A Core Ship From The Start
Chapter 1428 - 967: The Lost World

Chapter 1428: Chapter 967: The Lost World

A shadow leaped out from the ground and lunged directly at Axelle. Watching the shadow in front of her, Axelle was...

"Ahhhhhhhh————!"

Almost at the same time, Mary and Lumiaire also let out terrified screams, quickly retreating to the side. On the contrary, Ogis reached out her hand and wrapped the shadow up with a thread of silk. It wasn’t until then that Axelle, as if electrified, sprang up from beside the shadow.

The reason why the girls were so terrified was simple, because it was a cockroach with several pairs of legs, smooth curves, a body all black, and about the size of a human!

"No no no, what is this?!"

Mary desperately climbed onto Duanmu Huai, clinging to his jet backpack, even losing her usual ladylike composure. Even Lumiaire rarely hid behind Duanmu Huai, forgetting all about her usual talk of "dignity" and "elegance."

"Squeak squeak squeak————!"

However, the giant cockroach seemed not to comply, still frantically waving its antennae, making a hair-raising noise. More horrifying, along with the cockroach’s shrieking, the nearby ground began to bulge, followed by other giant cockroaches drilling out from beneath...

"Nooooooo!!!"

The girls’ screams pierced the sky, and even Duanmu Huai had to turn down his helmet’s volume—these screams were on par with the Noise Warrior’s sonic attacks.

But Duanmu Huai admitted, watching a group of cockroaches that big emerging from the ground was indeed quite spine-chilling.

Still, they were just cockroaches!

"Watch this!"

Duanmu Huai roared, lifting his hammer and smashing it on the ground. The roving cockroaches were instantly smashed apart, spurting out a disgusting, sticky white fluid, scattering all over the ground.

"Ahhhhhhhh————!"

However, what Duanmu Huai didn’t expect was that right after he solved this screaming problem for the girls, the next moment they let out another scream, quickly got off him, and then distanced themselves from him, Ogis and Gavi included.

"What’s wrong with you all?"

Duanmu Huai looked around, all the cockroaches had been killed, so why were they still screaming?

"Duan, Mr. Duanmu, on your body..."

Mary tremblingly extended her hand, pointing at Duanmu Huai’s body. Duanmu Huai looked down and then saw his armor was stained with the blood splattered from the cockroaches, and a few cockroach legs stuck on him—though they were just on the outside of the armor, Duanmu Huai hardly felt it.

"It’s just a little thing, what are you afraid of, didn’t I just kill all the cockroaches for you?"

As Duanmu Huai spoke, he casually wiped off the few cockroach legs sticking to him, then walked toward the girls.

But as soon as he took a few steps, he watched the girls step back once more, looking at him as if they saw a terrible giant cockroach.

".............."

When they saw the cockroach earlier, they all scrambled onto me; now that there’s a bit of cockroach blood on me, they all keep their distance? You should know that I killed those cockroaches for you.

Heh, women.

Duanmu Huai silently rolled his eyes.

It wasn’t until Duanmu Huai silently cleaned and disinfected all over his armor and gave it another wash that the girls dared to come closer again—as if they had just mistook Duanmu Huai for a giant cockroach!

"What on earth is going on with this world?"

Mary held her chest, gasping for breath—even facing the progeny of an Old God did not make her so nervous!

"Why are there such huge cockroaches here?"

Axelle was even holding her arms, feeling numb all over. Ordinary bugs were one thing, but human-sized cockroaches really could make one have nightmares!

"Cough cough."

Duanmu Huai coughed and spoke.

"I have indeed heard of similar cases."

"Similar cases?"

"Yes, I seem to recall hearing about a mad scientist who wanted to fuse roach and human genes to create a sort of super cockroach-human. Then he succeeded in his experiment, and a bunch of super cockroach-humans appeared. They have the appearance of cockroaches, muscular human bodies beneath the shell, and their heads are also like that of cockroaches..."

"Ah———Ah————please stop, Mr. Duanmu!"

Mary was the first to cover her ears, nearly collapsing in fear—then she suddenly jumped up, remembering that the cockroaches had emerged from underground.

Even more fatal was the fact that Mary was a writer, and a writer’s imagination is generally rich, not to mention Duanmu Huai described it so vividly......

Mary felt goosebumps all over her body.

