Detective Agency of the Bizarre
Chapter 473 - 473 Three hundred thirty

473: Three hundred thirty.

Blood vessels 473: Three hundred thirty.

Blood vessels Belfast, Rodest Port.

Several children were playing on the brown beach far away from the seawater.

The storm had gone away half a day ago, leaving Belfast cool and even somewhat chilly.

However, thick rain clouds still scattered across the sky of Belfast, occasionally dropping a cool, sprinkler-like drizzle.

The distant Rodest Port had grown busy after a long absence, with ships densely packed in the harbor and the bay, and every few seconds, a distant sound would travel to the beach.

The children’s laughter brought life to the damp brown sand as their mothers, up along the shoreline, took advantage of the rain’s hiatus to look for sea delicacies to replenish their food supplies.

Every rainy season, the poorest of the poor struggled more, especially this year.

The price of a pound of wheat flour had risen to an unbearable level, forcing poor people to either fill their stomachs with sawdust or to mix a little flour into their sawdust.

Only the five or six-year-olds, still naive and ignorant, could still show genuine smiles and play carefree.

The sand was marked with crooked squares, and the children jumped around; whenever a playmate stepped on the line and lost balance, laughter followed, and then they continued to jump high into the next square.

…

Thump—

Lu Li landed on an isolated dark fragment.

The ground beneath his feet emitted a dull sound.

“Flesh” was just a descriptiv, apart from the walls around him flashing a dark red light as if alive, the ground underfoot was neither soft nor slippery, nor did it smell bad.

Standing in the darkness, Lu Li paused briefly and looked at the dark piece two meters away.

That was the last foothold, with the nearest dark pieces wrapped in darkness tens of meters away.

“No more road,” said Lu Li.

The consciousness of the Mother of the Marsh never left, whispering: [I will create new islands beneath your feet…]

“Won’t the Old Mother find out?”

[The faint changes will not be noticed by the Old Mother…]

As the whisper fell, a new shadow began to emerge in front of the last dark fragment.

[Follow the emerging islands… you will reach the Old Mother’s shell of a head…]

Lu Li silently watched the new piece reveal itself: “You should know humans can’t fly.”

The Mother of the Marsh’s puzzled whisper slowly arose: [Is it over your head…]

“Almost, on the wall.”

After a brief silence, Lu Li watched the shadow slowly move and merge with the last dark piece.

The area where he could step forward extended a bit more.

Clutching his abdomen, with his other hand holding the sculpture of the Mother of the Marsh, Lu Li stepped forward.

As new shadows appeared, Lu Li would step on them, and the shadows behind him would disappear.

This change inevitably linked it in Lu Li’s mind with the trap in the tree hole overhead.

Except for shifting from dim beams to dark fragments, they seemed no different.

Traveling silently, as he delved deeper into this space, the originally wide passageways gradually narrowed and the flat ground underfoot became slanting, like climbing a slope.

“What do these flickering red signs represent?”

The narrow passageway allowed Lu Li to observe the flesh walls more clearly.

Compared to the chunks of flesh, the dark red walls’ intricate, complex patterns resembled… the grain of wood.

[The body that the Old Mother can sense…]

“What about the areas that turn into shadows?”

[The body taken over by me…]

So Lu Li could walk smoothly within the shell of the Old Mother.

The blood-red passage had numerous forks, some narrow and difficult to pass through, others as wide as the place where he had fallen.

During the seventh minute of moving inside the shell, a well-prepared Lu Li encountered a servant of the Evil God.

It wasn’t like any servant he had encountered before.

It was only the size of a fist, its beetle shell made Lu Li think of the descriptions of the Old Mother, and its head was a vivid human face.

It drifted out from the depths of the flesh passage,

This eerie servant was like a Human Head Balloon, capable of inducing one’s deepest fears.

Lu Li stopped in his tracks, and the murmurs of the Mother of the Marsh timely sounded, “Stay on the island, and it won’t find you…”

Heeding the advice of the Mother of the Marsh, Lu Li remained still.

The Human-Faced Worm floated toward him but slowed down as it approached Lu Li.

His palm gripped the Sequence 1, ready to draw it at any moment, meanwhile, a new change occurred before him.

As if floating in water, the Human-Faced Worm slowly descended, landing on the edge of the pitch-black fragments, and like a candle nearing a flame, quickly melted, filling into the black fragments.

The flesh and blood of the dissolved Human-Faced Worm turned that small piece of dark fragment back to a flickering dark red.

It was repairing the passage.

As the Human-Faced Worm dissolved, calm returned around him, only the fragment missing a piece was revealed.

“What is that?”

A dozen seconds after the Human-Faced Worm disappeared, Lu Li, confirming it was safe, asked.

“The power of the Old Mother… they surge inside the shell of the Old Mother…”

Lu Li thought of a possibility, “Like human blood?”

“You could say that…”

Everything became sensible.

The walls, flashing with dark red light, were actually the blood vessels of the Old Mother.

Yet, a problem also emerged: blood is usually not too scarce…

“Are they also servants?”

“They are part of the Old Mother… like I once was… don’t worry… I have avoided most of them for you…”

But still, a few slipped through and appeared before Lu Li.

Continuing forward, perhaps because the area where Lu Li was no longer on the edge of the shell, the Human-Faced Worms showed up more frequently.

Each time this happened, the Mother of the Marsh would create a patch of dark fragments on the flesh walls close to the Human-Faced Worms for them to repair.

The trouble wasn’t just that, the blood-red passage was becoming twisted and winding, making it even harder to walk.

“Where are we now in the Old Mother?” Lu Li asked.

“Using your terms… in the neck…”

He was already very close to the head of the shell.

Lu Li looked ahead into the depths of the blood-red passage; the distorted end of the passage momentarily showed no silhouette of the Human-Faced Worms.

“We should stop for now,” Lu Li said.

Even though the Sanity Value Counter had not stopped since entering the shell, Lu Li did not intend to risk more for the sake of saving time.

“Why… before the Old Mother discovers us… release the seal…”

The whisper of the Mother of the Marsh carried a trace of urgency.

“Simply put, I don’t know how to lift the seal,” Lu Li replied, beginning to check the three Spirit-Calling Guns in his holster.

“It’s not a good idea to proceed rashly without a plan.”

The Old Mother had been deceived once; there was no reason it would be unguarded against the seal of the New Swamp Mother.

It was very likely that when Lu Li stepped in there, the Old Mother would also know of Lu Li’s arrival, and then everything would end.

Because this place was the shell of the Old Mother.