Lin Xi shivered and almost collapsed to the ground.
"Dr. Lin Xi!"
Lina cried out in surprise and caught him.
"Sorry, I just... need some time to get used to these mummies."
Lin Xi saw her own panicked self reflected in Lina's eyes.
He took a deep breath and told himself for the umpteenth time to calm down.
"Yes, yes, maybe we should go check out the bridge? Then we can leave."
Schroederes stammered.
Lin Xi felt that this young man probably preferred to give up on the exploration and leave.
"The bridge? Hmm, that's a good suggestion. Let's take a quick look and then retreat."
Lin Xi nodded at him, then forced herself to speak.
Then, they tiptoed out of the freezer... as if the slightest movement would wake the mummies.
However, just as they passed a refrigerated compartment, a shadow suddenly flashed across Lin Xi's eyes.
He subconsciously turned his head to look at the freezer, and then involuntarily stopped in his tracks.
Those are bloodstains.
Lin Xi stared blankly at the mummy beside him. The mummy and the cryogenic chamber he was in looked no different from the others, but upon closer inspection, one could see that the mummy's fingertips were pitted and uneven, and one could vaguely see some white bone fragments.
Inside the freezer, there were several deep scratches, with equally dark bloodstains embedded in the gaps between the scratches.
The others followed Lin Xi's gaze to the mummy, and their faces turned even paler.
"Heavens above!"
Lina's voice even had a hint of sobbing.
Although a century has passed, the evidence left by this mummy is too obvious—he woke up, regained consciousness before being trapped by the low temperature, and he kept trying to escape.
He failed.
At first glance, it seemed like a tragic accident, but Lin Xi's instincts made him run back into those cold glass coffins.
Lin Xi hadn't noticed it before, but once she started searching, she discovered that there were quite a few people with the same condition as this mummy...
A terrible thought suddenly popped into his mind.
“This wasn’t an accident,” he said softly. “These people… were forcibly brought here and then… and then cryogenically frozen…”
Lin Xi remembered the documents scattered in the corridor and the shoe that had been lost.
Is this what that researcher from three hundred years ago was trying to hide from? Who forcibly brought him here to be cryogenically frozen?
When Lin Xi looked up at his surroundings again, he realized that he was not looking at a cryogenic chamber, but at the scene of a large-scale, slow massacre.
But why?
Why would anyone want to do such a thing to their own compatriots?
"What, what is this?"
Lina pointed at a cryo-chamber not far away and screamed.
At first glance, the corpse lying in the cryogenic chamber looked no different from the others. However, a closer look would reveal that in addition to the blackened and shriveled mummy, there were other things that shouldn't be there in the glass coffin.
It's an insect.
Although it too had become black and broken over a long period of time, Lin Xi would never mistake the dull chitinous carapace for the appendages protruding from beneath the body. It was enormous, about the size of an infant, and its fly-like wings had turned into several dry fragments scattered around the corpse and in the empty, open abdominal cavity.
Lin Xi did not see any trace of internal organs inside the mummy. In fact, the skeleton seemed to have been hollowed out, with bones and muscles completely gone. It was highly likely that the worm inside the mummy had eaten it all.
After it had devoured its host's flesh and blood, it broke through the poor man's thin skin and crawled out, only to be trapped and die inside the cryogenic chamber.
"vomit……"
Lena and Schroederes weren't part of the exploration team, so they naturally hadn't witnessed the scene in Bryce's medical room. Just this one motionless, specimen-like insect was enough to make them gag loudly.
Lin Xi was in slightly better condition than them, but he also felt the same tightness in his chest.
His face was ashen as he walked around the cryogenic chambers and found that about one-tenth of the mummies were in the same terrible state.
Among them, some had already had large insects crawl out of their bodies, while others had died tragically, their mummified bodies covered by dry, thin skin, highlighting their existence.
“Dr. Lin Xi, these people…the appearance of these people…I heard that something similar happened on the Sun God before, you killed those two people in front of those explorers.”
Lina suppressed her fear and peered at Lin Xi with her eyes darting around.
Lin Xi's face was covered with a layer of frost.
"I pressed the sterilization button on the treatment chamber before those bugs rushed out." As he spoke, his gaze remained fixed on the strangely shaped and terrifying bugs. As if cold water was being injected into his veins, Lin Xi felt that the surrounding environment seemed to be getting colder and colder.
Well, perhaps in some ways he is no different from the perpetrators of this massacre three hundred years ago, and even their approaches to solving "problems" are similar.
A voice whispered in Lin Xi's heart.
"Okay, at least we know why now..."
Schroederes followed behind Lin Xi, muttering to himself as he looked at the corpses ravaged by insects.
