A vague idea flashed through Lin Xi's mind.
At the same time, he could keenly sense that the monsters in the hall seemed to be losing control as well.
It was as if something was constantly boiling at the bottom of their collective consciousness.
Their eyes were fixed intently on Elisa and Bryce.
"Run... away..."
He repeated it once again.
Before he sensed his consciousness was about to plunge into darkness, he almost instinctively summoned "Number One".
Take me away
Take me far away
He kept repeating it in a language that humans couldn't understand.
His body was still throbbing with the primal instincts fueled by hunger.
He was terrified by the desire churning in his mind, a fear that reached its peak when he found himself savoring the smell of blood and the warmth of body emanating from Elisa and Bryce in the air.
"Number One" immediately hugged Lin Xi tightly—and the moment she was embraced by that terrifying monster, an unprecedented sense of comfort and security instantly washed over Lin Xi.
Lin Xiran turned her head and then forcefully bit its chest.
Number One's body trembled.
Then it calmed down, and even helped Lin Xi break up some of the tougher tissues so that Lin Xi could eat smoothly.
And so, Lin Xi tore off a large chunk of bloody flesh from the surface of "Number One" and swallowed it, one bite after another.
Only when the strong smell of blood filled his throat did he feel his hunger subside slightly.
For Bryce and Elisa, witnessing their younger brother devour the monster they had previously considered incredibly terrifying was so horrifying that it finally snapped them out of their numb and dazed state.
"Lin Xi..."
A trembling call escaped Bryce's throat.
Lin Xi suddenly turned around, and Bryce's body froze.
Walk--
Lin Xi whispered in a hoarse voice.
The rustling footsteps of insects echoed in the hall. Bryce and Elisa turned around abruptly and found that the monsters that had been surrounding them were reluctantly making way for them with stiff steps.
At the other end of the passage, behind the mountain of human corpses, was the entrance to the outside world.
Alyssa and Bryce stumbled and helped each other to their feet. Then, following Lin Xi's repeated instructions, they began to slowly move step by step toward the entrance of the hall.
However, both Bryce and Elisa appeared unusually conflicted and in pain.
Just as they were about to leave the hall, Elisa suddenly turned around.
"When you feel better... come find us, okay?"
Elisa covered the still-bleeding wound on her neck with her hand, sniffed, and forced an extremely ugly smile.
“You are my brother, no matter what happens to you, it’s the same.”
Bryce also said.
"...Even if you turn into a cockroach, it doesn't matter, you'll come looking for us, right?"
"Of course, you should still try to look good... don't imitate Taran, that's disgusting."
Elisa quickly added.
Lin Xi blinked.
He hadn't expected that, after what had happened, he could still hear Bryce and Elisa giving him such instructions... Even though he could still sense their fear, there was more to it than that...
It's mostly love.
Suddenly, the frenzy and thirst that had been raging within him subsided a little.
"...Live...to survive..."
Lin Xi stared at Elisa and Bryce, who were covered in blood, and said with great difficulty.
Live on.
Live on until I come to you.
...
Bryce and Elisa finally disappeared behind the door.
However, when his control over the other monsters in the hall was at its weakest, several staggering monsters began to slowly walk in the direction where Bryce and Elisa had left.
They are like deformed centipedes and spiders, just like Ali back then.
This is exactly the type that Bryce finds most troublesome, since he has hated myriapod insects since he was a child.
As he thought this, a surge of rage rose within Lin Xi.
Without any language or communication, "Number One" instinctively grabbed it and rushed towards the uncontrollable monsters...
...
What happened afterward was a blur for Lin Xi.
On one hand, it was because his will as a human being reached its limit after confirming that Bryce and Elisa were out of danger, and he could no longer maintain it. On the other hand... perhaps his subconscious, in order to protect himself, completely shut down the switch for rational thinking.
Looking back, everything about the hall has become a blurry fragment.
Sticky, wet blood and scattered internal organs; the insects screamed as they died; beneath their thick, cracked shells lay soft, sweet juice.
The air was filled with that murky, bloody smell, a smell that made Lin Xi feel nauseous—but at the same time, it also made her extremely excited.
Two completely opposite emotions were constantly intertwined in his body, making him increasingly irritable and restless.
But in any case, the bodies of those insects eventually became a source of ample energy that was absorbed into his body.
Although the feeling of weakness would take a long time to disappear, Lin Xi, and the other "Lin Xi" in his body, settled down.
The last clear memory before falling into a coma was also related to that terrifying insect.
Lin Xi felt it carefully hold her in its arms, and after a brief hesitation, it pulled its somewhat cumbersome wings to the front, wrapping Lin Xi up in layers.
"It's very beautiful..."
The other person's anxious feelings entered Lin Xi's mind through the mental link that the two of them were still connected.
Lin Xi stared with her already blurred eyes at the colors rippling on the wings.
Pinkish-purple represents joy and love, yellow represents unease, and...
"Good boy..."
Lin Xi mumbled something vaguely.
The "Number One" beside her seemed far too fragile. As His companion, such complex and delicate emotions should have been an unnecessary burden, like those wings. A part of her body seemed to think so, but Lin Xi's human emotions didn't see it that way at all.
In fact, he would rather continue to stay with this "number one"... Lin Xi
The turbulent emotions subsided almost the instant the wings enveloped the body.
