下載應用程式
48.14% Days as a Spiritual Mentor in American Comics / Chapter 2065: Chapter 1389: Calling of the Stars (XV)_2

章節 2065: Chapter 1389: Calling of the Stars (XV)_2

"I believe that the key to unraveling your strange condition lies in uncovering the truth," Jarvis analyzed rationally. "Odd things had assaulted your minds. There must be a way to counteract these attacks."

"I have searched our databank for information about all mutants and superpower users, including Professor X, who possess psychic abilities. I found no techniques for constructing mental barriers," he added.

"This isn't an attack," said the Scarlet Witch, who had shrouded her hollow eyes with a piece of cloth, as she tightly gripped Jarvis's hand, "I find it hard to explain, but I don't think I've been attacked."

"On the contrary," Riley's slightly raspy voice entered the discussion, "Facing the truth head-on is exactly what got us into this state."

Xu Shang-Chi hadn't forgotten the central theme of his proposal. He said, "Sitting here debating our course of action won't do us any good. Either way, the night will fall. I noticed some strange slime traces on the first floor of the bar yesterday during the day. I think we should go investigate, perhaps it could hint at what happened here..."

He didn't wait for a response from the others before he turned around and started to move. Jarvis looked at Riley and Wanda, both of whom had partially lost their mobility. The group then proceeded together to the first floor of the bar.

The ground floor of the bar reeked horribly. The complex structure of the human body emits a complex and severe stench when it decays. Xu Shang-Chi covered his nose with his sleeve and stooped down to look for the traces he had noticed the day before.

Many people perceive fear as a continuous emotional state and think that being thrown into a horrific situation would incite constant terror, preventing them from doing anything.

In reality, however, the human brain has its own protective mechanism. After intense emotional experiences, an extreme sense of fatigue sets in. This fatigue isn't meant to incapacitate humans. Instead, it prompts a temporary shutdown of the brain, allowing the instinct to take control and maintain functional abilities, hence increasing the chances of survival.

After multiple frightful encounters, this period of exhaustion lengthens, usually resulting in a state of numbness. No matter what terrifying sights or unthinkably horrid scenery they might encounter, their responses would be considerably muted.

Xu Shang-Chi is not immune to fear or repulsion from the corpselike bodies. He is also not able to bear the stench. It's just that his brain, like those of most humans, is numb to these realities, forcing him to come to terms with them.

Luckily, this state of numbness helps him overcome most of his physical discomfort. It also allows him to remain calm and approach things logically.

"These monsters crawled out of human bodies," Xu Shang-Chi revealed, drawing on the scant evidence left on the walls, "They drilled their way out of various parts of the humans, consumed some part of the bodies, and then left in a hurry."

Jarvis too looked around. His scanning functions confirmed that Xu Shang-Chi was right; there were too many outwardly stretching stains of slime.

Despite bouts of fear, Xu Shang-Chi endeavored to recall his previous encounters with the monsters. The one that held aloft the lower body of a woman didn't seem to regard the human body it had devoured as a part of itself.

Every creature has instincts to shrug off burdens. For that particular monster, the human body was more of a burden than a benefit, thus making it something to discard. But it didn't get rid of it, which indicates that it's not that it didn't want to discard it, but more likely that it couldn't.

"The incubation failed," Xu Shang-Chi murmured a few words. He furrowed his brow in contemplation and then explained, "If monsters are hatched from within human bodies, then their bodies should no longer bear traces of the shells that provided nourishment at the start."

"The two monsters we encountered could have been failures, unable to break free of the shells during incubation. These bodies could just be shells discarded by the successful ones."

Xu Shang-Chi had to supress his revulsion and instead, took a more objective, even cold and stoic, view of the issue, describing his fellow humans as inanimate matter.

But his conscience told him that once upon a time, these were living individuals who might have danced joyfully in this bar, only to be ruthlessly devoured by these monstrosities the next instant.

The circumstances compelled him to remain rational, although his morale took a huge blow. Xu Shang-Chi took a deep breath and chanted the Clear Heart Mantra several times in his heart. However, by the final round, he found himself chanting aloud, as if the sound could provide some comfort.

The others couldn't understand Chinese, they thought he was praying. But after Xu Shang-Chi regained his composure, he said, "If the monsters that failed to fully incubate are still out on the streets, where then are the ones who successfully hatched? I think that's potentially the crux here."

"We can't just sit here and wait for darkness to befall us, regardless of whether there's any truth up ahead, we must press on. Let's go."

Xu Shang-Chi turned towards the exit, with the other three trailing behind him. Though he lacked strong investigative abilities, luckily for them, the numerous slime trails on the street and scarce number of monsters provided ample space for further investigation.

As they followed the trail to the end of the alley, repeatedly stopping to check the traces' direction to ensure they were not led astray, they ran out of time. They had not yet managed to cover a few kilometers before daylight began to fade.


next chapter

章節 2066: Chapter 1389: Calling of the Stars (XV)_3

"Let's find a place to rest," Xu Shang-Chi said, exhaling. The existence of his energy made his body far from tired, but his spirit was exhausted to the extreme.

Studying that sticky substance was definitely not easy. Ultimately, Xu Shang-Chi had the impression that it had crawled up his body, making him feel completely sticky. Combined with the corpses and the stench in the street, Xu had an increasing urge to vomit.

Caressing his chest and continuously pressing his hand downward to soothe himself, he always felt as though something was about to surge upward. He thought it was his stomach disease playing up, a feeling of nausea, hence he kept swallowing his saliva.

