Chapter 839: Mysterious Events
Many people could not bear the flood of information from the ancient era flooding into their brains. After having nightmares for several days and nights in a row, their spirit index plummeted, their mental state collapsed, and they went insane.
Some people’s eyes turned dull, their faces haggard, and their bodies trembled nonstop. Even the faintest light and sound changes would trigger screams and fainting.
There were also some who went crazy and attacked others indiscriminately. They did not know pain and fatigue. Even if they were shackled by spirit shackles, they would still break their own limbs to escape and continue their attacks, they had simply become enhanced versions of zombies.
There were even some who had completely lost themselves in their nightmares and thought of themselves as real monsters. In the human skin, they displayed the habits of all kinds of monsters. There were some who turned their joints like arthropods and crawled on the ground There were people who hung upside down on the ceiling like bats and went out at night. There were people who hid in a dark and humid environment and could not eat or drink for days and nights without moving.
All the forces, including the Relic Research Inst.i.tute, were helpless against this mysterious phenomenon.
Experts a.n.a.lyzed that it was possible that when humans were conducting experiments on the giant brain, they inadvertently stimulated the mother’s active tissues that were still in a deep hibernation state, causing the mother to release a few more spirit ripples. It set off a storm in the human brain.
However, even if humans suspended the experiment on the giant brain and even injected a large amount of mithril stabilizer and hibernation drugs into the it, the huge giant brain that was hundreds of meters in diameter would be completely frozen.
The nightmares that randomly appeared in the depths of the superhumans’ brains did not calm down. Instead, they became more and more intense.
This was a world where the mind could interfere with matter.
In the end, many of the superhumans that were affected not only mentally, but also thought of themselves as ancient monsters.
Their minds affected their brain tissues, nervous system, and other organs. They even had all sorts of strange symptoms on their bodies.
Some people woke up and discovered that there were many colorful patterns on their bodies.
Some people’s secret parts grew hair, scales, and sh.e.l.ls that did not belong to humans.
Some people even grew fangs and tails.
If these small aberrations were considered “harmless,” what happened to a senior researcher from the ancient ruins research center made everyone, including Meng Chao, feel their blood run cold.
This senior researcher was introverted. He was usually quiet and did not have a strong sense of presence.
He had been diligently burying his head in his research. The content of his research was not very popular, and it was related to combat.
Every day, when he entered and left the monster’s lair, he was tested for all sorts of viruses and bacteria, but he did not find anything strange about him.
However, he had turned into a giant pupa overnight.
That’s right, it was literally a pupa that was dark, and shiny. Plus, it had a hard sh.e.l.l with circular patterns on it.
Using the most sophisticated spirit scanner to peek at the internal structure of the pupa, one could vaguely see that the researcher was curled up in the pupa like a fetus, sleeping quietly.
His limbs and even his spine were folded together in a very weird way. His shoulder blades protruded high and turned into two huge bulges as if brand-new and enormous organs were hidden inside.
However, when the bones of his face were scanned, one could see that his eye sockets had become three or four times larger than that of a normal person. Half of his face had been swallowed by the eye sockets.
No one could guess how he had turned from a perfectly healthy human into a giant bug pupa.
And no one was willing to imagine what he would look like when he broke out of the coc.o.o.n.
The other researchers could only properly and safely monitor the giant bug coc.o.o.n and install the strongest electric fence and spirit shield around it, quietly waiting for the person in the coc.o.o.n to wake up.
The senior researcher was not the only one who had suffered such misfortune.
Two days later, the second “coc.o.o.n-maker” appeared.
Fortunately, it was a superhuman from Universe Corporation. He was staying in a double room, and there was a companion in the room. He noticed his abnormality in time and quickly called for help.
Unfortunately, neither the peak Heaven Realm experts from Universe Corporation, the senior researchers of the ancient ruins research center, or the senior doctors and life sciences experts knew how to wake up the poor superhuman. They just stopped him from spinning the coc.o.o.n.
They only had time to film the whole process of him spinning the coc.o.o.n.
From the video, they could see that the spirit tattoos on the superhuman’s body were flickering. His muscles were twitching crazily. Soon, a large amount of sweat was seeping out of his pores.
The sweat gradually turned black and became as thick as tar. Then, it condensed at a speed visible to the naked eye. Like layers of sh.e.l.ls, it spread on his limbs and torso until it completely devoured him.
Throughout the whole process, the superhuman’s eyes were wide open, but they had lost their vigor and focus. His hollow eyes were staring at a corner of the ceiling. His lips were still trembling rapidly, but they were humming crazily like insects.
People had tried all kinds of methods to wake him up.
