Chapter 123: Erosion and Forgetting

Several thick, rigid objects shifted beneath the bandages, their broken edges rough, grinding and jamming against each other, clearly resisting as the cloth was pulled away.

Kraft felt this didn't resemble the fragile facial bones of those guys—especially the nasal bridge, composed of septal cartilage and a cluster of thin, small bones, which should've shattered like Lego dropped from a height, leaving no shape behind.

This texture was more like a non-metallic, moderately thick stab-resistant faceplate, smashed into fragments by Kup. He nodded in satisfaction; whether the technique was refined mattered less—he'd nailed speed, precision, and brutality.

The bandage strips were tangled in multiple layers, their surface caked with thick layers of gray dust and grime, clearly unchanged for a long time; the timely additional blows had only worsened the appearance. Despite such a severe open wound, little blood flowed—only a few strips were dampened by a viscous fluid.

This forced Kraft to abandon unwrapping from the front and reach behind the pillow, hoping to find the knot securing the bandages there.

Moving backward over the occipital protuberance, he found a locked knot—no slack, as if it had never been meant to be undone. He frowned and slid his hand lower, trying to lift the neck, to rotate this stiff segment for easier access to cut the knot directly.

Beneath the occipital bone, near the atlantoaxial joint, he found no movable vertebrae or soft tissue—only a strange, rigid plate fixed in place.

"What is this?"

Not just from the occiput to the first two cervical vertebrae, but the entire back of the neck was armored with interconnected plate-like structures, stacked like tiles—small in volume but with poor mobility, forcing the neck to remain rigidly flexed forward and curved backward even when collapsed.

This anti-human design violently violated the spine's natural form; restricted backward extension forced the masked man into an uncomfortable hunched posture, like someone who'd stared at their phone too long and couldn't straighten their neck.

【Honestly, I've been reading with Yeguo Reading lately—switching sources, multiple voice options, works on both Android and iOS.】

Moreover, when Kraft attempted to rotate the cervical vertebrae left and right, these rigid plates showed excellent conformity, rotating in sync with the joints before locking the motion in place.

He'd even wrapped the plates under the cloth, further restricting movement—likely making lateral head turns impossible, forcing him to turn his whole body to see behind.

Good. If that was the case, he didn't have to worry about cutting too deep and rupturing the skin. Kraft rolled him over, drew his sword, and slashed a cut along the nape—the bandages shattered into scattered fragments. Once cleared, the rigid plates were fully exposed to the light.

One glance confirmed they weren't armor made of special materials, but something… something hard to define.

At first glance, they resembled bone-like structures, bearing familiar yet mixed features—arched plates, protruding marks—swelling and rupturing through skin and ligaments, expanding beyond natural constraints.

Like the transverse processes of the vertebrae had proliferated impossibly—these two symmetrical, short bony projections on either side of the vertebral arch stretched, bent backward, and encircled the neck, forming bow-like, rib-like but flatter structures.

Worse, the articulation between upper and lower cervical vertebrae had undergone calcification unlike anything Kraft had ever seen or heard of—not mere calcium deposits or spots, but entire sections transformed into inorganic matter, as if struck by the petrifying gaze of a monster, solidifying into rigid, flat columns.

This extreme calcification, inexplicable by biochemistry, made him suspect the original tissue had been outright replaced by rock.

The gaps between vertebrae and intervertebral discs had blurred beyond recognition; calcification spread like an infectious disease, accumulating inorganic matter that fused adjacent vertebrae into single units, with membrane-like and webbed bony fusions forming near the transverse arches.

Kraft scoured his memory but found no suitable technical term to describe it—no one had ever seen such a form, let alone named it.

The extended transverse processes fused into segmented, slab-like masses. The bone mineralized, bleached of color, shifting toward a lifeless pale yellow and gray-white—strip away the shape, and you'd swear someone had dragged up a buried rock stratum from underground.

The sharpened, proliferating edges darkened like pigment deposits, the shadow-black blending seamlessly into the surrounding darkness.

This "human"—Kraft wasn't even sure he should still call it human—had undergone some agonizing transformation, forcibly and irreversibly turning over twenty vertebrae and four natural spinal curves into segmented, armored plates.

And the shattered face? Not a faceplate at all—but a hard, bone-and-rock shell that had replaced the skin.

Tiny amounts of foul, dark-red, decaying fluid oozed from the fractured shell, matching the color of the stains on Kraft's blade after cutting through those humanoid faces and jointed limbs.

If he still had nerves, this transformation must have been excruciating—mineralized bone invading intervertebral foramina, compressing the spinal canal, crushing nerve roots.

Imagine a supercharged version of lumbar disc herniation plus osteophyte growth—numbness, pain, progressive sensory abnormalities day and night, like rodents and ants gnawing at limbs and torso, accompanied by progressively heavier mobility impairment.

According to Kup, he was never a bedridden, dying patient—another system had taken over his body, replacing the original nervous system like a metamorphosis.

You could imagine the terror he endured: endless torment, death refusing to mercifully arrive, his body birthing an incomprehensible species.

Whether he embraced a heresy and was "introduced" to those things by Old Gory, or suffered misfortune during a deep incursion and sought nonexistent spiritual salvation in the heresy, all was lost—Kup ended his prolonged suffering.

Forget it. Even if he'd preferred to cling to this mutated life, he couldn't rise now to protest.

Discovering this thing between human and deep entity had reminded Kraft: they could do more than strip minds and silently devour—they could reverse-transform.

"Did he have any special traits beyond his appearance?" The awkward, half-formed body structure wouldn't suit movement well—so something else must have made him valuable enough for several heretics to attack and wound Kup. "Speak freely—William isn't an outsider."

Yes, soon they'd be men who'd seen ghosts together, shared stakes—exchanging supernatural insights wasn't a big deal.

"He vanished from in front of us and appeared behind me—that's why I was wounded in the back," Kup felt he should clarify, not that he'd been fleeing with his back exposed. "It was as simple as stepping into an invisible hole and emerging from the other side."

"Strange…" Perhaps this transformation granted him some unique ability—like Kraft's spiritual senses, differing in form, with enormous cost but more direct effects.

That made sense, so his "strange" didn't refer to that. Kraft stepped away from the armored body, rubbed his chin—the cotton bandages itched slightly.

After brief thought, he suddenly turned, spread his arms, and spun once in the light, exposing his entire body to everyone's view.

"Check me— I think I forgot something."