novelraw Chapter 303: The Flesh Factory
Chapter 303: The Flesh Factory
The Delacroix slaughterhouse was situated on the eastern edge of the county town, right next to the turbid river channel that eventually flowed into the Gulf of Mexico.
Before the catastrophe, this had been the largest meat processing and export center in the entire southern part of Louisiana.
Every day, thousands of cattle, pigs, sheep, and other livestock had their lives ended here, were then butchered and processed, and ultimately turned into cold, sellable commodities.
The ever-present stench of blood and the resentment of death, along with the uniquely cold, numb feeling of industrialized slaughter, had long since seeped deep into every inch of this land's soil.
This was precisely the fundamental reason the mad old Delacroix had chosen this place to conduct his foolish "god-calling" ritual.
He naively believed this was the place in the entire Delacroix region closest to "death," and therefore the best altar for communicating with that "God of Plague and Decay."
He wasn't wrong.
But he also paid a bitter price for it.
Under the cover of night, Lin Jie and his two companions carefully approached the outskirts of this massive flesh factory. The almost tangible, sky-piercing stench nearly choked them on the spot.
It wasn't just the smell of blood; it was mixed with the odor of several different kinds of biological corpses rapidly rotting."Good Lord..."
Even Brewer, a former Texas Ranger accustomed to all sorts of bloody scenes, couldn't help but let out a low murmur of disgust.
He pressed an alcohol-soaked handkerchief tightly over his mouth and nose, but the pervasive stench still madly forced its way into his nostrils and brain.
Lin Jie's face was equally pale. Suppressing the nauseating churning in his stomach, he took out three simple gas masks from his backpack, specially made by the North American branch and filled with activated charcoal and purifying herbs, and distributed them to Brewer and White Ghost.
Only after putting on the masks was the terrifying stench mostly blocked out.
The three hid in a patch of withered reeds, raising binoculars to observe the horrifying factory in the distance.
The slaughterhouse wasn't plunged into the deathly silence they had imagined.
On the contrary.
It was busier than ever.
Inside the towering walls, the huge factory buildings were brightly lit.
The tall chimneys continuously belched thick black smoke, mixed with green phosphorescent light.
From inside the factory buildings, one could faintly hear the "creaking" sound of conveyor belts running, the "sizzling" sound of bones being cut, and a certain "crunching" sound, like the chewing of a beast, that sent shivers down the spine.
Several swaying figures were working day and night on those assembly lines.
They were the slaughterhouse workers who had been infected and mutated into living corpses.
They were processing the decayed and similarly infected animal corpses fished out of the river channel.
They were performing the most primitive and brutal disassembly and collection of all the flesh and blood.
Then, through a huge central conveyor belt, they were continuously sending it to some unknown location beneath the factory.
They were preparing a flesh-and-blood feast for a certain hungry monarch hidden deep in the darkness.
"The diary was telling the truth."
Brewer's voice sounded muffled through the gas mask.
"These poor bastards have to keep working for that devil even after death."
"Not just them."
Lin Jie's voice was icy cold.
He adjusted the binoculars' focus to maximum, aiming them at several abnormally large figures patrolling back and forth inside the factory.
"Look there."
Brewer and White Ghost followed his pointing direction.
They saw.
Among those ordinary living corpse workers, several more advanced and terrifying elite guards were mixed in.
Their size was at least twice that of ordinary living corpses!
They were massive creatures crudely and bloodily stitched together from the corpse parts of at least three to four different species, forcibly joined using slaughterhouse meat hooks and rusty wire!
One monster had the upper body of a rotten water buffalo, but its lower half was twisted human legs.
Its arms were replaced by a pair of huge crocodile skulls!
Another monster was simply three human corpse torsos forcibly "bundled" together, forming a moving mountain of flesh with six arms and three heads!
"Stitched-together Monsters... this is like stepping back into the Twilight Forest."
The definition of this special type of infected entity instantly flashed through Lin Jie's mind.
These were higher-level mutants transformed from the slaughterhouse's senior technicians who possessed butchery and disassembly skills in life.
They retained some of their professional skills from life and applied them in an even more blasphemous way to the extreme!
They were the foremen of this flesh factory, and also its most powerful guards.
"The situation is much more troublesome than we imagined."
