Chapter 241 The Beginning, Day 241 [First Update]
Day 241 of the story [First Update]
Upon seeing this, Yin Yu immediately stepped forward, while He Lianzhou held down Demiral's body, which was constantly trying to retreat and shrink back.
"Don't move!" Yin Yu shouted, drawing his dagger and swiftly slicing off the severed limb that was gripping Demiral's hand.
Demiral convulsed in pain, then clutched his bleeding hand tightly, glaring hatefully at the severed limb writhing on the ground: "What the hell is that thing?!"
Yin Yu plunged a knife into the severed limb, pinning it to the ground to prevent it from running away. He glanced at Demiral and said, "Never seen it before. But how did it attack you?"
Ad answered first, "We wanted to see what it was, but we didn't expect it to react and suddenly jump towards us."
Demiral nodded slightly, his face pale. "I raised my hand to shield my face, and it grabbed my hand."
Yin Yu frowned upon hearing this. He grabbed Demiral's hand and examined it carefully. The wound looked quite deep and would probably require stitches. It was hard to imagine that this injury was caused by a severed limb.
More importantly, the flowing blood was tinged with an unsettling dark bruise.
Yin Yu wasn't sure what it was, but in any case, it was necessary to make the blood flow clean and bright red again.
He looked at Demiral, who clearly knew how ominous the color of the blood looked. He nodded slightly, pursed his lips, and said softly, "Come on, I know what to do."
Yin Yu responded, "It will hurt a little, just bear with it."
He Lianzhou let out a disdainful snort from the side: "I've never heard you speak to me so softly before."
"I didn't?" Yin Yu asked, squeezing blood from Demiral's wound while glancing up at He Lianzhou.
He Lianzhou shook his finger and pouted: "At most, he'll tell me there are no branches for me to bite, so I should just bear the pain."
"Aren't they all the same?" Yin Yu's grip was heavy and ruthless, causing Demiral to twitch and flinch in pain, but He Lianzhou held him tightly, preventing him from struggling.
He Lianzhou said it was just different.
Yin Yuqian rolled her eyes, too lazy to argue with He Lianzhou.
He looked down at Demiral's wound and saw that the blood flowing out was bright red and not much, so he let go and turned to examine the claw on the ground.
These claws are amazing; even after being cut off, they can still continue to attack.
Yin Yu thoughtfully used the fire axe to press against the twisting severed limb, then pulled out the dagger stuck in it. Sure enough, the severed limb was still struggling, trying to jump and attack in Yin Yu's direction, but it was pinned down by the axe and could not move.
"Look at its claws, huh, they have quite a lot of tentacles. No wonder it can still find its target accurately even with a severed limb." He Lianzhou squatted to the side and clicked his tongue lightly when he saw this.
Seeing this, Yin Yu nodded slightly. These tentacles were not clearly defined, but looked like tufts of downy hairs covering the dry, fine claws. Without close inspection, one would not realize that they were tentacles.
The severed claws were thin and short, dark green in color, covered with a thin layer of texture. They looked inelastic, loose and sagging like skin that had been stretched and then shrank back. There was no fat underneath, and the texture of the skin was completely chapped, like dried orange peel.
Its four toes are curled up together, looking like a stunted, atrophied creature, yet they are incredibly agile and frightening.
Yin Yu looked at He Lianzhou: "Have you ever seen this kind of creature before?"
He Lianzhou took a twig and poked the claw, like playing with a mimosa plant, except that the twig was crushed piece by piece by the one it touched.
"To be honest? There are quite a few that look similar. But if they are photophobic and only appear at night, then their range is much smaller." He Lianzhou played with the branch out of boredom. He picked up another branch and continued to sharpen the severed limb with his claws, which made Yin Yu's eyelids twitch.
"Why can it still attack even with a severed limb?" Ade couldn't help but ask.
He didn't care how this thing determined their location; he was more concerned about why it could still attack them even after being cut in half.
Yin Yu looked up at Ade and said, "The central nervous system is still active, just like a snake. Even if you cut off its head and separate it from its body, it will still attack if you place an object in front of its head. It's very likely that this thing's nerves are also distributed throughout its body like a snake's, and it can maintain its original motor functions independently."
"Conversely, primates, such as humans, have higher neural centers, almost all of which are concentrated in the brain. Most of their movements require commands from the brain. Therefore, if they are beheaded or brain dead, all the organs and tissues in their bodies will stop functioning. However, the human brain may continue to move for a while after it has been cut off."
Ade's eyes widened in surprise: "What? It can still move after being beheaded? Is it body twitching or..."
