Chapter 183: Gangrene in the Bone

Kraft clenched his fist, completely enveloping the pendant within it, grasping the light that had not yet been noticed by more people. "Alright, give the patient some quiet space to rest; too much noise is not conducive to recovery."

"The Duke hopes you and Knight Martin will proceed to the meeting as soon as you have rested. Someone will come to remind you then, Professor." The guard exited the room last, and before leaving, he added, "It is related to this matter."

"Of course, I also want to understand exactly what happened." Kraft nodded in agreement and signaled Kup to close and lock the door.

Hearing the footsteps fade away, he pulled the curtain halfway across, opened his palm, and the pendant, whose inlay was taken from the deep-layer giant mushroom condensate, emitted a faint red glow in his palm. Compared to the star-like red sparks that previously could only be observed in the dark, it was now a solidified blood flame set in a metal plate, second only to its state when facing the "Angel" directly.

This triggered Kup's stress response; he instinctively dodged to the side of the door and reached for the hammer handle.

Kraft stood up, holding the pendant, and walked around the room once. The red light dimmed and then brightened again, showing an undeniable change in brightness when he approached the bedside.

Yin Feng also noticed this quite familiar small ornament. Watching Kraft take it and circle the room before returning to stand before her, she looked up at him with confusion in her eyes.

The two stared at each other, eye to eye.

"Yin Feng, I know that actively recalling that experience might be very uncomfortable..." After weighing his words, a more moderate phrasing was chosen to prevent mistakenly making the girl feel this was an interrogation.

"You may have been affected by something not very good; it is not obvious now, but it may later cause some... symptoms. So we need to understand specifically what happened that day, okay?"

He pulled a chair over, sat in the sunlight, and folded his hands in a casual conversational posture. "It's just a chat between us. Let's start from the morning; for example, was breakfast that day delicious?" While guiding the topic toward an easier starting point, Kraft observed Yin Feng's reaction.

After a terrifying event involving a life-threatening threat, bringing it up again within a short time is not a good thing. If Yin Feng's mental state was not suitable for continuing the conversation, he would choose to temporarily terminate the talk and first learn the general situation from the Duke.

However, the reality was that Yin Feng appeared calmer than the best-case scenario he had imagined; this calmness was not reassuring. After such contact, a normal person would undoubtedly suffer severe and profound negative effects, yet her condition was as if the pain reflex had failed to be elicited.

"Two slices of bread?" she replied, then continued recalling, "Then I finished my homework for the day until noon, when a person named Brimmer came."

"Brimmer?"

A professor of humoral theory at Rivers University and a disciple of Professor Feiernan; this name appearing on the visit list was quite reasonable.

"What did he want?"

"He wanted your manuscript, saying it was related to... the arrangement of an academic gathering?" After briefly recalling the unfamiliar term, Yin Feng said with a hint of pride, "I did not let him touch your things."

"Oh, that thing isn't that important anyway, but you did the right thing." Kraft would not say that the content of his speech at the academic gathering was planned to be written at the last minute; his schedule was fully packed with the selective compilation of his monograph.

This did not seem like something a mature industry professional should do. Even if nominally related to arranging an academic conference, requesting an unpublished manuscript was far too impolite. Moreover, since it was not explained to the person himself, causing a serious dispute with even the slightest carelessness would be normal.

And the following narrative shifted his impression of Brimmer directly from "presumptuous and immature" to "suspicious."

"He stayed behind and said he hoped I would change my mind."

What could be confirmed was that Brimmer's behavior was not an unintentional mistake, but a purposeful request for the manuscript. Based on Kraft's understanding of Rivers University, those were people of status who knew how to behave appropriately; doing such a thing did not seem to come from the academy or from higher authorities like Professor Feiernan.

"And then?"

"I stayed at the craftsman's place for an afternoon; it seems they have made some progress on the things you wanted." She described her day, from Brimmer's visit to the wasted afternoon, all with the same calm and untroubled tone.

And as if foreshadowing the arrival of the main point, the description carried some emotion, but it was not fear of what had happened; rather, it was something indescribable, like walking out of a cave and standing before something more magnificent than the mountains piercing the clouds, a pure emotion that remained lingering upon later recollection—not shock, trembling, or awe, yet containing all of them.

She pressed her lips together, as if moistening them, or as if savoring something. "On the way back, near his residence, I saw some things."

"His residence? What kind of things?"

"They... were very beautiful, like mushrooms worn on the body, climbing up from beneath the cliff." Those images were recreated by language, allowing one to imagine how horrifying the scene must have been. "I saw the torches go out and found a place to hide until dawn."

A fully grown parasitic shell was awakened in the part of the castle where the patrol's vigilance was lowest, ascending the mountainside from a chasm no ordinary person could cross. Those who encountered them had no way to avoid them; meeting them on the mountain path was almost synonymous with death.

But why were they awakened?

