Chapter 59
Time passed in a mixture of repression and exploration. They crossed the poisonous Bone Plains, crossed the canyon where the corrosive underground river flowed, and finally arrived at the edge of the "Rotten Bone Forest", a recognized high-risk area.
The air here is as thick as substance, and the smell of decay is mixed with an indescribable pressure that makes even the soul tremble.
The twisted dead trees were an eerie dark purple, and the humus covering the ground was wriggling slightly like the skin of a living thing.
In the distance, the dark green poisonous miasma was even thicker and seemed to have life. It was like a huge curtain wall, blocking the view. Only the outline of a larger and twisted shadow could be vaguely seen within it.
Lin Yao stopped, his blue eyes beneath his silver hair staring at the deadly poisonous miasma wall, his gaze as sharp as a knife.
"We're here." He spoke calmly, his voice particularly clear in the depressing environment.
Lu Cheng's heart sank suddenly, he knew what this meant.
Sure enough, Lin Yao turned around and his eyes fell on Lu Cheng. Without any preparation, he went straight to the point: "I will walk the rest of the way alone."
Lu Cheng retorted almost immediately: "No! It's too dangerous! I..."
He wanted to say that he could help and fight, but the words were stuck in his throat. The scene of Lin Yao easily wiping out the S-level peak pollution beast flashed through his mind, and the scene of himself having to give his all and even get hurt when facing those monsters flashed through his mind.
Lin Yao didn't give him a chance to make excuses. His voice remained calm, yet it carried an undeniable, almost cruel rationality: "The next area is far more dangerous than before. I don't have the energy to spare to protect others."
He didn't explicitly say "you're too weak," but that cold statement stung more harshly than any direct insult. Like an invisible icicle, it precisely pierced the lingering glimmer of hope and unwillingness in Lu Cheng's heart.
Lu Cheng's face instantly turned pale as paper, drained of all color. A profound sense of powerlessness and a cold reality overwhelmed him. He opened his mouth, but no sound came out.
All his objections seemed feeble and powerless. Yes, it wasn't that Lin Yao didn't want to take him with him, but simply because he was too weak.
In the face of a real danger that is enough to threaten Lin Yao's existence, he, Lu Cheng, the S-level thunder master of D City, will only be a drag, a burden, and a weakness that needs to be "distractedly protected."
This realization was like a heavy hammer hitting my heart, bringing suffocating pain and unprecedented frustration.
He clenched his fists tightly, his nails digging deep into his palms, trying to use the pain in his body to suppress the turmoil in his heart.
He lowered his eyes, not daring to look into Lin Yao's all-seeing blue eyes. After a long while, he finally managed to squeeze out a few words through his teeth, as if using up all his strength.
"……I see."
He suddenly raised his head, and there was no longer any anger, unwillingness or stubbornness in his eyes. There was only a kind of almost dead calmness after being crushed by reality, and a kind of almost self-abuse determination.
He recognized the reality and accepted his position. Although weak, at least... he could choose not to be a burden.
"I'll... wait for you in the relatively safe cave ahead." He pointed to a natural shelter formed by huge black bone fossils not far away. "No matter how long it takes."
The last three words carried a heavy weight of promise.
Lin Yao looked at him, there was no ripple in the depths of his deep blue eyes, as if he had just heard a predetermined arrangement.
He nodded slightly: "Okay."
Lu Cheng gave Lin Yao a last, deep look. His expression was so complex that it was hard to describe, containing too many unspoken emotions.
Then, he turned around resolutely and walked towards the temporarily chosen shelter with heavy steps.
The back figure looks particularly lonely and desolate in the dim light.
Just as Lu Cheng turned to leave, an extremely faint blue spiritual mark, which was almost impossible to be captured by any instrument or perception, escaped silently from Lin Yao's fingertips like the lightest dust, accurately penetrated into Lu Cheng's back, and instantly merged into his life breath.
No matter how far apart they are, as long as Lu Cheng's life is seriously threatened, Lin Yao will sense it immediately.
