novelraw Chapter 169: The Truth
Chapter 169: The Truth
The ferocity of the counterattack launched by the Root of Sorrow exceeded Lin Jie's imagination.
Hundreds upon thousands of root tendrils, sharp as quenched steel spears, stabbed down from the walls and ceiling, forming an impenetrable black downpour.
The roots converged, thrusting toward the three invaders trapped in the center of the cavity with nowhere to retreat.
The wind howled sharply and mournfully, carrying countless sounds like wails.
The oppressive force formed by this pure physical piercing attack thickened the surrounding air, squeezing their lungs and making breathing difficult.
This was a kill zone with no blind spots, designed to pierce and tear apart any flesh-and-blood body, ultimately turning them into pulp to nourish its growth.
"Defense!!!"
William's roar sounded tragic and heroic amidst this symphony of death.
He used his own scarred body as a shield, stubbornly blocking the way in front of Lin Jie and Julian.
His Winchester had expended all its high-explosive shells and could only be held across his chest like a fire poker, trying to use the scorching steel barrel to parry even a single fatal root.Julian had also poured all his mental energy into the ancient blackthorn cane.
The [Order Decay] field was pushed to its limit by him, forming a weak domain less than three meters in diameter that exuded an aura of decay.
He hoped to use his final strength to weaken the approaching storm.
However, both of them knew clearly that everything they were doing now was as futile as a mantis trying to stop a chariot.
Before this power originating from the UMA's true body, all their resistance seemed insignificant.
Amidst this despair sufficient to make one close their eyes and await death, Lin Jie, standing behind them, made a mad decision that William and Julian could not comprehend.
He did not retreat, did not seek cover, and did not even raise the only thing in his hand that might still be useful, [Serene Heart].
Instead, he abruptly crouched down, ignoring the roots about to pierce down from above his head.
He pressed his right hand onto the violently squirming ground beneath his feet—that massive meat wall was also part of the Swamp Tree Fiend's body.
[Reverberation Touch]!
He was going to forcibly read the core memories of this UMA in the last moments before he was torn apart.
"Lin Jie! What are you doing?!"
There was no time to answer Julian's horrified question. A chaotic, jumbled stream of consciousness instantly flooded his mind.
He heard two completely different yet eerily intertwined and fused voices. One was the bestial roar belonging to the Swamp Tree Fiend.
"Threat... intruder... eliminate... protect... core..."
And the other...
The other was a human whisper belonging to a little girl, filled with loneliness and longing for her older brother.
"Brother... where are you... I'm so cold... I miss you so much..."
Lin Jie finally understood. He understood the true nature of this UMA.
The obsession Lina felt before her death, her wish for her brother to live on, was so powerful and pure that even after being absorbed by this UMA as core nourishment for decades, it had not been digested.
Instead, it had, in a bizarre way, inversely corrupted the UMA's beastial nature.
Now, this pulsating Root of Sorrow, its consciousness was a contradictory, painful patchwork composed of Lina's humanity and the Swamp Tree Fiend's beastial nature.
Its beastial nature drove it to instinctively attack all intruders, while its humanity made it retain, deep within its soul, the purest desires belonging to the little girl.
This was the underlying logic behind all its actions.
Lin Jie withdrew his hand. Bracing against the fierce wind, he stepped out from behind William's protective back.
He exposed his own flesh-and-blood body without reservation at the very center of the attack.
"Lin Jie! Get back! Are you insane?!" Julian let out a disbelieving roar.
But Lin Jie did not hear his shout.
His face held no fear or despair, only absolute calm and solemnity.
He slowly withdrew the hand that had been tucked inside the inner pocket of his chest. In his hand, he held a moss-covered wooden bird.
He raised the toy, which carried sorrow and sibling affection, high above his head.
He ignored the sharp roots about to pierce him.
His gaze pierced through the forest of black roots, landing directly on the very center of the Root of Sorrow, on Lina's skeletal remains, curled up and sleeping, wrapped layer upon layer by countless roots.