After injecting gene medicines and pouring a large amount of spirit energy into his peak Heaven Realm body, shaking his body violently and even stimulating his body with electric currents were all useless.
In the end, his companion, who was about to go crazy, even cut a deep wound on his arm so deep that his bones could be seen, in an attempt to stimulate his awakening with the sense of pain.
However, his wound wriggled crazily and spewed out black mucus at an even faster speed, forming a thick layer of black coc.o.o.n sh.e.l.l.
In the end, the unfortunate superhuman turned into a giant coc.o.o.n under the encirclement of hundreds of experts and dozens of cutting-edge medical devices.
Originally, for the convenience of research and cultivation, humans would place temporary accommodation areas around and above the monster’s lair.
Most superhumans were cultivation maniacs and research maniacs. When they encountered skills and projects that they were interested in, they would study them for thirty to fifty hours without rest. It was a common occurrence. The closer the accommodation area was to the cultivation room and research point, the better.
Many people did not even know the concept of a “residential area.” They carried their bedding on their backs and lived directly in the monster’s lair. When they were tired, they would sit cross-legged and meditate in depth. They would close their eyes for a short while, and when they opened their eyes, they could continue to study and cultivate at any time.
One after another, people were plagued by nightmares. They turned into huge coc.o.o.ns too. Most superhumans became afraid and moved the residential area to the ruins of Peach Blossom Town, which was far away from the monster’s lair. They even moved to the edge of the sinkhole.
It was also stipulated that every twelve hours of training and research in the monster’s lair, they had to leave in time and return to their accommodation area to meditate deeply as well as recover their strength. They also had to undergo the strictest mental and physical checks.
Only a few vicious people, such as Meng Chao, who could connect with the brain for more than twenty-four hours and read a large amount of information from the ancient era, were not restricted by this rule.
Such caution did greatly reduce the chances of cultivators and researchers being haunted by nightmares and turning into coc.o.o.ns.
However, as humans went deeper and deeper into the monsters’ lair, especially in areas that had been sealed for thousands of years and had not been opened by the monster civilization, a new mysterious event happened.
It was the ancient ruins’ summon.
Many people heard faint sounds coming from the bottomless underground crevices.
It sounded like the wind from the Earth’s core.
It also sounded like the sighs of the undead that had slept for tens of thousands of years.
It also sounded like the sound of some giant beast or giant plant that was hibernating, splitting, sprouting, growing, and expanding.
To the superhumans who had weaker mental defenses, this sound was even more attractive than the murmurs of a young girl who was dreaming in the middle of the night.
Many people were muddle-headed. They followed the voice and disappeared into the depths of the underground, never to be seen again.
For this reason, the ancient ruins research center had no choice but to announce that anyone who entered the monster’s lair for cultivation and research had to be in groups of at least three to protect each other. They had to ensure that the other two could never leave their sight.
At the same time, everyone had to wear a locator bracelet and report their location and current mission every five minutes. They also had to conduct a simple spirit test to ensure that their consciousness was clear and that they were not bewitched by the ancient ruins’ summon.
However, despite guarding the place strictly, something still happened.
Three cultivators who belonged to the same group heard the ancient ruins’ summon at the same time. Their brainwaves influenced each other as they stumbled deeper into the underground.
When they did not send out the latest coordinates and conduct a long-distance mental test every five minutes, the nearby research and cultivation groups immediately rushed over.
Unfortunately, due to the complex environment in the depths of the monster lair, there were ruins and broken zones caused by s.p.a.ce-based orbital weapons from hundreds of millions of years ago, which could collapse again at any time.
The search and rescue work was very slow and not smooth.
When one of the “summoned” was finally found.
He had already squeezed his way into a zigzag crack that led straight to the underground.
This crack was about five meters long.
The widest part was less than a palm.
The narrowest part could not even fit his pinky finger.
The summoned person was a burly man with a strong build. He was more than two meters tall and weighed nearly three hundred kilograms.
If one did not see it with their own eyes, no one would believe that he could force his strong body into such a small crack.
It was like forcing a Demonic Pig into a motionless meat grinder.
When people found discovered him, the bones all over his body had been shattered, and his skin had been completely worn out. Not only was his blood almost drained, even his bone marrow and brain matter had been squeezed out.
He had long lost his human form, but he had been molded into a five-meter-long, palm-wide, b.l.o.o.d.y monster by the crack.
The spirit energy that was gushing out of the ground kept the vigorous fluctuation of his vitality magnetic field.
Under everyone’s watchful eyes, he continued to stay alive. While he howled, he wriggled his deformed limbs and continued to crawl into the deeper, narrower, and more zigzagging gaps!