Chapter 131: 129 The Abducted Youth (Two-in-One)

The damp, rotting stench was pungent and foul; it was an indescribable odor, and only someone like Yu Lianyun, who had seen bloated corpses that had drowned and soaked in water for weeks, would know exactly what kind of nauseating smell this was.

Yu Lianyun stepped into the underground, as if walking into a damp and cold deep-sea prison; the chill felt by her body was nothing compared to the dread in her heart.

Yu Lianyun did not walk slowly; she noticed that the footprints on the ground were very steady, without any sense of urgency, and she knew well that this place was temporarily safe.

Soon, she discovered a light source within the dim, spiral underground staircase; those unidentified green lights crawling all over the walls emitted a deep, eerie glow, dimly illuminating the path ahead.

"These green lights... are they the 'Yinghuan' abnormal creatures recorded in the database?" Yu Lianyun was somewhat surprised that she could see this type of abnormal creature, which the Xuanmi Group thought had gone extinct, in this place, and she slowly became vigilant.

The Yinghuan is an abnormal creature that is relatively less harmful to humans; as long as one does not stare at them for a long time, there is no danger. They can sense the gaze upon them and will instinctively initiate predatory behavior toward those who stare at them.

Although the Yinghuan is not a dangerous abnormal creature, Yu Lianyun clearly remembered that the presence of Yinghuan meant there would be a Yinghuan Nest nearby.

It is worth noting that this Yinghuan Nest does not just refer to the lair of the Yinghuan; the nest itself is also a living being!

The Yinghuan Nest is an abnormal life form with considerable individual intelligence; it can produce Yinghuan and also control them. Although the Yinghuan Nest itself is not an aggressive abnormal creature, its danger level is not low, and the result of angering it is that there is absolutely no way to survive.

"Could the Yinghuan here be the kin of the sea monster?" Yu Lianyun could not help but speculate, "Or is this also part of the content of sealing the sea monster?"

Halfway through, a sense of the earth shaking and mountains swaying occurred, and the sound of ten thousand ghosts wailing underground rushed toward her along with a gust of wind. Yu Lianyun's hair was blown backward, her body went limp uncontrollably, and she barely managed not to fall by leaning against the wall.

At the same time, Yu Lianyun noticed that this disturbance caused the Yinghuan on the walls to change their direction. There was a large, nearly elliptical area of Yinghuan on the wall, and the Yinghuan there all crowded into other crevices on the wall, opening up a deep, dark passage.

Yu Lianyun had not intended to go in and investigate, mainly because the darkness inside the passage was accompanied by a frigid temperature, and she had an extremely bad premonition about it, fearing she would never return.

She kept in mind the teachings of the previous Tiger Team captain, He Jia'an: if it is not something that must be done, do not easily come into contact with things you do not understand.

However, after putting on her Night Vision Device again, she discovered a torn page from a sexy photo magazine of a female celebrity at the entrance of the passage, and they were extended everywhere inside the passage. At the same time, Yu Lianyun did not know if it was her imagination, but her keen "Inspiration Antenna" made her feel as if she were sensing some kind of call.

And immediately following, the two Blessing Avatars that were always with her like shadows, Yao Zhenzhen and her father, crawled out from her shadow. As if they had smelled the scent of delicious food, they crawled into the passage without hesitation, emitting low, excited sounds from their mouths.

As a Mysterious Investigator who possessed a moral bottom line, Yu Lianyun could not just leave; she had to go in and see, what if she hadn't misheard and there really was someone calling for help?

Saving a life is better than building a seven-story pagoda; Yu Lianyun followed those two excited Blessing Avatars and ran into the passage.

The passage was not as deep as she had thought, being only about twenty meters or so in length; she ran a few steps and soon saw the exit.

Stepping out of the exit, Yu Lianyun found that she had arrived in a sealed stone chamber, where corpses were scattered everywhere, along with a few lingering marine creatures and humans.

Those marine creatures let out mournful cries while bearing broken bodies full of bite wounds, and the humans who were about to die were breathing rapidly; they all noticed someone had walked in here, but they could not all see who it was.

