Chapter 315: A Dangerous Dog
Translator: Pluto Editor: Vermillion
Captain Marlon had been operating his airship service on this flight route between Free District and Cape Howling for quite some time. He had seen all sorts of people. Yet, when he opened the side door of his airship today, it was different. When he saw the three women and one man on the islet, he suddenly shivered; he couldn't tell if it was because of the cold sea winds.
No matter how he looked at it, these people were in some bizarre situation.
The loud rumbling noise generated by the engines of his small airship sounded as though they were going to die on him soon. As the airship vibrated noisily, the flimsy airship door shook continuously. Captain Marlon seemed all too accustomed to these little details. If he didn't see the expressions of the passengers who just boarded, he would have almost forgotten the dilapidated state of his small airship.
The person leading the group was a tall woman. She frowned as she examined the small airship and looked as if she was unsure if her white skeletal wings could fit through the airship's small entrance. She took a step forward after a slight pause. When she walked closer to the door, those two menacing wings didn't look like they were going to enter the airship but rather tear the airship apart.
Even though Marlon found it very difficult, he tried his best to avert his gaze from that woman's hands and pretended like he didn't see anything.
A man was tied up by a black leather rope. It wrapped around him so tightly that his body was deformed and looked like a broken rag doll. Two empty feet trousers dangled in mid-air as the tall woman held this misshapen man with her fingers. If that man's eyes were closed, Marlon would have thought that was just a corpse.
A plump woman in a green dress followed close behind this couple. She seemed very frightened of the last person walking behind her and jogged a few steps to stay close to the woman in front, leaving the last woman behind. The last woman walked very slowly, but Marlon wasn't sure if that was because she was carrying a humongous belly.
"Aren't there supposed to be ten people?"
Marlon immediately regretted asking that question because, when he walked closer and looked at them, he noticed that the four of them were covered in wounds. They had blood stains and dirt on their skins and their clothes were torn and tattered.
He did not know what had happened between the ten passengers but from what he observed, that battle must have been pretty crazy...
Since he had already received their transport fare beforehand, Marlon zipped his lips since no one was paying attention to him. Surprisingly, the tall woman was the first to speak after they had boarded the airship.
"Excuse me, could you arrange our seats together?" Under the sunlight, her light amber eyes made a striking impression. As she spoke, she shook the black rope in her hand, "As you can see, we can't be apart."
The black rope had a slight sheen, the woman had wrapped one end of the rope once around her wrist. The other end of the rope coiled like a snake around the dark blonde teenager's neck. When Marlon first saw that, he couldn't help loosening his collar. Though the leather rope looked thin, it seemed very strong. The rope was so tight around his throat that his neck was like a tied sack of floor. The rope dug deeply into the teenager's skin, creating countless creases making one wonder how he could even breathe.
As if sensing Marlon's gaze, the teenager looked up with his pair of dehumanized eyes. Marlon shuddered again.
As Marlon's airship catered specifically to passengers who want to travel along the route between the Free District and Cape Howling, it had all the essential equipment and furniture expected. He arranged four sofa armchairs so that they were facing each other and conducted a quick briefing. When the single-arm woman walked past him, Marlon's heart quivered.
He had never seen a woman with such a huge belly.
It looked as though someone had folded up a few adult humans and squeezed them inside her. Her belly looked larger than her whole body frame. Her clothes had long been torn and the skin had been stretched so much that it was just a very, very thin layer. It was uncomfortable to watch her body which looked overstretched and deformed, almost on the brink of bursting. Anyway, from the looks of it, the things inside her belly were definitely not fetuses.
Being a person who managed to reach Red Nautilus despite being from an E-level world, Marlon was very highly aware that he should not get himself involved with. Without saying a word, he quickly disappeared from the passenger lounge.
After he had left for quite some time, the airship gradually ascended. Thereafter, someone in the strange group finally spoke:
"I… I still don't understand what happened." Jade Zhang closed her two hands into fists. She fixed her gaze on the two people in front of her, interchanging. Her skin was still slightly red. As she watched them, the two people did not make a single sound. The teenager still had a smile plastered on his face, but somehow, that smile seemed to hold some agitation and malice.
For a moment, no one replied.
"What do you want from me?" when the teenager uttered those words, his throat did not move a single inch. Lin Sanjiu knew that the fake human voice was produced when Soulsqn rubbed her two little fleshy appendages. It sounded nothing like Walter's original voice. The wasn't a male voice, but it wasn't a female voice either. "You should know better. You can't bind me forever using this rope."
Lin Sanjiu did not speak. She looked at Soulsqn's empty and shapeless trousers instead.
—
30 minutes before, a dozen menacing white bones pinned a dark purple-red, non-human flesh mass to the ground. As it struggled and squealed non-stop, Lin Sanjiu had already picked up her [Vibroblade]. It pierced through Soulsqn's 'hand' without a single obstruction as if she was just piercing through air. It took Lin Sanjiu a considerable amount of effort to resist the temptation and impulse to just slice the piece of flesh into two. At the same time, the other Souls fell to the ground with twisting bodies as if they had been attacked themselves. For one moment, terrible cries pervaded the air.
