harleyscars Chapter 11 Arrival
Chapter 11 Arrival
Cheng Song stopped before the gate. At such close range, the heavy thumping of the other's heartbeat was almost synchronized with his pulse. The overwhelming malice and attraction emanating from behind the gate, like the finest liquor mixed with the most stench of rotting flesh, washed over every nerve. In the center of the gate, the dark red biological tissue, previously stimulated by the badge but now calm, was slowly pulsating, emitting an almost cloying, nauseatingly alluring scent.
He didn't touch it immediately; instead, he closed his eyes, as if savoring the familiar flavor that was wafting towards him.
Consciousness sank into the churning darkness within my body. There was no communication; it was more like a brutal and blatant lure of profit.
"Hey buddy!" Cheng Song's mental message was enticing. "There's a top-notch luxury buffet behind that door! It's a special Father's Day edition! Want to try it?"
The virus transmitted a frenzied hunger and greed that nearly tore his sanity apart, along with a primal roar of "Charge! Tear apart! Devour!"
"If you want to eat, that's fine!" Cheng Song's thoughts flowed like the most cunning broker. He pointed to the biological tissue on the door. "But this is a VIP room, we have to follow the rules. See that hostess at the door? Send her an invitation code, say we're here to report on work, that we're on the same side, and ask her to open the door!"
The virus conveyed extreme impatience and restrained anger. Pretense and submission? That would be a profound insult to it.
"If we can't get the door open, we won't even be able to smell anything! If we do, there'll be a whole feast inside!" Cheng Song continued his persuasive tactics, simultaneously pressing down the last trace of the Soul-Cleansing Incense's coolness and transforming the threatening aura of the Secret Eye's incantation into a sense of urgency: "If you don't open the door, you'll be humanely destroyed right now." "Is it better to take a couple of bites of the door now and get beaten to death, or to suffer a little longer and then go in for a feast? Choose!"
The virus surged wildly within his body, but ultimately, under the combined influence of the temptation of delicious food and the threat of violence, that violent will was forcibly twisted and compressed, transforming into a distorted life signal filled with the aura of a pseudo-mother, almost fawning, which flowed slowly towards his right hand under Cheng Song's guidance.
In reality, the dark red lines beneath Cheng Song's skin reappeared, like burning thorny vines winding across his right arm and chest, yet without spreading uncontrollably. He slowly opened his eyes; deep within his pupils, that dark red light burned steadily, cold, rational, with an inhuman, almost mocking focus. He extended his right hand, his palm steady, and gently pressed it against that warm, smooth, and strongly pulsating biological tissue.
The touch felt like pressing on a huge, living heart.
"boom--!!!"
It wasn't his voice, but his soul that was brutally shoved into a high-speed spinning washing machine! Cheng Song's consciousness was instantly pulled into the room, and the scene before him froze his manic smile on his "face."
A blasphemous altar, so grand it's suffocating; a colossal, dark green maternal nest pulsating like a heart; within the maternal nest, a female "sacrifice," pierced by crystalline spears and writhing in ecstasy and agony, with tattered wings on her back. An eerie altar built of bones and metal. At the dome, a crack in space, flowing with green light, tears through it; and beyond the crack, against a chaotic backdrop, a colossal shadow, composed of billions of cold, compound eyes, indifferently surveying the world—the projection of the Father!
Fragments of information, like shards of exploding glass, pierced his consciousness:
The Reaper... Stealing divinity... Grafting corruption...
Mother Nest... Anchor Point... Sacrifice Furnace... Descent Portal...
Ultimate life template? A lie! A "container"! It's just a shell for the Father's will to manifest in reality!
The ceremony has reached its final stage... The mother nest is nearing maturity... The passage is being stabilized... The final resonance and... offerings are needed.
Just as Cheng Song's consciousness was being overwhelmed by this scene and information, the virus within him, which had been forcibly packaged as a well-behaved child, suddenly erupted with an unprecedented, complex roar—a mixture of extreme greed, rage, a desire to challenge, and a faint but clear sense of shared suffering—under the dual stimulation of being so close to the core of the mother nest and the projection of the benevolent father!
This complex, frenzied roar, filled with the desire to seize food and challenge, transformed through the contact point into an extremely strong yet distorted and chaotic pseudo-matrix signal, which crashed into the gate's identification system!
