Chapter 23: Cocoon of Disaster
“Beichen ahh ...!!!”
Accompanied by Xifeng's hoarse screams with a distorted face, and the pale expressions of heartache, shock and disbelief on the faces of the crowd, Beichen's body with a big hole in it stood for a few seconds, and finally could no longer maintain balance and slowly fell backwards.
Xifeng stretched out his hands with a confused look, trying to hold her in his arms - but failed, because, before she fell - something rushed out of her body.
Boom.
The enormous energy pressure spread out from her body like water waves. The red light slowly distorted the air around her, even giving everyone the illusion of tinnitus like a beating heart.
Boom. Boom.
Something surged out of her blasted chest cavity. Countless tiny, wriggling blood vessels and chunks of flesh, squeezing, converging, and twisting like life, as if trying to reassemble something to replace her heart, destroyed by the Protoss cannon.
Boom. Boom. Boom.
However, perhaps because the most fatal organ was lost, the reconstruction was not smooth. The blood vessels and flesh struggled to separate and merge, like a soldier who received different orders at the same time and was confused about what to do.
Boom. Boom. Boom. Boom.
The red light lifted her bloody body and slowly floated it into the air, while the wriggling flesh on her chest began to become more and more unstable, as if it could not find its target, and began to stretch randomly, even waving its blood vessels and expanding towards the surrounding space with its fangs and claws!
"Beichen!!"
Xifeng roared loudly and rushed towards the floating figure, then was violently bounced away by the red light, sliding several meters on the ground and spitting out a mouthful of blood - but he seemed to feel no pain at all, and got up again and rushed forward like crazy - then was ruthlessly knocked away by the red light again!
Xiang Ying and the twins also came back to their senses at this time. They roared wildly and rushed towards the red light together without caring about their lives. After a few rounds, they were covered in blood by the counterattack of the red light. Atlas still seemed to be completely unable to face the reality. He stared blankly at Beichen's figure, only his tail was trembling slightly. Gu Yinyue and Yaye had already cast their furious gazes towards the place where the Protoss cannon was fired. Unfortunately, because Beichen had attracted everyone's attention just now, the possessed Moon Envoy who had attacked by surprise had already run away and disappeared.
"...Pandora's Box...overheating?"
Yagard looked at the figure hanging in the air with a face twisted with pain, and covered his head with his hands - a sharp sound repeated over and over in his mind - not only him, but even Karina, who was thousands of miles away, suddenly stopped the work at hand and stood up from the table.
Luo Hou took a few steps forward in confusion and worry, but Karina just focused her eyes and opened the hand that Luo Hou extended.
"Pandora's Box is overheating—a process conflict? ...What...? This is...huh? An unexecutable command? A logical paradox? Low celestial energy reserves—"
"Owner!"
Luo Hou growled worriedly, but Carina ignored him completely. She just covered her head tightly as if she had a headache, muttering these words:
"Entering the open box state...? The absorption of positive and negative star spiritual energy begins...?"
When Galina and Agard said this sentence unconsciously together, the entire Elysien Palace was swept by irresistible force and pressure.
The air was buzzing like ghosts crying, and all the star spiritual power scattered in the air of the entire capital was madly sucked towards the direction of the palace, causing a buzzing sound of the wind. Beichen, who was at the center of the energy vortex, had been completely surrounded by red light - the snarling pieces of flesh even grew more and more because of absorbing a large amount of star spiritual power, and most of them had already separated from her body, twisting and squeezing each other, surrounding her body bit by bit!
“Beichen! …Beichen!!”
The men around had been hit by the red light and their faces were bruised and swollen, but they were still rushing towards the huge, squirming piece of meat in vain. Xiao Qing, Lahan, Li Ye, Long Yun, Na Luojia and the other warriors of the Night Iron Cavalry who came rushing over after hearing the sound were completely stunned when they saw this scene.
What's going on? The Queen was fine just now, but now she's pale... being swallowed by that giant, wriggling mass of flesh?!
"What the hell is going on?!"
Xiao Peng conjured up a long whip with a grim expression and waved it at the warriors behind him:
"Hurry up and help drag the queen out of there!"
