Chapter 132: The Captured Boy
The damp, rotten smell was pungent and hard to bear, a taste indescribable, known only to those like Yu Lianyun who had seen floating corpses soaked in water for weeks, just how nauseating it truly was.
Yu Lianyun stepped into the underground, as if entering a damp, cold deep-sea prison, the chill felt by her body temperature paling compared to the dread in her mind.
Yu Lianyun did not walk slowly; she noticed the footprints on the ground were very steady, without any sense of urgency, knowing full well that this place was temporarily safe.
Soon, she discovered a light source in the dim underground spiral staircase: those unidentified green lights crawling over the walls emitted a deep glow, dimly illuminating the path ahead.
“These green lights… could they be the anomaly ‘Fluorescent Phantom’ recorded in the database?” Yu Lianyun was somewhat surprised to see this anomaly that the Mysterious Group thought had gone extinct, and she gradually became vigilant.
The Fluorescent Phantom was an anomaly with relatively low harm to humans; as long as one did not gaze at them for prolonged periods, there was no danger—they could sense the line of sight staring at them and would instinctively initiate predation against the observer.
Although the Fluorescent Phantom was not a dangerous anomaly, Yu Lianyun clearly remembered that where Fluorescent Phantoms appeared, a Fluorescent Phantom Nest would be nearby.
Notably, this Fluorescent Phantom Nest did not merely refer to the lair of Fluorescent Phantoms; the lair itself was also a living being!
The Fluorescent Phantom Nest was an anomalous lifeform with considerable individual wisdom; it could generate Fluorescent Phantoms and control them. Though the Fluorescent Phantom Nest itself was not an aggressively anomalous being, its danger level was not low—the result of angering it was absolute death with no way out.
“Could the Fluorescent Phantoms here be kin of the Sea Monster?” Yu Lianyun couldn’t help but guess, “Or is this part of the seal on the Sea Monster?”
Midway through, a sense of earth-shaking turmoil hit, the underground wails of myriad ghosts rushing forth with a gust of mad wind, blowing Yu Lianyun’s hair back wildly, her body going limp uncontrollably; she steadied herself against the wall to barely avoid falling.
At the same time, Yu Lianyun noticed that this turmoil had changed the direction of the Fluorescent Phantoms on the walls; there was an elliptical patch of Fluorescent Phantom area on the wall where they all crowded into other crevices, opening up a deep passage.
Yu Lianyun had not originally planned to explore it; mainly, the darkness inside the passage was accompanied by a biting cold temperature, giving her an extremely bad premonition, fearing she might enter but never return.
She always remembered the teachings of the previous Tiger Squad Captain He Jia’an: if it was not something that absolutely had to be done, do not casually contact things one did not understand.
However, after putting on her night vision goggles again, she discovered at the entrance of the passage a fallen page from a sexy photo magazine of some female star, with such pages extending everywhere inside; at the same time, Yu Lianyun wasn’t sure if it was her illusion, but her keen “inspiration antenna” made her sense some kind of plea for help.
And right after, the two Blessing Incarnations that had shadowed her closely, Yao Zhenzhen and Father, crawled out from her shadow, as if scenting delicious food, unhesitatingly crawling into the passage, emitting low, excited sounds from their mouths.
As a Mystic Investigator with a conscience bottom line, Yu Lianyun could not just leave; she had to go in and check—if she hadn’t misheard, there really might be someone pleading for help.
Saving a life is better than building a seven-story pagoda; Yu Lianyun followed the two excited Blessing Incarnations and ran into the passage.
The passage was not as deep as she thought, just a short distance of about twenty meters; she ran a few steps and soon saw the exit.
Stepping out of the exit, Yu Lianyun found herself in a sealed stone chamber, littered with corpses inside, along with a few ocean creatures and humans barely surviving.
Those ocean creatures, with their shattered bodies full of bite wounds, emitted wails; the humans on the verge of death were breathing rapidly. They all noticed someone had entered, but not everyone could see her.
