Deep in the Living
Chapter 182 - 176: Forest

Chapter 182: Chapter 176: Forest

In front of the Mountain Waist Altar scattered various tiny bodily tissues.

There were pools of highly corrosive liquid beings, like tadpole crawlers, crushed and blasted apart.

From their position, they were almost touching the two people.

The only intact finger was still crawling, but was quickly ground into mush by the Spiritual Body.

Even Hua Yuan, a Pseudo-Person who had been around for more than six years and had seen all sorts of situations, squatted in front of this rotten flesh, and even picked it up for a closer look, observing the luster that overflowed between the flesh.

"Indeed... I should have thought of it back in the cave.

No wonder the reward from Corner for the ’Corner Warrant’ was so high; the Monster Avatar hidden on this island is too twisted! Its original form might even be a being that surpasses the grandmother’s.

I’ve contemplated many disasters, but never imagined that this guy’s calamity is utterly unpredictable."

After speaking, Hua Yuan looked up at the night sky, toward those dazzling and enchanting stars.

Luo Di, who was also observing the rotten flesh stand by said: "The starry sky?"

"Yes.

Every living creature that moves outdoors at night will bathe in the starlight, unwittingly influenced by the calamity — and this kind of calamity has no structure or symbolic representation when hidden.

All of us have been implanted with the calamity; it’s just that the opponent’s methods are too covert to detect.

Perhaps it is just as he said.

If we cannot find his original form within 24 hours, the long-accumulated calamity inside us will be fully triggered."

Hua Yuan then picked up a slightly harder piece of tissue.

"Moreover, the [outcome] caused by this guy’s calamity influence is very special.

Individuals haven’t gone mad or died due to complete Fear; instead, a ’special mutation’ has occurred.

And it’s not a simple, mindless mutation.

It is an advanced mutation, one that retains the attribute of growth.

Although this slaughter ended quickly, this guy exhibited more noticeable growth changes. If he hadn’t encountered us so early and gotten killed, I estimate he could have evolved into an even more dangerous form.

The so-called [experiment] might indeed be very interesting, no wonder Corner offers such a large reward."

Luo Di didn’t rush to conclusions, knowing that a conclusion based solely on such a sample couldn’t be accurate.

"Let’s go to the village first; perhaps the whole village has mutated."

After Hua Yuan crushed the rotten flesh in his hand, a special and fragrant liquid flowed out from his palm, washing away the stains.

"Let’s go, perhaps Shea and the others are fighting in the village."

However, when the two returned to the village down the mountain, the situation was completely different from what they had imagined.

This island village, bustling with villagers during the day, was now deserted and dead silent, without a single corpse.

It seems that the villagers had conducted a collective relocation before the island’s mutation occurred, with their whereabouts currently unknown.

And Shea, Eye Sister, and the Squad Leader, who were expected to be here, were also absent,

There was no lingering scent in the wooden house where everyone had stayed earlier, indicating that they had not returned here at all, possibly still trapped in the cave or maybe having gone elsewhere.

After waiting for more than ten minutes in the wooden house and still seeing no one return to the village down the mountain, it seemed the team could not regroup here.

Luo Di proposed: "We can’t just keep waiting like this; perhaps they encountered some unknown situation and left the cave, forced to go to other areas of the island and finding it difficult to return to the village.

Of course, they must also be considering the issue of [regrouping].

Why don’t we try going back to where it all began, back to the hotel?"

Hua Yuan had been standing at the window inside the house, gazing at the entire village. Hearing Luo Di’s suggestion and combining her own observations and analysis, she nodded after a moment.

"It seems no one will come here anymore, let’s go."

The stone steles standing on the village roads seemed to truly serve their purpose at this moment, as the entire village, under the bath of starlight, was as quiet as a sleeping baby, untouched by any form of anomaly invasion.

However, when the two reached the exit of the island village, they both stopped in their tracks, their gazes becoming sharp and a slight discomfort brewing and spreading in their eyes.

Several hours ago, the road to the island village that everyone took by bus had been completely swallowed by the forest; there was simply no such thing as a "road" to speak of.

Starlight fell through the gaps in the dense leaves, sparsely dotting this undeveloped, darkness-dominated primitive forest.

The originally straight trunks are now all twisted and bent to varying degrees.

Some trunks even had significant cracks, within which there seemed to be "eyes" growing, peeping at the situation in the forest, spying on the invaders.

In the silent night, one could faintly hear cries, laughter, and even the sound of breathing emanating from the woods.

Both Hua Yuan and Luo Di had the same feeling, sensing that the entire forest seemed to have come to life.

It was difficult for the two of them to discern the correct direction in such forested areas, and blindly venturing deeper might lead to getting completely lost, given the relatively large size of this primitive forest.

However, Hua Yuan paused only briefly before stepping forward.

"We walk in one direction; even if we can’t get back to the hotel, as long as we keep going in a straight line, we will reach the coast. From there, we can follow the coastline around and will surely find our way back to the resort."

"Okay."

Taking into account the hidden threats that may exist in the forest.

Luo Di put on the pig’s head again, his flabby flesh bolstering his basic defenses, and the pig’s head view allowed him to see farther, more, and spy on the spiritual bodies that are not visible to the naked eye.

This time, Hua Yuan didn’t object, but instead nodded in agreement with Luo Di’s decision to wear the pig’s head.

The two quickly arrived in front of a severely distorted tree trunk with surfaces splitting open, and the sense of being spied on from the cracks became even clearer, confirming that something inside was watching them.

Just as Hua Yuan was about to cut down the entire tree, Luo Di stepped forward.

"Let me try."

Luo Di placed his right hand on the tree crack resembling an eye socket, and his pituitary immediately activated between the back of his hand, a spiritual body finger invisible to the naked eye thrusting into it.

The whole tree shook violently, with a mass of leaves falling, and one could even faintly hear screams.

An oily substance shimmering with radiance flowed out from the cracks in the tree, emitting waves of foul odor.

Although the tree still stood there, Luo Di could clearly feel its life force dissipate in that moment—it probably would not take many days for it to wither completely.

"Even the essence of the plants has changed, to the point where they can’t be called plants anymore, but a new kind of animal... how is this done?"

Hua Yuan said nothing more and continued walking in a straight line, with Luo Di quickly following suit.

Though the sense of being watched by the trees was uncomfortable, it wasn’t feasible to extinguish them one by one, so they just casually killed the trees they passed by.

After walking about five hundred meters more, the two once again had their attention drawn by something.

A mahogany coffin, engraved with symbols and adorned with flower garlands, appeared on the right side of their view.

According to what that bald man had said before, this was the "coffin burial" often used by the villagers.

There were many more such coffins scattered throughout the forest.

This kind of decorated coffin corresponded to elderly people who had died of natural causes; according to the village’s sayings, the elderly had embarked on the cycle of reincarnation, passing away peacefully.

At the moment,

This particular coffin was more than twenty meters to the right and did not block the path ahead, so the two didn’t waste time checking it out.

However,

Just as they were about to ignore the coffin and continue on,

Thump, thump, thump! A knocking sound came.

The source of the sound was from within the coffin.

When the two were drawn by the sound to look again, the coffin that had been tightly closed before was now open, with the lid gently sliding off and landing on the forest floor.

A pale, wrinkled corpse with mottled patches appeared standing in front of the coffin, wearing nothing but a loincloth.

Watching the two with its pitch-black eye sockets devoid of eyes.

Without any movement, the body just stood there in front of the coffin, staring motionlessly at the two, a beam of starlight filtering through the leaves happened to fall right on it.