“It’s the head,” Yin Yu explained. “There was once a death row inmate who was about to be beheaded who made a deal with the executioner: after his head fell to the ground, they would count whether he still blinked. And the truth is, he blinked 11 times.”
“Well, this is definitely the most bizarre and crazy story I’ve heard since I woke up,” a weak voice came from the other end of the cave. Huang Hai had woken up at some point and seemed to be recovering well. He slowly propped himself up and sat up, looking at Yin Yu.
His voice trailed off as his gaze fell on the withered claw pinned to the ground by the dagger: "What did I miss?"
“You’ll be glad you missed it,” Ad interjected.
Yin Yu shook his head, but his gaze returned to the strange, sharp claws.
“However, now that you mention it,” a dark glint flashed in Yin Yu’s eyes, “the vast majority of them have such reflexes because of a common characteristic: their higher nerve centers are not well-developed, while their lower nerve centers determine everything. These behaviors are all completed in the spinal nerves, an unconscious instinctive reaction.”
Demiral interrupted Yin Yu's murmur: "So what does this mean? Before your conclusion becomes a little hard to understand, can you summarize it in simple terms?"
Yin Yu paused, swallowing all his speculations, and simply said, "It's just a guess. It's most likely a reptile with a very wide distribution of nerves throughout its body, so it can still maintain its original attack functions even after its limbs are severed."
Upon hearing Yin Yu's words, Demiral's gaze fell upon the twitching nerves at the severed limb, where blood stained the ground.
He muttered, "That's really troublesome. How long can it stay active? What if it wants to follow us?"
Yin Yu rekindled the campfire that had gone out in the middle of the night and threw the severed limb into the burning fire: "If it's burned to charcoal, it won't be able to keep up."
Demiral choked for a moment upon seeing this; this was certainly a solution.
Watch as the flames devoured the severed limb, slowly burning it into a complete charcoal.
[Oh my god, right now all I can think about is what Yu-ge said about heads rolling, is it true?]
[Executioner? When did that happen? I don't believe it.]
[Uh, uh, I did some research and found a very similar one: a French nobleman, a mad scientist, who was beheaded for tax fraud and selling counterfeit tobacco, and then, just like the anchor said!]
[After his head hit the ground, he blinked 11 times?!]
Holy crap, this gives me goosebumps! This is way too creepy!
Wow, so the winking of a head in a horror movie is actually a physiological reaction!
Suddenly, horror movies aren't so bad after all (x)
[Not as good as Yu Ge's live stream (doge emoji)]
[Ouch, that hurts! Did they even consider the streamer's feelings? Hahaha]
Yin Yu stared at the severed limb until it was completely charred before turning his gaze away. He glanced at He Lianzhou but didn't say anything more, only telling the others that they could set off.
They still have a long way to go today.
Although Huang Hai regained consciousness, he was still unable to walk and could only be carried around.
Yin Yu and He Lianzhou walked ahead to clear the way. Yin Yu lowered his voice and asked He Lianzhou, "So, reptiles, photophobia, movement, those claws—you have corresponding creatures in your mind? But they shouldn't know?"
He Lianzhou responded, "Rather than saying they shouldn't know, it's better if they don't. If they hear it, they'll panic, and that would be troublesome."
“This place is called the Eye of the Evil God, and legends about the evil god are spread here. I don’t know why legends are spread when no one has ever left here alive.” He Lianzhou shrugged and whispered to Yin Yu, “But in any case, the evil god does not exist. Only a creature that preys on its prey and stores its prey fits the legend.”
“It lives in the mud and likes to store its prey alive, burying it in the mud until it gets hungry and then digs it out to chew and eat,” He Lianzhou said. “Often, these prey will be decomposed and gnawed by other creatures in the mud, causing them unbearable pain. The area near the nests of these creatures is usually where they store their food, and it is always filled with screams and howls.”
"Because these prey are stored in the ground with only their heads exposed, as if they were being sacrificed, the nickname 'evil god' came about. But elsewhere, they are called 'night eels,' and their bodies are similar to eels, but they have more and longer tentacles."
Yin Yu frowned. No wonder He Lianzhou didn't continue the speculation in front of Demiral and the others.
He was 100% certain that those people would be terrified by He Lianzhou's "introduction".
"Does it live in groups or prefer to act alone?" Yin Yu asked He Lianzhou.
“They live in groups,” He Lianzhou said softly. “They huddle together, their bodies intertwined, making them appear larger than they actually are.”
Yin Yu's lips twitched upon hearing this: "Even more disgusting."
He Lianzhou chuckled: "But at least they won't appear during the day. As for the night, it depends on luck."
Yin Yu glanced behind him at the group of people, some injured and some crippled, and said in a low voice, "They need more than just luck."
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