Yu Lianyun looked at those tragic, dying lives; although her heart could not bear it, she still resisted the thought of sending them directly to paradise. Firstly, she was short on ammunition, and secondly, she had no other long weapons on her. These corpses and dying bodies that had come into contact with abnormal factors might contain unimaginable dangers and should not be approached easily.

"Is this a cafeteria, a food storage room, or a prison?" Yu Lianyun guessed that this was also an activity area for the fish-men, because she also saw traces of fish-men activity here.

"Help... help..." Suddenly, Yu Lianyun heard a faint human voice; the voice sounded very young, like that of a teenager.

She hurriedly followed the sound and immediately saw a teenager in his teens hanging from a hook in the corner of the stone chamber. He was rolling his eyes, unconsciously calling for help.

"If I die, I die." Yu Lianyun still could not hold back her principle of not easily making contact; she rescued the teenager hanging in mid-air, using bullets to shoot and break the iron chains.

She hurried to the teenager's side and turned his body over, immediately frowning deeply; she saw that those hooks, which were like eagle claws, had deeply pierced through the teenager's shoulder blades, and it appeared several were broken.

Yu Lianyun gritted her teeth to help the teenager remove those dangerous hooks and quickly performed emergency treatment for him.

At this moment, she realized one thing again: those abnormal creatures did not possess human moral concepts. Even if some of them were transformed from humans, they would not have any pity for young and weak human individuals.

"After the main force arrives, I must kill these damn things," Yu Lianyun thought to herself.

Facing abnormal creatures that humans can handle, the Xuanmi Group always takes "killing" as its primary goal. For those that cannot be handled, such as high-level kin under an Alien God, as well as the Alien God itself, the Xuanmi Group will only choose "containment," "isolation," or "sealing" as a last resort.

Yu Lianyun checked the teenager's body again to confirm that there were no other risk factors on him, and then she carried him on her back, preparing to move with the teenager.

Uh—

Yao Zhenzhen and her father circled and crawled around her and the teenager on her back like a pride of lions ready to attack their prey at any moment, eyeing them covetously.

"These can't be eaten... eat them instead, if you can, give them a quick end while you're at it." Yu Lianyun could see that these two guys had taken a fancy to the fresh, tender meat of the teenager. She had a flash of inspiration and let these two guys go attack those half-dead animals and humans.

The animals and humans here were mostly caught by those fish-men; the humans among them were mostly those who failed to transform into fish-men during the Liuhua Port disappearance case, and they were food or toys for those fish-men.

Upon hearing Yu Lianyun's words, the two Blessing Avatars did not insist, but instead lunged at those dying bodies, ending their lives with very clean and efficient, yet terrifying and brutal methods. They then opened their mouths wide, extracted the pale blue halos from those dying bodies, and sucked them into their mouths.

Yu Lianyun did not know what those things were; perhaps they were something like souls.

She then glanced at the teenager who had fainted on her shoulder, a strange look flashing in her eyes; she suddenly realized something odd.

If the humans brought here were all suffering from Jiaoren Disease and were individuals who failed to transform into fish-men, then what was the situation with the teenager she was carrying? Yu Lianyun clearly remembered that when she checked the teenager's condition earlier, she did not find any signs of Jiaoren Disease on him, nor were there any places that had been bitten or gnawed. In other words, this innocent teenager was a normal human and had miraculously not been eaten as food.

"Could there be another purpose for catching him?" Yu Lianyun thought, recalling the conversation she had with Drake and the others via mobile phone on the car earlier, and hearing about a certain fish-man ritual from them.

The meteor shower night in the near future would be the resurrection period of the Sea God of Peace; accordingly, the believers of the Sea God of Peace and their kin would hold a return ritual for her.

Since it involved a ritual for an Alien God, naturally, things like so-called sacrifices were indispensable.

Wasn't this tender, delicate teenager a delicious and high-quality sacrificial offering?

Yu Lianyun carried the injured teenager out of the passage and suddenly felt a vibration under her feet; excited, strange roars came from the spiral staircase.

It was the fish-men; they had chased after her!

With no other choice, Yu Lianyun could only bite the bullet and rush downward until she reached a place where the fish-men dared not follow, and the only place they dared not enter could be the activity range of the sealed sea monster.

However, this was nothing more than moving from one pit to another, from being "eaten by a pack of wolves" to being "eaten by a tiger."

