Translator: EndlessFantasy Translation Editor: EndlessFantasy Translation
Lin Sanjiu’s voice drowned into the rumbling thick mist and was devoured. She seemed to be hearing some soft noises but could not tell if it was Meme’s reply. She glanced over at the ground meat that resembled mashed jelly beside her legs. She did not jump into the mist; instead, she squatted down and picked up a piece of the broken ‘tongue’.
Contrary to her expectations, it was not a piece of torn ground meat.
There was a soft layer of a shell surrounding its body, which felt like plastic, resembling a shrimp. The shell tightly contained the purplish-black and sticky meat granule. She held her disgust back and poked her finger inside. To her surprise, when her finger touched the meat granule, it turned into a bubble of slimy meat juice and allowed the tip of her finger to press in, a tiny hiss sounding. [Defense Forcefield] immediately shone, followed by her Higher Consciousness fading away rapidly, which meant [Defense Forcefield] was being corroded.
Lin Sanjiu retracted her hand, she picked up several more pieces of different parts and roughly formed a complete purplish-black ‘tongue’: it was a type of arthropod that looked like a tongue. It had no limbs and it had several tiny iron needles at one side of its shell that could extend at will. The iron needles were hollow and extended deep into the meat granule. Lin Sanjiu observed it for a few seconds and finally understood the function of the needles.
The ‘tongue’ could inject its extremely corrosive meat juice into the follicles of the human face and it would dissolve the content inside the skull then, little by little, suck most of it out. On second thought, she caught a glimpse of the ‘tongues’ that dug into the ground and it seemed like those were twice as big as these.
She even found half an eyeball with iron needles sticking into it from the puddle of ground meat, as though it was adamant to silently prove her speculation.
Lin Sanjiu finally understood how the crawling heads were emptied out into a hollow rubber ball, but a new question arose.
These things were just some inferior simple-structured organisms, and they did not even have brains. As she pondered upon the question, she shouldered the single mortar and walked deeper into the mist in silence.
She did not want to foolishly make any noise anymore. Every word that she spoke might be recorded and played back to her without notice. Two steps forward, she suddenly felt itchy on her arm. She looked down and saw a little machine with a cold luster—a gift from Silvan. It extended its many aluminum claws and crawled up her sleeve swiftly, sitting down on her shoulder with a light tap. The aluminum claws extended further and stuck two pieces of metallic film on her temples seamlessly.
Thankfully, during the critical moment back there, this little thing expelled the purplish-black ‘tongue’ that tried to get into her nasal cavity in just the nick of time. It seemed to be armed and ready, available to electrocute her whenever she was ready. A bitter smile jumped upon her lips, as she was more or less prepared for this at heart.
Lin Sanjiu took in a deep breath, and before she could huff it out, a series of shots blew out of nowhere just ahead of her. The sudden explosion shattered the silent mist, and a vague but furious shout for her name followed, “Lin Sanjiu!”
Lin Sanjiu was shocked, and she quickly dashed out. These bodies had been lying down on the ground for who knows how long and had turned into mushy mud under their clothes. She stepped on the fragile bodies, producing a disgusting shrill with every step she took and ran over.
“Silvan!”
The mist scattered before her sight. Further away, a tall blonde figure suddenly turned around, and as if he was surprised, the shooting from his hands paused. “You, why are you—”
Before he could finish, Lin Sanjiu widened her eyes immediately.
Something was shuffling inside the fog slightly further ahead of Silvan. It was moving rapidly, and before either of them knew it, the thing jumped out, revealing its true face and shrouding their sights instantly.
Locust. An endless wave of locusts.
That was the first thing that surfaced in Lin Sanjiu’s mind when she saw the scene.
“Don’t hesitate, fire!”
Right after Silvan’s voice subsided, Lin Sanjiu clenched her teeth and moved her will, aiming the single mortar at the black maggot storm. However, at that moment, a sharp scream perforated the raging black storm and clearly entered their ears.
“Captain, captain!” Meme’s voice was covered by countless purplish-black tongues. It sounded weak as if the wind could blow his voice away.
Silvan was stunned, and the heavy firearm in his hand was forced to a pause.
In the moment of delay, they lost their only window to defeat the storm with bullets and explosives. Lin Sanjiu looked up and saw the mist get perforated by the countless black tongues. Shadows similar to a school of flying fish were cast upon her.
She turned around and saw Silvan further away, who was also stunned. A decision was made in that instant.