He felt the unique aura of "Number One" surrounding him, finally relaxed all his emotions, and let himself fall into a dark coma.
...
Lin Xi had a dream.
He seemed to be trapped in an incredibly dark and enormous metal maze.
Everything around seemed unusually old and dilapidated. Although there were no corpses, the aura of death was so thick that it felt almost tangible.
He walked along a narrow corridor, and sometimes he would see old-fashioned portholes on the wall, but when he peered out of the window, all he could see was darkness.
But this labyrinth is not completely desolate.
Occasionally, Lin Xi would feel something trembling slightly beneath the metal floor.
Some small, bright spots of light will flash from the dark distance in an instant and go in the exact opposite direction.
In his dream, Lin Xi felt his thinking ability was weakening infinitely, and it took him a long time to realize that it was a sign that the ship's cables were still working.
So he started walking along the cable.
He finally found what he had been subconsciously seeking in a brightly lit room.
A man.
He was still wearing a spacesuit that looked like it was 300 years ago, sitting motionless with his back to Lin Xi in a chair covered by the control panel.
Lin Xi looked around blankly, and it took him a beat to realize that this was actually the bridge of a spaceship—but just how big was this spaceship that it had such a vast and boundless bridge?
In comparison, the man sitting alone in the command seat, even in his bulky spacesuit, appeared incredibly small and lonely.
Lin Xi walked towards the man like a ghost.
It wasn't until I got closer that I realized the control platform was also covered in a thick layer of dust.
In front of the man was a piece of paper and a pen, two items that would be priceless on Earth today, but to him they seemed to be just ordinary things.
He propped himself up on his arm, tilting his head to look at the paper and pen beside him in a somewhat nonchalant manner.
Lin Xi had to get very close before she could barely make out what was written on the paper.
will
I am Scripps Eden, Commander-in-Chief of the Providence and Principal Investigator of the AS192 Interplanetary Colonization Project. Our ship is in flight…
The writing gradually became blurry, perhaps because it was a dream.
However, just as Lin Xi squinted and tried to decipher the handwriting on the will, all the lights and instruments on the entire bridge were turned on instantly.
Kill me, kill me, kill me...
A voice filled with unbearable pain and despair boomed from the loudspeakers that shone down from all sides.
Immediately afterwards, the man who was originally next to Lin Xi suddenly grabbed him.
"Click—"
Startled, Lin Xi suddenly jerked up and threw Scripps' body far away.
The latter's helmet was suddenly thrown off and then slammed to the ground with a thud.
Since the white bones that rolled out from inside the spacesuit were clattering against the metal ring on the head of the spacesuit, the open jawbone seemed to be mocking something.
Find me... and... kill me...
The skeleton lay on the ground, slowly turned its head, and stared straight at Lin Xi.
Let me... be free...
It said.
Lin Xi immediately came to her senses.
He was horrified by the strange thing about his body when he woke up, because a thick layer of gel was wrapped around his body, even covering his mouth and nose.
The feeling was somewhat like drowning, and Lin Xi panicked uncontrollably.
"Waaah... Ugh..."
He let out a cry of surprise and began to struggle wildly, flailing his arms and legs.
"Sizzle..."
The next second, he seemed to puncture something like a thin film stuck to the outermost layer of the adhesive, and then he slid out of that big, sticky blob.
He fell onto a soft, moist, fleshy mat.
It took him a long time to lift himself off the fleshy cushion.
He glanced around at himself.
For a few seconds, he felt confused and disoriented, almost unable to tell whether he was still dreaming or... or whether he was in a nightmare-like reality.
His surroundings were covered in that disgustingly colored gel, including the "mat" beneath his feet. Looking at the purple and blue veins interwoven on the surface of the deep red gel, resembling blood vessels, he strongly suspected that these things might be some kind of living thing—
Ah, yes, that's the feeling.
Lin Xi felt as if she were lying inside the stomach of some enormous creature.
Not far from him, many similarly wrapped pouches hung down, trembling slightly from time to time.
Through the translucent gelatinous membrane, Lin Xi could clearly see that the sacs contained worm-like monsters.
As the sac trembled slightly from time to time, the worms would occasionally change their posture and movements.
Lin Xi stared at them for a long time, then suddenly shivered.
He found himself completely devoid of any fear of these terrifying creatures.
Then, Lin Xi noticed something was wrong with herself.
He looked down at his abdomen.
Before he lost consciousness, he remembered there should have been an incredibly huge and horrific wound there, but now, that wound had completely disappeared.
New skin covered the site of the original wound, and it felt delicate and smooth to the touch, without any abnormalities.
"Hmm..."
Lin Xi frowned, because just as he was trying to recall how his body had recovered, a severe headache struck.
He almost collapsed to the ground.
However, he certainly couldn't be in such a sorry state. In the instant his figure swayed slightly, a white shadow flashed into view and scooped Lin Xi into its arms.
"Lin Xi...you're awake!"
It was a gentle and caring voice, carrying an undeniable sense of intimacy.
But Lin Xi froze abruptly at the sound.
He slowly raised his head, following the other person's arm, and looked at the person who was hugging him.
“Savill?”
Lin Xi whispered in shock.
The man's eyes flickered slightly.
He didn't respond to Lin Xi immediately, but Lin Xi suddenly realized what he meant the next second.
He suddenly gasped, then flung the other person away.
“It’s you… ‘Number One’.”
He said.
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