[{"data":1,"prerenderedAt":-1},["ShallowReactive",2],{"origin-notes-on-kraft-anomalous-studies":3,"chapter-notes-on-kraft-anomalous-studies-notes-on-kraft-anomalous-studies-chapter-238":6},{"origin":4,"title":5},"chinese","Notes on Kraft Anomalous Studies",{"chapter":7,"nextChapterSlug":19,"prevChapterSlug":20,"totalChapters":21,"novelImage":22},{"id":8,"novel_id":9,"title":10,"slug":11,"index":12,"content":13,"wordcount":14,"created_at":15,"updated_at":15,"volume":16,"translator":17,"content_hash":18},2283716,4467,"Chapter 238","notes-on-kraft-anomalous-studies-chapter-238",238,"\u003Cp>Grease landed on the thing emerging from the armor, coating its form as it pulsed, gilding its surface with shifting hues of light.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>As for its substance, it was a translucent fluorescent white, through which fibrous strands and shard-like dark shadows could be seen, shifting and pressing toward contact points, unfolding to envelop the target and pulverizing the cheese-like prey within.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>The victim’s struggles had ended before the lamp oil was poured; the thing grew more active, more powerful, and the encased remains collapsed under grinding pressure, becoming part of the semi-solid mass.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Undigested bone fragments were absorbed into its amorphous jaws, becoming accomplices in chewing the next prey.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>This made humans hate their own instincts and imaginations—for through the translucent skin, they could envision how the body was disassembled and fused into the other, as if the two had always been one.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Greene thrust his torch forward. Though it had no eyes, the substance clearly sensed the approaching heat source, bulging into a clustered, extended structure that lunged back at him.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>The glossy white material tried to circle the torch and coil around his bare wrist, but the priest’s swordsmanship would not allow him to miss at such close range.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>They collided midair; from the point of contact, the greasy sheen erupted into blinding flames, spreading rapidly across the entire grotesque form, engulfing the spreading white and forcing it to reflexively contract.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>It paused for an instant, then boiled over.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>The semi-solid form, as it appeared, was rich in moisture; the sudden heat vaporized it, causing violent expansion and swelling, stretching the wrinkled surface into dense bubbles.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>The blisters sprouted and swelled within the flames, merging with one another, peeling the skin from its contents before bursting and releasing grayish mists that smelled of charred, bloody rot—evoking a vile odor as if fermented from the souls of the desecrated.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Low, guttural tones emerged from the boiling fire; within them, they recognized several familiar yet incomplete accents—including one they had thought they would never hear again—repeated like a parrot’s mimicry, stitching together half-formed syllables.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>The thing shuddered and continued shrinking, instinctively retreating toward its shell—the armor—trying to crawl back through the damaged gap. Large charred sections were torn away by rusted iron spines, carrying off part of the fuel.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>But the second bottle of fuel was poured onto the helmet in time, fueling the fire further.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>This time, the armor offered no protection; the highly conductive metal seared the water-rich tissue, and sizzling oil-water mixtures dripped continuously, seeping through every crack into the interior.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>As the last of the grease poured in, the armor became a complete oven, and the human-like voices gradually faded.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Flames burst from within, baking the faceplate grating into blackened char, while steam mixed with ash made the scene hazy and unbearable to stare at.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Greene coughed harshly, stepped away from the smoke to gasp for air, his gaze never leaving the armor.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>The upper half of the armor twitched a few times, then fell utterly still, returning to the quiet of an ancient metal relic.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>A momentary dizziness struck him—the kind that comes from severe mental exhaustion. He staggered in the water, gripping the tunnel’s brick wall; the smooth surface made his palm slide several times before he found a crack to brace against.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>“Damn it, we’ve got to keep moving.” Greene, his hand trembling, unslung another torch and lit it from the still-smoldering helmet. “Give me some of your lamp oil.”\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>“Sorry, Father…” The monk jolted back to awareness, shame surfacing before even fear could settle.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>The Mozheng -like terror had frozen his limbs, leaving him utterly motionless—a failure unbearable for one who prided himself on unwavering faith, enough to trigger the gravest self-doubt.