Before the real-world gate, Cheng Song's body trembled violently! His right arm, pressed against the biological tissue, instantly cracked, dark red lines bulging and spreading like red-hot wire, his nails turning black and sharp. His eyes were completely consumed by the dark red light, his mouth gaped open, revealing bloodshot teeth, and a low, inhuman growl escaped his throat. A chaotic, powerful, and devouring spiritual pressure erupted from his body!
"He's going to lose control!" Evan screamed in terror, nearly fainting again.
Ah Qi's pupils constricted sharply, and a pale golden aura instantly enveloped his fists. He took a step forward, his fists aimed directly at Cheng Song's back! Iron Anvil also let out a low growl, its giant shield slightly tilted, and its breaching hammer already raised high! Secret Eye's forehead veins bulged, and the black crystal on its staff flashed rapidly. The "Shadow Soul Devouring Curse" connected to Cheng Song's soul had been pushed to its limit and could detonate at any moment!
Ah Qi's fist was only an inch away from Cheng Song's back!
The incantation for the Secret Eye has reached the tip of the tongue!
At this critical moment—
"Buzz—!!!"
On the gate, all the runes simultaneously erupted with a blinding dark green light! The biological tissue enveloping Cheng Song's right hand suddenly expanded, swallowing his entire forearm like a living thing, and then rapidly contracted and receded as if burned, disappearing into the gate!
Immediately afterwards, a series of heavy, ancient, metallic unlocking sounds, as if from the depths of the abyss, exploded out!
"Crack! Clang! Rumble—!!"
The massive alloy gate, starting from the central slit, emitted a blazing green light that stretched from top to bottom! Accompanied by a deafening roar, the two heavy doors slowly slid open to the sides!
The door opened.
It was as if the cesspool of hell had been opened. A thick, impenetrable, dark green mist, exuding a hundred times the sweet, stench of decay, gushed forth! The immense spiritual pressure, the pounding of hearts, the countless overlapping, frenzied prayers and roars, mixed with a glimpse of the grand, blasphemous, maddening scene behind the door—the Mother Nest, the altar of bones, the endless phantoms of compound eyes beyond the rift—like a destructive tidal wave, completely engulfed the five people outside!
"Ugh!" Ivan didn't even utter a sound before his eyes rolled back and he fainted.
With a muffled groan, the anvil slid back half a step as if plowing the ground before barely managing to regain its footing, its face ashen with horror.
Ah Qi's pale golden aura fluctuated violently, like a candle flickering in the wind, but her back was straight as she stared intently into the doorway, her eyes sharp enough to cut through the mist.
Mi Tong coughed up a mouthful of black blood. The shock to his soul was like a heavy blow, and he almost dropped his staff. His face was ashen under his hood, but his eerie green eyes were fixed on the compound-eyed phantom inside the door, filled with horror and... a kind of fanatical analytical desire.
As soon as the gate opened and the biological tissue loosened, Cheng Song was like a tattered sack that had been kicked away. He was sent flying backward, rolling around on the ground several times until he crashed into the wall with a "bang" and came to a stop.
"Cough cough... ugh..." He huddled in the corner, coughing violently, each cough accompanied by dark red froth. His right arm hung limply, his skin covered in horrifying red burn marks and fine cracks, his nails had returned to normal, though the fingertips still twitched slightly uncontrollably. The red light in his eyes had completely died out, leaving only a vacant and utterly exhausted blankness. In his mind, the twisted female figure within the nest, the endless compound eyes behind the cracks, and the virus's final roar, filled with defiance and predatory desire, still buzzed.
Inside the door was an endless, swirling, nauseating green mist.
A cold system notification rang simultaneously in the minds of the four survivors, carrying an almost indifferent declaration:
The final area, "Altar of Compassion," has been reached.
[Warning: High-level projection interference detected; task difficulty being reassessed...]
[Task difficulty dynamically increases: C+/B- → B+]
[Ultimate Mission Objective Updated: Destroy the core of the "Corrupted Mother Nest" and interrupt the "Father's Advent Ritual." Countdown: Based on ritual progress.]
[Note: This is the battle for survival or destruction.]
Ah Qi took a deep breath, the thick green mist filling her lungs with a burning pain. She calmed her surging blood and took the first step forward. Her moon-white, form-fitting clothes, amidst the billowing green mist and the eerie light seeping from within the door, resembled a snow lotus resolutely drifting into the depths of hell. She turned back, glancing at Cheng Song, who was struggling to his feet. Her voice remained cold, yet seemed to hold a subtle, complex undertone:
"If you can still get up, don't lie on the floor, you cleaner."
