How to Feed an Abyss!

Chapter 38.2 – Restlessness

Lu Tinghan went to the study.

Turning on the light, he sat in front of the desk. The report on the terminal showed that the monster was extremely restless tonight, and the infection values of Abyss No.3, No.5, and No.6 soared to a new high in 50 years, and their watchers were already preparing for emergency evacuation. Su Enqi commanded the main city troops, reinforcing the defense line overnight, and again notified the residents to be ready to take refuge.

It was a chaotic night, both inside and outside the city.

The situation in Gleaning City and Fengyang City was much better. Lu Tinghan held a video conference with his subordinates.

It was early in the morning after the meeting, the infection value had risen by two more levels, and thousands of monsters were on a rampage.

He walked out of the study.

The living room was quiet and dark. Shi Yuan should have gone to bed early, but Lu Tinghan stopped abruptly.

Just as he had been able to find Shi Yuan every time before, he shouted at the darkness: “Shi Yuan.”

There was no movement.

Lu Tinghan: “Shi Yuan.”

This time there was a rustle, the scales rubbed against the carpet. He had heard it many times – when Shi Yuan was reading a book by his side, his tail dangled on the ground and swayed gently, it was this kind of sound.

Sure enough, Shi Yuan was in the living room.

Lu Tinghan went downstairs: “Why haven’t you slept yet?”

Shi Yuan sat up, grabbed the edge of the sofa, and his tone was very sleepy: “Huh? Touch my head…”

Drunk, drugged, so sleepy that he staggered, but still wanted to be touched, only Shi Yuan could do it.

Lu Tinghan said, “Go to sleep quickly, don’t think about anything else.” He said that, but he walked over and touched Shi Yuan’s head.

But this time, Shi Yuan didn’t purr in satisfaction.

He turned his head sideways, rubbed Tinghan’s hand, and responded enthusiastically. His skin was very hot, as if something was burning inside and would not go out.

After his eyes adjusted to the darkness, Lu Tinghan saw him clearly.

Shi Yuan’s eyes were darker than before, and the black scales at the end of his right eye spread to the side of his face. At first glance, his eyes looked like an abyss, and his skin was extremely white. The black and white were so distinct that it could make people’s hearts skip a beat.

This was not a sense of morbidity. Shi Yuan had never made people feel sick and weak. To make an analogy, he was the kind of soft and energetic creature, timid, caring, and easy to feed.

This was a kind of eerie, grotesque sense of beauty.

It was like soldiers patrolling in the forest, attracted by a bright flower, and couldn’t help but reach out to pick it, but they were torn and eaten until there were no bones left. And they were all smiling before they died, because they got that enchanting flower.

Lu Tinghan paused: “What’s wrong? If you are still uncomfortable, I’ll call a doctor for you.”

“I’m fine, it’s just that it’s too noisy outside, it’s making me dizzy.” Shi Yuan shook his head, as if to shake the sound out of his head. “I, I want to tell you about that matter – I said I would tell you when you came back.”

He clutched his shirt pocket tightly.

The black crystal’s edges hurt his palm, and he didn’t know if it had cut his skin.

But, it’s midnight now, and it’s so quiet outside that you can even hear a needle drop. How could it be noisy?

Lu Tinghan looked at him and said, “Shi Yuan, are you really okay? You look…a bit different.” He looked at Shi Yuan carefully. “What did you hear? There is no sound outside.”

“Hmm? You can’t hear it?” Shi Yuan asked. “It’s a very messy sound, there is everything, so noisy that I can’t think about things at all.”

Lu Tinghan: “…” He pinched Shi Yuan’s shoulder and said seriously, “You are in the wrong state now. What did you hear? Tell me.”

Shi Yuan shook his head again, trying to drive the sound out, but to no avail. He frowned and said, “It’s the sound of insect wings…”

He paused.

His confused brain cleared a bit, and he realized with a jolt that the sound of wings was the same sound that had appeared several times in his dreams!

There were a thousand strange sounds tonight, unknown screams, silver bell-like songs, and the rustling sound of hordes of creatures as they swarmed. He heard the fallen leaves outside the city kissing the earth, the petals blooming enthusiastically, the wind sweeping across every feather of the infected birds, the giant wolf gnawing on the bones, leopard cats with six eyes in heat, collapsing and purring, hoarse and charming… many loud noises, all rushed to him.

