Facing Samuel's question, Ethan just looked blank. He spread his gaze behind Samuel, and found that Schneider and others were also standing not far away, staring at him with a suspicious look.
Among these people, only Samuel had seen his mutated appearance, but would Samuel tell Schneider
Ethan didn't want to let Samuel know about the chaotic images he saw, so he made a random excuse, "It's nothing, I had a headache just now. Let's go."
They passed through the empty and long hall, Ethan was silent all the way, listening to other people making all kinds of guesses.
"Such a large palace doesn't quite match the usual architectural style of the Horned Man," the sergeant said, looking around. "The shape of these pillars gives a... very uneasy feeling. It always feels like they will fall down. "
"Isn't it possible that this place is an ancient tomb or something? The sacred race or something, 80% of which were held by ancient princes and nobles. Maybe the style at that time was like this."
"Damn, those people with horns already look weird enough, how can they even make tombs so weird?"
"This may not be a tomb, but a temple." Stan leaned on Schneider's back and whispered, "Before I entered the city, I came into contact with many undiscovered ancient tombs on major planets, and no tomb owner would The entrance is made so obvious, and the location is such a damp place. Especially when the other party is still a noble. Instead, it is a temple. I heard that the bodies of horned people are usually buried in trees. But their temples are usually buried deep underground."
Ethan agrees with him that he has seen some of the temple photos of the Horned Man, and they are indeed hidden deep in the ground like a tomb. But the architecture of the temple didn't quite match the rounded style of the Horned Man, and it was so large that it looked like it had been abandoned for quite some time. There is a rotten smell in the air, like a mummy that has been sleeping for thousands of years.
Most importantly, there are no obvious horned sculptures of the Great Wise Men worshipped here.
Finally, the hall came to an end, but their footsteps stopped. At the end is a towering and dangerous stone wall. There is no wall or stone carving. The wall is covered with dense round holes, high and low, large and small, as uncomfortable as a pockmarked face eroded by wind and frost. The largest hole is closest to the ground, and it looks like a subway tunnel that has just been dug out. The stones at the entrances of all the caves were corroded and pitted, and there were some films of translucent slime remaining in the grooves, and those films had spread all the way to the ground, spreading in all directions on the dusty ground.
The faint cold wind blew out of those holes, with a strong fishy smell.
"You said..." Samuel was the first to say, "These things aren't where the bugs come from..."
What he said was exactly what everyone thought, but when he heard someone really say it, he still felt his scalp tingle.
Look at the number of holes, and look at the few holes as big as subway tunnels...
"So those worms out there locked us in their nests? Are you trying to store us for the winter?" Samuel hummed bitterly, but the others didn't find it very funny.
The sergeant sighed, "We're dead."
Ethan suddenly walked towards the nearest huge hole, reached out and grabbed the rock, climbed up and stood at the hole. He suddenly heard a long sigh followed by the stench that came to his ears.
"Ethan! Come back!" Samuel called eagerly behind him.
Ethan looked back at them, "You guys wait for me here, I'll go in and take a look. Maybe there's another exit."
"What nonsense are you talking about! You don't even have a weapon, what do you do when you encounter such a big bug?!" Samuel rushed over and wanted to pull him down, but Ethan took a step back and gave Samuel a slight look with a firm expression. He smiled and whispered, "Don't worry, I'm not afraid of them anymore."
Samuel was startled. He understood what Ethan said.
He never wanted to recall the sight of Ethan's mutation, and he didn't want to believe what Ethan had become... a monster.
But he looks so normal now, no different from before? Maybe the mutation is only temporary? He kept telling himself that.
But now he has to wonder, if Ethan can really drive those giant bugs, then they are trapped here, does Ethan belong to their human side, or to those disgusting bugs
His suspicion and hesitation did not escape Ethan's eyes, Beta took a step back, "Don't follow." Yu Bi gave him a deep look, then turned around, his figure was quickly swallowed by the darkness.
He didn't even bring any lighting.
Samuel turned his head to see the other three staring at him in disbelief. Schneider asked, "You let him in like this?"
