Chapter 308 – Pieces of Meat

Chapter 308 – Pieces of Meat
The name “Christo Barberi” and the identity of the captain of the Obsidian were stamped in steel on a small metal badge.

This badge makes the atmosphere of the scene immediately quiet and eerie – the silence of the open cabin, and even the only sound left is the sound of the heart plopping and plopping.

“His name is Christo?” After a long time, it was finally Alice who first broke the silence, scratching her hair and seeming rather puzzled, “But the …… ‘person’ we saw behind that blue door also said his name was Christo? ”

“If this ship came from the Frost Deep, then everything on board could just be a twisted replica, and every pile of twisted things here could be Christo, or whoever was on board the Obsidian at the time,” Duncan said blandly, while his gaze fell on the middle-aged man on the floor, who was angrily staring at him with his hand covering his mouth. “The key is this …… remains, which are clearly special.”

“You suspect that he is the original body?” Vanna quickly reacted and looked at Duncan in shock, “But …… this whole ship is obviously a distorted copy, how could the main body be here?”

“…… Everything we know about the Frost Deep Sea is based on Tirian’s limited recollections, and even what Tirian knows is just a partial intelligence of the entire pre-submarine program – the entire submarine program in turn has never been Duncan shook his head, “We know very little about the Frostbite, and we’re probably wrong in summarizing the patterns of these ‘replicas’ – perhaps the shells of the fakes hide the bodies, or perhaps each of the fakes is a replica of the original. fake is a manifestation of the main body after it has been split up, or maybe even under the deep sea, there is no difference between a fake and the main body at all.”

Vanna listened to Duncan’s words, but couldn’t help but glance at Alice next to her.

Alice, however, didn’t think about it in the slightest, she just curiously looked at “Cristo Barberi” on the ground, and after half a day of pondering, suddenly came out with a sentence: “Why is he covering his mouth?”

“It’s a common reaction to fear,” said Maurice casually, “nothing strange about it.”

But no sooner had he spoken than Duncan’s voice burst out, “No, it’s strange …… he’s not out of fear.”

Maurice looked at Duncan with some surprise, only to see the latter crouch down beside the remains, which were in a bizarre and ghastly state, and even come close to his face, observing something carefully.

Plop, plop, plop.

Cristo Barberi’s heart continued to beat, as if it was beating a little more sharply and forcefully than it had been a moment ago with Duncan’s proximity.

Duncan noticed this change in the heart, but his more attention remained on this Captain Cristo’s face, and after a closer look, he suddenly realized something.

“There’s something in his mouth.”

“Something in his mouth?” Maurice was taken aback, and the next thing he knew, he saw Duncan reach out and try to break the remains’ hand away from his mouth.

The resistance coming from his hand took Duncan by surprise.

The relic was holding its mouth in a death grip, as if it was still consciously resisting something today, years after its death!
Duncan didn’t push too hard on the first stroke, and as a result, he was surprised that he didn’t succeed in breaking the other man’s hand – he knew that if he really increased his strength, he should be able to easily crush the dead man’s obsession, but before continuing to push, it seemed that he suddenly thought of something, and he stopped.

“Mr. Barberi, if you’re keeping something a secret, you can let go now,” Duncan said in a steady voice as he looked into those angrily rounded eyes, “and don’t worry about following up with me.”

The hand loosened.

Beneath it was a mouth with clenched teeth – but the next second, that mouth relaxed as well.

Beside them, Vanna and Maurice exchanged a look of dismayed expression, and the next thing they knew, they saw Duncan reaching out and groping for something in Christo’s slightly open mouth.

A soft and slightly nauseating touch came, and Duncan frowned, fighting back the twinge in his mind as he removed some sort of mass he had felt from the dead man’s mouth.

It was a lump that was only the size of a thumb, dark in color with a slight blue filigree pattern, very soft to the touch, and felt …… like some kind of meat.

It was meat bitten off from some larger individual.

“What is this thing?” Alice was the first to come over curiously, picking at Duncan’s arm to look at the motionless, black-on-blue chunk of flesh, followed by a somewhat resistant look, “Evil …… I don’t like this stuff …… “

Duncan looked at Alice in surprise, this all-day happy-go-lucky doll lady would rarely express her distaste for something so quickly and clearly.

And soon after Alice’s words, Vanna frowned as well, “I sense a very disturbing aura from this thing – it reminds me of certain contaminations that have surfaced from the depths of the world into the real world.”

