According to the research of scholars from the Fortress, the production methods of the Dark People can be described as "eclectic".
So it is not a particularly strange thing to find viviparous creatures. But if it is linked to some kind of ritual, it is enough to attract attention.
Looking at the huge organ that might be the placenta, Han Shu said with disgust: "This thing seems to have been born for a certain purpose. Ji Yu, we have to find it. Maybe we can get relevant clues from it."
Ji Yu sighed: "Captain, you are increasing my workload. I request that this part of the work be included in the calculation when the task is settled."
Han Shu didn't object: "No problem, just go ahead and do it."
The woman looked at the puddle of black mud on the ground, and her eyes fell on the windowsill where the thing left: "Don't you want to go outside to get some fresh air?"
Han Shu was the first to walk out the door: "I don't want to stay here anymore. I think I'll have to write this down in the mission report. Four Eyes should give us some extra contribution points for our tortured noses."
Ji Yu nodded happily: "Captain, you occasionally come up with some good ideas."
Han Shu laughed out loud.
Tianyang and Cang exchanged glances, but the latter suddenly turned his head away as if he had been electrocuted, as if he would be infected with some disease if he looked at Tianyang for one more second.
Cangdu flicked her ponytail and strode out the door.
Tianyang shrugged and was the last one to come to the window outside the door. Behind the window was a small yard with a shed. The shed had collapsed, and some unnamed debris was pressed under it.
The footprints extending from the house went towards the shack, but they were stained with black mud and became more incomplete and fainter as the distance extended.
Han Shu and his companions came to an alley behind the shed. The footprints extended forward for another ten meters and then disappeared completely.
Ji Yu took out tweezers and a small test tube bottle from his multifunctional waist bag. There was some light blue liquid in the bottle, which looked like some kind of potion.
Tianyang watched her squat down, pick up the solidified black particles from some footprints with tweezers, and put them into the test tube. After shaking it vigorously, the liquid in the bottle turned light purple.
Ji Yu took out a small sprayer. She used a syringe to extract the liquid from the test tube, poured it into the sprayer, and finally sprayed it on the ground.
Han Shu beside him whispered, "If there were an Ascendant of the Harmonizer class here, it would be easy. Those guys have tracking abilities, and they can easily find the clues they want. Unfortunately, we don't have this class in Skyfort, not even one."
On the other side, Jiyu carefully sprayed the road surface, walls, street lights, trash cans... .
After a while, some traces appeared in various corners. They were all purple marks, and these marks formed a new set of clues.
Ji Yu shook the sprayer in his hand and said, "Can the consumed items be reimbursed?"
Han Shu covered his forehead and said, "Okay, you won't be short of money, hurry up and get to work."
Ji Yu hooked her finger: "Come with me."
Although not as convenient as the mediator, the hunter class also has a certain tracking ability. Soon, following the clues found by Ji Yu, the four of them left the complicated alleys, walked onto the street, and came to a place similar to a community square.
There is also a broken fountain here, and the tiled road surface has long been dilapidated. The flower beds that were previously used for greening now only have solidified soil left, without even any grass.
Some of the public facilities around were either covered with thick dust or scattered into various irregular parts. Next to a device similar to a walker, a figure suddenly came into everyone's sight.
Tianyang and Cang raised their assault rifles almost at the same time, but Jiyu walked over boldly and shook his head: "Don't be nervous, it's dead. No, this is... its shed shell?"
"What the hell is this thing that can actually shed its shell?" Han Shu took a big step over and shone the lighting in his hand on the thing.
Tianyang and Cangdu also came over. The two youngest people in the team looked at the ground curiously.
This is a humanoid creature, at least its upper body has human features, with a humanoid head and hands, but its head is extremely large in proportion.
Especially the back of the head, which grows and extends towards the back, looks like some kind of large insect pupa.
Its lower body is like some kind of reptile, with a short but thick tail and
It has four short legs, like a seven or eight month old baby.
No baby has four legs.
This thing has hardened, just like Ji Yu said, it is more like a shell. The shell has a crack in the middle from the forehead to the tail, and transparent mucus is all around the crack.
Judging from the distribution of the mucus and the traces they left behind, it seemed that they were brought out of the shell by something.
Ji Yu collected some mucus, put it in a test tube, and put it into his waist bag.
"It's a viviparous organism, but it sheds its shell like a worm. This is simply like the work of the devil." Han Shu raised the lighting tool. Under the light, the residual liquid on the ground was extending outside the community square.
“It’s evolving very quickly.”
Ji Yu used a branch to stir the mucus, and when he lifted it up, he pulled out strands of transparent liquid: "These things haven't solidified yet, which means it has been out of the shell for a short time. From birth to this community, even if it is slow, it should not take more than an hour."
"It shed its shell in just one hour, which means it has obviously entered the second stage of evolution. If we look at it from the growth period of humans, it has already entered the juvenile stage from the infant stage. I wonder how long it will take for it to enter the adolescent stage."
"But I think we'd better find it quickly. No matter how you look at it, its movement speed and range should increase with evolution. We may lose it."
Han Shu spread his hands and asked, "Then what are we waiting for? Dinner is only three hours away. I hope that before then, we can at least figure out where this 'newborn' has gone."
Jiyu nodded: "Follow me."
Near this community, there is a clearly planned building. The shape, height, and layout are exactly the same, just like the apartment dormitory in the upper area of the fortress.
Tianyang guessed that this should be the residential area for town residents. The buildings were almost next to each other, unlike the apartment dormitories in the fortress, where each building was at least tens of meters apart.
From this point of view, the permanent population of this town should be quite large, after all, their population density is very high. It is possible that the population of a town is almost the same as that of the Sky Fort.
From another perspective, it is not difficult to see how prosperous the world was before it slid into darkness.