entire life nearly used up every curse word he had ever learned.
"I *****! Dammit!"
This ** world, no science, no logic.
Coming to deceive, coming to ambush—him, an old comrade in his fifties!
Is this good? This is not good!
Fortunately, his military academy foundation remained, and he had always been extremely disciplined, exercising year-round, his lifestyle so rigorous and austere as to be nearly rigid. 's physical fitness was astonishingly good.
He grabbed a stool on the spot and smashed down two "old acquaintances" who had completely lost their humanity, fighting his way out of his laboratory.
Before leaving, he casually "detonated" the half-finished electromagnetic cannon belonging to the colleague next door. Its power was considerable, and it blasted out a path directly.
As for safety precautions? As long as those zombies were unsafe, then he could be safe.
And so, amid the chaos, this white-haired professor, whose ferocity rivaled that of a military general, actually fought his way through a bloody path.
On the way, he had also casually rescued a dozen or so "weak and helpless" juniors, men and women alike.
The old man had originally been hot-blooded and fired up, planning to make "seven charges in and out" of the research institute, hoping to scrape together some precious data and materials, and see if there were any surviving students.
But just as he was about to re-enter the campus, a sudden mutation occurred.
The independent biochemical research area south of the institute—that costly laboratory building—collapsed without the slightest warning.
The ground heaved violently, and it looked as though some enormous thing was about to break through the earth.
The old gentleman, who had spent his entire life in engineering and physics, needed only one look at the scale of the ground's upheaval to immediately judge that this thing might not be easy for him to deal with alone.
So he decisively abandoned the thought of going back, loaded a bunch of useless graduate students into a vehicle, and drove off.
As he fled, he inwardly cursed the biology people to high heaven.
Day in and day out, couldn't you people research something good for a change?!
Afterward, they rendezvoused in the city with other fleeing convoys, including a few armed police and public security officers who had survived the catastrophe.
After a brief exchange, under their command, they quickly organized effective order and began an orderly retreat, heading away from .
Along the way, they gathered supplies as they moved and absorbed survivors, and the group snowballed to over two hundred people.
The original plan had been to take the underground passages of the area, pass straight through , and head for a place with a military garrison to seek help.
But man proposes, heaven disposes. A violent ground subsidence completely sealed off their way out.
Even worse, shortly after they entered the underground passages, a sudden mutation occurred above ground in . The number of zombies surged exponentially, sealing off their retreat as well.
Caught between advance and retreat, these two hundred-plus people were firmly trapped underground.
Fortunately, they had never forgotten to gather supplies along the way.
The supplies they carried were abundant enough that there wouldn't be chaos from a survival crisis anytime soon.
But even so, supplies would eventually run out one day.
As time passed, the survivors' anxiety became visible to the naked eye.
Everyone knew that continuing like this was just waiting to die, but no one could come up with a way to break the deadlock.
Until today, when this bizarre opening, full of unusual traces, abruptly appeared in the original collapse area.
crouched by the opening, stroking his long-unshaven beard, his brows knitted into a knot.
He knew perfectly well that this opening was wrong. The claw marks at its edges, the slime on its walls—anyone who saw them would know there might be danger.
But staying here meant slowly waiting for death.
And charging recklessly at the surface wouldn't necessarily be any less dangerous.
In that case, why not gamble?
...
And so, a party of fifteen, holding tactical flashlights, walked into that deep passage.
Leading them were three soldiers originally from the armed police mobile unit. was in the middle, and several bold yet careful young people brought up the rear.
The air inside the passage flowed faster than expected. Based on the strength and direction of the airflow, judged that this passage was not very long.
The facts proved him right.
After advancing about three hundred meters, a turbid gust heavy with the stench of blood and rot rushed to meet them, and ahead appeared a faint grayish-white light from the sky.
They had reached the exit.
"I'll go first!" , the armed police officer with the best combat skills in the group, barked in a low voice. He slung the Type 20 rifle in his hands behind his back and climbed up using both hands and feet.
The exit of the opening was somewhat sloped, about two or three meters above the ground.
moved with agility, scaling to the edge of the opening in two or three quick moves. He cautiously poked half his head out, ready to observe the situation outside.
However, just one second later, his body stiffened. As if struck by a body-binding spell, he clung motionless to the opening.
The people below, seeing him show no reaction for so long, couldn't help growing anxious.
" ? What's wrong? What's the situation out there?"
No response.
frowned, handed the half-finished in his hand to the student behind him, and with a leap, scrambled up after him.
Soon, he too had climbed to the opening and poked his head out.
Then he froze as well.
In the sky not far away, an unbelievable duel was unfolding.
A black figure whose outline could not be made out was fiercely locked in combat with an equally indistinguishable white figure in midair. Every collision produced blinding energy halos and sonic booms that tore through the air.
And on the square not far directly ahead of them, a ferocious monster with an exaggerated build—its lower body that of a hundred-legged creature, its upper body covered in dark-red flesh membranes—was trading blows back and forth with six white bird-men of terrifying combat power.
Six bone-white, fearsome monsters circled the hundred-legged behemoth like specters. With each dive, their sharp claws carved deadly afterimages through the air.
Yet these attacks, clearly enough to tear through steel, could only raise a string of dazzling sparks when they landed on the hundred-legged behemoth—at best merely ripping open the outermost film of flesh and blood.
And those negligible wounds were, almost the moment they appeared, filled and sealed by countless writhing bits of flesh.
"Roar!"
The let out a roar interwoven with pain and fury.
It appeared to be at a complete disadvantage in mobility, its colossal body a living target as it could only passively swing its six thick arms, futilely swatting at the air.
But it had another bizarre means of counterattack.
Shhk—!
