novelraw Chapter 351: Interspecies Confrontation
Chapter 351: Interspecies Confrontation
The dull roar that symbolized the complete destruction of the "Garden of Eden" was eventually swallowed up by the sound of cicadas and the wind.
As the smoke and dust gradually cleared, what lay before the survivors was an even longer, more tedious, and brutally demanding march that tested their willpower to the extreme.
Although the Black Lotus forces entrenched in this area had been wiped out with the collapse of the laboratory, and the pursuers composed of Death Soldiers would no longer appear, this primeval jungle did not show the slightest mercy to these intruders because of it.
Lin Jie, carrying the leather pouch containing the key antidote, walked in the middle of the group. This was already the third day since their retreat.
In these three days, they had hardly slept a single peaceful night.
The hot, humid air clung tightly to everyone's bodies. Sweat, the moment it seeped out, was trapped on the skin's surface by the extreme humidity, unable to evaporate, forming a suffocating oily film.
Nadia was still walking at the front, clearing the way.
Though equally exhausted, the young Dayak guide's back was even more upright than when they had come.
She was no longer that confused exiled princess; she was this jungle's avenger.
"Watch your step.""This area is the territory of fire ants. If you step on their nest, the toxin will make your feet swell so much you won't even be able to take your boots off."
Julian, leaning heavily on his walking stick, followed behind, his face covered with red, swollen bumps from insect bites and bloody scratches from thorns. His glasses had long been lost in some river ditch, and now he could only squint, moving step by step with difficulty, relying on his blurry vision.
Evelyn wasn't faring much better. Carrying the heavy wireless radio, she had to stop and gasp for breath every few steps, yet she still fiercely protected the equipment box wrapped tightly in oilcloth.
It was their only hope of contacting the outside world.
Deep in this rainforest, layered with tall canopies, ordinary signals simply couldn't penetrate the thick vegetation barrier. They needed to find an open area with high enough elevation and no magnetic interference to attempt a call.
Finally.
On the evening of the third day, as the last glimmer of twilight on the horizon was about to be devoured by darkness, Nadia led them up a limestone cliff located at the edge of the Coastline.
A long-awaited sea breeze, carrying a salty, pungent taste, washed over them.
It was the smell of freedom.
Standing at the cliff's edge, Lin Jie looked at the vast, deep blue ocean stretching out in the twilight. The tightly wound string in his heart finally loosened a little.
"This location is good."
He turned to look at Evelyn, who had already collapsed onto the ground.
"Try to see if you can contact the captain."
Evelyn, not bothering to rest, quickly opened the equipment box and set up the makeshift antenna on a dead tree on the cliff.
As she skillfully turned the handle of the hand-cranked generator, the spark-gap transmitter, still belonging to the primitive technology of the 19th century, began to emit a crackling sound of electric current.
"Messenger... this is... the Borneo team..."
Evelyn called out into the brass microphone over and over, her voice sounding somewhat erratic in the sea breeze.
At first, there was only the despairing static in the headphones.
One minute.
Two minutes.
Just as the light in Julian's eyes was gradually dimming.
"Crackle... crackle... Received... This is the Messenger..."
A voice with a distinct British accent, though accompanied by intense static, came through the headphones clearly.
"Thank God... you're alive."
That was the captain's excited voice.
"We are at... coordinates..." Evelyn quickly recited a string of latitude and longitude data calculated with a sextant.
"Coordinates received... We will arrive in the area... in two hours... Please release a signal flare..."
The communication was cut off again after the brief exchange due to unstable signals.
But it was enough.
"They're coming." Evelyn took off the headphones, a smile mixed with tears appearing on her face.
Lin Jie nodded. He pulled out a red signal flare sealed with waterproof wax from inside his coat.
"Prepare for evacuation."
But not everyone was prepared to leave.
Nadia turned to face the jungle, which was now completely swallowed by darkness.
She stood there quietly.
Lin Jie walked over. In those wild eyes, he saw a determination harder than rock.
"Aren't you coming with us?" Julian asked, somewhat surprised. "The Black Lotus is finished, but this place is still dangerous. You could come with us to Singapore, even to Europe."
"No."
