The Bizarre Detective Agency

Chapter 785: A Different Environment

The Mother of the Model pursuing them was not at full strength.

It seemed she had sustained some kind of injury and couldn't close the distance to Lu Li.

That was why she had only appeared behind the caravan on the third day after they left Midnight.

If Lu Li had a mount faster than a fungal horse, he might have easily shaken her off.

Elder Sister couldn't erase the mark just yet—the process would be sensed by the Mother of the Model, and if she flew into a rage, Lu Li would have nowhere to hide in the wastelands.

He needed to wait until they were closer to the area marked as the "Nursery."

If there was a forest there, it might hide them from sight.

"Go around that hill!"

Elder Sister suddenly shrieked from inside his hood.

Far ahead, a hilly area had suddenly appeared amidst the wastelands.Lu Li didn't ask what was there; he simply skirted the hills from a distance.

When they were far enough away, Lu Li glanced back.

The dust storm that was the Mother of the Model didn't go around the hills but crashed straight into them.

The swirling dust obscured his view, making it seem as if nothing had happened...

Hssss...

Lu Li slowed his pace, his head lowered as he stared at the debris that littered the wastelands.

The fragments were trembling, stirring up dust that veiled his ankles, and faint vibrations echoed from the hills.

"They can't kill a leader! You fool, run!"

Clinging to his neck, Elder Sister screamed.

Lu Li tore his gaze away and kept running.

"What is that?"

"A giant anthill!" Elder Sister bounced up and down in his hood as if riding a horse.

"You'll run out of breath soon!"

"Maybe."

Lu Li steadied his ragged breathing.

The increased speed and endurance from the Book of the Apocalypse had also been doubled, so while he couldn't maintain his top speed for long, running fifteen kilometers was well within his capabilities.

Just as Elder Sister had said, the hills couldn't kill the Mother of the Model. The dust storm soon reappeared, only slightly farther away.

The wastelands were fraught with danger, but thankfully, the route was maintained and cleared, and the leader's aura from the Mother of the Model scared off any lesser predators nearby.

After a long fifteen-kilometer chase, the Mother of the Model had closed the distance enough that Lu Li could faintly make out her silhouette. At the same time, new shapes appeared on the distant horizon.

The good news was that the Nursery had a forest.

The bad news was that the forest was a deep, dark green, and the trees... were alive.

The dark green forest rose from the grim, brown earth like a pocket of life, a stark contrast to the dead wastelands.

Plunging into a mysterious and strange, unknown forest didn't seem like the best idea.

"Can we go in?"

Lu Li was panting, his dark eyes peering into the depths of the dark green forest.

"I don't know!"

Lu Li wasn't entirely unfamiliar with the Nursery; it was the source of Nuno Alexandrovich's curse.

Besides entering the forest, Lu Li had another option: head for the ruins of the old Thunderstrike Fortress, located fifteen kilometers away.

Although the place had been destroyed with the dawn of the Age of Anomalies, the ruins still stood, but they could be occupied by other anomalies.

Besides, if Lu Li kept running toward it, he would be on the verge of exhaustion.

"Get ready to erase the mark."

Lu Li whispered and headed for the Nursery.

The dark green, gloomy shadows of the forest were silent. The surrounding trees were breathing; they were truly alive.

The dense canopies hid the sky, and underfoot was a soft, rotting soil mixed with fallen leaves. Lu Li moved silently through the woods.

From inside the hood, Elder Sister took off her distorted mask and pressed it to the back of Lu Li's neck.

Lu Li's right palm suddenly grew hot. He opened his hand, and a coiled, spider-like mark slowly emerged from beneath the skin.

At that moment, a piercing shriek that seemed to penetrate the very soul echoed from outside.

Lu Li stumbled as he ran, nearly falling.

The Mother of the Model roared in fury; she had sensed the mark being destroyed.

The coiled spider-mark slowly awakened. It unfurled its eight limbs, revealing a face on its body identical to that of the Model.

It seemed to notice Lu Li's stare and the approaching danger. It let out a shriek, thinner and weaker than the Mother's, and rustled its eight slender legs as it crawled from his palm up his arm.

Smack!

Before it could reach his shoulder, Lu Li slammed his left hand down, trapping the spider-mark in his palm.

"That's not a mark, it's a parasite!" Elder Sister's cry came from behind him.

The Mother of the Model's obsessive pursuit of Lu Li suddenly made sense: she was using his body to incubate her offspring.

"How long will the cleansing take?" Lu Li whispered.

In the silent forest, all sounds seemed to slow involuntarily.

Perhaps anomalies lived in this forest; perhaps the forest itself was an anomaly.

"...It's done!" After a brief silence, Elder Sister cried out in surprise.

At the same time, a surge of humanity flooded into Lu Li's body, abruptly pulling him into the Memories of the Dead.

...

The echo of bells ringing through the street gradually faded.

In a hut dimly lit by an oil lamp, a woman quietly set down an unfinished basket, moved silently to the bed, and gazed tenderly at the sleeping girl.

As if roused by her mother's prolonged stare, the girl's long eyelashes fluttered, and she sleepily opened her eyes.

Lu Li remembered those leaden eyes well.

The Model.

Had she once been human?

The girl's waking threw the woman into a panic. She fearfully reached out to cover her daughter's mouth.

Her bright eyes, not yet clouded by a deathly aura, gazed kindly at her mother, and the innocent girl smiled. "Mama."

The woman's outstretched hand fell upon a warm, empty bed.

Lu Li watched as crystal-clear tears streamed from the woman's eyes, a moment of pure, heartbreaking sorrow.

...

Returning to reality, Lu Li staggered to his feet.

He heard a roar of rage mixed with sorrow, and the sound of falling trees—the Mother of the Model had broken into the Nursery.

Was the leader-anomaly the Model's real mother?

Why had the Model, who seemed to have been a victim of Silence, become an anomaly?

"The mark is gone!"

Elder Sister's cry snapped Lu Li out of his thoughts.

Lu Li didn't venture deeper into the Nursery. Instead, he turned and ran along the edge of the forest.

A black, whip-like branch suddenly lashed out in front of him. Lu Li dodged the inexplicable attack as he heard Elder Sister cry out from his hood:

"The bad trees are attacking us!"

Lu Li looked around.

The forest had abruptly come to life.

Awakened by the intrusion, the trees shook their trunks and waved their branches, coiling like tentacles.

A branch snatched Elder Sister and lifted her into the air. Thrashing her arms and legs, she was pulled right out of his hood.

Lu Li jumped, grabbing Elder Sister by the leg, but couldn't pull her down.

Rip...

With a tearing sound, the seam on her leg split, and Elder Sister's doll-like body was nearly torn apart.

"It hurts!"

Elder Sister let out a pained cry.

Lu Li let go, and as he fell, he too was caught by countless branches that wrapped around him and squeezed.

"Mother, help me."

Crack!

A sharp crack echoed through the forest. The branches retreated, and Lu Li and Elder Sister fell screaming into the soft mud.

A silhouette, its feet sunk deep in the rotting mud, stood nearby beneath a thick tree, holding a thin, whip-like branch.

Its body was wrapped in layers of ragged burlap, like bandages, revealing only the antler-like branches growing from its head.

A hoarse whisper drifted out, like the sound of wind rustling through the forest.