During their journey, they found a few weapons. Most of them were cold weapons, because the guns they were able to find were basically out of bullets.

Riley, who was robust, took a fireman's axe. Jarvis, with his automatic aiming program, took a harpoon gun. Xu Shang-Chi selected a fruit knife from a shop, which he found most comfortable to use.

In the end, they decided to rest in a relatively clean civilian house. It seemed as though the owner had left beforehand. The house had not been ravaged by monsters; the bedding and daily necessities were available, making it a good place for a temporary rest.

However, they didn't plan on sleeping in separate rooms. Instead, they planned on sleeping together in the living room. Xu Shang-Chi flung his body onto the soft sofa and let out a long awaited sigh.

He was so tired yet unable to sleep. He could always hear his own heartbeat, "thump, thump, thump…."

The more he listened, the more annoyed Xu Shang-Chi became. He was forced to sit up from the sofa, took a few deep breaths, and started to recite his Clear Heart Mantra.

Throughout the day when he was investigating, he had recited the Clear Heart Mantra countless times to deal with the nauseating scenes. Now reciting it again, it felt incredibly smooth and fluent.

But the moment he opened his mouth to recite the first sentence, Wanda who was sitting on the opposite sofa and had just unlaced the cloth from her eyes, suddenly lifted her head.

Those eyes, now only two black holes, stared directly at Xu Shang-Chi. As he looked back at her, Wanda said in surprise,

"What you recited just now was... different from what you did during the day…."

Xu Shang-Chi was taken aback.

"I …" Just after Xu Shang-Chi uttered the first syllable, he froze, and then his expression changed to one of extreme horror.

He realized that he was not speaking Chinese, nor any other language he understood.

At that moment, Riley, who was sitting on a side sofa, suddenly turned his head towards Xu Shang-Chi. Their eyes met.

There was a sudden sadness in Riley's eyes. With tearful eyes, he turned towards Xu Shang-Chi and said,

"I just heard you talk."

Tremors began to run through Xu Shang-Chi's face, which soon spread throughout his body. His urge to vomit grew stronger.

But when his throat tightened, and a sour taste spread up his esophagus, it was not food that burst out but a sequence of a language he had never heard before.

The terrifying gibberish filled the room in an instant, Riley, in agony, covered his ears, falling to the ground and letting out a horrific scream. The Scarlet Witch began panting heavily, as if something was choking her.

Xu Shang-Chi made every effort to cover his mouth, but his stomach felt like it was being squeezed by a giant hand, pushing out the mysterious and ancient language. Desperate, Xu banged his head on the coffee table, but the pain did nothing to clear his senses.

Through tear-blurred vision, Xu Shang-Chi watched as the last rays of the sunset faded through the curtains in the house, heralding the arrival of night.

The terrified screams of Wanda and Riley echoed around the room, their agonized faces imprinted in Xu's eyes.

They were his favorite characters, around whom he'd spent countless hours engaged with their on-screen stories, moved to tears time and time again.

Not even Thanos had tormented Spider-Man this much.

The moment this thought appeared in his mind, a boundless rage scorched through his soul.

The last thread of sanity snapped in Xu's mind. He dove towards the sofa, trembling as he searched the gap where he'd left the fruit knife.

An expression of fear beneath trembling lips, the sharp knife reflecting desperate eyes.

In an instant, blood splattered everywhere. A severe nerve reflex rendered a severed tongue twitching on the ground, like a fish thrown ashore.

In the silent aftermath of the whispering, Xu Shang-Chi, his mouth filled with blood for the first time, noticed the pungent smell of blood lingering between his lips and nostrils.

Then he discovered that he didn't detest the taste of blood after all. In fact, after losing his sense of taste, he could distinguish a hint of sweetness.

Xu Shang-Chi draped himself weakly over the coffee table, straining to lift his head and swallow what should have been vomit, the taste of blood. The tears blurring his vision stopped flowing, allowing him to gaze through the gap in the curtains at the stars high up in the night sky.

Amidst his gasping breaths, Xu Shang-Chi realized that it wasn't the taste of blood that was sweet, but the taste of victory.

In the darkness of the room, a trembling quill wrote down a sentence in a black notebook—

"If I'm writing about the apocalypse, I can't just write about the apocalypse. I have to write about the idiots who bumbled their way into surviving, the smart ones whose strategies were countered at the last move, and the good people who were forced into madness, along with selfless villains.

I have to write about the inherently great heroes singing praises of courage, but also about the ordinary people, as insignificant as dust, who, despite their despair and bloodshed, find it bittersweet."


Load failed, please RETRY

禮物

禮品 -- 收到的禮物

    每周推薦票狀態

    批量訂閱

    目錄

    顯示選項

    背景

    EoMt的

    大小

    章評

    寫檢討 閱讀狀態: C2065
    無法發佈。請再試一次
    • 翻譯品質
    • 更新的穩定性
    • 故事發展
    • 人物形象設計
    • 世界背景

    總分 0.0

    評論發佈成功! 閱讀更多評論
    用推薦票投票
    Rank NO.1 推薦票榜
    Stone 38 推薦票
    舉報不當內容
    錯誤提示

    舉報暴力內容

    段落註釋

    登錄

    tip 段落評論

    段落註釋功能現已上線!將滑鼠移到任何段落上,然後按下圖示以添加您的評論。

    此外,您可以隨時在「設置」 中將其關閉/ 打開。

    明白了