Chapter 241

"You call this 'not a big deal'?" Kraft was utterly stunned; the surrealness of the situation rivaled inhaling a lungful of spore powder.

"A heresy, a new heresy with clear symbolic emblems, scurrying like cockroaches beneath our feet in the sewers, wielding strange methods—is that 'not a big deal'?"

Green glanced at the door, confirming no one was approaching. This was an isolated stone chamber.

Without any intention of concealment, he said, deeply dissatisfied yet helpless: "To many, yes; but to those who decide whether I receive support, perhaps not."

"Those with surnames and land inheritance believe only in surnames and land; everyone knows this, but no one states it outright. And for those with older surnames and more land, this standard can be relaxed further."

"The Inquisitor-General is happy to sweep cockroaches out of the house—but if they hide beneath vases or holy arks, that's another matter."

"Even if this gang of cockroaches set fire to a university lab and attacked Inquisition monks in the suburbs—would you abandon this just because of a symbol on a tattered suit of armor?" The situation was beginning to reveal its outlines; it was time to escalate.

"Burn another one, if you like—after all, it won't reach beneath the cushion of the Mother Church's chair; there's no sign of heresy spreading." From the perspective of a senior practitioner, Green understood the logic perfectly: "Of course, the attacks are vile—we'll find a way to retaliate."

"The problem now is that this armor raises concerns, and casualties will deepen those concerns—whether they come from those around you or from bishops and the Inquisitor-General, it's never good."

"Casualties?" Kraft hadn't seen anyone handling corpses since arriving.

"God the Father preserve us. We had two teams outside when it rained; the first team returned in time, and I found the second. Bad news: when we found them, they weren't full-strength."

"What attacked them?"

"Right here." The priest kicked the coffin; the armor clanged like a broken pipe, something inside rattling. "It's hard to believe, but something alive dwells inside the armor—uses it like a hermit crab uses a shell…"

The memory felt more like a nightmare so vivid it was real: battling soft-bodied creatures with shells of ancient metal, through corridors crawling with countless heretical symbols.

As it burned, the thing emitted a familiar sound—indistinguishable whether hallucination or reality—matching the confirmed victims, as if fragments of them remained trapped within.

This reminded Green of the demons described in the Holy Scripture, who enslaved and tormented their victims' souls, denying them peace even after death.

On the return path, the sparse distribution of symbols further intensified the sense of unreality.

"Does it sound like the ramblings of a man driven mad—or do you think it's fabricated to evade responsibility?"

"Then you burned it?" The professor's acceptance was beyond imagination; he raised not a single question about the description, accepting outright the claim of being attacked by "armor hermit crabs."

Judging from the fresher blackened traces inside, the thing's fate lay somewhere between grilled squid and a boiled crab left on the stove too long.

"Yes." Though aware the man might know more, this attitude was too ordinary; Green felt the professor was utterly unmoved, even revealing a hidden, well-concealed curiosity.

"Do you know what this is?"

"No, but I can find out now. Fortunately, I happened to bring something." Kraft pulled out several instruments, laid them out in a row, peeled off the nearly detached faceplate, and inserted a slender pair of tweezers diagonally into the interior.

This level of professionalism was truly rare; even the priest was startled. "You knew you'd need these?"

"Not at all—just a free gift from an academic conference. They were quite enthusiastic, insisted on shoving a few into my hands before I left."

"Rarely is there such thing as unexplained kindness." Even without considering craftsmanship, the materials and polished surfaces revealed immense value.

"Of course I know. Using—or even claiming to use—them is itself a form of repayment… Move the light closer."

Kraft stirred around inside the helmet, plucked out a somewhat regular fragment from the fused black charred debris. For some reason, the scene carried a sense of déjà vu.

Due to the semi-enclosed space, combustion was incomplete; moisture steamed the contents while preserving the more heat-resistant parts intact.

With tweezers, he peeled back the charred surface layer, revealing a pale yellow-white surface: a gravel-like object with small horns and an uneven, seemingly grinding surface.

Kraft confirmed its identity: "A tooth. Specifically, the second molar."

He inserted the long-nosed tweezers into roughly the same position, fumbled for a moment, then extracted several more fragments of the same kind—varying in size. After cleaning, he arranged them in an arc.

A few pieces were still missing from the arc, but the overall shape was already clear.

"If I'm not mistaken, this thing makes a chewing sound when it eats?"

"..."

Green reluctantly acknowledged the claim.

It looked like an embryo—an unevenly developed one, with only the necessary parts maturing first.

He also pulled out scattered bone fragments, far less intact than the teeth; their broken edges showed a porous, decomposing structure, as if undergoing an accelerated osteolytic reaction akin to osteosarcoma, but infiltrating inward at many times the normal speed.

"I don't think this is 'digestion' in the conventional sense."

"What difference does it make?" This thing had devoured several people; analyzing exactly how it consumed them only made Green feel worse.

"It makes all the difference. This isn't like a person—or any ordinary animal—eating lunch, where food is slowly broken down by a series of processes into basic nutrients, then gradually absorbed. No, Green. Completely different."

"How to put it? They're used directly—like taking a brick from the church's backyard and moving it to build a partition up front. It's internal reconfiguration within a single entity. This thing is fundamentally composed of 'people,' even using teeth identical to yours and mine."

Ignoring the priest's indescribable expression, the professor abandoned the inefficient task of sorting and piecing together fragments, and began dismantling the armor by hand. "I think I know what this is. Help me take it apart—after all, you never intended to submit it intact, did you?"

"Why?"

"If I'm right, I should find evidence."

After prying loose the rusted clasps, the two of them lifted the entire breastplate together, opening the gelatinous, solid-mixed space like cracking open a crab's shell. A nauseating stench of charred protein wafted out.

The incineration technique clearly fell short of Mo Lisen's standards; it was far from thorough.

Physiological and psychological revulsion made Kraft cover his nose and mouth, stepping back until the odor mostly dissipated, then approaching again to pry apart a slurry of matter with his tools. The expected target lay protected at the center, nearly undamaged.

Kraft pinched it, extracted it from the half-formed vertebrae surrounding it, then scraped off its charred outer crust after roasting.

A gray-white prismatic rod, one finger long, emitted an extremely faint, obscure light—a light that stirred unpleasant memories in Green. It was the same light that burst forth from the deep well, now shrunk countless times, held between iron teeth.

"You recognize this." Even the slowest mind could see the deliberate intent behind these actions.

"Yes. But I've never known how it forms."