"If I kill their queen, will the other parasitic grubs die?" While Lin Sanjiu contemplated, she dragged Soulsqn's original body out from her Walter skin suit. It was only then that Lin Sanjiu finally saw everything clearly. Soulsqn had made a slit at the back of Walter's neck. The slit curved according to the teenager's bottom hairline. It was also covered by stringy, sticky mucus.
The dark-red mass of flesh was like a human-size grub. As it wriggled in mid-air, the image was just numbingly gruesome. When Lin Sanjiu looked into the wound extending from the slit, she realized that there wasn't only just pieces of remaining soft tissues within the eviscerated body. They were interwoven with numerous white 'tendons' covered with mucus. It was constantly making gurgling sounds. She opened her mouth due to the pain and Lin Sanjiu saw her dark red oral cavity, and within it was another oral cavity and so on, layer upon layer.
Just then, Jade, who was not far from Lin Sanjiu, finally regained her sobriety. She fell to the ground with a plop, sitting. She was in a daze as she watched the scene which suddenly appeared in front of her.
"Wait. Wait a moment," two soft appendages appeared from her dual oral cavity and Soulsqns made a human voice, "What do you want—"
Lin Sanjiu raised her left-hand almost instinctively. As mucus sprayed everywhere along with bits of flesh, the creature's two "lower limbs" fell heavily on the rocky surface of the ground. The screams from the other Souls grew painfully loud but their legs did not fall off. None of them dared to approach Lin Sanjiu.
Enduring the slippery texture and the pungent stench, Lin Sanjiu pinned Soulsqn to the ground once again. "Crawl into that body again!"
Once Lin Sanjiu had dragged Soulsqn fully out of Walter's body, his skin became empty just like a skin shed by a snake. The fleshy mass with humanoid features entered the human pouch once more through the slit. The empty spaces were quickly filled. With a blink of an eye, Walter's face was reanimated.
Not long ago, the same face was telling her how beautiful his hometown was...
Lin Sanjiu curbed the sudden burst of rage she felt and took out her [ANTI Posthumans Collection: Female Slave Bondage Rope]. She lifted Soulsqn with her hands.
If she tied her up like a human, Soulsqn could just make an opening somewhere and escape from this human suit. Based on her memory of what she saw for just a few seconds, Lin Sanjiu remembered Soulsqn's body structure and bound all her movable joints. Then, she sealed the hole at the back of Walter's neck. Unfortunately, after she did this, the teenager's legless body was bounded so tightly that it looked extremely deformed, the body was twisted beyond anyone's imagination. But, at least, the Soul inside could not move.
After Lin Sanjiu tied the last knot, she turned to look behind her.
The people behind her were all dead but the Souls were wearing their bodies like body suits. Each of them looked visibly paler than before. They looked like they had been dealt a huge emotional blow, but none of them dare to move. After all, Lin Sanjiu's skeletal wings were now aimed at Soulsqn's forehead.
"Command them to remove their skins," Lin Sanjiu lifted Soulsqn off the ground. Her fingers were firm around Soulsqn's neck, "if you want to live."
Soulsqn could not talk as Lin Sanjiu was crushing her throat. However, just as Lin Sanjiu expected, the Souls, including AYU, started removing their skins. As Jade Zhang screamed, Lin Sanjiu lowered her head and a cold smile crept onto her lips, "Your species can communicate through thoughts?"
"No. No. It is only one-way," as Lin Sanjiu released her iron grip slightly, Soulsqn struggled to reply, "I can send them messages but they can't reply...:"
"What is your total population?"
Hesitating, Soulsqn replied reluctantly, "1124 Souls."
That number was much higher than what Lin Sanjiu expected. She was stunned for a moment before she immediately laughed, "There are only nine here. Where are the rest?"
This time Soulsqn remained silent for a longer time. "They are scattered everywhere, they're preparing nests and gathering resources." she hissed only when Jade came stumbling and running toward Lin Sanjiu.
Lin Sanjiu nodded. No one knew what she was thinking. She crooked her head and looked at Soulsqn for a while. Suddenly, she pointed at all the grubs which were staring at her from the ground, "I remembered you people told me that AYU is a carrier. What does that mean?'
"In our community, each member have their own roles. AYU's specialized role is to transport our companions… She can store more than Souls in their primitive state. After we found a suitable vessel, she can release these Souls from her body…"
"So, this is how that works."
Lin Sanjiu narrowed her eyes and took quite some effort to differentiate AYU from the rest of the Souls. After thinking for a while, she suddenly beamed with glimmering eyes, "If that is the case, I want you to get your kinspeople to return to AYU's body. Then, she can put her human skin back on. Um, be quick. I can already see an airship flying toward us."
"It can't be done," Soulsqn immediately replied with a muted voice, "They are not in their primitive states."
However, Lin Sanjiu wasn't a considerate person when dealing with this Souls.
As she gripped Soulsqn tightly, she swung her other empty hand. A card shot out. The targetted grub twisted its body violently and thought that it had dodged the card. All of a sudden, Lin Sanjiu's [Vibroblade appeared in mid-air and ground it into pieces. The rocky ground was covered by its grounded flesh and sticky mucus.