Yu Lianyun looked at those pitiable dying lives; though her heart was unwilling, she resisted the urge to send them to bliss right away—one, because her ammo was limited; two, because she had no other long weapons on her. These corpses and dying bodies that had contacted anomaly factors might harbor unimaginable dangers and could not be approached lightly.
“Is this a canteen, a food reserve, or a prison?” Yu Lianyun guessed this was also a Merman activity area, as she saw traces of Merman activity here.
“Save… save…” Suddenly, Yu Lianyun heard a faint human voice, sounding very youthful, like that of a boy not yet grown up.
She hurried toward the sound and saw in a corner of the stone chamber a boy around ten years old suspended by hooks, his eyelids flipped back, unconsciously crying for help.
“Dead or alive.” Still, Yu Lianyun upheld her principle of not contacting lightly; she rescued the boy hanging in mid-air, shooting the suspending iron chain with a bullet.
Hurrying to the boy’s side, she flipped his body over to the back, her brows furrowing instantly; those barbs like eagle claws had pierced deeply through the boy’s collarbones, seemingly breaking several ribs by visual estimate.
Yu Lianyun gritted her teeth and removed those dangerous barbs for the boy, quickly performing first-aid treatment.
At this moment, she realized once again that those anomalous beings lacked human moral concepts; even if some individuals were transformed from humans, they had no mercy for young or weak human individuals.
“When the main force arrives, we must kill this damned bunch.” Yu Lianyun thought to herself.
For anomalies that humans could handle, the Mysterious Group always prioritized “kill”; for those that could not be handled, like higher kin under abnormal gods or the abnormal gods themselves, the Mysterious Group would only then choose other measures like “containment,” “isolation,” or “seal.”
Yu Lianyun checked the boy’s body again, confirming no other risk factors before hoisting him onto her back, preparing to move together with him.
Urgh—
Yao Zhenzhen and Father circled her and the boy on her back like a lion pride ready to attack prey at any moment, lurking menacingly.
“These can’t be eaten… Eat them instead; if possible, give them a quick end.” How could Yu Lianyun not see that these two were eyeing the boy’s tender meat? She had a flash of inspiration and let them attack those half-dead animals and humans.
The animals and humans here were mostly captured by the Mermen; among the humans were mostly those from the Liuhua Port disappearance case who failed to transform into Mermen—they were food or toys for the Mermen.
Hearing Yu Lianyun’s words, the two Blessing Incarnations did not insist, instead pouncing on those dying bodies, ending their lives with terrifyingly brutal but efficient methods; they then opened their mouths wide, drawing faint blue glows from the dying bodies and sucking them in.
Yu Lianyun didn’t know what those things were—perhaps souls or something like that.
She then glanced at the boy unconscious on her shoulder, a strange glint in her eyes, suddenly realizing something odd.
If the humans captured here all suffered from Mermaid Disease and were failed human transformations into Mermen, then what was the situation with the boy on her back? Yu Lianyun clearly remembered that when she checked the boy’s whole body earlier, she found no traces of Mermaid Disease onset, nor any places torn or bitten—meaning this innocent boy was a normal human who miraculously hadn’t been eaten as food.
“Could capturing him have another purpose?” Yu Lianyun thought, recalling the Merman ritual she had heard about from Drake and the others via mobile phone in the car earlier.
The meteor shower night soon to come would be the resurrection period of the Sea God of Anhai; accordingly, believers of the Sea God of Anhai and their kin would hold a return ritual for Him.
Since it involved an abnormal god’s ritual, it naturally would not lack so-called sacrifices and such.
This tender-skinned boy was not just a delicious premium food sacrifice?
Carrying the injured boy out of the passage, Yu Lianyun suddenly felt a vibration underfoot; excited strange roaring sounds came from the spiral corridor above.
It was the Mermen—they had chased after!
With no other choice, Yu Lianyun could only grit her teeth and charge downward until reaching a place where the Mermen dared not follow—and the only such place was the activity range of the sealed Sea Monster.