The infection value soared, and the effects of the medicine made his mind dizzy, he did not realize for a moment that the noise came from the monsters.

—He also told Lu Tinghan.

What kind of person is Lu Tinghan? He’s so perceptive and alert.

Others might treat that as nonsense, but for him, it was enough of a blunder. It was like burying a seed, even if it couldn’t be seen today, it would take root and germinate in the future, and grow in a flash.

Lu Tinghan lowered his eyes to look at him and said, “I’m going to call a doctor.”

“No.” Shi Yuan took his hand. “No need to call a doctor, I just, I just…I want to…”

The voice in his mind was deafening, breeding a certain commotion, which tickled his heart unbearably.

His heart was beating very fast.

His blood was tense.

“What do you want to do?” Lu Tinghan asked.

—I want to tell you that I am actually a monster.

I am Abyss No.0, from the wasteland.

I came here to find you.

Shi Yuan opened his mouth, but nothing came out.

The sound of insects fluttering their wings was too loud, flooding the whole world. In a trance, he returned to the stage in his dream. A monster was watching him, and the sound was getting closer and closer.

It was like… sending a message to him.

It was trying to tell him something.

It tried desperately to tell him… it wanted to warn him.

Shi Yuan shook his head vigorously, trying to get rid of it, but it made its words clear:

[Don’t tell him]

The monster said hoarsely.

[Don’t tell him]

[We are on the same side, you will always be on the same side as us, and you can’t save them]

[It will never be possible]

“Shi Yuan? Shi Yuan!” It seemed to be Lu Tinghan calling him.

The giant wolf stopped eating, turned to look at him, and licked its scarlet teeth; the flock of birds stopped flapping their wings, and fell in large swaths like a white mist, crashing into the ground. After dying, all the dark eyes looked at Shi Yuan.

It was as if Shi Yuan had dreamed of the day when the “Horn” died, their eyes were shining with light, fearful and fanatical.

They said: [Give us strength]

They said: [We will fight for you until the world ends and the stars die]

They said: [Until we…]

A huge shadow enveloped his heart. Shi Yuan held the butterfly crystal too hard, a few cuts were drawn in his palm, and blood oozed out.

—He suddenly remembered where the familiar sound of fluttering wings came from.

It was…

“Shi Yuan!”

There was a sudden touch on his forehead, Shi Yuan returned to his senses. Lu Tinghan’s forehead and his forehead were pressed together. His skin was burning hot, and the cool skin that was pressed against his made him tremble slightly.

A small sense of electric current rushed up his spine.

“Look at me,” Lu Tinghan said. “Look at me and take a deep breath.”

Shi Yuan’s eyes were blank and filled with water mist.

“Look at me,” Lu Tinghan pressed his head, with a rare eagerness in his tone, “You will be fine, the doctor will be here soon.”

Shi Yuan looked at Lu Tinghan fixedly.

The jagged black crystal shone with a demonic light, and the bright blue of the butterfly almost broke out.

None of them realized that the infection value in the air was rising. Outside the city, the wasteland was noisy, inside the house, the clamoring primal instinct was hard to resist.

No matter how you disguise it, a monster is still a monster.

Tonight was the monster’s carnival.

Shi Yuan licked his tiger teeth and said softly, “I want to…”

I want to infect you.

Just like fallen leaves returning to their roots, fate hanging down the curtain, everything would eventually usher in the end. Human beings had short life spans. If they became monsters, their genes would move from orderly to chaotic, and mutations would occur all the time, then they would not be limited by their lifespan.

It was almost eternal life, and there would be no more separation of life and death from now on.

‘The world is cruel, let us live together forever in the mud and bones.’

Shi Yuan grabbed Lu Tinghan’s shoulder, so hard that his fingertips almost dug into the flesh. The long tail scales rubbed in the darkness, emitting a metallic sound.

[Infect him]

His instinct was clamoring.

[Aren’t you the most afraid of loneliness? Infect him and he will be yours forever]

Shi Yuan didn’t take his eyes off and looked directly at Lu Tinghan, the tip of his tail swayed slightly. He suddenly buried his head and bit Lu Tinghan on the shoulder!