"And where on earth did those two jerks run off to?" Yu Lianyun cursed inwardly while running down the stairs with the person on her back; she had been walking for long enough, yet she still couldn't see the shadows of Drake and Li Nuowei.

And as the saying goes, speak of the devil, before Yu Lianyun could run a few more steps, two disheveled figures rushed in front of her. They were panting, each holding strange-looking things; one was holding a small, somewhat noble-looking dagger and an unidentified object that looked like a glowing green sphere, while the other was holding a ridiculously opulent, bulky greatsword.

"Drake, Li Nuowei?" Yu Lianyun recognized their appearances and called out their names.

Hearing a familiar voice, Drake and Li Nuowei raised their heads and noticed the woman who had suddenly appeared here.

Drake glanced at the appearance of the teenager on Yu Lianyun's back and said in surprise, "He's not dead yet? So he was here?"

"What do you mean by 'not dead yet'?" Yu Lianyun frowned tightly and pointed at the teenager on her back, "You know him?"

"I do." Drake nodded, "If it weren't for him, I might not have even noticed this place."

Yu Lianyun nodded without chatting further, instead saying, "Below is the sealed sea monster, and above are the crazy fish-man pursuers. How do you think we should run?"

"How did you lead the fish-men down here?" Li Nuowei's eyes widened in shock. He and Drake had finally managed to perfectly avoid the fish-men's pursuit this time and successfully rushed here in one go, but he hadn't expected Yu Lianyun to be able to anger the fish-men to such an extent.

Yu Lianyun looked silently at the shadow under her feet and sighed, "... That's a long story."

Drake's mouth twitched, and he pointed his thumb behind him, explaining, "The guy behind us is also going berserk because we stole its treasure. If we go back and get discovered again, we'll have no way out."

Yu Lianyun covered her face; the trouble these two guys caused was no smaller than her own.

Subsequently, Yu Lianyun saw the Green Light Gem in Drake's hand, "What is this? Isn't this a Yinghuan Nest?"

"You recognize this thing?" Drake raised the Green Light Gem high in surprise, brought it before Yu Lianyun, and said, "This thing is miraculous; it has a very high curative effect on Jiaoren Disease. With it, we no longer have to fear being corrupted by the Curse of the God of the Anhai Sea."

"No, this thing is alive, and it is very dangerous!" Yu Lianyun flatly rejected Drake's idea. Although Drake's idea was very good, and he had actually managed to achieve some success, which was truly surprising, she still could not agree when considering the huge risks contained within it, and she subsequently spoke about the matter of the Yinghuan Nest.

Hearing that the Yinghuan Nest was indeed the birthplace and lair of those Green Light Life, Drake and Li Nuowei were both stunned for a moment.

But just a few seconds after refusing, Yu Lianyun suddenly had an idea, "I suddenly have a good idea, Drake, you come carry this child, and then give the Yinghuan Nest to me."

Drake nodded, then exchanged with Yu Lianyun; he was responsible for carrying the youth, while she took over the Yinghuan Nest that looked very docile.

"We head back and take a gamble. Since this thing can resolve Jiaoren Disease, then suppressing that group of fish-men will certainly be no problem. We can take advantage of the time when the fish-men are suppressed to come out and land the finishing blows, slaughtering them all," Yu Lianyun said with unusual ferocity.

Drake and Li Nuowei looked at each other and decided to follow Yu Lianyun's instructions.

Running back the way they came, the three of them heard dense footsteps coming from above.

After a moment, they successfully encountered the fish-men face-to-face.

For the two of them, as long as Drake held a gun or some other cold weapon in his hand, they could directly use righteous violence to resist.

However, at this moment, danger was close at hand.

Yu Lianyun immediately fired three shots in succession, hitting with every shot, but she could not precisely target the heads, and most of the time she could only cause damage to their bodies.

Bang! Bang! Bang!

The fish-men who were shot immediately fell down.

Drake walked behind the two of them and hid, with the goal of protecting themselves well while not causing trouble for others. Li Nuowei raised the Silver Steel Greatsword, looked at the fish-men swarming out, his expression grave, and waited for the targets that Yu Lianyun's marksmanship could not kill to approach before bringing the greatsword down to forcefully hack the fish that slipped through the net to the ground.