Chapter 315: Evil Curse

"..."

The team gathered around the skeletal remains, as if thorns had grown from their mandibles, piercing and fixing their tongues into rigid specimens, rendering them voiceless.

Even Kraft could not offer any meaningful comment on this.

The restrictions on osteogenesis were completely lifted; massive amounts of calcium salts, woven protein fibers, and polysaccharides were mobilized here, building internal spires like reinforced concrete, breaking through the fragile flesh and skin.

The red layer adhering to the bone surface, seen up close, appeared as an extremely fine network of capillaries—temporary proliferations forming microvessels to transport necessary substances, delivering vast quantities of calcium to deposit here.

This suggested the cause of his collapse might not have been excessive blood loss, but hypocalcemia.

As calcium rapidly deposited to form bone spurs, the level of free calcium in the plasma plummeted.

At first, there was strange numbness and tingling, wandering between the fingers and across the face, insignificant compared to his other injuries.

Subsequently, weakness in the limbs and dizziness ensued, which during a run might be mistaken for signs of extreme physical exhaustion.

Until, in terror, he discovered his limbs were uncontrollable; convulsions resembling an epileptic seizure replaced normal movement, breathing became difficult, and the spasming throat felt as if choked by an invisible hand reaching out from the lungs.

Before total suffocation, the cliff-like drop in blood calcium levels had already caused central neuron dysfunction; as consciousness faded, amidst the chaos, he felt only the pain growing beneath his skin, gradually receding.

The calcium in the blood was far insufficient to support such massive proliferation, so his other half of the skeleton exhibited obvious brittleness, the surface covered in small holes, the interior as loose as something fermented.

Uncontrolled osteogenesis and osteolysis occurring simultaneously were symptoms of certain malignant bone cancers, but accelerated by countless times.

Of course, he himself could not see the latter half of the process; this should be considered a form of mercy from physiological mechanisms.

"From a medical perspective, he probably wasn't in too much pain before he left." Losing consciousness and death ended within a short time, at least not as terrifying as it looked.

For the sake of rigor, Kraft added a sentence, "Theoretically."

"Although I don't particularly like them, this kind of meeting is still too terrible." Brother Wading felt ill all over; merely looking at the scene made him feel something growing and drilling beneath his skin.

"I don't wish this on anyone, except... I mean, even Theodore."

Green silently returned the lifted fabric to its place, barely covering the skeleton, drew a circle on his chest, and murmured a short phrase that was likely a prayer.

His gaze swept around, finding nothing missing here, so he removed the double-winged ring amulet from his chest, tied a knot with the cord, and wrapped it around the ribs bristling with sharp spurs.

"This will protect his soul. Continue, we must be more careful."

The amulet pendant swung in the gaps of the empty skeleton; the contents that originally filled it were nowhere to be found, perhaps taken by whatever killed him.

The gravel ground and surging water meant there were no footprints here, making it impossible to infer that creature's mode of movement or size, but since it could carry away most of an adult's body weight, it certainly wasn't small.

Following this line of thought, they carefully inspected the surroundings again and found several shallow depressions, seemingly having borne considerable weight, with the gravel compacted and sunken.

Because they were distributed too sparsely and with large intervals, they were not noticed at first; even if found, it was impossible to determine if they were traces of something specific, and their distribution made it hard to deduce how it moved.

Meanwhile, Kraft was thinking of other things.

Distortions in biological structures upon contact with anomalies were nothing new, but those were all based on close-range, zero-distance, or even negative-distance contact with the medium; yet if contact had already occurred, would the thing hunting the dead really give him a chance to run that far?

The specificity of this skeletal distortion was particularly obvious; unlike previous observations related to function, this was entirely for the purpose of killing.

【This was designed.】

A program specifically and intentionally selected, full of malice, not very much like the style of deep-layer biology.

"A suggestion." Kraft suppressed his discomfort and hurried to the front of the team, "Do not underestimate what we have encountered."

The priest couldn't quite understand how one could overestimate what they were about to encounter; what could be worse than a living lake?

"What do you mean?"

"I feel it might be... capable of thought. In any case, be as careful as possible; treat it as if we are fighting a clever devil wielding evil magic, not a beast possessing strength, understand?"

"Seems there's no reason to refuse; I'll remember that." Green promised.

They were entering a stone jungle inhabited by some intelligent creature, which was clearly far more familiar with this place than any outsider.

In fact, the ground traces disappeared quickly; it seemed its movement was not confined to the ground. Scratch marks, likely from footholds, were found on the surfaces of rock clusters, appearing at various heights and distances.

The team could only advance blindly in a general direction; what truly guided them was the posture of the rocks.

The rising rock clusters widened and grew taller, becoming outwardly inclined rock walls, their posture like ripples thrown high into the air and frozen in place; ever since a stone fell from the sky, these ripples had never settled.

The monks hoped the professor would offer some more broad knowledge, analyzing what kind of peculiar conditions had formed this landform.

They were disappointed. After making the suggestion, the professor fell silent, becoming unusually serious.

A shrill human voice tore away the last shred of hope.

With only a moment of stunned surprise, Green quickly turned his head, identifying the source of the echoing, overlapping voices between the rock walls, and after a brief thought, began to run.

Without further thought, the entire team was swept up by the emergency situation, chasing after the sound source.

"Damn it!" Kraft wanted very much to stop this rash action, but as long as the person making the sound was still alive, he could find no reason to stop, so he gritted his teeth and followed.

Especially since that voice, though filled with pain, still sounded powerful, suggesting a chance of survival.

The sound source was moving; doing so undoubtedly exposed its position to whatever was chasing it, while also pointing the way for the team.

After rounding the unknown number of stone walls, they noticed a flickering light spot not far away; the other party had obviously noticed them and immediately accelerated, running towards them.

The flame illuminated a face filled with fear and panic. Yes, it was a face from the other ship in his memory.

His scabbard was empty; his left arm was fixed in an extremely rigid posture against his side, like a gear mechanism jammed by thorns, unable to move; every sway from running twisted his expression of pain further.

"Save..." Seeing the church team, the brief joy of finding life in the midst of death temporarily suppressed the unbearable pain; an irrational conditioned reflex forced his body to squeeze out precious lung capacity to cry for help.

Green stopped immediately upon spotting him, at the point closest to the retreat, waiting for him to run over. He drew his sword, his gaze tightly locked on the darkness behind the approaching man, waiting for that thing to appear.

"Save..." The same syllable was repeated once more; the remaining half of the word and his body got stuck together.

Kraft felt something catch up to him the instant the man cried for help and slowed his pace.

No fangs, no sharp teeth, no muscles or bones; merely some invisible thing, as light and gentle as a breeze, delivering the "fluctuation" to the victim who had seen hope.

The expression of joy twitched unnaturally; the limbs suddenly went limp, as if suddenly gaining independent consciousness and joining a dance with a fast rhythm and strangely high frequency of movement—what Kraft called convulsions.

Swelling, protruding red dots as dense as pores; a few seconds later, redness flooded every inch of skin within the visible range.