Just as one " " once again closed in, attempting to attack its head, on the back ridge of the hundred-legged behemoth—
Dozens of blood-red muscle tendons snapped taut in an instant. Like crossbow bolts that had been primed for a long time, they burst forth countless fine yet tenacious blood-colored threads.
The " ," caught off guard, had its wings pierced by several of the threads. Its previously effortless flight posture instantly turned rigid.
Like a moth caught in a spider's web, it experienced an extremely brief stall in midair.
Then the centipede-like lower body of the suddenly exerted force, twisting its entire form a full 180 degrees. The six arms of its upper body seized the " " in an iron grip.
The other five "Pilgrims" immediately launched a frenzied assault. Sharp claws and bone spikes rained down upon the 's body, tearing open wound after wound, dripping with blood and flesh.
But this monster seemed to feel no pain, completely ignoring the attacks on its body.
It only cared about opening its mouth and biting hard at the head of the " " in its grasp.
"Crack!"
A crisp sound of bone fracturing rang out across the square. The bone-white head was ripped off with brute force, easily crushed between the monster's mouthparts and swallowed.
The next second, as the " 's" body was greedily torn apart and devoured, the 's size visibly swelled another size.
The wounds on its body healed at an even faster rate. The muscles beneath its carapace knotted and bulged, and the sense of oppression it emanated grew ever more terrifying.
The situation on the field reversed in an instant. The remaining five "Pilgrims" seemed to sense the danger as well. They let out piercing shrieks, apparently planning to flee.
However, on the back of the size-increased , a huge blood-red sarcoma rose up, and the sarcoma burst open in an instant.
Countless red, thread-like tissues, like needles, pierced into those Pilgrims' bodies at tremendous speed.
Then came the same devouring, the same swelling.
By the time the second " " was torn apart and swallowed, this battle had already become a one-sided slaughter.
"Crazy... this world has completely gone crazy..." Near the opening, armed police officer muttered to himself, his eyes unfocused.
He wasn't the only one. Everyone was shaken by this blood-soaked scene that defied comprehension.
took a deep breath, forcing himself to look away from that bloody battlefield, and turned his gaze to the ancient pagoda nearby.
Then he looked at the bright yellow temple walls around him, and the ivy that climbed everywhere.
His heart sank once more. This was !
sat at the very center of the area.
This meant that, having braved tremendous risk, they had instead gone the wrong way—into the very deepest part of the city area.
The others had realized it by now as well. An icy despair instantly seized everyone's hearts.
"Let's go! We're going back." made the decision immediately, his voice hoarse.
Rather than stay here and risk watching "monsters fight," it was better to retreat and find another way.
However, just as they were preparing to withdraw, a slightly surprised electronic voice abruptly sounded behind them.
[Humans?]
[Dudes! How did you guys come out of here?]
Everyone's bodies stiffened, and they whipped their heads around.
There, beside the opening, at some unknown moment and without a sound, had appeared a strangely shaped quadruped robot.
It was pitch black all over, about one and a half meters tall, with four articulated metal legs. Its main body was a flat rhombus, and a spherical camera at its center was rotating silently, locking an icy gaze on them.
After having witnessed the visages of those monsters outside, seeing such a creation full of industrial design beauty, everyone momentarily found it hard to tell whether this thing was friend or foe.
"Don't... don't open fire!" instinctively raised his gun, but immediately caught himself and lowered it, shouting in a dry voice, "We're humans!"
The two parties, separated by a few meters at this bizarre opening, fell into an awkward standoff of wide-eyed staring.
was also a bit dumbfounded at the moment.
He had been watching these monsters fight among themselves, collecting data, and also looking forward to peeking at a few little secrets later!
But how had a bunch of people suddenly crawled out of the 's hole? These guys really had some nerve!
At first he thought they were monsters like those " "? But their body temperatures seemed to be fine, which was why he couldn't resist coming over.
And amid this standoff where both sides were at a loss, the battle in the sky seemed to have reached its outcome as well.
With a mournful, piercing cry, that bone-white figure, fully six meters tall, plummeted straight down from the heights like a giant bird with broken wings.
Boom—!!!
The tremendous impact left the ten-story unable to bear up any longer. Its timber-and-stone body let out a groan of unbearable strain, then snapped with a thunderous crash and collapsed from the middle!
Dust and smoke shot into the sky, and countless shattered timbers and tiles sprayed in all directions.
Everyone's gaze—even including the several monsters locked in combat—was instinctively drawn over.
However, as the dust and smoke slowly dispersed, within the ruins of the ancient pagoda, a sight that left and the others utterly astounded was revealed before everyone's eyes.
At the center of the tower's wreckage stood a colossal "tree" that defied precise description in words.
It was about seven or eight meters tall, with no leaves and no bark.
What formed its trunk and branches were countless twisted, intertwined strips of dark-red flesh tissue, their surfaces covered with sinews that pulsed like blood vessels.
At the same time, the entire "tree body" was swelling and contracting at a slow, fixed frequency, like a colossal living creature breathing.
And on those gnarled "branches" hung dozens of fist-sized, translucent flesh sacs, inside which seemed to be curled, developing embryo-like objects.
And at this moment, that huge " " that had fallen from the sky, half its body pierced through, hung miserably from a thick "branch."
At its wounds, countless fine blood-colored tendrils were extending out from the "branch," greedily burrowing into its body, as if trying to merge it into one.
This scene was so grotesque that everyone's minds involuntarily short-circuited for a moment.
stared blankly at the tree. As someone who had grown up in Huining as a child, an absurd thought suddenly surfaced in his mind.
"The in ..." He looked at the giant tree bathed in blood-red light, slowly breathing, his lips quivering as he unconsciously murmured,
"Could this be... the ...?"