Then he spoke. His voice was not loud;
one could even say it was gentle.
But amidst the symphony of sharp wind sounds, his warm words echoed through the cavity with a strange penetrating power.
"Lina von Stein."
He softly called out that name forgotten by the world.
"Your brother, Karl, sent me."
His voice held no tactical deception, no false disguise, only heartfelt consolation.
"He asked me to return this... to you."
Lin Jie extended the decaying wooden bird in his hand a little further forward.
"He has never forgotten you."
In that instant, time was pressed into pause.
The sharp roots, less than half a meter from Lin Jie's body, came to an abrupt, eerie halt in a manner that defied the laws of inertia.
The entire world, that devastating storm, was abruptly frozen on the very last frame before completion.
William and Julian, these two battle-hardened hunters, stared dumbfounded at the "miraculous" scene before them. Their brains went into a state of shutdown.
They could not understand why this was happening.
But Lin Jie knew the answer.
The "root" here was Lina's intense obsession before her death.
All its actions, whether creating illusions or attacking intruders, were not for the sake of killing.
They were a morbidly twisted "re-enactment" aimed at guarding this obsession;
it was protecting Lina's remains.
Any existence that tried to approach, to disrupt this peace, would be seen as a threat and met with fierce attack.
And what Lin Jie had just done was precisely the opposite of "attack."
He showed no hostility. He called out Lina's name. He mentioned Karl. Most importantly, he produced the token that carried the affection between her and her brother.
This was a "funeral" delayed by decades.
This entire act created the most fundamental conflict with the UMA's black-and-white, underlying logic for judging "threat" and "non-threat."
The simple processor composed of obsession and beastial nature could not comprehend what was happening before its eyes. It fell into chaos.
While William and Julian were still immersed in shock, an even more incredible sight occurred.
The pulsating Root of Sorrow ceased its attack.
Not only that, the translucent, spiderweb-like fine roots wrapped around Lina's skeletal remains gently receded backward.
Finally, when all the roots had receded, the curled, sleeping white skeletal remains, along with that ugly dark green "heart," were simultaneously exposed before the three men without any cover.
The bizarre "symbiotic" relationship between them seemed to have been temporarily severed by Lina's humanity.
Lin Jie knew the opportunity had come. This was a fleeting opening not to be missed.
But he did not immediately raise his gun to shoot like a cold-blooded hunter.
He simply walked forward slowly. He passed through the obstacles formed by the stationary roots and finally stopped before the skeletal remains.
He knelt down on one knee, gently taking off his own rough tweed suit jacket—long soaked with mud and bloodstains, symbolizing the "hunter" identity—from his body.
Then, he carefully, gently wrapped Lina's skeletal remains, along with the "relic" in her hands that was no longer recognizable, in this jacket.
He had completed his "funeral rites."
He had fulfilled his promise to Karl, to the Wolpertinger.
And the massive Root of Sorrow simply watched quietly as he completed all this. It did not launch another attack.
The frequency of its pulsations also seemed to grow slower and slower. Having lost the "source of sorrow" it had guarded for decades, the meaning of its existence was dissipating along with it.
Just as Lin Jie, holding the jacket-wrapped skeletal remains of Lina tightly in his arms, prepared to turn and leave...
His peripheral vision was suddenly caught by Lina's empty, tiny finger bones—the ones that had originally been tightly clutching the "relic."
He saw that between those slender finger bone segments, there seemed to be something else, emitting a metallic glint in the dim light.
That was not the unrecognizable "relic" in her hand.
It was another, smaller fragment, like something that had broken off from some object.
Lin Jie's heart stirred. He reached out and carefully, gently retrieved the fragment from between Lina's finger bones.
When the fragment lay complete in his palm, Lin Jie's expression changed slightly.
It was a standard I.A.R.C. cartridge case, long corroded to rust by acidic substances!