Chapter 99: Alive
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Long Huoyan didn’t believe any of this was a coincidence, not after discovering the presence of the cocoon.
It was clear that the cocoon hadn’t just appeared out of nowherem,l.
According to the initial investigations, the cocoon was connected to an enormous underground network of dark purple tendrils, which seed to have traveled from a faraway place all the way here.
If that was all, one might think it was the work of so strange creature, but the very area where the cocoon was located confird that its presence there was due to soone .
’Soone implanted that thing there on purpose, but who, and what exactly were they aiming for?’
The situation grew stranger the more they discovered, and that only made him feel even more uneasy.
His instincts told him they had just dodged a disastrous bullet, but he also felt that sothing bigger had begun to move.
He didn’t know who was behind all this, but the exact mont that being containing that strange energy appeared, he decided to get to the bottom of the matter.
***
anwhile, the investigation team continued their work, exploring every single spot without leaving any trace unexamined, no matter how small or seemingly useless.
They had divided themselves into various groups, each with different tasks. So were scanning the upper cave, others were examining the remains of bodies, or what little remained of them, and then there were those who continued to explore all the secondary tunnels.
They had already scouted the main tunnel and most of the secondary ones; now all that was left was to finish organizing everything and collect the various pieces of evidence.
Everyone was imrsed in their work, and no one dared cause unnecessary disturbances for fear of punishnt from their team leader.
So, no one noticed a certain group of three n moving toward a secluded area of the large underground cavern connected to the big tunnel.
They wore the sa green uniforms with black stripes as the investigation team, making anyone who saw them assu they were also mbers of the investigation team.
Their faces were unreadable, as they kept staring at that area, as if searching for sothing.
Though they were sowhat hidden from the others’ view, a certain worker nearby noticed them standing there doing nothing, and the sight annoyed him.
"Hey, why are you just standing there doing nothing? Don’t you see how much work there still is?
Don’t stand there and start working! The sooner we finish, the sooner we go ho," he said, irritated by their behavior.
But hearing his words, none of the three seed to care; they continued examining the area in front of them.
Seeing this, the worker grew even more annoyed, he threw down his tools, and approached clearly upset.
"Hey, didn’t you hear what I said? move you as-" he started angrily, but just as he was finishing his sentence, his voice stopped.
He froze in place, as if petrified.
His body was completely still, and the expression that had been full of anger was now empty, without a trace of emotion.
He stayed there for a few seconds before turning and walking, sowhat stiffly, back to his original spot, where he picked up his tools and resud his work as if nothing had happened.
Since it was a sowhat isolated area of the underground area, few noticed the commotion, and those who did saw the man return to his place and continue working, ignoring the incident and returning to their duties.
No one paid attention to the group of three.
They continued what they were doing, and eventually, after a while, the one in the center pointed to a certain spot of the broken wall in front of them, where a visible crack ran.
The crack in the wall was small, too small to attract anyone’s attention.
But approaching it, amid the suffocating silence of the tunnel, strange sounds could be heard... short, broken, almost suffocated breaths.
The two n on the sides imdiately moved without saying a word. They placed their hands on the cracked surface, and strated slowly injecting their Qi into it.
The surface trembled slightly.
The crack began to widen, the lines deepening, and fragnts of stone broke off... but instead of falling, they hovered in the air, sliding slowly down before settling on the ground like feathers.
Everything happened without a sound, and even the spiritual waves released were very subtle, almost imperceptible.
When the process ended, where the crack had been, there was a cavity two ters wide, barely a step deep.
The three n stepped aside to look inside.
There, embedded in the rock like a statue, was a human figure... or what remained of one.
The body was shriveled and blackened by burns. The lower half was completely missing, leaving only a broken torso.
One arm was severed, and the head... was mostly destroyed.
Of the entire face, the only thing left was the right eyeball, wet and glassy, seemingly staring at them from the darkness.
It looked dead.
But as they got closer, a slow, irregular breath could be heard.
Then, without warning, that single eye moved, slowly rotating to look straight at them.
That corpse, which until a mont ago seed to have suffered the sa fate as all the others found in the underground area, seed to co back to life as it stared with its one remaining eye at the group of three standing before it.
The light inside its eye was intense, while strange muffled noises escaped from its mouth before fading away. It was clear it was trying to say sothing, though unable to.
Despite this, the group of three seed to understand as they all bowed low, murmuring a greeting.
"Greetings, Young Master," they said in unison.
In fact, that barely living corpse was none other than Yun Hao himself, who thanks to his nascent soul, already considerably developed, had managed to keep himself alive and partially protected from the explosion.
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