Chapter 684: A Quiet Cough
Now, that explained why the creature sounded different each time it laughed.
With the help of the glowing white light, Lin Sanjiu finally saw the true face of the creature in the dark. The thing that cast off the darkness and brought everything in that area to the light was a simple Special Item known as the [Light Moss] that Polva had used before. The user just needed to slap it on a wall or the ground, and it would spread out and grow into a meshwork of tiny lamp tubes along the surface.
"The [Light Moss] can last for 10 minutes," Polva said. His voice echoed to a vibrating string that was pulled taut. It occurred to Lin Sanjiu that he could not stand watching the monstrosity in front of them and that he was trying to hold back the urge to throw up.
"But the thing you gave me has turned back to its previous appearance… Does that mean that I can"t use it anymore?"
The [Battle Item] could not imitate the same Special Item twice. Besides, its usage time was half of the original"s. In other words, Lin Sanjiu had only five minutes to defeat the thing in front of her.
By the way, what was that thing?
Perhaps there was no better description than Polva"s "deconstructivism" example to explain the horrific monstrosity before their eyes. It was an enormous blob of flesh made up of a myriad of broken human limbs. There was a huge nail that kept "winking" like an eyelid at Lin Sanjiu, which gave her a glimpse of the eyeball that hid beneath it. Bushes of hair in various qualities and colors jutted out from its orifice, waving in the air like the thick mane of a regal lion.
Lin Sanjiu had no idea where she should place her eyes. Every nook and cranny of the monster was disgusting enough to make her stomach churn. She did not even know which part was its head and which part was its body.
There were several mouths, which it used to speak to them, scattered here and there around its hulking fleshy body. Some of the mouths" teeth and lips were merged together while the others had fused with its flesh or protruding bones.
"Oh, you see me. Well then, am I beautiful?"
Lin Sanjiu had no idea where the voice came from.
She wiped her mouth with the back of her hand and swallowed down the stomach juice that surged up her esophagus. She still held the [Tranquilizer Gun for Foot Soldiers] in her hand as she stared the abomination down. Without turning her head, she asked, "Don"t you know of any Special Item that could treat wounds? Is there an antihemorrhagic agent?"
"I didn"t prepare any of those, as I only need to take off a layer of my sh.e.l.l whenever I get wounded, so..." Polva said dejectedly. He seemed to want to say something more, but the thing did not give him the chance to do so. It curled itself into a ball and barrelled down the pa.s.sageway towards Lin Sanjiu. It moved so fast that the strange smell surged into her nostrils in the blink of an eye.
Lin Sanjiu had already prepared herself since the moment she saw the monster, thus she was unfl.u.s.tered. She raised her arms, and the [Mosaic Censors.h.i.+p] glowed in her palm as she prepared to intercept the rolling attack.
The monster continued to roll towards her at a high speed. The ground shook violently, and thunderous rumbles filled the air. Suddenly, Lin Sanjiu"s heart palpitated, as she felt that she had heard something, but there was no time to be sure. Just as her hands almost touched the monster, a roar erupted from behind her.
"Don"t touch it!"
By the time she recognized it to be Maxin"s voice, her hands almost touched the wrinkly skin sag. Her heart gave a start as she stopped her palm in mid-air, but that was not the case for the monster. It continued to charge forward; it would not take long before it rammed into them.
Lin Sanjiu could not step aside, as Puppeteer and Polva were behind her. Just as everything seemed to be coming to an end, the sound rang out again.
"Duck down!"
Lin Sanjiu hunkered down at the command. Then, she felt something swoop above her head and connect with the incoming ma.s.s of flesh with a meaty smack. The monster stopped rolling abruptly. Then, in her field of vision, she saw a piece of soft, loose skin pooling by her shoes.
Lin Sanjiu took a breath and raised her head. The first thing that welcomed her sight was a pair of legs. The part above the legs had been merged into the mess of flesh, leaving the pair of lifeless legs to sway up and down in the air.
Bug-eyed, Lin Sanjiu"s eyes traced the legs down to their feet and finally, their ten toenails painted in maroon nail polish. Though the lacquer was mottled, it was still bright enough to leave ten maroon-colored afterimages in the air.
"Come over here, quick!" Maxin shouted again, snapping her out of her trance.
