Words can hardly describe how strange and terrifying that man was.
Even though there was a metal door separating them, Bryce instinctively shielded Elisa and took a step back.
In that brief moment, Bryce suddenly felt a connection with Elisa—he now completely understood why his beloved girl was so frightened.
Is Robert still human?
Although Robert's human face and body are still visible on the screen, any normal person can see that something evil and twisted is writhing beneath that thin human skin.
“We don’t want things to get out of control. In any case, Vice-Captain Alyssa, Medical Officer Bryce, you will always be important comrades to us… Oh, and Dr. Lin Xi… Yes, you’re here too…”
Robert suddenly turned his head and made a sniffing motion like an animal.
“Please open the door. The task ahead is extremely important—and we desperately need your cooperation. Trust me, you will soon discover that we mean no harm. Captain Taran has shown us a bright path, and all we need to do is follow his instructions… We will evolve, we will transform into a higher form of life…”
"That sounds like the kind of nonsense Taran would spout."
Bryce let out a disgusted sneer as he listened to Robert's increasingly loud and fanatical voice.
"You will see that everything I said was true."
Robert looked at the camera with his mouth stretched almost to below his ears. This "smile" was enough for the other three people in the medical room to clearly see the two jaw needles inside his mouth.
"Open the door, and accept your fate—"
However, before Robert could finish speaking, the monitor screen suddenly went black, and the monitoring information was interrupted.
Some strange and indistinct sounds could be faintly heard from outside the door.
It sounded like someone was constantly scraping a rough metal plate with long fingernails.
Lin Xi's hair stood on end, and he almost shot the innocent surveillance screen directly at it.
"What exactly was that thing Robert was talking about?"
Bryce wasn't much better off; he held his gun, staring at the now-blacked-out screen, and asked in horror.
“Family...I’ve heard Taran say that before…”
Elisa's face was deathly pale, her eyes dark and deep with terror, and she answered Bryce in a dazed tone.
“That’s what Taran did. He sacrificed the people on the ship to that evil god, and then… and then these people…”
Bryce tried to restore the surveillance line outside the medical room, but no matter how many times he tried, the message that popped up on his personal terminal was always that damned "Restricted Access".
"What on earth is going on?!"
Bryce became very agitated.
And at that very moment...
"Bryce?"
Elisa suddenly stared at the metal hatch and spoke in a trembling voice.
"What's wrong?"
"Is there any other entrance or exit for the medical room?"
Her face grew paler and paler.
Bryce could even smell the fear emanating from Elisa.
"No, I don't think there are any extra entrances or exits here."
"Bryce said."
Elisa turned her head to the side, her eyes wide open, and looked at him.
"Do we have any extra weapons?"
She asked.
"What happened to the pulse guns that Lin Xi and I are carrying—"
As if in response to Bryce's question, a heavy thud suddenly came from outside the metal door of the medical room.
"Open the door—open the door—you filthy bitch, I told you to open the door—"
Robert's rough, beast-like howl suddenly rang out.
"Open the door! Ahh ...
Immediately afterwards, several electronic key presses rang out.
Elisa pulled Bryce and Lin Xi back several steps abruptly.
“Damn it—Taran has the highest level of management authority on the ship. If Robert asks him, he can—”
He can open any door he wants with ease.
Elisa choked on the second half of her sentence.
Before she could finish speaking, that nightmarish voice rang out.
"drop--"
It was the sound of a metal door unlocking.
Robert had apparently unlocked the metal door to the medical room from the outside.
"Oh, okay."
Bryce frowned and muttered something, then he and Lin Xi simultaneously raised their pulse guns and aimed them at the door.
They had no doubt that they were about to face the most terrifying thing they had ever seen in their lives.
...
The metal door slid open slowly to both sides.
...
...
"Sizzle..."
There seemed to be some damp sound suddenly passing by the door.
The metal door was completely opened.
Bryce and Lin Xi froze, standing there like statues. Their fingers on the triggers remained motionless.
They stood motionless, guns pointed warily at the door, a few drops of sweat slowly trickling down their foreheads.
Confusion and fear spread across their eyes, and Elisa spoke for the two brothers, voicing their only thought at that moment.
"...What exactly is going on?"
Robert was not outside the medical room.
After the metal door was fully opened, there was no one wearing a robe there.
A monster that doesn't transform.
There was no such thing as the Taran's retinue.
There was nothing there.
Only the bright red bloodstains on the ground proved that what they had seen earlier was not a hallucination caused by pressure.
But for such a long period of time, time seemed to have stopped.
Robert simply vanished—vanished so abruptly that he didn't even have time to make a sound.
