Chapter 152: Hudson Manor

"Glowing?" Kraft pulled his attention away and glanced toward the sound—Martin had picked up the pendant embedded with an unknown mineral and walked into the shadows, cupping his palm around it to examine the light.

"Yes, it's emitting its own light—this way, it's clear." The knight held the pendant before his eyes, backlit by the candle, confirming his discovery, then reached to hand it to Kraft.

Kraft, holding scalpel and forceps, instinctively jerked back, his grip slipping—the peeled skin snapped back into place. "No! Keep it away! Put it back!"

He didn't know what it was, but instinct told him not to get close to any unexplained glowing object. And this thing had just been pulled from the pocket of a suspicious man whose subcutaneous tissue was full of mycelium—he had no idea what it might have touched.

"I advise you to clean your gloves thoroughly with lime powder. Otherwise, I can't guarantee what might happen."

He wasted a pair of forceps, lifting the pendant by its cord and carrying it to a dark corner indoors. Fortunately, he felt no itching, nausea, or other symptoms rumored to accompany such objects—and no glow appeared immediately.

"Why? Is it dangerous?" Martin felt a chill of dread at the doctor's overreaction—just moments ago, that gem had been inches from his nose. If something were going to happen, it would've already happened.

"From my personal experience, a significant portion of naturally luminous stones are linked to incurable diseases."

As he warned Martin, Kraft stepped back, observing the pendant from several paces away.

Under the bright candlelight, it had merely looked like a poor-quality stone, black with faint reddish tinges, too opaque to qualify as a gemstone. The setting was ordinary brass, unadorned—hardly the sort of object one would associate with importance.

But when the light dimmed, the glow Martin described became unmistakable.

It wasn't the imagined fluorescence of a stone like fluorite. Instead, it was an internal glow—a dull, deep crimson, like a light source at the bottom of a murky pond piercing through water into air, or a pair of eyes with blood-red pupils, staring motionlessly at the observer.

In the silent dark, Martin couldn't help asking: "So this is one of those 'significant portions' you mentioned?"

"I'm not sure. If I'd seen something like this firsthand, I wouldn't be standing here." Kraft shook his head. He'd briefly suspected radiation, but then recalled that heretics had clearly had prolonged contact with it—brief exposure shouldn't be fatal.

"Get two lead boxes—thick ones. We'll seal it inside."

Though there was no cure for radiation sickness, the procedure for handling suspected radiation sources was simple. Lead was abundant, easy to extract, low-melting, soft, and easily shaped—finding a lead container to lock it away wouldn't be hard.

Of course, just to be safe: since heretics had lived with it for so long, it wasn't a strong radiation source. What it actually was remained unclear—perhaps it was just an unusual fluorite. They soon found a lidded lead vial as a temporary substitute, dropped the pendant inside, and ended this minor interruption in the autopsy.

"For now, that's enough, Martin. Go scrub your gloves clean in that lime basin. Don't touch anything else until I'm done, understood?" Kraft picked up his scalpel and forceps again and returned to the coffin to resume his work.

Making a Y-shaped incision into the corpse's interior, he quickly understood why the skin was lax. When compressed, the dry epidermis had collapsed like pitting edema, leaving permanent depressions—inside, nearly all was a cottony mass of mycelium, inheriting the original tissue's organic matter and moisture.

Even the costal cartilages connecting sternum and ribs had been eroded, destabilizing the entire structure and making it far easier for Kraft to dismantle the ribcage.

He easily cut through the brittle costal cartilages, severed the bone connections, and pried open a gap in the ribcage. He reached in with his hand—but pulled back, swapped for a pair of forceps, and probed along the right edge of the sternum into the thoracic cavity, frowning in confusion. Then he opened the forceps and rotated them several times—there was clearly no obstruction.

"Something's odd… Should you step back?" Kraft suddenly looked up without warning. Martin shook his head, bewildered—he'd seen everything so far; there was no reason to look away now.

