Volume 15 Gray Fog Forest Chapter 792: Embracing Death as a Human Being
"What...what happened? What changes have taken place in my body?"
Mo Jue felt that his thinking ability seemed to have stagnated for a moment... It seemed like a moment, but also like a long period of time.
In her field of vision, everything around her became incredibly slow. Just when she was so surprised that she wanted to call Ke Lan, a vague line of sight passed through countless spaces and times and projected onto her body and soul.
The pain like being struck by lightning suddenly woke Mo Jue from her trance. She was shocked to find that she could actually hear the "sounds" made by the corpses in front of her - not only could she hear them, she could also understand the meaning of those meaningless mumblings!
"Stop them... We cannot let the invaders disturb the sacrificial ceremony of the great god... Stop them..."
Although the lips of these corpses did not move from beginning to end, they kept repeating "this sentence".
"What's stopping it? What sacrificial ritual?"
Before Mo Jue's brain could react, a pair of sharp claws had already pierced her chest, tearing her entire chest cavity apart!
This was an injury that could kill a person instantly, but Mo Jue did not feel any impact on her body other than the pain... In fact, during her subconscious counterattack, the pair of sharp claws that pierced her chest were broken off at the root!
"Is this... my power?"
Mo Jue was shocked by his own actions - the claws that had just survived the resonance of three crystal energy bombs were actually broken by his own hands? !
"Have I... also become that kind of... 'monster'?" Mo Jue could not help but stand there in a daze. She lowered her head in disbelief and looked at the wound on her chest.
The wound had disappeared, and even the scar had completely vanished, but the originally wheat-colored skin had taken on a strange red color, as if burning magma was flowing beneath the skin.
"No!" Although she had been mentally prepared, when this moment really came, Mo Jue still couldn't accept this reality. She hugged her head, fell to her knees on the ground with a plop, and shook her head desperately.
"No...no...I don't want to become a monster..."
Two Erosion Skeletons rushed forward, one of them directly pierced Mo Jue's body with its arms that had transformed into bone blades, while the other Erosion Skeleton shot out hundreds of tentacles with hollow tube structures, which pierced into her body and frantically sucked her flesh and blood.
The immense pain from having her body tissues crushed and sucked instantly overwhelmed the last bit of Mo Jue's rationality. The strange red color instantly spread all over her body, and countless red spikes shot out from every corner of her body... She, who had originally maintained her human form, turned into a huge red "sea urchin" in the blink of an eye.
The bodies of the two Erosion Skeletons that were attacking her were immediately pierced into sieves by the spikes... This time, the roles of the absorber and the absorbed were completely reversed. The bodies of the two Erosion Skeletons shrank in just one second, leaving only a layer of hard skin wrapped around the skeletons. However, the spikes on the "sea urchin" that Mo Jue had transformed into became increasingly bright red.
Hundreds of tentacles extended from the gaps between the spikes, sweeping towards all movable objects in the bridge except Ke Lan. Every time these tentacles grabbed a corpse, they would drag it close to the "sea urchin" and penetrate and absorb it with the spikes.
Even Thirty-three, who had just arrived at the bridge, was nearly swept away by several tentacles attacking him. Fortunately, he first blocked them with a flying blade for a moment, then quickly pulled back a dozen steps, and retreated back to the outside of the bridge in one breath. He relied on Ze Luo's space shield to separate himself from the chasing tentacles.
Otherwise, he would have become a dried animal by now.
"What... is this?" Thirty-three stared at the tentacles that retreated in shock and asked Ze Luo, "Where are Ke Lan and Mo Jue? Are they still in there?"
"Yeah." Ze Luo nodded, then stepped forward.
"Wait!" Sanshisan wanted to reach out to pull Ze Luo, but found that a soft space barrier prevented his action. "Ke Lan sent me a text message at the last moment before the communication was cut off. He said that there is something in the bridge that can stop you, so you can't enter the bridge, and you can't use your power to interfere with it, so this will be a tough battle... If you go in now, is it okay?"
"Just now, the force field disappeared." Ze Luo said and stepped over the door frame of the airtight door.
With Ze Luo leading the way in front, Sanshisan was no longer afraid of the tentacles that almost caught him just now. He took a deep breath and followed immediately.
The two walked around the walls and came to an open area. Sanshisan was shocked by the scene in front of him: "What is that 'big thorn ball'? Were all the erosion corpses around it killed by it? Why didn't it attack Ke Lan?"
"She is Mo Jue." Ze Luo said softly.
"Mo Jue?!" Sanshisan was stunned for a moment, then quickly reacted, "Her erosion level has exceeded the critical value? Is this her...'Corrosion' state?"
Ze Luo nodded.
The "Erosion Corpse" that Mo Jue transformed into was very powerful. Even when facing enemies on the bridge that were more than ten times its number, it was able to completely crush them... Perhaps using the word "crushing" to describe the difference in strength between the two sides was not very accurate. This was a complete instant kill - from the time those tentacles stretched out from the gaps between the spikes to the time the last Erosion Corpse was dragged back and sucked dry, the entire battle process only took a short ten seconds.
Ke Lan finally succeeded in breaking through the firewall of the central control computer and regained control of the battleship by implanting a virus in it. The energy shield was instantly deployed, burning away all the vines entangled on the hull of the "Genoa".
A dilemma that was originally almost unsolvable was solved in the blink of an eye.
But neither Ke Lan nor Sanshisan were happy at all at this moment.
Although Ze Luo did not show any emotion, she just kept staring at the "sea urchin" that was the incarnation of Mo Jue with vigilance, but she did not take direct action, and she did not even impose the restrictive measures that should have been in place under normal circumstances on Mo Jue.
Everyone was silent, no one spoke.