Nadia shook her head. Her hand gripped tightly the finger bone belonging to her father that hung on her chest.
"My home is here."
"Those Black Ghosts may be dead, but the poison they left behind remains. The monsters that escaped from the laboratory are still wandering in the jungle. The tribes that betrayed our ancestors still need to be dealt with."
She turned her head, looking at Lin Jie.
"I am a daughter of the Dayak. I cannot run away when my people need me most. I will stay."
"I will tell all the tribes that those devils have been defeated by us. I will take back the lost dignity and land, bit by bit."
This was a princess's vow.
Looking at the transformed girl before him, a trace of respect flickered in Lin Jie's eyes.
He untied a dagger from his waist, captured from a Black Lotus Sect member in a previous battle.
Though it couldn't compare to the Silencer, it was still an exceptionally fine blade.
"Take it."
Lin Jie handed over the dagger.
"If you ever encounter trouble you can't solve, go to the estuary and find the people from that ship. They will help you contact me."
Nadia took the dagger.
She suddenly stepped forward, opened her arms, and gave Lin Jie an awkward yet forceful hug.
"Messenger of the White Eagle God."
She whispered in Lin Jie's ear.
"The rainforest will forever remember your name. May your blade always stay sharp."
After saying this, she let go without any lingering attachment.
Holding the dagger, she turned and disappeared into the vast darkness.
Without looking back.
Lin Jie watched the direction she had vanished into, silent for a moment.
"Let's go."
He lit the red signal flare in his hand.
A dazzling red light tore through the night sky, like a shooting star flowing upstream, guiding the way back for the steel behemoth on the sea.
...
Two days later.
Singapore.
The gates of the Guangfu Funeral Parlor were still tightly shut. Two white lanterns swayed in the night wind, emitting a pale, dismal glow.
But this time.
There were no paper-crafted guards at the entrance.
In their place stood several burly Hongmen brothers with Mauser pistols tucked at their waists.
Seeing Lin Jie get out of the car, they immediately bowed respectfully and pulled open the gates.
"Mr. Lin, Sanniang has been waiting inside for a long time."
Lin Jie nodded and quickly walked into the courtyard.
He could sense that today, the funeral parlor was filled with an atmosphere even more solemn and oppressive than usual.
That chilling aura didn't come from the weather, but from some kind of formation specifically arranged to suppress a powerful force.
The doors to the main hall were wide open.
It had been converted into a temporary "operating room" brimming with Eastern mystique.
All the paper effigies had been cleared out.
In their place were forty-nine Everlasting Lamps arranged according to the Big Dipper's positions, and porcelain jars filled with black glutinous rice and cinnabar placed around the perimeter.
In the center of the main hall lay a mortuary bed carved from a single block of cold jade.
And on that bed lay a figure both familiar and strange to Lin Jie.
William Keane.
This once iron-hard British veteran now lay shirtless on the cold jade bed. His skin showed a heart-stopping bluish-black hue. Countless black blood vessels, twisting like earthworms, writhed frantically beneath his skin, as if something was rampaging inside his body, trying to burst out.
After losing the suppression of the Egyptian High Priest, this sinister, toxic force had completely erupted and was madly eroding the last of William's life force.
If not for the suppression of this cold jade bed and the surrounding formations, he would have long since turned into a corpse corroded by water poison.
Su Sanniang stood by the bed, holding several silver needles, swiftly sealing the major acupoints all over William's body.
Fine beads of sweat covered her forehead. This high-intensity needling not only consumed physical strength but also taxed her mental energy.
"If you had come back a few days later, you could only have collected his corpse."
Su Sanniang said without turning her head, her voice heavy with deep exhaustion.
"Did you bring the thing?"
"Brought it."
Lin Jie stepped forward and pulled out the alchemical vial he had kept close to his body.
He unscrewed the cap.
A rich golden fragrance permeated the space filled with the stench of corpses and the smell of medicine.
It was the scent of the Ghost Mother Flower Nectar.
It was the purest, most yang life energy.
The cold, sinister aura ravaging William's body seemed to shrink back the moment it sensed this fragrance. On William's body, this manifested as the black blood vessels violently contracting for an instant.
"Good stuff."