"Even though I want to bring you along with me, I don't want those things to board the airship with me." It was obvious that Lin Sanjiu had already made a decision. "If you can't make it work, I'll help you think of a way to solve this." Lin Sanjiu enunciated each word clearly.
From what it seems, the information about them reducing in numbers once any one of them die was true. Even though the Souls were unwillingly to act according to Lin Sanjiu's will, they bore themselves into AYU's body with much difficulty after Soulsqn gave them a command.
After witnessing that, Lin Sanjiu did not want to ever think back on that disgusting sight.
When everything had ended, there was only a deformed "pregnant woman" standing on a ground covered with human skins.
Initially, Lin Sanjiu's plan was to burn all these remains with a fire. However, the airship was getting closer. The islet was also very damp so Lin Sanjiu knew it was going to be difficult to get a fire going. In the end, she decisively converted them all into cards though she found it rather disturbing. Then, she placed the cards into her pocket.
As this played out, Jade's face remained ghastly pale. She looked as if she was about to vomit any second. Even after some time on the airship, her forehead was still covered in cold sweat.
The gray sky outside was gradually turning dark, becoming a navy blue.
Lin Sanjiu, who had been ignoring Soulsqn and appeared deep in her own thoughts, shot a glance at Jade Zhang and suddenly spoke, "Oh, I haven't asked you something… How did you survive?"
The latter shuddered and touched her own chubby face.
"This all boils down to fate. Walter might have survived… sigh. Anyway, I just happened to be in the right place at the right time. When that thing," she pointed at AYU, "walked out of Area R, Walter and I were worried that she would find you so we wanted to go out and have a look. Considering that we are both women, he finally let me go out to check first… I survived because I left at that juncture."
"After I went to the corridor, following that gross thing, I suddenly decided to read Walter randomly." After she said that, Jade's voice grew sharper by a few keys, "His result was 'this is a dead body'. It's true. He looked the same but he was already a dead body. I was shocked. I rushed back to Area R… No one was awake. They were all on the ground. I don't know if they were unconscious or if they were dead… other than those two men.
"They stared at me. My legs gave way under me. If I didn't have this, they would have got me." Jade pulled out a pendant. It looked like a tacky jade buddha pendant. It looked like the sort of cheapskate necklace that sold three for ten dollars, it didn't look like it had any unusual properties.
[A $5000 Lesson]
When you were on a travel tour, they brought you to a jade store. Somehow, you spent $5000 and bought this Buddha pendant made from scrap material on impulse. Yet, your monthly salary was only $3000. Ever since then, this bloody lesson had never left your neck, because you have this, you can also retain your rationality.
Effect: Calms the user's nerves, reduce emotional blows, prevent fainting.
"I see…" Lin Sanjiu was enlighted. The Souls probably didn't expect that someone would have a Special Item that could keep them awake. Consequently, Jade Zhang managed to hoodwink them for some time. Unfortunately, she couldn't hide from Soulsqn.
Jade sighed and stuffed her pendant back. She couldn't help looking at the two Souls again. "Unfortunately, this thing can't prevent me from seeing hallucinations… That so-called queen, how did you defeat her? Can't she create reality?"
Lin Sanjiu scoffed lightly.
"Since we are on this topic, I really have to praise her. That reality… from a certain perspective, you could consider it real," as she spoke, Lin Sanjiu secretly moderated her higher consciousness. Ever since she caught Soulsqn, she had already moved the thread of higher consciousness on AYU to another person. Lin Sanjiu pulled the black leather rope in her hand as if she was tugging a dog, "Come, since it's your ability. Why don't you explain it to her?"
Soulsqn lowered her head in silence for a moment.
"Descartes…" After a second, she suddenly said a name without any context. It startled both humans. "Have you heard of him? I think therefore I am. This is the basis of our species existence. It is also the source of my ability... What you believe exist, exists, and what you believe doesn't exist, doesn't. What you can perceive exists and what you can't perceive, doesn't."
In other words, from an observer's perspective, the "reality" that Soulsqn created did not exist, but Lin Sanjiu could perceive and experience as a fact, and even her higher consciousness perceived the "created reality" as a fact. As a result, the "created reality" was a unique reality that factually applied to Lin Sanjiu and was not merely a hallucination. If the Souls weren't a "doomsday element", Lin Sanjiu really didn't know how to win that fight.
Jade Zhang thought for a long time, with her mouth gaping wide. Then, she mumbled, "Ide- Idealism. Even idealism can become a weapon?"
Lin Sanjiu was stumped by her question. She never even considered this point. However, this wasn't the question that Jade wanted to ask most.
Even though she wasn't sure if Lin Sanjiu would answer her, she couldn't curb her curiosity. "And, why don't you kill them? Why are you bring them along with you?" she asked cautiously.
A sudden hint of cheerfulness appeared in Lin Sanjiu's amber eyes. She adjusted the angle of her skeletal wings behind the armchair. She crossed her long legs together and slowly replied, "Because, I have an enemy that does something totally opposite of them."