This action was so fast that it seemed like instinct, and it didn't even cause a ripple in Lin Yao's precisely operating thinking core.
It was so secretive that it didn't fit his assumption of "absolute rationality," but it actually happened. After doing all this, Lin Yao's gaze turned to the dark green wall of death without any regrets.
Lu Cheng's back disappeared in the shadow of the bone fossil.
Lin Yao's aura instantly turned icy and murderous. He no longer held back, his invisible mental barrier covering his entire body like the strongest armor. His azure eyes, sharp as an eagle's, he stepped into the ominous, dark green miasma.
The scene in the high-risk area is heart-wrenching. The dead bones here are no longer simply white or black, but a strange dark purple color, as if stained with ink, and covered with wriggling, fluorescent moss-like parasites.
The air was more corrosive, and even the mental barrier made a slight "sizzling" sound.
After walking a short distance, Lin Yao paused. A large, twisted metal structure lay half-buried in the humus not far ahead of him.
It was rusty and covered with corroded holes, but judging from its broken curved outline and the remaining portholes that had long lost their luster... it was clearly a large aircraft, or... the wreckage of a ship!
It was extremely old! Lin Yao's spiritual thread reached in, trying to capture any remaining information or energy fluctuations, but all he got back was a dead silence, as if it had been silent here for over a hundred years.
This discovery cast a deeper cloud of doubt over Lin Yao's mind. As an A-rank instance, the Sea of Rotten Bones hadn't existed for a particularly long time. The presence of such wreckage, bearing clear traces of Old World technology, was inherently incongruous.
Just as he was about to get closer to investigate, something strange happened—
Several lightning-fast black shadows suddenly jumped out from the shadows of the wreckage. They were no longer pure beasts, but had taken on a distorted human form!
Their bodies were covered with dark purple cuticles and wriggling tumors, their limbs were alienated, some arms had turned into sharp bone blades, and some lower limbs were like insect limbs, but their heads still vaguely showed the outlines of human facial features, only distorted and deformed, with madness, pain and pure desire for destruction flashing in their eyes.
"Polluter!"
Lin Yao's eyes glared. These were humans, thoroughly corrupted and alienated by the core pollution of the "Rotten Bone Forest." Not only did they possess strength and speed far exceeding that of ordinary polluted beasts, but even more terrifyingly, they seemed to retain some of their former fighting instincts and... a faint consciousness.
One of them was the fastest, closing in like a ghost. Its arm, transformed into a bone blade, pierced Lin Yao's throat with a sharp whistling sound that tore through the air! The angle was tricky and brutal!
Lin Yao's body swayed slightly, and he moved sideways like a phantom, and the threads of his spirit condensed into an invisible shield to block.
clang!
A resounding sound, like the clanging of metal! The mental shield vibrated violently, and Lin Yao even felt a slight backlash of his mental power. What a powerful force! This was definitely not an ordinary S-level!
At the same time, several other polluters swooped in from different directions, their coordinated attacks unleashing bone blades, venom sprays, and even roars that threatened to shock the mind. Their offensive was like a violent storm.
Lin Yao instantly fell into a tough battle, and the spiritual thread turned into the sharpest spear and the toughest shield, shuttling back and forth at high speed in the narrow space, blocking and cutting!
Each collision unleashed a shocking surge of energy, shattering the surrounding decaying bones and the ground. His azure eyes were filled with solemnity; he needed to concentrate fully and exert his strength to the utmost.
Phew!
A sharp spiritual blade finally seized upon a flaw and precisely penetrated the energy core of a Defiler, completely annihilating it. However, another Defiler's bone claw also slashed Lin Yao's shoulder, tearing his combat uniform and leaving several wounds deep enough to see the bone, emitting a strange purple glow.
Severe pain and a slight numbness came!
The battle was incredibly brutal! The strength and cunning of these "humanoid polluting beasts" far exceeded expectations. Lin Yao paid the price of injury before finally killing all the besieging polluters.
