Chương 47: The Original Codex

Rowan did not completely lose consciousness. Not because he had resisted the suppression mist. In truth, he could not even lift a finger. The gray-white mist rolled along the floor like cooled ash, layer after layer crawling over his body. Something was pressing down on his Source Crystal Core. Everything in his vision looked as if it were separated by muddy water. Not far away, Logan was half-kneeling on the ground, his shield still held in front of him, protecting Syringe and Adams near the doorway.

Syringe had collapsed by the threshold. His portable terminal lay beside him, its pale blue light screen flickering at an angle. Broken static kept coming through the team channel. Adams was slumped beside Carl, one hand still pressed against the wound between Carl's chest and abdomen. Carl lay in a pool of nutrient fluid and blood. He was not dead yet. His chest rose and fell shallowly. Every breath sounded as if it were being squeezed out of a punctured lung.

Blood kept flowing from the wound that had pierced in below his left shoulder and driven diagonally between his chest and abdomen. Farther away, the three toads were all pinned down by the suppression mist. The first had been torn apart by the locust-octopus creature. Half its body was still caught on the edge of a glass tank, the flower buds on its back opening and closing but unable to release a complete cloud of spores.

The second lay twitching on the floor, the furry claw in its throat still scratching at the ground by instinct. The third was farther away, half-buried beneath broken tank fragments and nutrient fluid. Its pincer-eyes opened and closed slowly, as if it might begin struggling again at any moment. From the waste-fluid recovery shaft in the ceiling came the fading sound of friction, as if something huge was dragging its uncontrolled tentacles deeper into the facility. Then Rowan heard footsteps.

The suppression mist was not completely ineffective against Solly either. His steps were heavier than usual, and his breathing was kept low, but he could still stand. The capsule he had bitten apart earlier was clearly no ordinary medicine. Grey Raven was steadier than him. The edges of his black robe were stained with nutrient fluid and blood. The injection he had just stabbed into his wrist was already empty. But his hands were still steady.

Solly opened his pack and stuffed two Violet Frostvine Pills into Carl's mouth.

"Useless," Grey Raven said.

"With that wound, feeding him more is just waste." Solly did not answer. He walked to Syringe's side, crouched down, and pressed two fingers against the side of Syringe's neck for a couple of seconds. Grey Raven stood not far away, his voice cold.

"He's only unconscious." Solly still did not answer. He checked Syringe's breathing again. After confirming that he was in no immediate danger, he slowly stood up. Grey Raven glanced toward the waste-fluid shaft in the ceiling.

"The big one inhaled the most. It won't come back in the short term," he said.

"We have ten minutes or so." Solly looked at the toads on the ground.

"Deal with them first." Grey Raven nodded. The two moved quickly. Solly approached one of the toads and formed a [Water Spear] in his hand. Raising it high with both hands, he drove it into the heart of the second toad. The toad struggled twice by instinct. Its pincer-eyes snapped with clicking sounds, but it failed to lift its body. Grey Raven walked toward the third. The Blackwater Heavy Industries separation needle extended from beneath his sleeve and sank precisely into the toad's brain.

In that instant, every tumor on the toad's back shrank at once. Its entire body collapsed, leaving only the furry claw in its throat twitching without awareness.

"Control console," Grey Raven said. Solly was silent for a moment, then turned and walked toward the rear of the containment room. Rowan forced his gaze to follow them. There stood a half-collapsed main supply-fluid control console. When they had first entered, everyone's attention had been drawn to the three glass tanks and the monster on the ceiling. No one had had the room to examine it closely. Only now did Rowan realize that this control console was different from the magitech equipment in the outer layer.

The shell had the style of modern magitech industry. Black alloy. Green circuits. Life-support pipelines. A cracked pressure gauge. But at the center of the console was a ring of dark red old-style array patterns. Like the remains of some ritual. Grey Raven crouched and used the separation needle to pry open the outer panel. Then he took out a slender black key-like tool from beneath his robe and inserted it into a gap under the console. Click. A soft unlocking sound came from deep inside the panel.

Solly said in a low voice, "This is what your Obsidian people wanted?" Grey Raven did not answer immediately. Rowan's awareness tightened. Obsidian? Blackwater Heavy Industries was only a local military-industrial company in the Seventh Abyssal Hive. But Obsidian Magitech Heavy Industries was one of Terra's true rulers. Solly's voice was low, edged with anger.

"Why go after Carl? We agreed from the start that you wouldn't touch my people. I was supposed to find someone." This tale has been pilfered from Royal Road. If found on Amazon, kindly file a report. Grey Raven opened the inner layer of the console.

"Don't take your anger out on me. Who could have predicted this accident? Carl clearly won't live long. Do you want to kill another one? I don't mind. The question is whether you're willing to do it." An old, bloody smell seeped out of the console. Not rot. More like flesh that had been dried for too long, briefly waking after touching mana again. Deep inside the console was a dark red recess. In that recess lay a book. No.