So he watched as Kraft opened the right half of the ribcage like a hinged window—the barrel-shaped dome flipped open, ribs arranged like church rafters inside. Light poured into the right thoracic cavity, which should have been filled with lungs—but it was empty, save for a shrunken mass clinging to the posterior wall, sprouting colorful growths like bubbles from Jianghu, or cauliflower, or small coral.

Along the intercostal spaces and thickened tissues of the thoracic wall, dense mycelium nourished layered, tile-like structures that grew parallel to the ribs, their extended filaments resembling the dense, paired legs of a scaled worm.

At first glance, it looked as if a demon's box had been opened, every form of life displaying its body. Martin stepped back two paces to avoid the visual shock, unable to discern their true shapes—only the tangled, entwined outlines, which seemed to twitch as if alive during the violent opening.

His body reacted before his mind could process it—he felt his stomach contract, a burning sensation rising up his esophagus, his spine arching involuntarily, his mouth flooding with sourness.

Martin had seen enemies and allies die from countless weapon wounds—but witnessing this shattered his understanding of the worst thing a person could endure. It was as if hell's edge had been unveiled before him, a spiritual baptism more cruel and malevolent than words could describe.

"Ugh!" He clutched his throat; lime powder from his gloves drifted into his nostrils, triggering two violent sneezes—and then he vomited. Distant, concerned voices drifted to his ears.

"Are you alright, Martin? These are just… mushrooms. Don't panic." Kraft moved to help him, but his hands, just inside the thoracic cavity, were unfit to touch anything else.

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He shouldn't have let outsiders in—never expected a scene like this would be too much even for someone like Martin. Honestly, it was his first time seeing something like this too. Among all the nauseating lesions he'd encountered, this ranked among the top five—strong contender for second place.

The knight lay prone beside the table for at least two minutes before his mind restarted, finally grasping what Kraft had said: "Mushrooms?"

"Indeed. Though they fall under my definition of 'fungi,' to find them growing like this inside a body is astonishing." The anatomist, captivated by the spectacle inside the chest, invited Martin: "Would you like to take a closer look?"

"No." Martin gripped the table's edge, glanced once at the coffin, then quickly looked away. "Uh—I mean, wait. Let me catch my breath."

He wiped the sour fluid from his lips, steadied his breathing, and returned to the table, observing the rare spectacle alongside a professor whose image had been irrevocably altered—and reluctantly admitted these might, perhaps, possibly, be the same as the food on his plate.

"Truly incredible, Martin." Kraft pried up one of the growths—their unmistakable fungal texture made Martin's stomach clench again.

"I think the 'mushroom forest' you encountered wasn't accidental. This heresy must be connected to it. I don't yet understand the mechanism—but this might help us find where they are."

"Thank you, Professor." The thanks sounded forced. Martin waved him off, signaling him to stop. "If that's the case, I think I know which place you mean."

"Ah?"

"Hudson Manor. The Duke has an estate there, famous for producing all kinds of mushrooms—especially the white-bellied ones, the tastiest." The mention of taste made him choke, nearly slapping himself.

"White-bellied mushrooms don't keep well, so I almost always pass through there during inspections."

"Perfect. Now inform the Duke what we've found, then gather a team and pay the place a visit." Kraft closed the thoracic cavity, preparing to pause the examination. He remembered the small bottle found nearby, changed gloves, uncorked it, and peered inside by candlelight.

A tiny amount of liquid—whether due to insufficient light or something else, the bottom of the bottle was utterly black.

"Professor?" Martin noticed Kraft's expression growing grim—he'd never seen such seriousness from him, not even when opening the chest.

"Martin."

"What is it? Do you need something else?"

"Bring more men. Men with strong nerves." Kraft pressed the cork back in, picked up a candlestick, melted wax, and dripped it over the tightly sealed bottle neck, sealing it completely. "And bring oil of fire."