Chapter 125: Sustenance

Inside the cabinet filled with formalin, fragmented putrefied body parts were soaked inside. This was a typical cadaver of a jumping victim. From the damage to the body, the victim must have jumped from a very high altitude. The shape of a human being was barely discernible. The victim appeared to have landed headfirst because the skull had cracked open. Its shape was practically unrecognizable thanks to the shrunken skin holding it together. Since the time of death was recent and the postmortem was done quickly, the putrefaction had not set in that much. Other than the bloated stomach, the other parts of the body looked relatively fresh. Then again, the freshness only added to the atrociousness of the whole thing.

Two surprisingly clear eyeballs floated inside the cracked skull. They appeared to be staring at the group of doctors.

“Ergh…” Even though Cai Zixuan had just come back from an autopsy, the visual impact of this body had influenced him deeply. It was only then that Sun Yuheng and Liu Hong realized that they had been given comparatively preserved cadavers to study while more than hundreds of such putrefied cadavers were stored inside the morgue.

Emptiness, blank emptiness. Gu Jun looked at the cadaver with extreme focus. Finally, some weak lights appeared to flicker at the corner of his vision. It was the precursor to the trigger of an illusion…

“Gu Jun, how do you feel?” Wang Ruoxiang asked with a frown. She also felt that something was off with this cadaver although she could not put her finger on it.

“We need to look at more victims.” Gu Jun let go of the cabinet’s handle and walked to the adjacent one. He pulled it open with Wang Ruoxiang, and they were rewarded with another pile of flesh and bones in a suspension of formalin, the various body parts’ tissue overlapping haphazardly. Unlike the distortion to the victims of Malformed Banyan Disease, the chaos before his eyes was a discord that could not be made sense of. The feeling within Gu Jun’s heart grew stronger, and his heart was racing. The sound of heartbeat pounded in his mind…

“Next one!” he ordered. Wang Ruoxiang moved with him to open the next cabinet. The smell of formalin inside the morgue became more pungent as more cabinets were opened, revealing more and more shattered human bodies like some kind of grotesque display. The group had no idea what Gu Jun was doing, but even they could feel the sense of absurdity that was lingering in the air.

“Empty, empty,” Gu Jun grumbled as his eyes swept over one dead body after another. His heart was beating so fast that it made him feel uncomfortable. “These… are all just empty shells.”

‘Empty shells?’ An idea flashed across his mind, clearing away the fog. He had gained a closer understanding of this emptiness…

These bodies had no soul, not even the trace of one’s inhabitation. Was this because the nervous system of all the victims had atrophied? Had every single nervous cell died, or was it because the essence that made them human had shattered like a dream once they hit the ground from an altitude, hammered away by the immense pain that brought them relief?

Unlike normal cadavers, which would have something left of humanity in them, these bodies were just a bunch of rotten flesh and bones. It was as if that was all they ever were… walking sacs of emptiness.

“Ah.” Once Gu Jun figured it out, his brain pulsed with pain. The feeling slowly coagulated into an illusion, and he was just one step away from triggering it. The connection between him and the anchor of this illusion was still not strong enough… Before his training, he knew that he would not be capable enough to make these floating shadows stay. But now, he slowly gathered his focus and used his ESP technique to eclipse the rest of his senses as best he could as he focused on filtering the ‘voices’ that came from the illusion. He seemed to hear the sound… of thunder.

Instantly, Gu Jun felt his spirit being pulled away from the morgue, and he entered an illusion. Oppressive thunder was growling as if the sky was splitting up in anger. This caused his heart to shrink in response. A giant storm was raging around him. The loosened decaying mud was washed away by the rain. They were being carried by the sluice of water into a deep hole.

As Gu Jun neared, he saw that a coffin was buried deep at the bottom of the hole. The mud and dirt were trying to cover it up. It was an ancient coffin. The wooden boards had rotted in many places. The color of the wood itself had faded into a strange brownish color, and some strange carvings could be seen on the surface of the coffin.

Suddenly, with a thud, an arm fell on top of the coffin from above.

