Chapter 66. Pale Gray Mass

"Mr. Charles, let's leave quickly. I'm a bit scared of this thing," Lily muttered with her ears drooping as she shrunk back into Charles' pocket.

"Shhh."

Pop!

The motionless body suddenly stood upright and startled Lily to let out a shriek.

Tap, tap, tap, tap.

It turned and walked deeper into the hallway.

Charles pondered for a brief moment before following it. Regardless of what that thing was, it lived here, so it should know this place better than him. Perhaps he could find more clues by following it.

"Bro, do you think that thing had received some sort of blessing here?"

"I'm not sure. Judging from the ruins outside, this place has surely been forsaken for hundreds of years. If this thing was an ex-staff, how old would it be?"

"Who knows in the damned place? Maybe it traded its heart, liver, spleen, lung, kidney and everything else for longevity."

Just then, Charles sensed movement from the corner of his vision. He pointed the revolver in his hand in that direction. Unbeknownst to them, an elongated, white creature was inching its way across the corner. The snake-like creature ignored Charles' threat and slowly slid forward.

Charles carefully approached and used his Dark Blade to lift the creature up. The elongated creature was far more agile than the empty husk of a body. Its slender body rapidly darted away.

"Mr. Charles, it's getting away," Lily voiced out from within Charles' pocket.

Staring at the husk retreating further into the darkness, Charles hurriedly got up and followed the creature.

At the same time, his mind raced to identify the long creature. He was certain that no such creature existed on Earth. However, he also found the entity oddly familiar. Yet, the more he tried to think about it, the memory seemed to dance further out of his grasp.

As Charles ventured deeper into the hallway, the prevalence of roots began to dwindle. Following the body around a corner, Charles was greeted by a spacious, circular hall.

Observing the cracked, striped floor, Charles could only imagine the grandeur of this place at its peak. Strangely, there was no other furniture or decoration in the vast space. Not even a piece of trash. It was as if the former inhabitants had enlisted a moving company before their departure.

Charles followed the body through the hall when he suddenly stepped on something and slipped.

Wiping the thick layer of dust off with his hand, Charles stared at the rust-free metal plaque before him. It looked like some sign affixed to a door for identification. However, only the first half of it was visible, and the second half seemed to have been erased for some unknown reason.

"Grade E4 Subject Interaction—"

"Subject interaction? Were they experimenting with relics?" Another question added to the enigma in Charles' mind.

Thrown into a deeper mystery, Charles tossed the sign aside and stood up, wanting to leave. But the next moment, a chilling sight unfolded before him. The plaque discarded on the ground rose on its own.

Wobbling, it used its two sharp corners as its legs to move forward.

As the plague slowly inched forward, Charles hastened his steps after it. A mere object like a plaque couldn't scare him off.

As Charles ventured deeper, more and more items started to gather from the various linked hallways.

Amongst them, there were unidentifiable chunks of flesh, and also things that were supposedly non-living such as a wallet and a shoe.

The path they took was the same as the organless body. Watching them, Charles felt that these things were very much like pilgrims heading to their Holy Land.

They completely disregarded Charles; Charles didn't attack them either. For the time being, it was an oddly harmonious atmosphere.

However, the moment a pair of human lungs scuttled past Charles' feet, Charles slowed down.

A lightbulb suddenly lit up in his mind. He realized the identity of that elongated thing from earlier—a human's small intestine! All the pieces of the jigsaw puzzle finally came together. The empty body was organless because all its organs had escaped their confines.

Charles' body started trembling, but it wasn't from fear. He didn't know why his body was shaking by itself, but he couldn't make it stop.

Despite not sensing any immediate threat from his surroundings, his eight years of seafaring experience sounded the warning bells: This place was dangerous, leave immediately. However, he wasn't willing to retreat now.

Just then, all the animated objects in the distance entered a room. Faint voices echoed from within.

"Bro, we're already here. Let's just take

a

peek. Just one glance and we'll run. What if there's something valuable?"

Richard tempted Charles.

After a brief contemplation, Charles continued ahead.

Up to this point, the animated objects seemed to hold no hostility toward him. What if, just what if the entrance to the surface world lay within this facility?

Following the parade of organs into the room, the sight before Charles stunned him speechless.

The room was as huge as a football field, and a water tank took up two-thirds of this expanse. The animated items from the various places gathered in front of the tank and moved their bodies rhythmically as if performing some religious ritual.

Charles' gaze turned to the tank. A pale gray mass continuously trembled and expanded within its confines. Creeping, wriggling monstrosities split off from the mass and swiftly crawled out of the tank. Yet, whenever they were close to getting out, they were swiftly reabsorbed by the mass.

Gulp.

Charles swallowed dry saliva and slowly started to back away. No matter what that lump of mass was, the entrance to the surface world was definitely not in this place.

Suddenly, the gray mass in the tank congealed to form a human male head with a terrified expression. The head screamed at Charles in desperation, "Help me! Kill me, please. I'm in so much pain. I can't take it anymore."

Charles froze in his spot. He had anticipated many scenarios, but this was definitely not one of them.

"Bro, this thing looks dumb. Try to bamboozle him and see if you get any benefits."

However, Charles didn't share Richard's mindset. This place was totally out of his control, and staying here unsettled him.

The moment Charles tried to leave, Richard seized control of their mouth and questioned the unknown entity in the water tank.

"Who are you?"

The moment his words fell, the animated objects around the water tank instantly swiveled to face him. Their synchronized timing sent chills down Charles' spine.

"I can't take it anymore. It's so painful. Please! My body is melting. Pity me as a fellow human and end my suffering now!" the human head pleaded before it once again collapsed into a pale gray mass.