With his still-functioning left hand, Cheng Song trembled as he propped himself up, only to collapse back down, slumped weakly. He wiped the blood from the corner of his mouth, only to smear it across half his face, making him look even more wretched. He raised his head, first glancing at the pulsating, alluring yet dangerous mother nest inside the door, then, seemingly casually but extremely quickly, out of the corner of his eye, he glanced at the endless compound eyes in the chaos beyond the crack.
He grinned, revealing blood-stained crimson teeth, and his hoarse voice, weak yet clear amidst the terrifying background noise, carried an almost joyful tone:
"I...I can still get up..."
"However, bosses, before you go in and risk your lives, I have a small, albeit perhaps immature, suggestion..."
His severely weary and scattered light flickered a few times like a candle in the wind, and then a cold, eerie light with a hint of maniacal laughter slowly lit up, locking onto the festering female figure at the core of the mother nest, and... the twisted crystal spear on her chest, dripping thick green blood.
"Our objective is to 'destroy the Hive,' right?" He licked his dry, bloodied lips, his voice low but each word clearly piercing his teammates' ears. "What I'm more interested in now is whether blowing that thing up completely gives us more experience?"
His gaze, extremely bold and almost provocative, swept quickly once again over the enormous phantom of the compound eye behind the crack, then returned to the mother nest, finally settling on the crystal spear.
"Or perhaps..." he chuckled hoarsely, "we could be bolder and try to salvage something more valuable from that thing, like..." He held up a finger and gently pointed towards the mother nest, "...that spear that doesn't look cheap?"
The green mist surged, and the compound eye behind the crack seemed to turn slightly.
Whether they were startled by his bold idea or intimidated by the movements of the compound-eyed phantom, everyone felt their hearts race.
This guy is absolutely insane. At this critical moment when a single misstep could wipe them all out, he's still eyeing that twisted spear on the key sacrificial offering of the Father's Descent Ritual—a spear that's clearly no ordinary object.
B+, the cold letters and symbols, were like a red-hot branding iron, searing into everyone's retinas and into the nerve endings of those on the verge of collapse. Cheng Song stared at the rating, but a silent, almost imperceptible smile appeared on his lips.
The hellish scene beyond the door was now unobstructed. A thick, dark green fog surged like a living curtain, but could no longer completely conceal the horror that lay beneath. In the center of the cave, the pulsating, translucent, colossal mother nest contracted with each breath, sending visible ripples of energy through the souls of everyone present. On the altar built of bones and runes, the phantom of compound eyes behind the cracks slowly rotated; billions of cold eyes "watched" the tiny intruders at the entrance. Even the mere aftershocks of their gazes brought a chilling cold that froze the blood and a frenzied urge to kneel and submit on a spiritual level.
"roar--!!!"
A tidal wave of monsters surged from the shadows, from the ruins of the cultivation tanks, and from beneath the foundation of the Mother Nest. The walkers' skin was more like keratin, the Lickers were faster, and mixed in were ghostly spores floating in mid-air, constantly dripping corrosive spores, and apoplexes whose bodies were forcibly stitched together by multiple tormented souls, constantly emitting shrieks. Beside the foundation of the Mother Nest, several enormous shadows slowly rose—the Defender, three meters tall, covered in thick bone plates, its arms mutated into battering rams; the Corrupted Priest, with a slender body like a multi-segmented insect, each segment shimmering with runic light, capable of unleashing energy lashes; and finally, the Pain Ripper, its lower body composed of countless writhing tentacles, its upper body vaguely retaining a female silhouette but with three pairs of bone-bladed arms, its face completely covered in dark green fungal carpet. They were the direct guards of the Mother Nest, and apart from their erased consciousness, each of them possessed an aura comparable to the Garden Keepers.
"Form a triangle! Anvil in front! Ah Qi on the left! Me on the right! Secret Eye in the center for support! Scavenger—" Anvil's roar exploded amidst the monster's howls and heartbeats. He glanced at Cheng Song, who was swaying but whose eyes were shining, "—Roam! Find an opportunity! Ivan! Find a place to hide! Don't die!"
Before the words were even finished, the first wave of monsters had already surged up.