Amid the ceaseless shine of white light from her body, Lin Sanjiu put away the [Battle Item], jumped like a jaguar and threw herself at Silvan. He turned around and saw her, looking as though he had forgotten how to fight back. She crashed into him in the next second and toppled him over onto the ground.
“Don’t move!” Her heavy pants rang in his ears, followed by a whisper, “I’ll cover you while you shoot.”
She pressed herself tightly against Silvan. The smell of gunpowder, blood, and fig wafted from his body and into her nose. She had never been so frustrated about his big and tall body before. She concentrated her will into her [Defense Forcefield] and even expanded the faint layer of white light from her body. She finally managed to cover both of them under [Defense Forcefield]’s protection.
“Hurry, I won’t be able to hold on for long!” Her breath messed up his scattered golden hair.
On top of her Higher Consciousness fading rapidly, Lin Sanjiu was actually constantly fighting another voice that kept screaming at her. In only a few seconds, both her arms, which supported her on the ground, started to shake. However, Silvan was petrified, his body stiffening beneath her.
“Hurry!” Countless black tongues poured down at them like a storm. They rained down on her and the ground beside the two of them. The moment the black tongues landed on the ground, they rapidly wriggled their way up to the two of them, whipping a dust storm on the ground around them. As countless black shadows assaulted them, she shouted again, “I—”
Before she could finish, Silvan reached out to her and held her tightly to his chest. “It’s fine, I can still shoot while lying down.”
When he swiftly retracted his hand, several black tongues extended their iron needles toward the back of his hand and poked it into a bloody state. Lin Sanjiu tried to use her body to block his movement. She then felt a gun barrel prop on her shoulder. “Cover your ears and hold on. This will be fast,” said Silvan in a low trembling voice.
Although Lin Sanjiu diverted a part of her willpower to cover her ears, she still felt the powerful shot roar like a rising tide beside her ear. The firearms from the Munitions Factory were really different from normal ones. The burning sensation on her shoulder and the thick smell of gunpowder lasted for two to three minutes before slowly fading.
As soon as the shots stopped, she turned around and bolted up to quickly scan the surroundings. The mist slowly merged, and in the area of purplish slime, broken shells and ground meat, she did not see any signs of Meme.
“What was wrong with Meme’s voice?” Silvan remained lying on the ground, his elbows supporting him upright as he looked at her for a few seconds. Atop Lin Sanjiu’s back was a large area of slime with a vile stench, but the rest of her was clean. “I heard your voice earlier and thought you were attacked, but you appeared from another direction… Is there something here that can mimic our voices?”
“No, I don’t think it’s mimicry.” Lin Sanjiu shook her head.
It was then that she got overwhelmed and froze uncontrollably.
“What’s wrong?” Silvan asked while standing up.
“No matter what’s mimicking our voices, I never heard something we did not say before… I suspect that it must have recorded our conversations, cut segments out, and replayed them to mislead us. That, or it is trying to split us up and take us down one by one.” Lin Sanjiu slightly gasped for air and forced herself to be nervous. Despite understanding the logical truth of what was going on, her feelings were numb as if she was tranquilized.
As her words subsided, Silvan immediately understood the situation.
“You are saying Meme really called for help but we just don’t know when?” He tightly shut his eyes and let out a sigh.
“I split up with him for only seven to eight minutes, and I never heard him call for help before,” Lin Sanjiu said with furrowed brows.
“It means he must have ran into trouble within that time. Since the situation has come to this, you don’t have to worry about startling the things underground anymore. Just blow the mist away. We must find Meme as soon as possible,” Silvan nodded. He frustratingly ripped his uniform collar open, and his shaking fingers picked up the gun from the ground.
If that boy fell into the center of the purplish-black tongues, in the span of seven to eight minutes, he would have been melted several times over. Lin Sanjiu knew she should feel angry and nervous, yet she could not emotionalize anything, as if she felt that Meme had seemingly gone on a vacation.
She summoned the [Tornado Whip] and did her best to stir up several strong gales. The wind whistle tore the sky and earth apart. It was so sharp that it struck fear in people’s hearts. Under the unbridled power of the wind, the mist no longer gathered but dispersed like clouds. The bowl-shaped marshland slowly revealed itself under the light of the sky.
The two of them were standing on a slope covered with ‘human mushrooms’. After the mist dispersed, it suddenly went silent.
At the bottom part of the bowl-like marshland, a blurry figure the size of a hill slowly emerged.
“The queen…” Lin Sanjiu heard herself mutter.