Brewer's tone was grave.
"Trying to infiltrate to the deepest storage room without alerting these big guys is basically impossible."
"So we can't infiltrate directly."
Lin Jie lowered his binoculars.
"We need a commotion."
He turned his head to look at Brewer.
"Brewer, your task is the most important, and also the most dangerous."
Lin Jie began to lay out the infiltration plan he had rehearsed countless times in his mind.
"In five minutes, I'll infiltrate from the east side wall."
"My target is to head directly to storage room zero, located at the northernmost part of the factory."
"And at the same time I move," his gaze sharpened, "...I need you to create the biggest commotion you possibly can from the west side, which is the main gate direction!"
"Gunfire and explosions, whatever method you use."
"I need you to firmly capture the attention of at least eighty percent of the guards in the factory, including those damn Stitched-together Monsters!"
This was an extremely crazy action plan.
Brewer would have to single-handedly confront the entire guard force of the flesh factory head-on!
"You..."
Brewer's breath hitched, but he ultimately nodded slowly.
"I understand."
As a former Texas Ranger, a warrior who had order and duty carved into his bones, he knew that sometimes, for the sake of ultimate victory, someone had to play the most dangerous and also most glorious role of the decoy.
"And you..."
Lin Jie finally looked at the silent White Ghost.
"Your task is free," Lin Jie said. "You can choose to infiltrate the interior with me, or stay on the periphery to support Brewer, or choose to hunt in your own way."
White Ghost's head, wearing the white ceramic mask, lifted up. The dark, empty eye sockets glanced at Lin Jie once.
Then his figure vanished into the shadows of the reed bed.
Five minutes later.
"BOOM——!!!!!"
A deafeningly loud explosion suddenly erupted from the direction of the slaughterhouse's main gate.
That was Brewer detonating all the high explosives he was carrying!
The massive flames and shockwave instantly blew the heavy steel-cast gate into a pile of twisted scrap metal.
Immediately after, the roar of a shotgun rang out in that area.
"Come on! You filthy, blasphemous bastards!"
Brewer's rough roar echoed over the factory.
"Let your Sheriff teach you what real order is!"
The commotion had begun!
As expected.
Inside the factory, the living corpses mechanically working on the assembly lines, upon hearing the huge explosion and gunfire, threw down their work one after another, let out roars, and surged towards the main gate.
Even those few massive Stitched-together Monsters serving as guards opened their heavy strides, dragging their terrifying bodies stitched together from corpse parts, and joined this frenzied counterattack!
Brewer stood steadily on the ruins, the shotgun in his hands transformed into an efficient work of killing art.
Every action from pumping the slide to firing was so fast it left only an afterimage.
"Bang!"
The head of a living corpse charging at the forefront exploded on cue!
"Bang! Bang!"
Two living corpses trying to flank from the sides were simultaneously pierced through their rotten chests by three precise ricocheting pellets!
He transformed into the most experienced farmer, using a sickle to harvest a rotten wheat field.
Any living corpse attempting to come within twenty yards of him was torn to shreds by the death line of defense constructed by the purification rounds!
However, the number of enemies was simply too great!
Soon, the first massive Stitched-together Abomination broke through the wall of flesh piled up from ordinary living corpse bodies and appeared before Brewer.
It used a gutted living corpse body in its hand as a cannonball, hurling it fiercely at Brewer!
Brewer immediately rolled sideways, narrowly dodging this "flesh-and-blood cannonball" reeking of decay.
The corpse smashed into the spot where he had just been standing, exploding into a blurry mess of flesh and blood.
And that Stitched-together Monster took advantage of this opportunity, opening its heavy strides to launch a devastating charge at him.
Brewer knew that facing a heavy unit of this level, ordinary buckshot could no longer inflict effective damage.
The moment he rose from his roll, the pure silver hexagonal star sheriff's badge that had been quietly pinned and polished to a shine on his chest suddenly lit up!
"[Noontide Badge]!"
A spiritual fluctuation that could distort light spread out.
In the vision of the Stitched-together Monster, driven only by primitive instinct, Brewer and his surroundings suddenly became blurry and distorted, appearing unreal.
The entire world seemed placed on a desert at high noon in midsummer, with waves of flame-like heat rising in the air.