"He... he said he knew what he was doing. Don't let us follow."
Schneider put Stan on his back and frowned, "You believe him?"
Samuel hesitated, then nodded.
Now two of the four of them are seriously injured, and it is not appropriate to act indiscriminately. They decided to move to a place against the wall a little further from that wall to rest and wait for a while. Stan had lost a lot of blood and sprinkled the rest of the hemostatic on the wound, but it still oozes. The burns on the sergeant's arm were also worsening. Although bandaged, the sergeant seemed to feel itchy and would often scratch hard. And gradually, an unpleasant smell emanated from that arm.
No one knew whether the acid from those bugs would be poisonous.
Schneider and the sergeant continued to try to use the pager to contact the headquarters for help, but for some reason, all the electronic devices on their bodies were unable to transmit or receive any signals. It's like being cut off from the whole world by an invisible wall. The sergeant finally angrily threw the communicator on the ground and gave up.
************
Darkness, an instinctively terrifying color, is the final color of all colors mixed together, and represents everything and zero, existence and nothingness at the same time.
Ethan used to be very afraid of the dark. When he was a child, he accidentally dropped his father's portable capsule into the water glass, and he was once locked in a narrow wardrobe by his father. At that time, his mother went abroad to perform, and only he and his father were at home. He was locked up for a whole day. No matter how much he begged for an apology, it was useless. He almost thought that his father would not let him out again.
Since then, he has been afraid of the dark, of narrow spaces. When he slept, he also used to turn on a dim light by his pillow. When Roland saw it, he had laughed at him and was afraid of the dark.
But now, he found that he didn't feel any anxiety, and the beating frequency of his heart remained normal. He even likes this kind of darkness a little bit, obviously he can't see anything, but somehow he can sense the direction he is traveling.
Perhaps, he was born to be dark.
The bumpy road under his feet reminded him of his gut, and he suspected that he was walking in the belly of a huge monster. Thinking that if it was really intestines, it might be digested into a pool of excrement in a short time, and he actually laughed in a low voice.
He tried to feel in the stillness whether there was an idea transmitted to him by Taniser, but his mind was still empty and depressing. He hadn't heard from Tanisel for a week, and he almost began to wonder if their temporary soul bond had expired? Or did he accidentally fail to notice the thoughts that Tanethel passed on to him? Or... something happened to Tanisel
He refused to believe in the last possibility. Because he didn't know what would happen to Taniser if something happened to him.
At this moment, a sigh was suddenly heard in the ear.
The sigh was so close, it seemed to be in his ear. He could even feel the breath blowing against the fluff of his ears.
"Who!" Ethan shuddered.
The darkness looked back at him silently, as if it had turned into a solid, wrapping him like amber wrapping a bug.
Ethan took a few more steps, this time feeling something sticky on the back of his hand. He hurriedly staggered a few steps in the opposite direction and asked sharply, "Who's here!"
The darkness remained silent, and just when Ethan felt like he was about to lose his patience, a genderless, childish, very unnatural voice said, "We're here. It's been a long time."
The voice was bizarre, as if the tongue was not very flexible, with a thick accent.
Ethan tried to reach out and touched it in all directions, but couldn't touch anything. He ran forward, trying to get rid of the unreal, unreal voice he didn't know if it was a hallucination.
But the voice followed him.
"It's so cold here, so cold, so crowded..."
"We're leaving...to a warmer place...to wait for God to come..."
"Egg... Egg... Spawn... Expand..."
The stiff mechanical, childlike voice followed him like a nightmare, unable to discern its direction or origin.
*********
Everyone else fell asleep, and Schneider watched the night alone in the dark, looking at Samuel's sleeping face with some trance. He turned the light on the gun to its darkest setting, and the gentle light stroked Samuel's profile, softening his always hard and strong outline, making him more like a real Omega than usual.
Schneider looked down at his palm. Some people were confused and thought that maybe they would die here with him.