Rowan could barely make out that it was a book, but the longer he looked, the less it seemed like something that should be called one. Its cover looked like biological membrane pressed flat and dried. Fine dark red patterns covered its surface, like blood vessels and spell circuits at the same time. Its spine was not ordinary binding. It looked like a long, thin piece of backbone. A few dried thread-like tissues hung from the edges, rising and falling slowly with the suppression mist. It was breathing.

Like dead flesh that still retained instinct after many years. Grey Raven said in a low voice,"The original codex of [Flesh Armament Art]." Solly's fingers tightened slightly.

"It hasn't awakened."

"Of course," Grey Raven said.

"The codex's seal has not failed. Whoever created it did not want it opened with an ordinary key."

"What does it need?" Grey Raven turned his head. His gaze fell on Carl.

"A fresh Source Crystal Core." The containment room went still for an instant. Only the sound of the suppression mist remained. Solly said nothing. Grey Raven continued, "Freshly removed from the body, while the core's activity is still intact. Ordinary mana-beast cores won't work. Human cores that have been dead too long won't work either." A chill spread through Rowan's heart. He finally understood. That was why Solly had brought him, an outsider. He had been the chosen sacrifice. Carl's eyelids trembled.

His lips moved, and his voice sounded as if it were being squeezed out through blood.

"Boss..." Solly's body stiffened.

"You... how are you still conscious?" He slowly turned and walked back to Carl.

"Cough... probably because I practiced body refinement." Carl could not open his eyes. His mouth hung half-open, and every shallow breath brought up small flecks of blood foam.

"Am I... done for?" Solly did not answer. That silence was clearer than any answer. Carl coughed once, blood running from the corner of his mouth.

"Fuck." He seemed to want to laugh, or maybe he was in too much pain and wanted to curse.

"I knew... that damn toad was bad luck." Adams lay unconscious beside him, his hand still pressed over the wound. Logan was half-kneeling behind his shield, head lowered, unresponsive. Syringe lay by the door, unable to hear anything. Grey Raven reminded him in a low voice,"Delay any longer, and the core's activity will disperse." Solly snapped his gaze toward him. There was killing intent in that look. Grey Raven did not retreat.

"Don't forget the agreement you signed," he said.

"If you keep hesitating, you won't be able to get your brother, the medic, or any of them out." Solly's breathing sank. Carl's fingers moved. He seemed to want to grab Solly's pant leg, but he no longer had the strength.

"Stop dragging it out..." Carl's voice came in broken pieces.

"It hurts like hell." Solly said quietly, "Shut up." Carl did not shut up. He coughed up another mouthful of blood.

"Don't touch that kid." Rowan's heart gave a hard beat. He was talking about him. Carl still remembered that Rowan had cut through the tentacles and saved him in the fight just now. Carl drew several breaths. His voice was so low it was almost inaudible.

"Boss... after you get out..."

"Don't say I was killed by a toad." Solly's hand at his side slowly clenched. The mist hid his face.

"I'm sorry." Carl seemed to hear it. Or perhaps he did not. Grey Raven stepped forward. The Blackwater Heavy Industries separation needle unfolded, and several thin black blade-wings split from the body of the needle. Rowan did not know what he felt. The relief of having survived. The hatred of having been deceived. The complicated weight of watching Carl die. He watched Grey Raven press down on Carl's chest. He watched Solly turn his face away. He saw Carl's body suddenly go rigid.

Rowan heard only one short, muffled sound, so brief it barely sounded human. The separation needle slowly withdrew. Between its tips was a Source Crystal Core wrapped in a blood-colored glow. It was still shining. Like a shard of glass fresh from the furnace. Grey Raven wasted no time. He turned back to the control console and pressed the core into the dark red recess on the codex cover. The moment the Source Crystal Core touched the codex, the entire book contracted sharply.

Like a starving thing finally biting into food. The glow inside Carl's core was drawn away little by little, spreading through the blood-vessel patterns on the codex cover. The dried membrane became moist again. The bone joints along the spine made fine clicking sounds. The first page slowly opened. It did not sound like paper turning. It sounded more like flesh being torn apart.

Layers of dark red spell structures rose from the page, like blood threads, and like countless tiny hands, weaving a pattern in the air so complex it made Rowan dizzy. Rowan quickly activated his AR and captured the scene, turning on recognition and recording. [Unknown spell structure.] [Unable to classify.] [Warning: Risk of mental contamination detected.] One prompt appeared after another. Gradually, those spell structures seemed to crawl into his vision on their own.

