pertwk Chapter 343 The Indescribable Thing
Chapter 343 The Indescribable Thing
"This time... it should be over, right? Otherwise, I'm going to start cursing!"
Lin Fan stood at the bottom of the pit, looking down at the shriveled gray shell at his feet, and kicked it with his toe.
no response.
"Fine, they're dead."
He clapped his hands, preparing to leave.
But just as he was about to set off, he suddenly stopped, as if sensing something.
He wasn't sure if it was just his imagination, but he felt that the surroundings were...too quiet.
This silence is not normal silence, but rather a kind of...
A deathly silence, where even the wind had ceased to blow.
Lin Fan frowned.
Something's not right. Something's nine-tenths not right.
Although he couldn't see anything, his senses told him that something was wrong.
But he couldn't quite put his finger on what was wrong.
And just as he was trying to pinpoint the source of this unease...
"Buzz—"
A very low tremor came from beneath my feet.
This wasn't an earthquake, but a kind of...
It was as if something like sound waves was coming from underground.
Furthermore, this eerie sound wave could even cause his chest cavity to resonate.
"No way, is this never going to end?"
Upon sensing all of this, Lin Fan's expression changed drastically once again.
He looked down at the shriveled, gray shell.
The next second, the previously unmoving outer shell began to crack.
Furthermore, the cracks quickly spread to the surrounding areas.
In a short while, the entire pit began to sink layer by layer, as if something deeper was sucking away the foundation.
Immediately afterwards—
"Hiss... hiss hiss hiss..."
An extremely eerie sound came from the bottom of the pit.
It's not an animal sound.
It wasn't a mechanical sound either.
Instead, it was a voice he had never heard before, yet it sounded somewhat familiar.
He thought for a moment, and if he had to describe it, it would be like—
Someone mixed the hissing of a hundred snakes with the screeching of metal scraping glass and the crying of a baby, and then played it at a frequency completely outside the realm of human cognition.
"What the hell is this thing?"
Lin Fan stepped back, staring at the cracked pit.
The next moment, a tentacle suddenly stretched out from the crack.
It's not the same kind of red root system as before.
This tentacle is black.
The surface is covered with a viscous, ever-changing color film.
Sometimes it's black, sometimes dark purple, and sometimes even eyeball-like structures appear to slide on the surface.
The tentacles are about two meters in diameter.
It peeked out from the crack for three or four meters and then paused, as if testing its surroundings.
Then--
The second one.
The third one.
The fourth one.
As time went on, more and more tentacles emerged from the ground.
And they vary in thickness.
The thickest one is about the size of a bucket, while the thinnest one is only as thick as a finger.
Without exception, their surfaces were all covered with that unsettling discolored film.
Lin Fan did not make a sudden move, but stood on the edge of the pit and looked down.
The entire bottom of the pit was filled with those tentacles.
Black, wriggling tentacles, reeking of decay, intertwined together.
Then, from the center of those tentacles—
A mass slowly rose up.
This is... it even has a second stage?
Lin Fan's first reaction upon seeing that thing was not fear.
Instead, it was confusion.
Because he simply couldn't describe what it was in words.
That thing doesn't have a fixed shape.
Its body changes every second.
One second it was a black sphere, the next it became a flat disc, and the next it became some kind of octopus-like structure.
Eyes kept sprouting from its surface.
Not a pair.
There were dozens of pairs. Hundreds of pairs.
Eyeballs of all sizes emerge from its "body," each with a different color, size, and pupil shape.
These eyeballs will slide on the surface for a while, then be absorbed back, and then new ones will emerge in another location.
The whole process was accompanied by a tooth-grinding, churning sound of viscous liquid.
"..."
Lin Fan remained silent for about three seconds.
"Are you putting on a Transformers show for me?"
That indescribable thing continued to rise.
Its volume is much larger than the previous sphere. The part emerging from the crater is already over five meters high, and there's more below.
"Hiss—hiss hiss hiss—"
The eerie voice rang out again.