“My instincts tell me it’s best not to stare at this thing all the time,” Maurice followed suit, “It could very well be a warning from the God of Wisdom. Do you not feel anything when you hold this thing?”

“Feel? No,” Duncan squeezed the hunk of flesh in his hand, “It’s a bit nasty to the touch, but I don’t feel the exaggerated reaction you guys are talking about.” “Oh, that’s normal, after all, your bit is different from ours,” Maurice’s face was unsurprised, and then added, “But one thing is certain, this thing in your hand is definitely not what it should be in the real world, and it should be the most important line in this ghost ship ……”

He stopped abruptly in the middle of his words.

This was because everyone heard that the throbbing sound coming from the heart that was constantly beating in the air was rapidly diminishing.

Duncan lowered his head and stared at Christo’s chest, which was open due to corrosion and distortion, and saw that the heart, which had been beating vigorously before, was now tinted with a layer of gray, and the plopping, plopping, plopping sound of the beats had diminished to near extinction within seconds, and right after that, the heart suddenly burst into flames as he watched, and turned into ashes in the blink of an eye.

At the same time, a low, hoarse, somewhat familiar-sounding voice suddenly reached everyone’s ears, the source of which could not be heard, or even as if this entire ship had let out a sigh, “Ah, so that’s how it is ……”

Vanna was the first to react, “It’s the voice behind that blue door!”

Duncan looked to the remains on the floor and saw that the remains of “Captain Christo” were melting like wax, the remains that should have been eaten away by the sea six years ago were reduced to jagged pieces of bone almost in the blink of an eye, as if to make up for the last six years of polishing.

With an immediate decision, he turned toward the direction from which he had come, “Return the way you came.”

The speed on the return was far faster than the speed on the exploration.

The group of people quickly passed through the open and silent strange cabin, through the chaotic and twisted inclined ramp, and returned to the “captain’s room” with the blue door in a short time.

The door was closed, and behind it, the bio-organism that called itself “Cristo Barberi” was still clinging quietly to the wooden planks.

Vanna took a step forward, and almost immediately, as if sensing the movement around her, the mass of bio-organisms wriggled on its surface, emitting a hoarse, low voice: “Ah, you’re back.”

“…… Captain Christo,” Vanna settled down, trying to sound calmer, “we have some business …… “

But before she could continue, “Christo” interrupted, “I already know, ma’am – I recall.”

Despite the vague suspicion in her mind, Vanna couldn’t help but ask at the moment, “You …… recalled?”

“If you’re referring to your own death, then I recall it, though only partially,” Christo spoke in a low voice, “I was dead, wasn’t I? Definitely dead …… The Obsidian had sunk, we ran into storms and icebergs, and we sank, all the way down into infinite darkness – there was no chance of me surviving.”

Duncan was silent for a few seconds before suddenly taking two steps forward, “Do you know what happened in the depths of this ship?”

“The depths?” Christo’s voice seemed a little puzzled.

“Do you remember the details of when you died?” Duncan asked again, “Did you have to wrestle with anything? Did anything else happen on the ship after it sank into the depths?”

Christo went quiet, seemingly in thought, and then a slightly regretful voice came from the mass of biological tissue, “I’m sorry, I don’t remember any of those details, all I remember is that …… the ship was sinking, and it kept on sinking for a very, very long time, and everyone died, and I should have died as well, and yet I kept on floating in the darkness, it was cold around me, my vision was dark, it was as if I was searching for something in the darkness, and I don’t know how long this state of confusion lasted – when I had a memory again, it was knocking on this door.”

Duncan exchanged glances with the others.

“Captain Christo had no reason to lie.

The captain had only realized that he was dead, but he had no memory of what had happened in the depths of the Obsidian, nor did he know about the death of his “other self” in the strange space at the bottom of the bilge, nor did he know about the mysterious piece of flesh and blood.

The trail seems to be broken.

But Duncan glanced down at his hand – the dark-colored piece of flesh was still lying quietly in his palm.

He had made a very important gain.

(Push the book time to ~ “Civilization Return”, the protagonist as a trainee officer, in the dormant capsule accidentally fell asleep after 2000 years violently found that the earth has blown up, and the rest of the human beings do not know the whereabouts of, in the understanding of the current situation, the protagonist ultimately decided to take with him the side of the AI that has the shape of a young girl, the main part of the setting of the Warhammer 40K and the Swarm, it is the space opera class of the seeding of the text.)
(End of chapter)