Even Axelle and Lumiaire were pale, trembling all over. Only Ogis and Gavi seemed calm—as Puppets, they seemed unable to understand the fear that humans felt towards these strange insects.

So why did Ogis and Gavi leave Duanmu Huai just now?

Well, Ogis’s answer was simple.

"It’s dirty and smells bad."

Indeed, being his cherished ones, Duanmu Huai was almost overwhelmed.

Seeing the miserable appearance of the girls in front of him, Duanmu Huai chuckled.

This is what you get for disdaining me just now.

"So... what exactly is this world about?"

After a brief stop, the group immediately left that wasteland. Although there was nothing there, the cockroaches emerging from the ground were enough for them to change their direction of advancement.

"A Fragmented World, a remnant of a world that has perished."

Ogis and Gavi were aware of this, but Mary and Lumiaire and the others didn’t understand it very well, and Duanmu Huai hadn’t discussed it with them before; now he took the opportunity to enlighten them—of course, this kind of knowledge of the Fragmented World wouldn’t be of much use to ordinary people, unless they are Soul Messengers, indeed.

"It’s hard to imagine, are you saying that before our world, another civilization existed on this planet? I’ve never heard about this..."

Axelle was incredulous, and although she wouldn’t care about other places, what Duanmu Huai mentioned was about her own planet. She had been working on this planet for hundreds of years, and now someone was telling her that there was an ancient civilization before theirs... Frankly, Axelle couldn’t imagine it at all.

"It’s very far from you, possibly it was destroyed before your civilization was even born."

Duanmu Huai glanced around. He hadn’t let the girls remove their helmets, although, according to the data from the Bird Divination Tool, the various data of the Fragmented World were slightly better than those of the previous planet wrapped in clouds and lightning, but there was also some high radiation pollution data—of course, looking at that cockroach one would know, where in the normal world are there such huge cockroaches.

So for safety reasons, Duanmu Huai insisted on them continuing to wear their helmets—Star Union’s protective gear was quite reliable.

This world looked desolate, but in the distance one could still faintly see scattered buildings, suggesting that there was still civilization existing in this world. But because it was too far, even with a telescope Duanmu Huai could only see a rough outline, so so far, he still hadn’t figured out what exactly was going on in this world.

However, at least Duanmu Huai was certain that the situation in this world couldn’t be good.

After all, it has giant cockroaches crawling all over the ground, if there were people living in this world, surely they must be living a very hard life.

Of course, unless they were in a world of Giants, that would be a different matter.

Luckily, it seems they are not in a world of Giants—at least when everyone reached those buildings, it could be seen that the buildings here were built to the standard size of humans.

But...

"How tragic... what exactly happened here?"

Looking at the ruins everywhere and the corpses and bloodstains on the ground, the girls couldn’t help but gasp. Although they had seen plenty of strange things before, the tragic state of these corpses still made it hard for them to bear. Not only that...

"This... what is this? Is this a human?"

Mary cautiously held her gun and approached a human corpse on the ground, speaking softly. No wonder Mary would have such doubts, because although this person had a human body, its head looked like an exploded mushroom with only a mouth underneath, it looked exceptionally eerie and frightening.

"Who knows what this is, even if it was human before, it’s not human anymore."

Duanmu Huai used the Bird Divination Tool to scan it and then concluded.

"So... how do we leave this world?"

"Right now? There’s no way, I need to find the core of this world, then make a decision..."

This Fragmented World currently didn’t belong to Duanmu Huai, so he hadn’t been able to open a Teleportation Portal yet. Just like other worlds, Duanmu Huai needed to change the original fate of this world first.

But... does this world still need to be changed?

Isn’t it all over? What’s left to change? Everyone is dead.

"Anyway, let’s go around and see, um..."

While talking, Duanmu Huai stopped, looking at the Steel Beast before him—currently they were at a station, there was a train stopped on the platform here, which looked unharmed and normal.

"What’s wrong?"

"I just thought of a good idea."

Duanmu Huai turned to look at the girls, looking at the train, Duanmu Huai suddenly remembered a game he used to play, featuring a protagonist who drove a train through the apocalypse, which seemed fun... Now that there’s a train here, if this were a game, then isn’t it just right that the protagonist arrives here, and then finds a vehicle?

"Since we’re idle, let’s just take the train for a tour."