Chapter 307: Remains in the Deep
Chapter 307 – Remains in the Deep
Dog shifted two steps in a vain manner and finally stopped, a stream of dark soot after a stream of dark soot rose up from the crevices of its skeleton, while the bone fragments all over its body kept trembling as if they were in spasms, while in its blood-colored eye sockets, the light was flickering on and off.
Such an obvious and abnormal reaction certainly startled Shirley, and the latter immediately stopped, shaking Dog’s huge head while anxiously calling out the other party’s name – it was only after seven or eight times that Dog finally came back to his senses and sluggishly looked up, a hoarse, low voice coming out of his throat: “Why am I suddenly a little …… unable to walk ……”
“Are you all right?” Duncan leaned over at this point as well, frowning at the Spectral Hound, who was clearly not in the right state, with more than a little concern in his tone, “What’s wrong with your body?”
“I ……’m not uncomfortable,” Dog’s head bobbed as if he were about to fall asleep at any moment, “I just don’t feel very strong and …… very much don’t want to go near the pile.”
“Very much don’t want to go near it?” Duncan glanced back at the pile of eerie things that still wriggled slowly in the light of the fire, as if it were a mountain of silt.
This strange “sludge” was having an effect on Dog? Some kind of instinctive suppression?
Dog’s unusual reaction attracted everyone’s attention, and immediately put Duncan into thought, his first thought was whether Dog’s strange “perception” that far exceeds that of human beings had observed something invisible again.
But from Dog’s reaction, it did not seem to “see” anything unusual.
“The Profound Hounds are more or less a powerful group of Profound Demons, and rarely become like this just because they are faced with the pressure of a powerful individual,” Vanna squatted down and touched the bone fragments on Dog’s body without minding it, and then looked back again, “Not to mention the fact that that thing didn’t even give off any intimidating aura ……”
“The word ‘more or less’ can go,” Sherry muttered from the sidelines, “Dog was already awesome …… “
“Not powerful, I’m not powerful at all,” Dog hurriedly shook his head, “Isn’t this place a bit too evil, should we come back next time?”
“Coming back next time is out of the question, this ghost ship isn’t necessarily going to be honestly waiting here for us to explore it again and again,” Duncan shook his head, “but you really aren’t in a fit state to keep going.”
Dog was being affected by some inexplicable force, and continuing to let him near the pile would most likely have unpredictable consequences – the best thing to do now would be for him and Sherry to return to the Lost Country for the time being.
Duncan waved to the side, and Aey immediately flew over, hovering in the air while yelling, “Who’s calling the ship …… It’s a trap! Abandon ship and escape!”
“You take Shelly and Dog back to the Lost Country first,” Duncan didn’t care about the bird’s stuttering, lifting his hand and pointing to Dog, who was paralyzed on the ground, and Shelly, who was beside him with a worried look on her face, and then after a moment’s reflection, he pointed to Nina, “Take Nina back as well.”
“Huh?” Nina didn’t react for a moment, “Why do I have to go back too? I’m in good shape now!”
“That thing tried to copy you earlier, and although you ‘beat’ it off, I don’t know if the big guy at the end of the pile will react in any other way when you’re near it,” Duncan explained simply, “Thinking ahead in a situation like this does no bad.”
Nina listened carefully and immediately nodded curtly, “Ah, okay, I’ll go back then.”
Duncan had originally prepared some persuasive words, after all, Nina was a curious girl, and had been looking forward to this kind of adventure, but he didn’t expect the other party to agree to it so painfully, which caused him to be slightly stunned, but he quickly smiled and shook his head.
She was still so understanding.
The blaze of the undead bird whistled through the cabin, bringing Shirley, Dog and Nina out of the Obsidian.
But the space had not been plunged into darkness by Aey’s departure – the piles of bonfires that Duncan had lit with that dry, stagnant mud for firewood still shone in this eerie, spooky place.
The pile of eerie matter that had coiled itself at the end of the hatch was still writhing silently, as if half asleep, as if hibernating in sleep.
But when Duncan cast his eyes on the pile again, there was a clear “plop” from within.
“The children have left,” Duncan breathed a soft sigh of relief and stepped towards the pile of dark matter, “now it’s time for the adults to fix this mess.”
His steps were unhesitating, and as he took a step closer, the pile of writhing matter, which had previously seemed to be in a state of slumber, immediately reacted – the writhing at its edges became more and more pronounced, the rising and shrinking of its surface became more and more frequent, and the pulsing sounds from within it became even faster and louder.