Perhaps these people are experiencing all of this because they have become hosts for the insects.
"Who knows?"
Lin Xi frowned and answered softly.
In fact, there were many more things, fragments, or even fantasies, swirling wildly in Lin Xi's mind like snowflakes in a storm. Lin Xi opened his mouth, vaguely feeling that he had noticed something, but when he tried to organize his thoughts, he found that the details he had previously captured had completely melted away.
He ultimately said nothing more.
Lin Xi's palms were covered in cold sweat, and the exploration suit seemed heavier and more suffocating than ever before.
He really wanted to just run away, like a child who's been scared to tears in a haunted house, and just run out of this damned place.
However, Lin Xi's rationality prevailed at the last moment.
The spacecraft is well-stocked and structurally intact, making it a likely replacement for the nearly defunct Apollo spacecraft, and more optimistically... it might even be able to take them back to Earth.
Once she thought about this, Lin Xi couldn't allow herself to escape.
In the ensuing silence, Lin Xi and the other two made some notes about the mummy and the insects around it, and then they fled from there, their faces pale.
The silent corpses trapped in the cryogenic chambers were truly horrifying. Even Lin Xi himself couldn't help but breathe a sigh of relief after leaving the area.
With their last ounce of willpower, they swept past the various rooms and halls that appeared along the way, heading directly toward the bridge of the aircraft.
“I hope the central control console is still there. I think it should still be operational, and it should have a star map inside. We can use it to get home, right? Doctor, I think we can do it…”
Because she was so flustered, Lina kept babbling on the communication channel the whole way.
In the past, Lin Xi would probably have found her a bit noisy and talkative, but at this moment, he was actually somewhat grateful for Lina's rambling.
The silent, cold corridors and passageways that appeared before them seemed to grow increasingly eerie as they ventured deeper into the aircraft.
Grotesque engravings appeared on the walls of the passageway, becoming increasingly dense as one progressed. Even 300 years later, these branding marks on the metal walls, the bloodstains on the floor, and the debris scattered throughout the corridor... still clearly reflect the ferocity of the battle. In some areas, even the ceiling lights were damaged and malfunctioning.
"This place really has an eerie atmosphere."
Schroederes muttered as he rubbed his arms.
"It's like a tomb."
Lina immediately echoed.
I think this place is even more terrifying than a graveyard, Lin Xi thought to himself, but he didn't say it aloud.
Not long after, they found some more clues about the aircraft among the debris on the ground.
"Oh, see, I told you—this is the Providence!"
Schroederes picked up a damaged sign from the ground. The metal plaque had some laser-burned marks, but that didn't prevent anyone from clearly seeing the iconic "p" on it.
"Oh, please look closer, there are words written down here!"
Lena snatched the sign from Schroederes's hand and frowned as she read the words beneath it: "Providence Type B Intra-system Spaceship - Emergency Rescue Vehicle 1-v2".
The three exchanged a glance.
Schroederes' cheeks flushed slightly. He had indeed made a foolish mistake. While the spacecraft certainly looked enormous, that was only relative to the dilapidated Apollo. Three hundred years ago, the Providence, capable of carrying 250,000 people to another planet, could never have been such a machine.
This spacecraft was likely just a lifeboat housed inside the Providence. If that horrific accident hadn't occurred, after the basic human city was built, these spaceships, designed only for interstellar travel, would probably have been reused as transport vessels…
"Truly, this is the Age of Exploration..."
Lina mumbled in a daze.
Even though I've seen many documentaries and movies about the Age of Exploration on Earth, knowing about it is one thing, but actually experiencing firsthand the luxurious creations of that prosperous era, and then being able to fly three hundred years later with only dilapidated old aircraft that barely survive, still left people deeply shocked.
The girl unconsciously flipped the sign over; on it was another line of small print—"Capacity: 1000 people."
After reading the words clearly, the three of them fell silent.
Although no one spoke, everyone knew that at this moment, all that was on their minds were the mummies they had seen before.
Do you think they're all dead?
After a long while, Lina finally asked in a low, trembling voice.
Lin Xi stared at the sign, and that chill ran down her spine once again.
"No--"
He had already whispered it aloud before he even realized it.
“I made a rough estimate before, and the number of people frozen there is probably only two or three hundred.”
"Where did the rest of them go?" Schroederes asked.
No one answered him.
A deathly silence descended upon the three of them in an instant.
Several seconds later, the young boy suddenly opened his eyes wide and realized just how terrible a question he had asked.
Yes, if the maximum capacity here is one thousand people... where did everyone else go besides those who watched helplessly as they were trapped and died in the cryogenic chamber?
"Well, maybe the aircraft took off before the number of passengers reached the target."