Before he became the chief guard of the Forbidden City, he was also sent along with the garrison to clear up the pirates who had been harassing the border of the Earth Alliance. In that fierce battle, his comrade-in-arms, and also his lover, a strong and beautiful female Alpha, was instantly burned into steam by the pirate's new microwave gun in front of him. And he was also seriously injured in that war, and his right hand was a little inflexible, and he was no longer suitable for being a front-line officer. He was transferred to the Forbidden City after being awarded several medals for his successful protection of several civilian hostages. Originally, the captain of the guard was an idle job with less money and more money, because most of the actual management was carried out by the supervisor of the east and west districts, such as Vasilev in the east district. As the chief of the guard, he only needs to be responsible for formulating basic guarding and defense policies, and patrolling the Forbidden City from time to time to ensure that enough inhumans are arranged for all the redemption tasks assigned by the Forbidden City Committee.
But probably because of his personality, he just likes to do it himself, and many of the work that was originally in charge of Vasilev and the director of the Western District have been taken over by him. He probably wanted to keep himself busy so he wouldn't have to think about his lover who had been dead for several years.
Until he found Samuel, and saw the unease and confusion in the depths of his beast-like alert and hard eyes. That look, how similar to his former lover. It was true that Samuel was very different from her, but after her death, Samuel was the only one who moved his heart.
He wanted to have Samuel, to embrace the strong and beautiful body of a cheetah, to see his lust-soaked face, to hear his name called from those full lips.
If they were to die here, he hoped to speak out about the obsession that had tormented him before the end came.
He looked fascinatedly at Samuel's profile and leaned down slightly, trying to steal a kiss on that cheek. But just as he leaned down, Samuel suddenly opened his eyes. The dark brown eyes turned slightly and looked at him faintly.
Schneider's body stiffened, and he quickly sat up straight, as if he was well behaved.
"You want to kiss me?" Samuel asked in a factual tone.
"No." Schneider retorted too quickly, and the reason was a bit lame, "I just want to see if you really fell asleep."
Samuel sat up slowly, his eyes glistening in the darkness, "It seems Ethan is right."
"what?"
"He said you like me."
Schneider wanted to refute the denial, but he didn't know why the words turned into the one he had asked before: "...you believe him?"
"I didn't believe it at first, but now I believe it a little bit." Samuel raised his arms and stared at him, as if amused, "I should feel honored that the commander of the dignified guard has taken a fancy to me, such a rude inhuman. ?"
His prickly tone made Schneider's heart hurt for a while, looked away, and whispered, "Don't talk to me in this tone, I don't owe you anything."
"You're right. I owe you all the time." Samuel's heart softened a little when he saw that there was a faint sadness on his handsome but too serious face. He lowered his voice and asked, "Are you sure it wasn't because of your special... situation last time, and then I helped you, you accidentally took me as your Alpha and fell in love?"
Schneider's cheeks flew a layer of blush, but fortunately the light was too dim to see, "Don't feel too good about yourself!"
Samuel laughed in a low voice, leaned forward, deliberately got close to the embarrassed chief of guards, and traced Schneider's chin frivolously with his fingers, "Then if I kiss you now, will you beat me?"
"… meeting!"
"Want to try it?"
"How dare you!" The angry look of the chief guard was originally majestic and intimidating, but for some reason, Samuel felt a little cute at this time.
Samuel was about to flirt with a few more words when he heard a painful cry from the sergeant. The sergeant who was lying on the ground was rolling on the ground while clutching his burnt arm, as if the pain was excruciating.
Schneider rushed over and asked Samuel to hold him down, while he carefully undid the bandage that had wrapped his arm.
Then he nearly vomited.
On the large honeycomb-like pits that had festered and oozing pus, a large number of white-flowered maggots were born, greedily devouring the carrion.
When the sergeant saw his arm, he screamed, "No no no no no!!!!"
Samuel and Schneider both looked at each other in shock. This deterioration and decay was so fast that it was not normal at all.
However, judging from the last few missions, they seem to be very far away from normal.
"The infection is so severe that it may require amputation," Schneider said in a gruff voice to the sergeant.
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Happy Chinese New Year to everyone~~~Thanks for the red envelopes from the little angels~~muuuuuua!!!