By the last ten meters, that had completely turned into a heartbeat with a clear rhythm-
Pfft, pfft, pfft – the clear and powerful sound of the heartbeat kept coming, echoing clearly in this open and dim cabin!
But apart from this continuous heartbeat and the increasingly strong writhing on the surface, the pile did not react in any other way.
Until Duncan came in front of it, it just maintained this state of “vitality”.
“Goddess ah …… what exactly is this blasphemous thing ……”
Vanna said with a tight frown, unable to hide her disgust. Only after getting close enough did she see the form of this pile of matter more clearly – it didn’t have the outline of any living organism at all, its surface seemed to flow as if it were silt, but every now and then some suspicious bumps surfaced in the mud, it looked as if it were half-melted internal organs or suddenly swollen blood vessels and nerve bundles, and while constantly emitting a While constantly making heartbeat noises, it took on characteristics as if it were reacting to external stimuli – characteristics that ultimately boiled down to a constant blind fidgeting.
From the day she became an Inquisitor, Vanna had seen countless heresies and evils, but she was still shocked by the profanity of the mass in front of her.
Even Alice beside her was a bit bewildered, and the doll lady stared at the pile for half a day before venturing out, “It doesn’t look like it could be cooked, does it? ……”
Vanna instantly stared wide-eyed at Alice – who was once again shocked.
Morris, on the other hand, gave full play to the scrutiny and curiosity that should be expected of a scholar, and as if ignoring his mental discomfort and resistance, he approached the pile of matter and then studied it carefully for half a day, then suddenly saw something in the process of the pile’s rising and shrinking and writhing, “It seems like there’s something else wrapped up in here!”
“Inside?” Duncan was slightly stunned, and then immediately noticed the clue that Maurice had found: at the edge of the pile of mud, there seemed to be a small section of what looked like pieces of clothing.
Was this ever-creeping pile of mud actually just a layer of covering?
After realizing this, Duncan immediately stretched out his hand and pointed at the writhing pile.
The countless bonfires burning around the cabin immediately spread out countless lines of fire, and a spiritual flame converged on the pile of “living mud” almost in the blink of an eye.
The spirit body flames instantly blazed!
The flames were grand but precisely controlled, Duncan ordered the flames to burn away only the black sludge and not to harm the other substances inside – under his conscious catalyzing and manipulation, the pile of disgusting writhing things was burned to the ground in just a few seconds.
What was originally covered in the depths of the pile of matter was finally presented to everyone’s eyes.
“This is ……”
Maurice looked at the sight in front of him with some dismay.
A human, a middle-aged male, was leaning against a pile of wreckage collapsed in the embers after the spiritual body’s fiery flames had burned, his eyes widened angrily as if he was fighting for his life against some ferocious foe before his death, yet he was covering his mouth with one hand in death as if restraining a great horror, and his body was presented in a shocking state-
A large portion of that body had been dissolved by something and turned into a warily decomposed structure.
The only thing left was a heart, exposed beyond the open chest cavity, which was beating slowly and powerfully.
Puffing ……Puffing ……Puffing ……Puffing ……Puffing ……
The sound of a heartbeat that seemed to contain some kind of strong will echoed throughout the cabin.
It turned out that the heartbeat Duncan had heard all the way up close was actually coming from this heart.
But this human was obviously long dead, and his heartbeat didn’t imply any life.
“A human?” Vanna immediately furrowed her brow tightly as she cautiously surveyed the middle-aged man who had died in the deepest recesses of the Obsidian, “Is this a replica made by the Obsidian as well?”
“The body structure is twisted and mutated, consistent with the characteristics of a replica, but something doesn’t seem right ……” Morris grunted under his breath, carefully fiddling with the remaining limb structure of the remains with the cane he had with him as he observed the fragments of clothing that were in pieces , judging what they should have looked like when they were intact, “These clothes …… look like a uniform.”
“It is indeed a uniform.” Duncan said suddenly, he seemed to have discovered something, and at the moment as he spoke he stooped down, ignoring the hideous and ghastly wreckage, and groped around the beating heart, removing something from a scrap of cloth.
It was a small breastplate.
On it was written the identity and name.
“He is the captain of the Obsidian, Christo Barberi.” Duncan said lightly as he glanced at the badge.
(End of chapter)