But this time, a series of blurry fluctuations of consciousness appeared in Lin Fan's mind.
Just like when I communicated with the dead tree before.
He paused for a moment, then focused his attention on discerning the meaning of those fluctuations in consciousness.
He quickly understood it.
What the other party said was—
My...food...don't take...my food...
"food?"
Lin Fan glanced at the drained corpses of the mutated beasts at the bottom of the valley.
"You mean those mutated beasts?"
"Mine...it's all mine...you destroyed...my...nest..."
"nest?"
Lin Fan narrowed his eyes.
He suddenly remembered something.
The withered tree I saw in that gloomy space before said something.
What about the depletion of the main body, what about the loss of control of the components?
He felt there was something wrong with those words at the time.
Now it seems—
That ancient tree is most likely this thing.
Thinking of this, he immediately asked without hesitation:
"Are you that withered tree from before?"
The indescribable thing paused for a moment upon hearing his words. Then, all eyes on it simultaneously turned to Lin Fan.
[No... tree... I am not a tree... the tree is... my... disguise...]
"A disguise? I knew it."
Having received the answer, Lin Fan raised an eyebrow and looked at the seemingly dim-witted creature in front of him, asking,
"So, from beginning to end, the person I was talking to in that dark space was you?"
[My space...my space...my territory...you've trespassed...on my territory...]
"Alright, alright." Lin Fan waved his hand. "'Mine, mine,' are you making a territorial declaration here? Are you a neighborhood committee auntie?"
The other party clearly didn't understand that sentence. Or rather, it simply didn't care.
The tentacles continued to emerge from the pit and began to spread outwards.
But Lin Fan did not rush to make a move.
He needs to figure out a few things now.
"What's that dark space all about?" he asked.
[My space...]
"I know it's yours now. What I'm asking is, what exactly is that space? How did I get in?"
The eyeballs on that thing rolled around for a while. Then a series of more complex fluctuations of consciousness emanated from it.
It took Lin Fan a while to understand.
The gist is...
That space was not created by it.
It didn't know what that space was either.
It only knows that it can enter and exit that space.
You can come in whenever you want, and leave whenever you want. As for the underlying principle? I don't know.
"You don't even know it yourself?"
I don't know... just like... breathing... you don't need to know the principle behind it...
"..."
Lin Fan was speechless.
This is like asking a fish, "How do you know how to swim?" and the fish replies, "I don't know, I was born that way."
That makes sense, but the answer is worthless to him.
"Then why did you lie to me?"
Growth... Power... Conquest...
"Damn, you're not good-looking, but you have some big ambitions."
After making a sarcastic remark, Lin Fan asked, "So what are you doing out here?"
I don't understand... but it's probably something like that...
To be honest, even if two completely different species can communicate, it is still very troublesome to exchange ideas.
The thing in front of them, which was not even sure what it was, stammered for a long time without giving a coherent answer.
Lin Fan decided not to wait any longer and changed the subject.
"How long have you been here?"
[I don't know...it's been a long time...I've absorbed a lot...I've become stronger...much stronger than last time...]
"Oh? You've gotten stronger?"
Lin Fan watched as the other party's size continued to expand.
"I think you've just gained weight."
The consciousness fluctuations of that thing became more intense.
"You...you are not an ordinary human...you have...its aura on you..."
"It?" Lin Fan noticed the word. "Who?"
[That...in the cemetery...]
"A cemetery?"
Lin Fan's pupils contracted slightly.
Finally, we can hear something different.
"What exactly is that mysterious cemetery?"
I don't know... I only know... that's the source of everything...
"The source? What source?"
Our...origin...all...like me...come from there...
"All like you?"
Lin Fan's expression changed. "You mean, there's more than one person like you?"
Many... many, many... but most... are still asleep...
Lin Fan's heart skipped a beat.
more than one.
a lot of.
Most are still asleep.
These pieces of information, taken together, sent a chill down his spine.
But he remained outwardly calm.
"Okay, take your time, what else—"
But he hadn't finished speaking.
He then saw that the tentacles suddenly changed.