Su Sanniang glanced at the thick, golden liquid like molten gold in the vial, a gleam of sharp light flashing in her eyes.
"This is the divine medicine that 'grows flesh on bones.'"
"But you must understand." Su Sanniang's expression became exceptionally serious. "This thing is too potent. For him in his current state, it's like pouring a bucket of scalding magma down the throat of a man dying of thirst."
"Fire and water are incompatible."
"The water poison in his body is extremely yin, while this flower nectar is extremely yang."
"These two forces will use his internal organs as a battlefield to fight a war inside his body."
"If he can't withstand it, this nectar won't save him; instead, it will cause him to explode into a puddle of blood."
Lin Jie looked at William's face, twisted in agony—an expression he had never shown even after countless injuries on the battlefield.
"He can withstand it."
Lin Jie's voice was low but filled with certainty.
"I know what kind of man he is."
"His life is tougher than anyone's."
"Then let's begin."
Su Sanniang nodded. She put away the silver needles and took the vial from Lin Jie's hand.
"Hold him down."
"Don't let him thrash about, and don't let him bite through his tongue."
Lin Jie, Julian, and Evelyn immediately stepped forward, each holding down William's limbs and head.
Lin Jie pried open William's tightly clenched jaw and placed a cork block between his teeth.
Su Sanniang took a deep breath and tilted the mouth of the vial.
The first drop of golden flower nectar fell onto the tip of William's tongue.
"Hiss—"
A sound like water evaporating on a red-hot iron plate rang out.
William's body instantly went rigid.
Visible white steam gushed from his mouth and nose.
Immediately after.
Su Sanniang poured the entire contents of the vial into his mouth.
"Boom!"
A silent explosion seemed to occur within William's body.
That immense life energy surged through his meridians, which were on the brink of depletion.
The River Jiao spiritual nature that had taken over his body sensed a great threat and began to counterattack frantically.
Extreme yin and extreme yang.
Death and rebirth.
Two diametrically opposed forces used William's flesh as a battlefield, engaging in a brutal and fierce tug-of-war.
William's skin turned crimson, like a boiled shrimp, then rapidly shifted to an iron-gray, covered with a thin layer of frost.
Alternating cold and heat.
Extreme cold and extreme heat.
His muscles spasmed violently, his bones emitting cracking sounds as if they were being crushed and reassembled inch by inch.
"Urgh... Aaaah—!!!"
Even through the cork block, a heart-rending scream was forced from the depths of his throat.
That pain even surpassed death by a thousand cuts.
Lin Jie pressed down hard on William's shoulders. He could feel the torment the body beneath his palms was undergoing. The immense struggling force even made it difficult for him, a hunter enhanced by the White Vulture's Mark, to hold William down.
"Hang on! William!"
Lin Jie roared.
"Don't fall asleep! Look at me!"
William opened his eyes.
His gray-blue eyes were alternately flashing with an eerie black light and a golden light.
He was looking at Lin Jie.
That gaze was filled with pain and confusion, but in its deepest depths, there remained a trace of the old soldier's unyielding stubbornness.
He recognized this person.
It was the young man who had pulled him from the pile of corpses.
It was the comrade who had promised to bring him home.
"I... won't... die..."
A low, indistinct growl came from William's throat.
With the eruption of this will.
The golden energy representing the Ghost Mother Flower Nectar finally overwhelmed the cold, black aura.
Like a golden flood, it washed away all the accumulated toxins and began frantically repairing the damaged organs and tissues.
The frost on William's body began to melt, turning into foul, black water that flowed onto the cold jade bed.
His skin regained its color. His breathing, though rapid, became strong and steady.
Finally.
When the last wisp of black energy was expelled from his pores and dissipated into the air.
William stopped struggling.
His tense muscles relaxed, and his whole body went limp on the bed like a pile of mud.
But he was still alive.
And those terrifying injuries were healing at an incredible speed.
"Succeeded."
Su Sanniang wiped the sweat from her forehead and let out a long sigh of relief.
"This life has been snatched back from the King of Hell's grasp."
Lin Jie released his grip.
Looking at his old friend who had fallen into a deep sleep but whose chest was rising and falling steadily, a relieved smile finally appeared at the corner of his mouth.