The arm was as thin as a bone. The wrinkled skin had clusters of mold growing on it. The shriveled fingers were connected to surprisingly long and sharp nails, giving them the appearance of a claw. Several blood capillaries could be seen protruding out of the moldy spots. There appeared to be black blood coursing through the veins.

‘What kind of creature is this? The arm does not possess an epidermal layer, so it is not the kind of abnormal creature that has doomed the foreign civilization…’ Gu Jun wanted to lean in closer to take a look at the rest of the body, but once he did so, the illusion around him started to flicker.

‘Calm down, steady,’ he berated himself. He was reminded of Elder Tong’s lesson. To understand chaos, he should not try to make sense of it by categorizing it but by embracing it. Gu Jun calmed down and allowed himself to be overcome by the illusion.

Hong!

Another streak of lightning stuck. Some senseless images suddenly filled his mind. Tilted road signs, dancing murder of crows, blurry characters on a tombstone, heavy rain, a dark sky, wilted ancient trees, and collapsed decrepit tombstones. It was the image of a graveyard…

Rain kept pelting relentlessly. One of the graves had been dug out. The coffin inside had been lifted out. It was placed next to the tombstone, the coffin lid rudely tossed to the side. Several strangely-clad figures were kneeling around the coffin. Were they humans? They did have a head, four limbs, and a body. However, through the illusion, Gu Jun could see that they possessed arms similar to the strange one that he had seen fallen in the coffin in the hole earlier…

Their hands and heads reached into the dark coffin. Sounds were coming from inside the dark recess. It sounded like… munching and crunching…

Gu Jun’s brain was assaulted by blinding pain. An extremely disgusting, chilling scene was shown before his eyes. One of these ugly humanoid creatures’ faces suddenly appeared before his eyes. It was shoving decaying meat into its mouth. Juices of putrefaction were dripping down its jaw…

Inside its hand, there was something silent yet chaotic that leveled its gaze at Gu Jun. It was a rotten eyeball. This scene exploded in Gu Jun’s mind, and extreme pain and nausea overwhelmed him instantly. He almost screamed from the surfeit of senses!

He suddenly had a clear understanding of these creatures, more understanding than he ever wanted.

“Gu Jun? Gu Jun?”

“We need help. His lips are turning purple. This looks like cardiac arrest!”

Urgent voices gradually filtered into his ears, pulling Gu Jun’s mind back from that nightmarish illusion.

“Ah…” Gu Jun took a deep breath as the vision around him cleared. It was then that he realized he was lying on the edge of the cabinet. A few more inches and he would have dropped into the pool of formalin. Part of a carcass floated before his eyes. He was so close to it that he could see the dried nerves and blood vessels on it.

While holding him, Wang Ruoxiang shouted, “Call for help now!”

Just as Cai Zixuan moved into action, Gu Jun called after them between gasping breath. “It’s fine. There’s no need for that… This is why I’m here after all…”

He forced himself to straighten up and explained to the confused group, “I cannot go into details due to confidentiality… but just trust me.”

“Are you sure you are fine?” Wang Ruoxiang was more concerned about his health. “You’d better go and take a seat first.”

“No, I need to report my findings to Prof Qin immediately… Please close all these cabinets for me.” Gu Jun then nodded at them before exiting the morgue. His gait was tipsy, but he moved faster and faster. The illusion had drained him mentally, but at least he had gleaned important information. The bodies of the victims of the Nightmare Illness had become empty shells without any soul. He suspected their souls had been sacrificed to another existence. They were not wiped away but consumed. Their souls were some kind of fodder. They had been summoned, and their souls were the items used in the ritual of summoning.

With a serious face, Gu Jun raced down the corridor ignoring the confused greeting by the manager. He turned to look at the abyssal mission that had appeared in his system’s quest tab many times already, one that he had gotten no chance to interact with… before now.

‘Abyssal Mission: Complete a full autopsy on one zombie within a week. Reward: Unknown.’

The creature that he had seen in the graveyard earlier, that was a zombie.

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