Lina said, her voice trembling.
Lin Xi neither objected nor echoed—everyone knows that in the context of extremely scarce resources in outer space, no one would be so foolish as to let an empty spacecraft take off.
In that moment when all three remained silent, Lin Xi suddenly shivered.
That feeling of extreme unease grew stronger and stronger in his heart, so strong that he could no longer suppress it.
“Let’s leave,” he said decisively.
"What? We're not going to go to the bridge and see if there's a star map there..."
The other two seemed to be still in shock.
Lin Xi shook her head at them.
“Look at the environment here. This ship isn’t as safe as we’ve seen before. There might still be things we can’t handle living here—let the mercenaries on the Sun God deal with them. We should leave now. This plaque might have been placed here to remind us.”
Lin Xi said.
He then turned around and walked quickly back the way he came.
"But, but..."
After a brief moment of confusion, Lina and Schroederes quickly realized what was happening and followed Lin Xi, although Lina seemed a little unwilling.
However, Lin Xi's decision to leave seemed to come a little too late.
rustle……
A series of fine, grinding sounds echoed from the end of the corridor near the bridge.
rustling... rustling...
Lin Xi felt he had never been so swift in his life—he turned around abruptly and fired countless shots in the direction the sound came from.
But that didn't stop the thing from slowly appearing in front of them.
“Great, I think I’ll find out where the rest of them went when I get down here.”
Schroederes stared at it, muttering to himself in disbelief.
He felt he had a fairly clear answer—those on the ship who weren't so unlucky as to be trapped alive in their hibernation pods had all been devoured by this thing in front of him.
It was an incredibly ugly insect.
It looked as if someone had forcibly grafted a spider and a cockroach together and then magnified it countless times—it didn't even need to spread its eight dark, gleaming legs to completely block the entire passage.
It had a long, flat tail covered with reddish-brown segments, and a thick, disproportionately large chest. Its back was covered with thick, leathery, dark brown wings. Countless blinking eyes were embedded in its fur-covered face. Two slender tentacles rustled on its head, and the hairs at the tips of the tentacles opened and closed, absorbing and analyzing the scents and information of the three outsiders in the atmosphere.
"Aaaaaaahh ...
"Help me! Ahh ...
Lina and Schroederes screamed in unison the moment they saw the thing, then quickly hid behind Lin Xi, whose body was completely stiff.
"Fire!"
Lin Xi had no choice but to roar at the two of them.
Immediately afterwards, he pulled the trigger on the nightmarish insect.
The plasma beam struck the insect instantly.
"Sizzle—"
As the carapace scorched, a plume of smoke rose, and a thick, dark green liquid mixed with yellow, containing what might have been internal organs, slid out from a hole in the cockroach spider's thick carapace.
Even though Lin Xi's air filter was still working, he could still smell that bold, sweet-smelling stench.
The bad thing is that even with a big hole in his body, the giant worm didn't seem to be affected at all. It continued to wiggle its tentacles and slowly approach Lin Xi and the others.
Lin Xi had to fire continuously at it to barely keep it moving at a slow speed. Sparks and marks from the ion beams were everywhere on the walls, but to the monster, their attacks seemed increasingly ineffective. The thick, sticky fluid secreted from its wounds seemed to be able to partially shield it from the ion beams. The mutilated insect-like body looked like a zombie, even more terrifying and disgusting than when it first appeared.
"What the hell is this thing?!"
"God, waaaaaah... help me..."
The one who screamed was Lina.
The person who fired the gun while crying was Schroederes.
"..."
Lin Xi bit her tongue hard, letting the pain force her to calm down.
The three men slowly retreated while firing their guns.
They tried to stop the damn bug by shooting it... or at least slow it down a little, so that at least they could find a gap to turn around and run away.
Unfortunately, even though its body had been blasted into a filthy mass of insect flesh by the plasma beam, and even the neck that connected to its body had fallen off its gruesome form after several accurate shots, the insect's body still wiggled its limbs, trying to reach Lin Xi by stepping on its own blood and internal organs.
Lin Xi gripped the gun tightly in his hand. The ion generator at the muzzle was already heating up. Lin Xi's palm was wet. He initially thought it was his own sweat, but the bright red color that came into view indicated that it was actually blood on his hand.
Moreover, what makes things even worse is that...
Click...
Another unsettling sound rang out—the piercing noise of metal deforming. Lin Xi abruptly looked up at the ceiling—
The originally smooth and shiny metal panel is gradually beginning to deform and dent downwards.
Click—
It was that sound again, now even closer.
The originally bright and dazzling lights suddenly flickered, and then went dark abruptly amidst a crackling sound of electricity.
"Damn it, there's something on top of us too!"