"No—everyone stop!"
At this moment, Yagard covered his head and roared hoarsely, successfully attracting everyone's attention. In just a few seconds, the piece of meat had completely swallowed Beichen, and many blood vessels were densely stuck to the ground and ceiling to fix their position. In the middle of the hall, a cocoon made of meat was formed, which was still beating like a heart.
──Not only that, the spiritual power was still being sucked in continuously, and the piece of flesh was still growing, with a tendency to swallow up all the people nearby.
The lobby of the residential area, which had been operating normally, now looked like a tragic biochemical laboratory where an experimental accident had occurred.
"It's repairing Miss Beichen's injuries. If we rashly touch Miss Beichen's body now... she might be completely beyond saving..."
As Yagad spoke, he took a few steps back and pulled away Atlas, who was completely stunned.
"Everyone, pay attention! Don't get touched by that cocoon! Have the Night Cavalry seal all the nearby doors! No one is allowed to approach the hall even a single step!"
Yagard's voice brought everyone back to their senses - knowing that Beichen could still be saved, Yaye gradually calmed down, but his face was still extremely ferocious.
"Fallen Dark Branch, listen up! Send me five hundred of your strongest elite soldiers to capture the escaped humanoid possessed Moon Envoy sent from Arcadia! Dead or alive, with or without limbs!"
"yes!"
Several warriors from the Night Stepping Iron Cavalry and the Dark Fallen Branch immediately received the order and led their men to retreat, while Gu Yinyue suddenly seemed to have thought of something and stepped forward to touch the cocoon -
“Don’t touch!”
It was too late for Yagard to shout. The moment he touched the cocoon, black smoke and a slight burning smell came out of Gu Yinyue's fingers in the red light - the skin and flesh on the fingertips were burned and fell off in an instant, revealing the white bones.
However, Gu Yinyue seemed to feel no pain. He just stared at the cocoon in a daze, not knowing what he was thinking. Longyun and Naraka, who also had very ugly faces but still had some rationality, came up, one pulled him away, and the other crushed the recovery spirit crystal in his hand.
"Owner……"
He stared at the cocoon and murmured as if his soul had been sucked out. Blood vessels and flesh had already wrapped around his heels and began to corrode the toes of his shoes, but he didn't notice it. It was Lahan who noticed it and dragged him away.
“Agad. …Agad!”
Heihuo and Sujie looked helpless and anxious, and walked back to Yagard with pale faces, one of them holding his shoulders tightly.
"...Is Beichen okay? She's not dead, is she?"
"I'm not sure... The situation is very chaotic right now. Pandora's Box seems to be in a strange dead end..."
"She'll be okay! Tell me! She'll be okay, right?"
But Black Disaster and Su Jie completely ignored Agard's explanation and just kept asking questions blankly and mechanically, as if they wanted to find a psychological support from Agard's affirmative answer - however, the knight was unable to say anything to reassure them.
"Agad, you understand the situation best now. Tell me."
Xifeng spoke softly in a cold and miserable voice.
"...Can she still be saved? ...If, she..."
The golden-eyed Star Vein stared at the cocoon with lifeless eyes, slowly raised his hand, and conjured up a sniper rifle - then turned it upside down and pointed the muzzle at his chest - where his crystal core was.
Then he smiled faintly in a trance.
"If she can't come back...I'll go and accompany her."
"I have no idea!"
Yagad, who had always been expressionless and calm, finally showed a rare outburst of unstable emotions, and his voice suddenly rose an octave.
"If she were truly dead, I would have followed you long ago, even before you committed suicide! But Miss Beichen is still showing some faint signs of life—your contract with her should still be there, right?!"
Xifeng snapped back to his senses and held his neck. Indeed, the contract mark was still there! She... wasn't dead yet!
"She's not dead yet... She's not dead yet... She's not dead yet..."
The Demonic Sniper Rifle repeated himself mechanically and incoherently, his lips trembling violently, and he even had a slight cry in his voice.
"She's not dead yet. She can still be saved and can come back. Beichen...she won't die. I should be the one to die. How could she...I should be..."
"The problem is, what if she remains in this near-death state and can't recover?!"