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>“We’ll talk later. Clearly, we’re not the first to encounter this thing.” Greene cut off his confession, studying the wall he leaned on with faint suspicion—he noticed the pagan carvings along this stretch of tunnel seemed less dense than his first impression.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>There were gaps between the honeycomb patterns, not covering the entire wall; they alternated with ordinary bricks.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>It was as if part of the scene had been quietly removed while his full attention was fixed on battle, leaving inconsistencies between before and after. But under sudden stress, there had been no chance to observe closely—he had dismissed it as an illusion.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>After regaining some strength by leaning against the wall, Greene pressed forward. As he passed the slightly cooled, rusted armor, something occurred to him. He stopped and used his sword scabbard to scrape away the black ash and rust flakes from the back of the breastplate.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>A faint golden mark emerged—a sword-shaped emblem, surrounded by barely visible pale yellow powder traces, suggesting there had once been more gilded decoration, now indistinguishable.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Only the central emblem, crafted with the most material, remained intact, twisted and skewed by the warped iron armor.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>As a man with little affection for nobility, Greene’s knowledge of heraldry was limited to a few families still recognized around Dunling; discerning any meaning from this was beyond him.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>And the sword in heraldry was about as common as seafood in Norther cuisine—a cliché, a synonym for the ordinary.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>In a martial culture, at least a third of noble families added a sword to their crest; the distinction was effectively zero.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Even if armor cost filtered out most of them, what remained still posed a serious challenge to any heraldic scholar.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>He abandoned the idea of solving it himself, deciding to record the full image before returning to consult records.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>But after brushing away more rust, the lower half of the sword emblem never appeared—it ended abruptly at the blade’s midpoint.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Greene rubbed harder, confirming it wasn’t due to incomplete cleaning or flaking—it had always been this way. Only the lower half of the sword remained, as if…\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>【plunged upside-down into something】\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>A very bad guess surfaced.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Sword emblems were everywhere, but the image of one plunged upside-down into something—given his sparse but usable knowledge—had an extremely narrow range.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>“I hope it’s just ignorance breeding paranoia.” Greene shook his head, forcing himself to stop spiraling into wild theories, pulling his mind away from the conspiracies it had spun.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>All he could do now was press forward, find the group, then decide whether to bring this thing back.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Passing another fork in the tunnel, the sound of water ahead shifted slightly. Several orange-yellow lights flickered uneasily in the dark.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>The priest raised his torch and walked toward them; the water parted beneath his feet, the intermittent chill fading behind him.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>At a distance of a dozen steps, he heard shouts from ahead.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>“Father Greene?!”\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Against a pile of rocks where water gushed forth, several monks stood tense, weapons gripped tight, watching this side warily.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>When they saw it was their own and not some strange thing, they lowered their crossbows.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>“Did you encounter that thing?”\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>“If you mean the armor, then its filling is well done.” Greene wanted to force a smile to ease the tension, but the fact that their group was incomplete crushed any last hope—even a dark joke felt hollow.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>“Also, you should’ve returned to report the moment you saw those symbols, not charged ahead and left others to clean up your mess.”\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>“Symbols? What symbols?” The rescued monks exchanged glances, their eyes filled with confusion.\u003C\u002Fp>",1222,"2026-06-20T02:15:56.940Z",1,"Qwen3-Next 80B","ac4a9bf49a083f14adeb0e675a849036dc0f0398ec395921903cc2a8c5d799a0","notes-on-kraft-anomalous-studies-chapter-239","notes-on-kraft-anomalous-studies-chapter-237",406,"https:\u002F\u002Fnovelzhen.com\u002Fimages\u002Fcovers\u002Fnotes-on-kraft-anomalous-studies-cover.jpg"]