Brewer's figure became elusive within those distorted heat waves, splitting into several blurry, constantly wavering afterimages.
"Roar?"
The Stitched-together Monster felt confused. It couldn't understand why this tiny prey before its eyes had suddenly "melted."
Its unstoppable charge involuntarily showed a brief moment of hesitation.
But for a top marksman like Brewer, this sliver of hesitation was already a decisive moment!
He calmly stood at the center of the heatwave illusion he had created, drawing his other weapon from his waist.
—The Colt revolver with the white mother-of-pearl inlaid on its grip.
Brewer assumed a standard Texas Ranger duel stance, raising the gun with one hand, pouring all his concentration between the front sight and the target!
Then he pulled the trigger.
"Bang!"
A special armor-piercing bullet crafted from high-purity mithril fired, accurately shooting into the mouth of the crocodile skull that served as the Stitched-together Monster's "arm."
The bullet detonated within that narrow, enclosed space!
That crocodile skull was blown into a spray of bone fragments erupting from the inside out!
The Stitched-together Monster lost one "arm," its entire body tilting to one side due to imbalance, exposing the huge flank stitched together from corpse parts and riddled with weak points.
Brewer smiled slightly, raising the revolver in his hand once more.
"Bang!"
...
Three crisp gunshots transformed into the death knell of the Grim Reaper, striking three "suture points" on the Stitched-together Monster's body used to connect different corpse parts, made of iron hooks and wire.
With the sound of metal snapping and flesh tearing, this guard disintegrated.
Under its own weight, its body scattered back into a pile of loose, rotting corpse parts.
And on the other side of the factory, beneath the east wall.
Under the cover of that great commotion, Lin Jie's figure easily scaled the practically useless barbed wire fence and landed silently in the shadows inside the factory.
He pushed his speed to the limit while simultaneously activating [Mental Staircase] to enhance his perception. Avoiding the remaining scattered living corpses, he moved north along the visual blind spots obscured by the huge machinery, charging straight for that storage room zero that emitted a chilling cold air!
There weren't as many guards at the storage room entrance as he had imagined.
Only two "Stitched-together Abominations," larger than the ones he had seen outside, stood there quietly like two Door Gods.
They were probably the Praetorian Guard of this flesh factory.
Hiding behind a meat grinder, Lin Jie's brows furrowed tightly.
Trying to infiltrate the storage room without alerting these two big guys was basically impossible.
And once a fight with them broke out, the resulting commotion would inevitably place Brewer, fighting at the main gate, in a desperate situation of being attacked from both front and rear.
Just as Lin Jie's brain was rapidly searching for a way to break this deadlock—
"Pfft."
An extremely faint sound suddenly came from the roof beam above him.
Lin Jie jerked his head up!
He saw White Ghost had somehow already appeared directly above those two Stitched-together Abominations!
He was looking down at his prey.
The next second, he moved.
His figure dropped vertically from the roof beam nearly ten meters high.
Without making any sound!
He landed silently like that on the bloated back of one of the Stitched-together Abominations.
That Stitched-together Abomination didn't react to what had happened.
And White Ghost's prosthetic [Emptiness] had already penetrated that "chest" made of thick rotten flesh and hard bone...
Then, a clench.
The Stitched-together Abomination's body twitched.
Then it went limp.
Its heart, that "plague engine" that provided the core power for this monster stitched together from corpse parts, had been crushed.
The other Stitched-together Abomination noticed the anomaly beside it.
It let out a roar tinged with confusion and anger, turning around.
All that greeted it was a white mask moving at extreme speed.
"Pfft."
Another similarly faint sound of a sharp weapon entering flesh.
The second "Praetorian Guard" also followed its companion's fate without getting a clear look at its enemy's appearance.
After completing all this, White Ghost gave a slight nod in Lin Jie's direction.
Then his figure once again melted into the surrounding darkness and vanished.
The final obstacle was gone.
Lin Jie quickly rushed to the large door.
He took out [Silencer] from his pocket and stabbed it into the keyhole of the door lock.
Accompanied by a "sizzling" sound, the industrial lock was easily opened.
A terrifying cold current rushed out from the depths of the door crack!
In the deepest part of the storage room, he finally saw that "King" frozen within plague and madness.