boyutpedia Chapter 355 Life in the Cave
Chapter 355 Life in the Cave
The cave passages don't all go down; instead, they meander and twist, sometimes wide and sometimes narrow. Sometimes, when you enter a huge cave that can hold hundreds of people, the flashlight beam can't reach the opposite rock wall, and you can only see a void of darkness. Other times, you have to bend over to pass through low rock crevices, with stalactites almost brushing against your scalp, making you feel like something is in your mouth.
The cave walls showed increasing signs of human intervention. Rusty structures resembling ventilation and drainage systems were visible, with thick iron pipes protruding from the rock face, their dark openings resembling gaping mouths. The remains of heavy, tightly closed metal doors lay askew against the walls, bearing fist-sized bullet holes and deep claw marks. Most of the doors bore blurred warnings such as "Danger," "No Entry," and "Biological Contamination," the red paint peeling and faded, but the words still sent chills down one's spine.
The strange odor in the air grew stronger, faintly mixed with a sweet, fishy smell that was nauseating. The sweet, fishy smell wasn't like the fragrance of flowers, but more like... rotting meat drizzled with syrup, the sweet and foul odor mixing together to create a bizarre taste that made one's stomach churn.
"Ahead... is the outer perimeter of the main experimental area."
Bald Bear stopped at a relatively open fork in the road, his voice trembling even more violently, as if he were using all his strength to utter those few words. His face was pale, his lips were white, and his forehead was covered with fine beads of sweat.
He pointed to a wider path on the left with obvious vehicle tracks on the ground. "That path leads to the main laboratory and the core containment area, but... the council must have activated the self-destruct procedure when they evacuated. That path is likely blocked or full of traps."
He then pointed to a relatively narrow, more natural-looking passageway on the right. "This is a backup emergency evacuation route, which also leads to some secondary laboratories and sample storage areas. It's relatively... possibly safer. But not necessarily. Those lunatics in Parliament, who knows where they've left 'surprises'?"
"Go to the right." Nie Lingfeng said almost without hesitation.
Their objective wasn't to storm the core, most dangerous area of Parliament—at least not now. Rather, it was to scout the situation, assess the risks, and locate any members of the UK and Japan who might have already entered. Taking a relatively peripheral route was safer.
The group turned to the right-hand passage.
The passage was even narrower and damper. The ceiling was very low; at its lowest point, even Nie Lingfeng had to duck slightly to pass through, and Zhang Chulan had to hunch over as he walked. The gap between the sides of the cave walls also narrowed, from three or four meters at the beginning to less than two meters, allowing only one person to pass at a time.
The cave walls were covered with slippery water stains and strange, dark red moss that resembled veins. The moss wasn't like ordinary plants; it looked more like tiny, red threads intertwined together, appearing particularly eerie under the flashlight beam, like blood vessels growing on the wall. When the flashlight shone on them, the red threads seemed to wriggle slightly; it was hard to tell if it was just an illusion or if they were actually moving.
The ground beneath their feet was even more slippery and difficult to walk on. The moss was as thick as a carpet, soft and yielding underfoot. Zhang Chulan almost slipped several times, only to be steadied by Feng Baobao grabbing his collar each time.
After walking for about ten more minutes, a half-open, rusty iron gate appeared ahead. The rust on the gate was layered, thick like a mille-feuille, and in some places it had rusted through, revealing dark, hollow holes. Behind the gate seemed to be a relatively independent small cave; shining a flashlight inside, one could see indistinct outlines.
A faint, pale green glow peeked through the crack in the door. The glow wasn't continuous, but rather in clusters, as if something was glowing inside.
"Be careful, there's something inside," Chen Duo suddenly whispered.
The few scout beetles she released relayed vague, wary, and uneasy messages as they approached the door. These beetles were connected to her senses; she could "see" things invisible to the naked eye through them.
Nie Lingfeng gestured for everyone to stop, then stepped forward and gently pushed open the half-closed iron gate.
"Crunch—Squeak—"
The hinges emitted a teeth-grinding, shrill metallic scraping sound, particularly jarring in the silent cave, like something screaming. The sound echoed back and forth between the cave walls, lingering for a long time.
The scene behind the door came into view.
This is a natural cave about the size of a basketball court, irregularly shaped, resembling a flattened egg. The cave ceiling is about seven or eight meters above the ground, with stalactites of various sizes hanging down like inverted icicles. On the surrounding rock walls, large patches of peculiar fungi emitting a pale green fluorescent glow grow.
The fungi came in all shapes and sizes; some resembled tiny umbrellas, clustered together; others were like corals, branching out in all directions; still others were just a thin layer of luminous powder covering the rock walls. They provided a faint but sufficient light source, enveloping the entire cave in a pale green halo, like an underwater world.
In the center of the cave, there were some broken experimental tables, overturned instrument racks, and several haphazardly placed and smashed culture jars.
The wooden workbench was mostly rotten, revealing the rusted metal frame underneath. The instrument rack lay overturned, the once-precise equipment shattered into glass and plastic fragments. Glass shards from the culture tanks were scattered everywhere, some as large as a palm, others as small as sand, crunching underfoot. Inside remained dried, strangely colored, viscous substances—some dark red, like dried blood plasma; some yellowish-green, like pus; some black, like tar.