He panted slightly, looking at the twisted, vaguely human corpses on the ground, his eyes grew even colder. The danger here was even greater than he had expected.
He didn't dare to stay for long. He quickly treated the wound on his shoulder, used his mental power to suppress the invading polluted energy, and continued to move deeper into the core area.
The deeper you go, the harsher the environment becomes.
The soul-shaking pressure almost solidified into substance, constantly eroding the mental barrier.
Along the way, more and more wreckage resembling aircraft or ships was discovered. Scattered among the huge purple bones, they were like silent tombstones, telling of a buried, unknown past.
Even more alarming was the dramatic increase in the number of "humanoid contamination beasts" guarding the wreckage. Like loyal guards, they lingered near the wreckage, launching relentless attacks on anyone who approached.
Lin Yao had to engage in tough battles again and again. Every battle consumed him greatly and the wounds on his body gradually increased.
Even he began to feel the strain.
Time seemed to have lost its meaning. Lin Yao had no idea how long he had been fighting, or how many waves of polluters he had slain. When he finally broke through the last line of defense, comprised of dozens of powerful polluters, and stepped onto a relatively open platform formed by a giant cluster of purple crystals, he was already feeling quite exhausted.
The consumption of his mental energy was enormous. Although the wounds on his body were suppressed by his strong willpower and mental strength, the severe pain and the erosion of polluted energy reminded him of his declining condition all the time.
The scene before him made his pupils shrink suddenly.
The central area of the platform was no longer filled with dead bones, but with densely packed humanoid polluting beasts wriggling like a colony of ants.
They have different shapes, but without exception they exude a powerful aura. The aura of some of them even makes Lin Yao feel strongly threatened.
Like pilgrims, they faced the center of the platform, where stood the largest and relatively best-preserved... ship wreckage!
The wreckage looked like the remains of a giant whale stranded in a sea of purple crystals. Its entire body had a deep, dark purple metallic luster that seemed to absorb all light. It almost blended in with the surrounding environment, yet it exuded an ancient and heavy oppression.
The hull was covered with huge tears and corrosion marks, but the overall structure was still vaguely discernible.
Lin Yao's mental power instantly became highly concentrated. He clearly sensed that among those densely packed polluters, several extremely powerful individuals had already cast their "eyes" on him, the uninvited guest.
Breaking in by force is seeking death!
Without the slightest hesitation, Lin Yao vanished from the scene like a ghost. He used his mental threads to disrupt his perception of the surrounding space, blending into the shadows as he rushed towards the massive shipwreck at top speed.
At the moment when several powerful polluters roared angrily and pounced on him, he narrowly escaped from a huge tear in the wreckage.
The interior of the wreckage was dead silent, filled with thick metal rust, dust, and an indescribable smell of decay that seemed to have been deposited for hundreds of years.
The light was extremely dim, with only a faint green glow filtering through cracks in the hull. The interior was unusually spacious, but the structure was severely warped and deformed, covered in thick dust and strange, spider-web-like mycelium.
Lin Yao quickly gathered his strength and moved like a ghost within the vast cabin. His spiritual threads were like the most sophisticated scanner, scanning everything around him.
The traces of life here were much clearer than those on the surrounding wreckage. He saw twisted metal tables and chairs, shattered glass containers, rusted pipes... everything showed that this ship had once carried life.
The construction was indeed primitive, with a distinctly Old World style. Lin Yao initially estimated it to be at least three hundred years old! This was much earlier than the time when the Rotten Bone Forest dungeon was formed.
His eyes swept across the interior of the cabin, his pupils shrinking again. On some relatively intact metal panels, he saw familiar patterns—the unique source element encryption runes of the Old World Supernatural Association! He immediately focused his attention on deciphering them.
The content of the rune is still those two words - "Ark"!
Moreover, these runes can be seen everywhere inside the cabin, like some kind of identity mark or... navigation destination?