There was only one known suspected location of Fungal Spirits in Westmin Castle: on the Duke himself. He lacked the ability to control a large group of shells.

Unless there was a "channel," a channel connecting to the Deep Layer, right nearby, allowing batches of Fungal Spirits to discover a controllable target nearby and temporarily come into the present world.

An old question received an answer: the lecturer Petrie and the servants who vanished into thin air at the banquet. This answer was laid bare once the principle of Edward's "disappearance trick" was understood: the cult controlled a method to stably pull those who established a connection with the Deep Layer over to it.

The prerequisite was that the "caster" had to be nearby. Since the venue was deep within Rivers University, the person performing such a grand illusion must have been present.

And in these two incidents, the number of overlapping people present was far too small.

【Brimmer】

Who would have thought this fellow would jump out on his own. Now that he thought about it, his loss of control had long shown signs; his eager departure after the incident was somewhat unbecoming of his status, but it was difficult to make the connection at the time.

"Did you see Brimmer again?"

"I heard a body was found in that room; it couldn't be confirmed if it was him." Yin Feng lowered her eyelids, her gaze focus unreadable.

"No need to be afraid; after all, they are just things that cannot withstand swords and armor." Kraft realized he might have asked too much and wanted to offer comfort but didn't know how to say it appropriately. "You can treat them as some kind of beast, like wolves."

Yes, they also moved in groups, hunting in the mushroom forest, with the target being the prey's body.

He hoped this would not bring any indelible psychological trauma to the girl. Kraft thought that Yin Feng belonged to those who were not good at expressing themselves, accustomed to being independent and alone, digesting things that even adults would find hard to swallow, and he had never even seen the most common emotional expression for children—crying.

In his eyes, Yin Feng was an angel in the education world, possessing the studious and proactive qualities every teacher most wanted to see, and also the sensible child every guardian most wanted to see. But this sensibility was not built upon a clear understanding of the laws of reason and operation, but rather a behavioral pattern formed through observation that was least likely to cause harm to herself.

Therefore, one should not blindly feel reassured by the surface calmness; continued attention remained necessary.

Moreover, he did indeed feel some things were not quite right. Although Yin Feng's expression was logical and consistent with what her status should produce, judging by intuition, the fact that there were no problems was itself a problem.

"Sigh." Kraft sighed and connected his mental organ, knowing that every use brought him closer to the Deep Layer, but there were times when it was unavoidable.

The internal structure of things was projected into his mind; consciousness absorbed the vast and complex information, emitting a satisfied sigh. Within the arm implant, which had a geometric crystal-cluster-like proliferation, oscillations surged ceaselessly, while tiny condensates precipitated beneath the skin trembled slightly.

Scanning Yin Feng's body, as expected, there was slight inflammatory exudate in the bronchi. However, it was confined within the large bronchi and had not yet developed downward into the alveoli; it was estimated to be caused by inhalation.

A wavering, ethereal, slender, near-human-shaped figure overlapped with the body, perceived by mental sensing. Its manifestation came from its own slight "fading"; the difference from surrounding matter made it appear in a slightly darker state, as if illuminated alone by some dim, colorless light.

That was something not supposed to be seen under normal conditions: Yin Feng's spiritual body. And Kraft clearly remembered that the last time he observed a spiritual body was when Kup was affected by the Deep Layer; the "fading" of the spiritual body would make it distinctly different from the environment within the field of mental senses, showing a tone increasingly approaching that of the Deep Layer as the degree of influence deepened.

Something quite "familiar" was attached to the spiritual body; it appeared to be the source of the change.

It was an equally ethereal velvet-like clump, with scattered threads interwoven with the cloud-fuzz-like spiritual body, like a fungal mat taking root in the mist. The textures of the two were indeed similar, and the contact area was almost indistinguishable.

【Fungal Spirit?】

Within a short half-day, Kraft once again felt the gripping pain inside, two finger-widths to the left of the sternum, radiating to the diaphragm, thorax, shoulder blades, and even the back molars, accompanied by a perceptible pulsation in the carotid artery and the pterygoid point, and his eyeballs seemed about to be squeezed out by the rising pressure from behind.

The moment he saw this thing, his mental senses contacted it; an invisible force clamped onto the void existence, attempting to separate the foreign object stuck to the spiritual body.

That power, which penetrated solid objects, surrounded and closed in everywhere, tearing and pulling. The stimulated Fungal Spirit contracted, reflexively trying to escape the force applied by the mental senses but failing.

However, this separation method could not clearly define the two; like invasive cancerous tissue, the Fungal Spirit and the spiritual body were similar in nature with unclear boundaries, blending into each other. While pulling on it, it also acted upon the host; large portions of the spiritual body were disturbed and on the verge of collapse.

After observing Yin Feng's mental state rapidly deteriorate, synchronously reflecting as phantom pain in corresponding areas and symptoms of drowsiness, Kraft was forced to abandon this operation.