After about ten seconds, those bright red spikes slowly retracted inwards... The huge "red sea urchin" disappeared, leaving only a woman covered in blood and with her skin torn into pieces standing there.
All the spikes that were over ten meters long were retracted into this body that was only about 1.7 meters tall and even looked a little thin and frail... From the perspective of Ke Lan and the others, it didn't seem like these spikes were retracted into Mo Jue's body, but rather melted into her flesh and blood...
The gaps left by the spikes on the skin healed in the blink of an eye, and even the tiny tentacles that had originally grown on Mo Jue's head retracted back under the skin. Now, she looked no different from a completely normal human being.
But everyone present knew that she would never be able to return to the way she was before entering the forest.
Mo Jue turned her head with some difficulty and looked towards Ke Lan - her cloudy eyes were full of bloodshot, and her pupils had already shown signs of dilation... She could no longer see anything at the moment, and she was only relying on her memory to find Ke Lan's location.
"I'm here." Ke Lan said, but Mo Jue's expression did not change at all - she had lost not only her vision, but also her hearing...
Mo Jue's terrifying power was not obtained for nothing... Ke Lan was very clear about "Him"'s rules. If she wanted power, she had to exchange it with something corresponding to her... Anything that could be used as a bargaining chip in "Him"'s concept could be used for exchange, whether it was life, body, soul... or emotions, memories and the like, and what Mo Jue used as a bargaining chip was her senses.
When she was picked up by the bone blade, the unbearable pain destroyed her consciousness. The last bit of clarity she had was to block out all the senses in her body... Perhaps, this was also a bit of mercy from "Him"?
Would He have mercy on humans, creatures that are like insects to Him?
Maybe.
When a person sees a dying insect struggling in pain, he or she might choose to help it get rid of its pain - this person probably does not have good intentions, nor does he or she think about the life and death or suffering of the insect. He or she might even forget about this casual act immediately after doing it... But no matter what, from the insect's perspective, this can indeed be regarded as a kind of "compassion."
"I'm here." Ke Lan walked forward and put his hand on Mo Jue's shoulder.
He was not worried that Mo Jue would attack him, and the sense of crisis in his subconscious did not appear.
Although Mo Jue had lost all her senses, she could still sense someone holding her shoulders. A look of relief appeared on her face, and her lips moved slightly.
She couldn't speak, and Ke Lan didn't read her lip movements...but Ke Lan knew what she wanted to say to him.
"I know." Ke Lan nodded, pulled out the pistol from his waist, and put the muzzle of the gun to Mo Jue's head.
"Good night, have a sweet dream." Ke Lan said silently, then pulled the trigger.
A sudden gunshot rang out in the silent bridge, and a fist-sized blood hole appeared behind Mo Jue's head. She fell straight back, and her lifeless body hit the ground, instantly exploding into a ball of blood mist, and then quickly evaporated.
“Not even a corpse was left…” Sanshisan murmured, “This is good… at least it’s clean.”
"She gave up that power on her own in the end... Her obsession was different from that of other Eclipses. She wanted to embrace death as a human, so she turned back to her original form in the end." Ze Luo said expressionlessly, "She got what she wanted."
"Embracing death in a human manner?" Thirty-three glanced at the three-no girl in surprise. "Did you learn this rhetoric from some literary book? It sounds... quite tragic."
"No, this is what I read before her last trace of consciousness disappeared." Ze Luo replied.
"..." Thirty-three rubbed his nose vigorously to suppress the sour feeling. "If I ever have this day, I hope you can do me a small favor."
"Your mood swings are obvious." Ze Luo looked at Sanshisan with some confusion, "I can sense the sadness in your emotions."
"Uh... did you figure it out, or did you use your... special ability?" Sanshisan rubbed his face, then raised his wrist and looked at his own expression through the reflection of the watch mirror.
His eyes were not red, and his facial features did not show any obvious changes, but for some reason, when he looked at his face, Sanshisan always felt depressed.
He tried to smile, but found that it was uglier than crying.
"I can sense human emotions within a certain range." Ze Luo said, "Although there are many restrictions on directly reading human thoughts, it is still easy to sense emotional changes."
After hearing what Ze Luo said, Sanshisan subconsciously took a few steps back and put some distance between himself and the three-no girl: "To be honest, this ability makes me feel... a little uncomfortable. Don't look at me like that. Although I have experienced many life and death situations and I am more open-minded, this does not mean that I am a heartless person."
"Because Mo Jue is of the same kind as you, her death triggered your empathy and made you feel sad?" Ze Luo asked, "I'm sorry, my expression may be a bit blunt, but I have always been interested in the emotional changes of humans... I think if I can thoroughly understand the mystery, maybe I can become exactly like humans."
"That's not the way to say it... I don't know how to answer your question, but I feel like your statement just now is not right." Thirty-three scratched the back of his head, "Have you never had this feeling before?"
Ze Luo nodded, then shook his head: "I don't know... but when Ke Lan killed Mo Jue just now, I had an urge to stop him."
"But," Ze Luo continued, "I knew this impulse was wrong, and it wasn't that strong, so it disappeared quickly."
"This shows that you are becoming more and more like a human being... in every sense." Ke Lan said, walking towards the two of them.
"What's the situation now?" Thirty-Three asked, changing the subject.
"It's bad. At least the Genoa is unusable." Ke Lan smiled helplessly. "Even if the vines used to repair the ship's hull are not burned by the energy shield, a warship without its AI is no different from a pile of scrap metal to us."
"That's really bad... no, it's really terrible." Thirty-three shrugged. "Without the battleship, your original crazy plan will have no chance of being implemented at all--"
Thirty-three was halfway through his speech when he suddenly stopped and said, "Wait, we have another battleship!"