Lin Yao's heartbeat quickened slightly as he followed the runes' guidance, diving deeper into the wreckage. The ship's structure became increasingly complex, with narrow and twisted passages like a giant metal maze.
Finally, after passing through a narrow passage full of pipes, a tightly closed metal door appeared in front of him.
This door... something is wrong!
It stood out from the rusty, dusty surroundings. It was remarkably new, with a cool metallic sheen and a mirror-smooth surface, free of any signs of corrosion or age. It felt as if it had been installed only yesterday.
Lin Yao's spiritual thread instantly became highly alert. He approached cautiously, and the invisible thread was like the most dexterous key, exploring the delicate structure of the door lock.
The complexity of the door lock far exceeds that of an ancient ship, and it bears obvious traces of modern technology.
Click.
An extremely slight unlocking sound was heard. Lin Yao held his breath and slowly pushed open the brand new metal door with the thread of his spirit.
An extremely strong, pungent smell, a mixture of stale dust, rusted metal, and some kind of... disinfectant residue, hit him in the face. Lin Yao immediately blocked the smell with a mental barrier.
There seemed to be a small meeting room behind the door.
A long metal table sat in the center, surrounded by several chairs made of the same metal. Papers were scattered on the table, and several silver-gray metal containers that looked like safes were stacked on the corners.
Lin Yao's eyes were first drawn to the papers on the table. He walked over, stretched out his fingers, and tried to pick up one of them very carefully.
However, just as his fingertips touched the edge of the paper—
laugh!
The seemingly intact piece of paper seemed to have experienced thousands of years of weathering, and instantly turned into a handful of fine ash, floating silently in the air.
Lin Yao's fingers froze in mid-air. He immediately gave up the idea of touching and leaned down, carefully reading the papers on the table that had not yet completely turned to ashes with sharp eyes.
Time had eroded the paper so severely that most of the writing had long since become blurred, and even the paper itself seemed fragile, ready to crumble at the slightest touch. He could only discern scattered words from the few relatively clear remaining marks.
"Ark"... "Utopia"... "New World"... "Pollution"... "Imminent"... "The Price"...
These words are like scattered puzzle pieces, vague in direction but full of disturbing implications.
"Peach Blossom Land"? "New World"? Does this seem to be connected to the "Four Cities" world he knew? "Pollution" and "imminent" seem to confirm the impending disaster? What is the "price"?
It is obviously impossible to piece together the complete truth based on these fragments alone.
Lin Yao's gaze turned to the silver-gray password boxes on the corner of the table. They were also brand new and out of place in this old cabin.
He walked over, and his spiritual thread penetrated the lock core, easily cracking the modern encryption lock.
One, two, three... Most of the boxes were empty, as if the contents had been taken away long ago.
When he opened the last and most inconspicuous box, he paused.
Lying quietly in the box was a thick document bag made of some special synthetic material.
Although the edges of the document bag were a little yellowed, the overall condition was exceptionally good. There was also a blurry ∞ symbol printed on the seal, surrounding a seven-pointed star - the logo of the Old World Psychic Association!
Lin Yao's heartbeat accelerated uncontrollably.
He carefully took out the document bag, his fingertips feeling the tough and cold touch of the synthetic material. He untied the tie and slowly pulled out the documents inside.
On the title page of the document, a line of clear and cold black printed characters struck him like a heavy hammer:
Project Ark
At this moment, time seemed to stand still. The polluter's uneasy roar could be faintly heard outside the cabin, but Lin Yao's eyes were only focused on the title of the document.
The dim green light shone through the cracks onto his pale face. In his azure eyes, unprecedented shock and... a sharp light that finally reached the core surged.
The door to the truth finally slowly opened a crack in front of him.
(I really like this place. It’s the core area where even Lin Yao would feel a bit tricky. Lu Cheng didn’t argue about going with him, nor did he choose to secretly follow Lin Yao after he left.
I know I am too weak and cannot help you on the road ahead, but at least, I can choose not to be a burden to you.
I'll be here waiting for you, no matter how long it takes.
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