She scooped Puppeteer up from the ground and retreated a few steps back. There, she finally saw Maxin. Right now, he stood in the junction where the darkness and the light crossed each other. It was merely half a night"s time, and Lin Sanjiu almost couldn"t recognize the tall and das.h.i.+ng young man that she acquainted herself with not long ago. There was stubble growing on his chin, and his complexion was even paler than a ghost"s.
"He is really trapped here."
"Do you know what it is?" Lin Sanjiu asked, huffing and puffing. Hopping like a small rabbit, Polva also hurried over to their side.
"I was targeted by them several times," replied Maxin as he looked fixedly at the monster that had absorbed the pair of woman"s legs. They didn"t know if it was their eyes or their minds playing tricks on them, but they felt that the thing had grown larger in size. "Before I b.u.mped into you from the small window, I almost got caught by this thing. It took me a lot of effort to escape from one of them."
"What are these things?" the fatty asked nervously. There was a range limitation to the [Light Moss]. If they moved a few more steps back, the darkness behind them would envelop them again.
Startled, Maxin looked around for the source of the sound. It took him long enough before he saw the tiny white fatty that stood next to his s.h.i.+n.
"They are Goliaths." He forcibly peeled his gaze away from the white fatty, looked at the "Goliath" in the distance and replied in a hasty tone, "That is what I call them. These Goliaths roam around in the pa.s.sageway. Once they start rolling, they will absorb and fuse anything they touch—corpses, living things, or even monsters—into their bodies."
"Then how did you escape?"
"They will stop for a while when fusing with their victims. I took advantage of the gap and got away," replied Maxin as he looked at Puppeteer. His brows creased in confusion.
Lin Sanjiu suddenly saw the light. It was all thanks to Maxin"s quick response of hurling a corpse that he found somewhere at the "Goliath" that she was saved. However, the situation was different right now. They could not keep on running like this.
When her thoughts reached here, the "Goliath" in the distance twitched. It had completely absorbed the pair of legs. The ten toenails painted in maroon nail polish separated and slid into the wrinkly skin. One even moved toward a human face. The face smoothed out, positioned itself so that it was facing Lin Sanjiu, and opened its mouth.
Lin Sanjiu"s heart almost skipped a beat, as she knew what it was trying to do. She could cut off the connection between her brain and body, but the others could not. Without wasting another second, she leaped forward and covered the face with a towel in her hand. Its heavy respite lifted the towel slightly.
Her attempt was not in vain. Even though the "Last Breath" did come out in the end, the scale was small.
Although Lin Sanjiu did not inhale the gas, being sprayed with the breath on her skin was by no means a pleasurable experience either.
No matter how many times one lingered on the border between death and life, no one could step up onto the edge of a cliff and stare down into the abyss without being gripped by the feeling of fear. This was the deepest fear of all life, knowing that your cells were decaying and you would no longer be able to open your eyes and breath, but rather, sink into the depth of the ground like a rotten leaf.
Darkness shrouded Lin Sanjiu"s eyes.
The silver lining was that the near-death illusion lasted only for a few seconds. As she had used her Higher Consciousness to temporarily cut off her brain"s control of her body, she did not fall into a state of death because of the hallucination. When she fluttered her eyes opened, she found that the "Goliath" had abandoned her in the corner of a wall.
Perhaps it thought she was dead, for the "Goliath" was rolling fast towards Maxin. Lin Sanjiu had no idea why but Maxin did not try to run. As he still crouched in the spot where the light and darkness crossed each other, she could not see very well.
Fighting back the fear that settled down in her blood vessels like toxins, Lin Sanjiu struggled to pick herself up from the ground. She waved her arm, and Hegel"s hooked cable waltzed in the air gracefully like a serpent and stabbed into the "Goliath"s" body.
A sharp shrill came from the "Goliath." The moment she got a purchase on the flesh monster"s body, she leaped up from the ground at once and planted her feet firmly on the ground. She pulled the cable and finally stopped the "Goliath" from advancing forward. She tilted her head and saw Maxin still standing stock-still in the same place. The "Goliath" was merely a stone"s throw away from them.
"Is he seeking death?"
A wave of anger swelled up in Lin Sanjiu"s heart. Just as she was about to holler out, she heard a quiet cough. She was very familiar with the sound. It was as frigid and brittle as the dead frosty branches in the winter.
She stared at the direction in which the sound came from. However, she could not see anything, as her line of sight was blocked by the "Goliath."
"Nothing good ever happens with you around. You really are a doom bringer, Lin Sanjiu," Puppeteer said softly.