...
Deep within the lower-middle compartments of the land ship, a zone completely filled with steel, shadows, and despair lay hidden.
The layout here resembled a meticulously designed ant nest, with dense compartments divided into two distinct areas.
On one side was the restricted zone for the living, where the so-called "Consumables" were imprisoned.
Survivors captured from the Red Ring Tribe were penned in narrow cubicles like livestock. The air was thick with the stench of excrement, sweat, and the rot of infected wounds.
On the other side was the morgue, where corpses were temporarily stored.
Compared to the area for the living, the containment specifications for the morgue were remarkably lax.
Dead men don't resist, they don't escape, and they certainly don't make irritating pleas for mercy.
They simply awaited mass disposal or transport to various laboratories to be drained of their last bit of utility like spent batteries.
After all, who would worry about something suddenly bursting out of a morgue?
...Well, in a world overrun by Anomalies, one should probably worry about that.
...
At that moment, a patrol squad assigned to lower-deck security was moving through a long, dim corridor.
The squad consisted of seven members, fully armed, their power armor emitting soft mechanical clicks with every step.
In contrast to the unpredictable and eerie Anomaly containment zones, the stability work here actually required more manpower.
This was because they were guarding Humans, and Humans always engaged in futile resistance fueled by illusory hopes.
In fact, over the past forty-eight hours, they had already used violence to suppress several minor struggles.
"Halt." The captain suddenly raised his right hand, pressing his palm down.
Thanks to the assistance of his exoskeleton, his auditory senses were amplified several times over.
Amidst the monotonous hum of the ventilation fans, he caught an unusual movement that shouldn't have been there.
Which young Consumable is looking for death now? he sneered inwardly.
In his eyes, the old and weak had long since become brittle bones with their edges worn smooth, capable only of huddling in corners and shivering.
Only the youngsters who hadn't seen true hell yet would try to dig through ventilation ducts or wear down their chains in the dead of night.
Of course, those "troublemakers" all met the same end.
They would be taken to various Anomaly sealed chambers for experiments or testing.
Killed? No, the word "waste" did not exist in the Sky Eye Organization's dictionary.
Recently, the attrition rate of Consumables had reached a critical threshold. Any unnecessary "scrapping" would result in an inquiry from above.
The captain tilted his head to listen.
The rustling sound grew clearer, sounding like countless heavy objects being dragged, rolled, and wiggled across the floor.
It was a slimy, dull, and dense sound of friction.
He suddenly realized the source of the sound wasn't the cells ahead, but the morgue directly behind them.
He turned his head in confusion.
There were absolutely no survivors among this batch of Consumables who had undergone experiments.
Even if someone could survive that subhuman torture, they would never have the strength to make this much noise.
If someone really did survive...
Then they are incredibly unlucky, the captain thought.
"Go open the door. See what the hell is going on in there," the captain said, pointing to a subordinate at the rear of the squad.
The guard stepped forward, holding his rifle in one hand while his other hand gripped the handle of the alloy door.
The moment the handle turned, the captain suddenly felt a sense of wrongness.
The once flat, vertical alloy door had somehow begun to bulge outward.
It looked like a stomach distended after a heavy meal, or a tire about to burst from extreme internal pressure.
The entire door was vibrating, as if some massive, rampaging desire was pressing firmly against the metal plate from the other side.
"Wait!"
The captain's warning hadn't even left his throat when the door was twisted open.
Boom—!
That was the sound of the metal lock snapping off.
Immediately following, a viscous and violent "mudslide" of mixed red and black surged out.
The guard who opened the door didn't even have time to scream before he was instantly swallowed by the massive impact.
A torrent of black and red flesh rampaged through the narrow passage, sweeping everything away with the momentum of a tidal wave.
It was a monster fused from dozens, perhaps hundreds, of corpses.
They hadn't completely dissolved or merged.
Pairs of hands that once belonged to the dead—some even with broken finger bones—frantically reached out from the rolling torrent of flesh.
Like vengeful ghosts, they entangled every guard who tried to flee.
One guard's legs were caught by a mass of rotten meat. The immense pulling force instantly dragged him down and into the viscous flood.
The captain only had time to fire a few shots.
High-energy beams triggered blooms of blood, blasting craters into the wave of meat.
But for this behemoth that had lost the concept of pain and even its individual definition, this level of damage didn't even qualify as an obstacle.
In the next instant, his world turned into a suffocating shade of crimson.
In the week or so since the Red Ring Tribe members had become the Sky Eye Organization's "Consumables," nearly half had been lost.
They were used for various experiments, had their organs harvested while still alive, and were even used as "feed" for certain Anomalies.
Inside this precise and cruel steel coffin, even corpses were collected, their skin, flesh, and bones stripped away for research materials.
Most corpses were collected for processing, while a small portion in dangerous experimental zones were left scattered in the corners of various compartments.
Compared to those indescribable Anomalies, the malice Humans showed toward their own kind was often more hideous and specific.
And now, this accumulated resentment and malice found a resonant frequency the moment S-099 reached "High Tide."
The dead seemed to be using another method to complete their revenge against this steel behemoth.
...
Meanwhile, inside the central control room on the upper deck, the atmosphere was strange.
On the surveillance monitors, the horrific slaughter in the lower compartments played out in real-time.
Dr. Cyril's face was pale, and she took a half-step back toward the elevator behind her.
However, a black-robed guard stood right behind her, blocking her path.
He was a confidant brought by the Lord of the Sky Lake.
"Dr. Cyril, your work... seems to have a minor flaw."
The City Lord turned his head. His voice betrayed no emotion, but a disturbing flame flickered in his eyes.
The doctor steadied her nerves, pushed up her glasses, and frowned deeply.
"I already mentioned the risks of long-distance transport in my report."
"S-099 is extremely unstable. It's clear that unexpected contamination and leakage occurred during transit."
She paused.
"I have already ordered some of the safer Anomalies to be moved toward us to minimize losses as much as possible."
Hiding in the shadows and sharing the doctor's perspective, Ren Yi scoffed at her words.
Unexpected?
She was still lying through her teeth.
She was quite the actress.
Dr. Cyril not only knew all of this, but it was also very likely that she had intentionally facilitated it.
However, the Lord of the Sky Lake didn't seem to see through the doctor's superficial performance.
Or rather, his attention wasn't on her at all.
He stared fanatically at the main monitor covered in blood-red, his breathing becoming heavy.
"It doesn't matter," the City Lord muttered to himself. He slowly spread his arms, and his withered frame seemed to fill with a morbid vitality at that moment.
"In any case, from the very beginning, I never intended for this junk ship to return in one piece."
He suddenly turned to look at the doctor, his expression filled with unscrupulous madness and an arrogant sense of security.
"My child... it must have missed me."
The City Lord's voice echoed in the control room, carrying a bone-chilling tenderness.
"Let me wait here... to see it."
Rate on N.U.