Yagad lost his patience and interrupted Xifeng's unconscious mumbling:
"Pandora's Box is stuck in a vicious cycle! It lost a lot of its power in the previous battle. When Miss Beichen was fatally attacked, it was unable to perform successful first aid measures, so it needs stellar spiritual power! It has entered an open box state, desperately absorbing the surrounding stellar spiritual power. However, the first aid action that had just been miscalculated cannot be disabled due to a strange Trojan program, so it cannot cure Miss Beichen. If it cannot be cured, it will continue to drain stellar spiritual power - until the stellar spiritual power of this world is completely drained!!"
Yagard's roar made everyone gradually calm down and come back to their senses.
The few men who learned the whole story, when they regained their senses, were stunned for a moment, and then their hearts began to surge with overwhelming anger.
--Su Mo, how many plans are you running at once? Are you really planning to crush Senagard from every angle, leaving no room for maneuver?
First, they prepared for a racial war, stockpiled Protoss cores, and instigated conflicts between humans and war machines.
If the racial war fails, we will place our hopes on the projected personality of the Red Moon Priestess.
The projected personality plan was interrupted, and the ancient biological weapon "Star Killer" Ragnarl was summoned.
The appearance of Ragnarl was not enough, the timing of the human-shaped Moon Messenger's arrival in Elytheon was so coincidental, and he appeared just when the Beichen people were out of ammunition and food and could not fight back?
I'm afraid Arcadia has been tricked too? Could the guy who instigated the mutation of so many golden beasts really be so easily apprehended? The real plan is to deliberately let them go, then, using Ringdir's name, sneak into the Elysion capital openly. So, that possessed Moon Envoy is also on your side, right? Su Mo?
How many tricks do you still have yet to use? How many plans are waiting to challenge us?
Yes, you really won't kill Beichen, because you used a trick to make her into this half-dead state - just to make Pandora's Box have an endless loop and drain the world's spiritual power, right?!
very good!
What is hidden in the black card that Beichen touched?
Activate the trap created by the projected personality?
A ritual to summon Ragnarl the Starkiller?
A Trojan horse program that prevents emergency measures from being turned off, causing Pandora's Box to enter an infinite loop?
——Or, is it all three?
"What should we do now? The first thing we need to do is find a way to disable that Trojan program and make Pandora's Box's emergency function work again, right?"
Xifeng put away his gun and took a deep breath.
Everyone had calmed down and were moving away from the cocoon made of flesh, retreating to the edge of the hall as it slowly expanded.
"Yes." Yagad nodded, "But the problem is, we don't know how to shut it down."
"And..." Xiang Ying glanced at Jian with some uneasiness. "...after it's turned off, can the master really be cured?...At least the master is still alive now. What if the master can't be saved after it's turned off...the part of her that was blown away...is the most crucial part of her heart, right? It's the same as the crystal core of the weapon, right?"
Everyone was silent.
The cocoon was still slowly squirming and expanding. Everyone was so anxious that they beat their chests and stamped their feet because they had no idea what to do. However, they had no choice but to curse Su Mo again and again in their hearts with the most unpleasant words.
"A heart. ...A heart can be made."
Atlas, who had been in a daze, suddenly spoke in a stammering voice.
"...On Silenkrad, there's technology that can reconstruct organs using stem cells—even hearts. If we just replace the heart first and then disable the Trojan horse, we'll have a 99.75% success rate."
After Atlas said this, everyone's expressions looked better, but Gu Yinyue still frowned with some worry.
"What's with the 0.25% chance of failure?"
"That's... a conservative estimate to allow for unforeseen errors when putting it back together."
Yagad frowned.
"The problem is, given the current situation, how can we obtain Miss Beichen's stem cells? Stem cells attach to the lining of a woman's uterus, so it's not easy to obtain them outside of the menstrual period, right?"
“…” Atlas frowned helplessly.
As a result, the situation fell into a stalemate again.
Just when everyone was at a loss, a rumbling sound came from the aisle behind them. Turning around, they saw that it was the dragon Ragnarl, walking leisurely towards them, surrounded by several trembling Night Riders.
"There are ways to save her. Who's willing to go to Chita with me?"
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