"Boom!" The heavily damaged shield on the anvil was once again struck by the "Defender's" battering ram. The shield groaned under the strain, a crack almost piercing through it. The anvil groaned, blood trickling from the corner of his mouth, his feet digging deep furrows in the ground, yet he held on tightly, creating a space for his teammates behind him.
Ah Qi held back no longer; pale golden energy erupted from her acupoints like burning flames, her blood surging like thunder. Instead of charging at the nearest monster, she shot towards the corrupted priest on her left like a cannonball! The terrifying explosive power of a body cultivator was on full display, leaving a shallow crater in the ground. Facing the priest's energy whips, she neither dodged nor evaded, her fists, wrapped in cracked bracers, slamming out in a series of powerful punches!
"break!"
The fist and the energy whip collided in mid-air, producing a piercing explosion. The energy whip dissipated upon impact, but Ah Qi's momentum did not diminish. He closed in on the priest and delivered a simple, unadorned punch, slamming it hard into the priest's torso joints, which were shimmering with runes! The runes vanished, the sound of bones cracking rang out, and the priest let out a scream as several energy whips retaliated wildly.
Ivan scrambled behind a fallen metal plate, trembling as he pulled out various potions and threw them around without even looking at them. Molotov cocktails, acid grenades, nerve-numbing gas... the effects were random, but they did create some chaos in the area, which could be considered a small help.
With a rapid tap of his Secret Eye Staff, he abandoned the pursuit of wide-area control, unleashing precise soul stabs and shadow shackles into the monster horde. His face was ashen, each spell accompanied by a barely perceptible tremor in his body, the old wounds of his soul seeming to be torn apart under his father's watchful gaze. Yet, his eerie green eyes remained fixed on the entire scene, especially Cheng Song.
Cheng Song weaved through the gaps in the monster horde. His rib wound still bled, and he could barely lift his right arm, but he pushed his instinctive sense of danger, honed by the virus, and his remaining physical abilities to the limit. He no longer sought to kill, but instead moved like a ghost, using the sharpness of his dagger to specifically sever the ankles of the zombies, pierce the joints of the Lickers, and tear through the fragile spore cysts of the Ghost Spore. He was conserving his strength while also observing, searching for the bloody path leading to the Mother Nest's foundation.
The virus within his body roared and boiled under the dual stimulation of the Mother Nest and the projection of the Father. Every time he approached the elite guards or the Mother Nest itself, the urge to devour nearly overwhelmed his reason. He had to use his willpower to build a dam with all his might.
"Brother, calm down," he reassured the raging virus in his mind as he moved around. "See this? A full-course banquet! But you have to wait for me, the host, to take my place before you start eating, understand?"
The body was filled with chaotic roars of "Hungry!" and "Let me have a bite!"
The battle was a brutal war of attrition from the very beginning. Every second someone was injured, and every moment was a struggle between life and death.
The Defender's bone hammer slammed down again, and the Anvil's shield finally cracked in two! He roared, discarded the broken shield, and swung the breaching hammer with both hands, attacking the Defender's knee! The bone plate shattered, the Defender staggered, and the Anvil was also shaken by the recoil, his hand splitting open. He staggered backward and was pounced on by a zombie, who tore off a piece of flesh from his shoulder.
The battle between Ah Qi and the corrupted priestess reached its climax. She traded blows for blows, enduring two energy whips, her back ripped open, revealing deep, charred wounds that exposed bone. But her Iron Mountain Lean finally shattered the priestess's core rune node. The priestess collapsed with a groan, only to be finished off by a Shadow Curse from Secret Eye, exploding into a turbulent mass of dark green energy. Ah Qi gasped for breath, blood trickling from the corner of her mouth, her pale golden aura dimmed considerably.
Meanwhile, the Pain Rippers and the remaining Defenders, leading a large number of monsters, had pushed the formation to its breaking point. The Secret Eye's defenses were stretched thin, and Ivan's potions were almost gone.
Cheng Song knew he couldn't wait any longer. He dodged a Licker's attack, rolled to Ah Qi's side, and said, "A direct assault is suicide! The core of that thing might be our only chance!"
Ah Qi wiped the blood from the corner of her mouth, glanced at Cheng Song, and then looked at the Mother Nest that exuded despair. She could sense that the dangerous thing inside Cheng Song had a strange connection with the "Mother Nest".
Her voice was low and weak from exhaustion: "You want to go in and die?"