Hunter of Mysterious Creature

Chapter 739 - 34: The Corrupted Soldier (Part 2)

When Sun Hang gave it a slap, the tendrils emerging from its body instantly recoiled like frightened coral polyps.

"I... I saw... in that city..." Perhaps the soldier's vocal cords had been eroded by the mutated tissues, his speech was muddled, "I... my mother..."

"That city? You mean the Baikal Remains?" Sun Hang pondered, thinking that the only place nearby that could be referred to as a "city" was probably that "mysterious creature city" only a few dozen kilometers away.

As for this guy's mother...

"Check where his mother is now," Sun Hang looked up and said to the opaque one-way glass.

The two psychiatrists were startled at first, but then realized that Sun Hang's question was directed at them, and quickly began searching on the computer.

"Found it... the soldier's mother, um, has already passed away." The psychiatrist's voice came from behind the one-way glass, "When he was just six years old, his biological mother passed away from a malignant tumor. But he never witnessed his mother's death, nor did he attend her funeral—his father and relatives had been hiding the truth about his mother's death from him, only telling him that she had gone on a trip to a faraway place."

"With the intelligence of a six-year-old child... such a lie can't be kept up, right?" Sun Hang asked.

"He indeed didn't believe the adults, but he also refused to believe he had truly lost his mother..." the psychiatrist said, "For a child, his psychological state doesn't allow him to accept facts he cannot bear. Sometimes, even knowing it's a lie, he would choose to believe it... Even as an adult, he stubbornly believes his mother is still alive, just in a very faraway place."

"How do you know this?"

"During the routine checks within the army, there's also a psychological test."

"Would you consider this a delusion? Can someone like this even join the army?"

"Technically, no," the psychologist explained to Sun Hang, "Modern psychology generally sees this as a kind of 'self-protection' behavior of human spontaneity, where he simply refuses to accept a particular fact. It's somewhat different from a delusion. Moreover, the soldier has shown no other abnormalities, and his emotions have remained stable, even when directly questioned about his mother, he has never lost control."

"His stable emotions have actually harmed him," Sun Hang remarked, "If during a previous test, someone had casually asked 'Do you know your mother is dead?', and he had punched that person out, then maybe..."

Although such an action would most likely have resulted in him being discharged from the military and sent back to his place of origin, at least... he wouldn't have ended up in his current state.

"Besides your mother, what else did you see in that city?" Sun Hang asked the mutated soldier.

"I saw... a raging fire..."

"A fire?" Sun Hang frowned, "Could it have been Lake Baikal City igniting when the Deadly Aurora fell?"

"Ganna," Sun Hang called out, "have any soldiers who completed reconnaissance missions in the Baikal Remains and returned alive ever mentioned seeing what seemed like hallucinations there?"

"There have been similar descriptions, but not many," Ganna immediately replied, "Since the samples are scattered and their descriptions have no commonalities, we previously believed it was due to excessive mental stress and overly tense emotions causing hallucinations."

"Now, it seems the problem isn't that simple."

The mutated soldier's body had already collapsed, its muscles beginning to decay and decompose, with a foul-smelling pus seeping through the foam padding of the armchair, continuously dripping onto the ground. Without the muscular support, its lower body could no longer sit steadily in the chair — if Sun Hang hadn't been holding its shoulder, it likely would have slipped to the ground by now.

"Mom... she said... she was in a lot of pain..." the mutated soldier continued to speak, almost like it was mumbling to itself or confiding in Sun Hang, "I saw her... inside her stomach... there was a very large tumor... the tumor was bleeding... blood was everywhere..."

"What type of malignant tumor did his mother die from?"

"It was pancreatic cancer... currently the most lethal cancer among all human cancers, with the shortest average survival age, known as the 'king of cancers'," replied the psychologist checking the records.

"Pancreatic cancer..." Sun Hang subconsciously touched the location of his pancreas, right at the center of his belly.

"Does he know his mother died of pancreatic cancer?"

"He probably doesn't know..." the psychologist answered, "That 'self-protection mechanism' makes him unwilling to accept the fact of his mother's passing. Even if his rational mind knew she had died, he might at most know she died of some illness, or more specifically, a malignant tumor... His father destroyed all medical records and reports, so he never had a chance to access those things."

"So do you think him seeing a tumor in his mother's stomach is just a coincidence between facts and imagination..." Sun Hang said, "or that his mom truly crawled out of hell, lamenting to her son about the pain and suffering she endured in life?"

"... It should just be a simple coincidence." A psychologist said in an uncertain tone, "The second possibility is too creepy... Besides, we all know that when people die, they're gone... Hell is just a superstitious concept..."

"That's not necessarily true... What if hell really exists?" Sun Hang shook his head, "In this era of rampant mysterious creatures, do you still believe in atheism? At least there are enough facts to prove that vengeful spirits can be transformed into mysterious entities. What if what he's seeing is something like that?"

"The time and distance span seem too far apart..." Ganna's voice came from behind the one-way glass, "Even if he did see his mother's... um... spirit body type mysterious creature formed after her death... it shouldn't be in the Baikal Remains..."

Ganna thought for a moment, then added, "If the spirit body type mysterious creature formed after his mother's death had been attached to him and followed him for over twenty years, it should have been detected long ago. It couldn't possibly have waited until this soldier entered the Baikal Remains to appear... It doesn't make sense!"

"Then I want to ask you this." Sun Hang extended his hand to support the mutated soldier's jaw, which had dropped due to the dissolving ligaments and skin. He then used two liquid metal-formed "screws" to reattach its jaw, "Are you sure what you saw was really your biological mother?"

"It was... my mom..." the mutated soldier said with difficulty, "She was in pain... she was bleeding... I wanted to reach out and touch her... but... but I just couldn't reach her!"

As it spoke, a tendril covered in black fur suddenly shot out, fiercely striking the one-way glass that separated the examination room space, emitting a loud bang!

The four people on the other side of the examination room, including Xue Yue, all jumped in fright.

Fortunately, the glass, which could withstand a direct shot from a 10mm caliber full-power bullet at close range, was sturdy enough. Even after receiving such a ferocious strike from the mutated soldier's tendril, there was no sign of it cracking.

Ganna let out a slight sigh of relief and couldn't help but ask, "Mr. Sun Hang... what do you really want to find out from its mouth?"