Lin Xi let out an urgent roar.
Because of the sudden change in light, for a moment all he could see was darkness.
In a flash, Lin Xi only felt a faint gust of wind coming from above his head. He felt goosebumps rise all over his body, and he suddenly fell forward, then rolled on the ground, clutching his head.
"Tick-tock..."
Some damp sounds came from where he had been standing, but Lin Xi refused to think about what was falling from above.
He suddenly lay down—
"Buzz—"
At that very moment, the spaceship shuddered slightly, and the red emergency lights at the bottom of the wall lit up.
Lin Xi was finally able to see his surroundings again, and then he realized what he had just dodged—two dark brown, whip-like tentacles that were now protruding from the gap in the ventilation vent.
Moreover, accompanied by the creaking and groaning of the thin metal ceiling panels under the strain, even an idiot would know that the thing above their heads was about to turn around.
Almost at the same time Lin Xi saw the two tentacles, the gun in his hand emitted a slight buzzing sound—the color of the ion generator changed from green to bright red.
It's overheated.
"Damn it."
Lin Xi let out a curse. He had never been so irritable before.
He abruptly flung the gun away, then forcefully pulled Lina and Schroederes away.
"Walk--"
He roared urgently.
Then, the instant another enormous creature—that giant, dark brown insect—fell out of the vent, Lin Xi, along with Nina and Schroederes, began to run frantically.
The entire aircraft was a blood-red color.
The monster must have damaged some important wiring when it infiltrated their location, and now Lin Xi and the other two can only frantically run through the intricate corridors, relying on emergency lights.
The second person whose ion gun overheated was Lina, followed by Schroederes. They still had electromagnetic guns in their backpacks that were already activated, but in the current situation, they couldn't even find a moment to reach out and pull out their guns.
But in the end, they still had to turn back and face those two... or even more giant insects...
Unbeknownst to them, Lin Xi and the other two accidentally ended up in a dead end.
They misjudged the situation because the corridor was extremely wide, and they assumed there would be forks in the path, but instead, they were met with an incredibly thick and tall metal door.
The door was red under the emergency lights, looking almost like the gates to the underworld.
Lin Xi's shoulder bumped into the door, and then he turned around to look at the slowly approaching figures.
As they walked, they constantly flapped their thick wings, making a continuous buzzing noise.
At that very moment, Lin Xi felt the nerve in her head called reason snap completely.
He felt extremely angry—
This situation should not happen.
The thought flashed through his mind quickly.
Whoosh—
The voice did not originate in reality, but rather resided in his mind.
Lin Xi felt as if a small explosion had suddenly occurred in her head.
With a loud bang.
Something invisible exploded, and then the fragments pierced through his soft, gray brain matter, through his skull, and shot into the void…
"Hmm..."
In that instant, Lin Xi felt her mind go completely blank.
He lost control of his body, stumbled, and fell to the ground with his back against the metal door.
"Dr. Lin Xi!"
He vaguely heard Lina scream in panic.
But at that moment, he didn't even have the strength to turn his head.
A sharp pain was throbbing in his head from the epicenter of the "explosion," so intense it almost made him scream.
However, just as Lin Xi collapsed to the ground, unable to move, the monsters that had followed them seemed to have finally reached their limit.
They stopped in Lin Xi's sight and then swayed slightly.
Finally, with a thud, it fell heavily to the ground.
"Huff...huff...huff..."
Lin Xi could hear her own heavy breathing.
He stared intently at the insects that were gradually turning over, his heart still filled with a feeling of extreme disgust and panic.
He guessed that you probably felt the same way as Schroederes.
After an unknown amount of time, Lina, one of the three, finally calmed down a bit.
"They are dead."
She forced herself to walk a few steps toward the corpses of the insects, then stood there observing for a while before quickly running back to Lin Xi and saying something.
“They are really dead. I saw them, and they are no longer moving.”
She repeated nervously.
"I know."
Lin Xi responded to her in a murmur.
He barely remembers how he mustered the strength to stand up from the ground.
His head was throbbing with pain, and he felt like he was about to collapse.
It was at this moment that Schroederes let out that exclamation.
"Central control room... Dr. Lin Xi... This is actually the central control room!"
Lin Xi looked in the direction he was pointing, and it took him a while to focus his gaze.
There was indeed a line of text written there: Central Control Room
The following is a special reminder: Unauthorized personnel are not permitted to enter.
On the right side of the nameplate is a biometric authentication device that is emitting a faint light.
"If only we could get in..."
Schroederes muttered to himself as he unconsciously placed his hand on the authentication device.
No one expected that right after he made that move, a soft electronic voice would suddenly ring out.
"Beep—Authentication successful, please proceed."
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