Bones were dismantled and stretched into blades. Fascia was pulled taut into bowstrings. Mana-beast carapaces were softened, then hardened again into arm guards. Plant fibers passed through flesh like needles and thread, sewing tissues from different organisms together. Flesh Armament Art. Rowan could not tell whether what he was seeing was a real spell structure, or whether the codex was contaminating his mind. Unfortunately, it was not clear enough. There were only visions, not a true Spell Model.

Grey Raven took a dark crystal disk from inside his black robe. A recording crystal disk. Rowan's [Mind-Splitting Art] had once been stored in something like this. But the one in Grey Raven's hand was clearly more advanced. Tiny Blackwater markings were embedded on its surface, and anti-leakage array patterns lined the edge. Grey Raven suspended the disk above the codex.

"Begin recording." The crystal disk rotated slowly. A beam of light shone from the disk onto the blood-colored spell structures, and rings of fine patterns surfaced across the disk. Solly stood beside him, his face pale. Grey Raven's voice was frighteningly calm.

"After completion, the codex is sealed, and the disk is taken away." Solly said quietly, "And the scene?" Grey Raven took out several items from beneath his robe. A serrated ritual dagger. Several dark red talisman papers. A small vial of blood-colored powder. And a cracked bone pendant. Solly's expression finally changed.

"What are those?"

"Cult traces." Grey Raven pasted the talisman papers onto the edge of the console, then used the ritual dagger to carve several twisted marks into the floor.

"This ruin will definitely be reassessed and recovered by official personnel later. Someone has to take the blame. Otherwise, there will be no way to explain the missing Source Crystal Core of an injured teammate." After those words, only the faint hum of the rotating crystal disk remained in the containment room. Rowan lay in the mist, struggling to circulate [Furnace Melding Art], hoping to recover as soon as possible. But he still pretended to be unconscious.

If those two knew he had heard everything, the cultists' body count might gain one more name. At last, the dark red patterns on the crystal disk converged. Grey Raven removed the disk and placed it into a black preservation box. Then he used another preservation box to seal the codex. The codex twitched faintly, as if dissatisfied. But the light inside Carl's core had already been drained dry, and it soon fell quiet again.

"Done," Grey Raven said. Solly said in a low voice, "Then we leave." Grey Raven did not move immediately. He fastened the preservation box shut, his fingers pausing on its surface for a moment. Then his gaze passed beyond the control console and settled on the half-collapsed maintenance passage at the rear of the containment room. He was looking deeper in. Solly noticed.

"What else do you want to do?" Grey Raven did not answer. Just then, a dull tremor came from deep within the main supply-fluid control console. The sound was not loud, but it was as if something had bitten into place inside the wall. The array patterns at the center of the console lit up circle by circle, then went dark again, like a heart that had been forcibly awakened and was already close to dying. Then, from the depths of the waste-fluid recovery shaft in the ceiling, came another impact.

The thing that had escaped was still inside. It seemed to have broken something deeper in the facility. The terminal Syringe had dropped on the floor suddenly flashed red. A broken mechanical voice squeezed through the static. [Main supply-fluid structure imbalance.] [Preservation array rupture.] [Core area isolation procedure initiated.] Solly's expression changed. He rushed toward Syringe first. Syringe still lay near the threshold, his face pale but his breathing steady.

Solly grabbed him by the collar and dragged him toward himself. After pulling Syringe close, Solly immediately looked up at Logan. He had only taken half a step when the first isolation gate dropped. A heavy alloy gate cut down from a seam in the ceiling and slammed into the floor track, throwing nutrient fluid half a person high. It hit no one. But it severed the distance between Solly and Logan. Too late.

A second gate pushed out from the side wall with a harsh metallic scrape, sealing off the area where Adams was. Rowan saw Adams's hand still pressed against Carl's chest. His whole body remained motionless, as if forgotten in the bloodied water. Logan stayed half-kneeling behind his shield, head lowered, still unconscious. Solly slammed into the isolation gate. The heavy metal swallowed most of the impact. The gate did not even shake.

In the middle of the chaos, Grey Raven turned and walked toward the half-collapsed maintenance passage behind the control console. His black robe brushed against broken pipelines, and his figure was soon swallowed by gray-white mist and flickering yellow light. That was not the direction of retreat. Nor was it the direction to save anyone. Grey Raven did not even look at the others. Rowan watched his back and pushed [Furnace Melding Art] as hard as he could, forcing his Source Crystal Core awake bit by bit.

He had to recover immediately. The isolation gates had not sealed him off directly. But that did not mean he was safe. The monster could come back at any time. From above came the sound of metal tearing. Rowan forced his eyes upward. A thick life-support pipeline had come loose from the ceiling. Broken array lines still wrapped around its outer layer. Cloudy nutrient fluid sprayed from the break, like a severed python still twitching after death. It was falling toward him.

The next instant, its shadow swallowed his vision.