In a corner of the cave, near a rock wall that was constantly seeping water, lay two corpses!
Judging from their clothing, they were Hattori Chizo, the ninja from the Sakura Kingdom who jumped down earlier, and a bodyguard from the Eagle Kingdom's "Freedom Vanguard"!
Both men were lying face down, their bodies twisted in unnatural positions, like discarded rag dolls. Their limbs were bent at incorrect angles, clearly indicating broken bones. Beneath them lay a large pool of blackened blood, which spread outwards from their bodies, seeping into the crevices of the rocks and the moss, forming a large patch of dark red shadow.
He had obviously been dead for some time.
"Dead?" Zhang Chulan's heart skipped a beat, and he quickly shone his flashlight in the direction.
Hattori Chizo had a deep, bone-revealing claw mark on his back, almost breaking his spine. The wound slashed diagonally from his right shoulder to his left waist, the flesh torn open to reveal the white bones and dark red muscle tissue beneath. The wound was an unnatural bluish-black, as if something had rotted inside, with tiny, writhing black threads remaining—these threads slowly twisted at the edges of the wound like tiny worms, gleaming ominously in the flashlight beam.
The British bodyguard's neck was twisted at an eerie angle—his head was almost 180 degrees turned, facing away from him. His face was frozen in the expression of death, his mouth wide open, his eyes bulging, his pupils filled with unbelievable despair. There was a gaping hole in his chest, the size of a bowl, its edges jagged, as if it had been ripped open by something—not with a knife, but with claws. His heart was gone, leaving only an empty, dark chest cavity. Fragments of ribs were visible at the wound, their sharp edges like broken white tree branches.
Both men's expressions were frozen in the extreme terror and pain of their final moments, their eyes wide open, their lips turned back, revealing clenched teeth. The expressions weren't ordinary fear, but rather a despair on a spiritual level, born from facing something beyond comprehension and indescribable.
"It's...it's them! It's those experimental subjects!"
Bald Bear's voice was choked with sobs, his finger trembling as he pointed at the two corpses, his whole body shaking violently. His face had gone from bluish to deathly pale, his lips quivering as if he were chanting some kind of incantation.
"These wounds... are 'The Ripper's'! And those black lines... are 'Bone-Eating Bacteria'! They're still alive! They're nearby!"
"The Ripper? The Bone-Eating Bacteria?" Zhang Chulan swallowed, feeling a chill run down his back, as if something unseen was blowing on the back of his neck.
Their names alone are enough to send chills down your spine. The Ripper—a monster capable of tearing steel apart with its bare hands. Bone-Eating Bacteria—bacteria that can even corrode bones. Just hearing these names is enough to make your scalp crawl.
Nie Lingfeng stepped forward and carefully examined the two corpses.
He crouched down, first gently flipping open Hattori Chizo's collar with his fingers to examine the depth and direction of the wound. Then he leaned closer to smell the odor from the wound, his brow furrowing slightly. Finally, he reached out and touched both of them, feeling for the lingering body heat and vital energy.
The time of death is very short, no more than half an hour.
The lingering aura from the wounds was violent and chaotic, carrying an inhuman madness. It was not the Qi that humans could emit, nor did it resemble any known creature—it was a pure, unrestrained instinct to kill for the sake of killing.
Moreover, judging from the traces at the scene, the battle—or rather, the massacre—occurred very suddenly and briefly. The two men were killed almost instantly with little resistance.
There were no messy footprints left from a fight on the rubble, only the skid marks left by the two corpses when they landed. Hattori Chizo was even still holding a shuriken in his hand, which he hadn't had time to throw yet, his fingers still in a clenched position, indicating that he didn't even have time to react.
The opponent's speed and strength are probably quite astonishing.
"I didn't see the leader from the Eagle Country, the other woman, or that one-armed old man from the Sakura Country." Daoist Wang Ye looked around, his Qimen Dunjia system sensing the remaining auras. The Bagua phantom beneath his feet slowly rotated, as if scanning the entire cave.
"They're not here, but their presence is faint; they went deeper into the cave. And...it seems they separated?"
"They split up?" Zhang Chulan was taken aback. "They dared to split up in this godforsaken place? Aren't they afraid of dying?"
"Perhaps... they separated of their own accord." Nie Lingfeng stood up, his gaze falling on the darker tunnel deep within the cave, its destination unknown. "Or perhaps, they were forced to separate."
His voice was calm, but everyone could hear what lay beneath that calm. Just like a calm lake may conceal undercurrents and whirlpools.
Just then—
Xiao Yun, who had been held quietly in Nie Lingfeng's arms, suddenly trembled violently.
The trembling wasn't the slight shaking of fear, but rather a jerking motion, as if she'd been electrocuted. She let out an extremely faint, tearful sob, so quiet it was almost inaudible, yet everyone in the silent cave heard it clearly.
"Papa... I'm afraid... there are... lots... bad things... moving..."
Her voice was broken and intermittent, as if she had used all her strength to squeeze out those few words. Her small hands gripped Nie Lingfeng's collar tightly, her nails digging into his skin through the fabric. Her face was buried in his chest, and she dared not lift it up.
Almost at the same time she issued the warning—