*

The convoy drove in the high forest, and Wolf Claw poked his head out to sniff the wind.

“Do you smell anything?” Antlers asked him.

“It’s all f*cking fishy bug smell,” Wolf Claw replied. “Are they crazy, or did we poke the bug nest?”

“Who knows?” Antlers wiped the shotgun in his hand. “Anyway, just kill a group if we see a group. I just wanted to try this.”

After ten minutes, the convoy stopped.

Antlers stood up and wanted to see what happened. Xing Yifeng’s voice came from the communication terminal: “Second team, get out of the car and go to the front of the convoy.”

Antlers and Wolf Claw looked at each other and got out of the car. The ground was covered with fallen leaves and insect corpses, like a weird carpet. Mutant insect species often did not live long and often died in large numbers. When their military boots stepped on them, the leaves and insect corpses crunched.

Before they reached the front of the convoy, they realized why it had stopped.

—There was a dried skin hanging between two huge trees.

The dried skin was black interwoven with yellow, dozens of meters high, hanging from the branches, fluttering in the wind.

The eerie black crystals reflect the light of the sky.

“…motherf*cker.” Wolf Paw murmured, “What kind of monster left this?”

Five researchers were taking samples, and Xing Yifeng stood guard with a gun.

The soldier with snake scales on his neck said, “This is left by the purple light bug. I’m sure of it.”

Wolf Claw asked, “That thing still sheds its skin?”

“Powerful creatures will shed their skin during the growth period because their size changes greatly,” Snake Scales replied, looking up at the dry skin. “But I have never seen such a big skin… It’s too exaggerated. It has to be the size of a hill.”

“We should never face it head-on, there will be no chance of winning,” Xing Yifeng said. “I have informed the command center of the situation, and they will guide the next route.”

“It’s really impossible to have a chance of winning.” Snake Scales looked at the dry skin intently, and the snake-like vertical pupils seemed to be staring at the prey. “However, what makes me puzzled is why there are a large number of scorch marks on this skin.”

“Maybe it was burned by fire,” Wolf Claw said.

“No, no, it’s not…” Snake Scales murmured. “The purple light bug is not afraid of fire. Both the empress bee and the queen bee tend to be warm. When burned by fire, the shell will turn dark, but it is impossible to cause burns. How do I think…” He hesitated for several seconds. “This looks like it was hit by the ‘rainbow sword’?”

“Rainbow Sword” was the Alliance’s space-based laser weapon, which had destroyed the southeast outpost and the rodent infection group that attacked the outpost.

“Hahaha, you’re kidding me!” Wolf Claw couldn’t hold it anymore and laughed out loud. “How can there be a creature that can survive that kind of attack? This is a god, right? What was the name of that special infected creature before? Oh, yes, it was called “Hot Hurricane’. It ate a “Rainbow Sword” head-on, and the flesh and blood were gone, leaving a quarter of the skeleton – this is powerful enough. If there is such a thing, it will be destroyed when it comes to the city.”

“That’s right.” Snake Scales pulled the corner of his mouth, showing an insincere smile. “It’s too impossible.”

“Absolutely impossible. So what is this? Is it the empress bee or queen bee of the purple light bug?” Wolf Claw asked.

He paused suddenly.

His hearing was sensitive, and he seemed to have heard…the fluttering of some kind of insect? But it was too fast and too light, making him think it was an illusion.

“Empress bee, you can see by looking at its wings, there are two more pairs than the queen bee.” Snake Scales pointed in the direction of the wings with the muzzle of his gun. “Look, right there.”

Wolf Claw looked in that direction, and before he could see clearly, there was a crunching sound in the forest. It was Antlers coming back and stepping on a pile of insect corpses.

“Why are you in such a hurry?” Wolf Claw asked. “Did you bump into that empress bee?”

Antlers ignored him, walked in front of everyone with a solemn expression, and opened his hand.

The thin chain hung down, and a metal plate was dangling in his hand. This was commonly known as a “dog tag” by Alliance soldiers, with each person’s name and number written on it. When there was no way for the fallen to return to the city, the soldiers would take their dog tags with them to signify the return of the spirits to their homes.

“We found a body,” Antlers said. “The body of a missing officer.”

The dog tag dangled, flashing a metallic light:

[Number: C29770

Lieutenant Xie Qianming]