But this was merely jumping from one pit to another, from being “eaten by wolves” to being “eaten by tigers.”
“Where the hell did those two bastards run off to?” Yu Lianyun ran down the stairs carrying the person, cursing inwardly; she had been going long enough but still hadn’t seen Drake or Li Nuowei.
And just then, before she could run a few more steps down, two disheveled figures rushed before her, panting heavily; each held strange things—one with a somewhat prestigious-looking small dagger and a green-glowing suspicious spherical unidentified object, the other with a ridiculously opulent heavy great sword.
“Drake, Li Nuowei?” Yu Lianyun recognized their appearances and called their names.
Hearing the familiar voice, Drake and Li Nuowei looked up, noticing the woman who had suddenly appeared here.
Drake glanced at the boy on Yu Lianyun’s back and said in surprise, “He’s still alive? So he’s here?”
“What do you mean ‘still alive’?” Yu Lianyun frowned tightly, pointing at the boy on her back. “You know him?”
“I know him.” Drake nodded. “If not for him, I might not have noticed this place.”
Yu Lianyun nodded, not dwelling on it, and said, “Now below is the sealed Sea Monster, above are the mad Merman pursuers—how do you think we should run?”
“How did you lead the Mermen down here?” Li Nuowei stared in shock, his eyes wide; he had barely managed with Drake to perfectly evade the Mermen’s pursuit this time, successfully rushing straight here, yet Yu Lianyun had actually enraged the Mermen to this extent.
Yu Lianyun silently glanced at the shadow under her feet and sighed, “…That’s a long story.”
Drake’s mouth twitched; he thumbed behind him and explained, “The guys back there are raging because we stole their treasure—if we go back and get spotted, we’re dead.”
Yu Lianyun facepalmed—the trouble these two had stirred was no less than hers.
Then, Yu Lianyun saw the green light gemstone in Drake’s hand. “This? This isn’t a Fluorescent Phantom Nest?”
“You know this thing?” Drake raised the green light gemstone in surprise, holding it before Yu Lianyun, saying, “This thing is miraculous—highly effective against Mermaid Disease. With it, no need to fear contamination by the Sea God of Anhai’s curse anymore.”
“No, this thing is alive and very dangerous!” Yu Lianyun firmly rejected Drake’s idea. Though his idea was good and surprisingly somewhat successful, considering the huge risks involved, she could not agree; she then explained the Fluorescent Phantom Nest matter.
Hearing that the Fluorescent Phantom Nest was indeed the birthplace hive of those green light lives, Drake and Li Nuowei were stunned.
But just a few seconds after refusing, Yu Lianyun suddenly had an idea. “I just had a great idea—Drake, you carry this child, then give me the Fluorescent Phantom Nest.”
Drake nodded, then swapped with Yu Lianyun; he took responsibility for carrying the boy, while she received the seemingly very docile Fluorescent Phantom Nest.
“We’ll head back and take a gamble. Since this thing can cure Mermaid Disease, suppressing that group of Mermen should be no problem. We can emerge while the Mermen are suppressed and finish them off, slaughtering them all,” Yu Lianyun said fiercely.
Drake and Li Nuowei exchanged a glance and decided to follow Yu Lianyun’s instructions.
During the run back, the three heard dense footsteps coming from above.
After a moment, they finally came face to face with the Merman horde.
For Yu Lianyun and the others, now with no choice, as long as they held weapons capable of killing anomalous beings, they could directly confront with violence.
At this moment, danger was close at hand.
Yu Lianyun immediately fired three shots, each hitting, though not all precisely on the heads—most struck the Mermen’s bodies.
Bang bang bang!
The shot Mermen immediately fell.
Drake, carrying the unconscious boy, hid behind the two, aiming to protect themselves while not causing trouble.
Li Nuowei raised the silver steel great sword, facing the swarming Mermen with a grave expression, waiting for targets Yu Lianyun’s gunfire couldn’t kill to approach before swinging the great sword down, hacking the stragglers to the ground.
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