However, this was even more terrifying than opening the door and fighting a monster.
Lin Xi stared intently at the bloodstains on the ground, and he could hear Bryce swallowing a mouthful of dry saliva beside him.
The situation took an unexpected turn, leaving Lin Xi and Bryce at a loss for what to do next.
After all, Robert is scary enough.
Whatever could take Robert away in such a short time must be even more terrifying.
"I'll go take a look."
After a long silence, Bryce finally let out an unbearable curse. He held the gun, his face contorted in pain, and strode straight towards the door.
Be careful.
Elisa followed closely behind him, followed by Lin Xi.
Once outside the metal hatch, the strange feeling intensified. Inside the medical room, they had only noticed the large pools of blood on the floor, but now, standing outside, the splattered blood everywhere was impossible to ignore.
Fresh, large chunks of blood were scattered on the ground, walls, and even the lighting fixtures. Light shone through the damp bloodstains, making the air seem to turn an ominous red. The stench of blood was so strong it felt like it could solidify and suffocate Lin Xi.
Whatever Robert experienced in that brief moment, one thing is certain: the person who attacked him, or the "thing" that did it, must have been extremely cruel.
Lin Xi could feel goosebumps rising on her arms.
He crouched down and pressed his fingers against the bloodstains.
The blood was still warm.
It was as if Robert had been standing here just seconds before.
Lin Xi pressed his tongue firmly against the roof of his mouth to suppress the churning sensation in his stomach. He stood up and slowly walked along the vivid trail of blood towards one end of the corridor. The bloodstains left a long, long trail on the corridor floor.
"Lin Xi?"
Bryce called out to him nervously.
Lin Xi turned around and looked at him.
"I think...it wants us to find..."
He murmured, his eyes somewhat dazed.
"Found what?"
"His works."
Lin Xi said.
Just as Lin Xi had said, they hadn't gone far when they saw Robert's body at the other end of the corridor.
The man who had terrified Lin Xi and the other two just minutes ago was now nothing more than a pile of broken pieces.
"Hmm..."
Upon seeing the haphazardly piled-up body parts in the middle of the aisle, Elisa abruptly covered her mouth and gagged.
"Heavens above!"
Bryce's face also turned extremely ugly in an instant.
Lin Xi almost threw up as well.
He had never seen anything so insane in his life before.
Robert's cut-open body had clearly undergone a mutation; just as they had guessed, only his outer skin retained a human appearance.
Beneath the skin, the insect's body is replacing its original flesh and blood.
This can be seen from his completely insect-like mouthparts—the only reason the three of them could see those features so clearly was because "that thing" had thoughtfully split Robert's supposedly hard skull into several even pieces for them.
Lin Xi felt a chill run down her spine.
He was shivering involuntarily.
He composed himself and then reorganized his thoughts.
“The thing that took Robert away did it on purpose.” As he spoke, he glanced around the spaceship corridor, which resembled a blood-soaked movie set, and felt incredibly uncomfortable with his own suspicions. “He was showing off… showing off what he did to Robert…”
As he spoke, Lin Xi carefully poked a piece of corpse that had fallen at his feet with the muzzle of his pulse gun.
Beneath the pale skin and yellowish fat layer of humans lies a thick chitinous carapace that feels hard to the touch.
“These shells are very hard. I’ve encountered something similar on the Providence before, those mutated giant insects. Even with a plasma gun, we had to keep shooting at them to have any chance of damaging them. But… look at these cuts… when ‘that thing’ cuts through a corpse, it’s like cutting butter with a red-hot knife.”
Lin Xi gestured for Bryce and Elisa to look at the dismembered body parts.
"Very smooth..."
Bryce frowned as he looked at it, then muttered something.
"Maybe that person used a laser knife?"
He guessed.
"Only a high-powered laser knife can do this, and if such a weapon is used, at least in the corridor, there will be laser cutting marks."
Lin Xi shook her head and retorted.
“If it’s a high-speed particle cutter…” Elisa started to speak, then shook her head and denied her guess, “No, it can’t be a high-speed particle cutter. That thing is very loud. If someone was turning it on outside the door, we couldn’t have missed it.”
"..."
The three of them fell silent for a moment.
Lin Xi glanced at Bryce and then at Elisa. His lips moved slightly, but he ultimately said nothing.
In such a short time, to kill Robert—take him away—cut him open—
It's hard to imagine that this is something a human could do.
No... this wasn't made by a human...
Lin Xi was certain that what he could think of, the other two could also think of, but they had been refusing to admit it.
Author's Note: Today, "Number One" also really wants some praise: ...
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