Chapter 304. 399
Weister gulped hard. He had a gun in his hand, but it failed to give him even the tiniest amount of confidence.
It couldn't be helped. Anyone else would have the same reaction as him before hundreds of hideous-looking humanoid monsters that looked like clumps of bloody flesh piling up before their doors.
Tobba coughed twice and put his hands before his back before stepping forward.
"Um—" Tobba started, but a loud noise echoed as the door finally collapsed, allowing the flesh monsters to rush in like a tide.
"Get out! We can't let them surround us in this house!" Charles roared. He showed no fear as he rushed at the oncoming tide of flesh monsters with his crew members following closely behind him.
Charles fired multiple shots, and his white bone bullets blossomed into bloody flowers on the bodies of the flesh monsters. The crew members whipped out their weapons and started a volley of indiscriminate firing at the monsters.
The silent forest became a bloody battlefield in the blink of an eye.
Charles and his crew members' weapons wreaked havoc upon the monsters; the creatures suffered heavy casualties, as their bodies were extremely fragile.
They fell one by one to the ground, but they seemed oblivious to the death of their fellow species as they continued ahead with their deformed mouths wide agape, making a beeline for their prey.
Their eyes showed no fear, only an intense craving for blood.
Charles managed to get out of the house, but he was by no means safe. The seemingly endless wave of deformed, flesh monsters had created what looked like a boundless red sea. Charles and his group were like tiny boats on that same boundless red sea.
A cacophony of noises composed of curses, gunshots, and roars echoed incessantly.
An unfortunate sailor was slow and tailed behind the group. Eight deformed arms reached out for him; their fingernails dug deeply into his chest, and tore him into pieces in the blink of an eye.
Bzzz!
Charles brandished the chainsaw in his hand and swung it ahead of him. The flesh monsters before him collapsed to the ground, opening a path for them to escape.
All of a sudden, an arm managed to grab Lily on his shoulder, and it dragged her away into the horde of monsters.
"Lily!" Charles roared. He decisively turned around and charged toward the monsters. They attacked him right away; their fingernails and teeth attempted to dig into Charles' flesh. Though they managed to tear into his clothes, his skin was too tough for them to latch onto.
Charles tackled the crowd of monsters and snatched Lily away. He then stuffed her into his mouth before whipping out the Lightning Rod.
A crackling noise echoed, and sparks flew everywhere as Charles swung the Lightning Rod in front of them.
Dozens of flesh monsters would collapse every time Charles swung the Lightning Rod. The dazzling light of the Lightning Rod dominated the battlefield, and the smell of burnt flesh soon permeated the air.
Charles eventually stopped and looked around—everything around him had been charred black.
He collapsed to the ground with violent spasms. He couldn't count how many times he had activated the Lightning Rod, but he had activated it enough times that it was starting to take a toll on his tough physique.
However, it was worth it. The mighty lightning had managed to force those hideous-looking monsters to retreat. The forest soon returned to its original tranquility.
Charles struggled to his feet with the help of his crew. He spat Lily out of his mouth and started gasping for air.
The crew members looked pale, and they surveyed their surroundings with lingering fear. They all had the same question in their minds at the moment. What were those monsters?
Before they could even start thinking about it, a headless corpse abruptly stood up in front of them. The Wailing Graffiti had detached itself from Charles at some point and had attached itself to the corpse.
The headless corpse pointed in the direction where the flesh monsters had disappeared using all seven fingers of its right hand.
"Charles, 319 is apparently over there. He sensed it," Tobba translated the Wailing Graffiti's words.
Charles was thrilled. He had come to this damned place for 319, and he was finally about to obtain it after so many difficulties. Shaking his numb right hand, he started walking toward the direction that the Wailing Graffiti had pointed out.
The headless corpse followed Charles in an eerie and bizarre posture under the Wailing Graffiti's control. Meanwhile, the sailors who were from the most recent recruitment just like Weister looked as if they were about to cry.
The previous encounters had been too terrifying. They truly felt like they were in hell while they were facing the flesh monsters reaching out for them with their deformed hands.
Everyone remained silent as they walked down the tranquil woods, but an oppressive air lingered above them.
"Mr. Charles, can you smell that?" Lily's tiny nose twitched as she sniffed the air.
The smell of blood and rot intensified the deeper they got into the woods. Soon, they found white strips of cloth painted with bizarre inscriptions wrapped around the trunks of the nearby trees. White strips of cloth had also covered the ground before them.
"This... prayers to God Fhtagn..." the quiet Bandages spoke at last. He had picked up a strip of cloth and examined it briefly before throwing it away.
Someone is worshiping God Fhtagn here? Who are they? Those monsters? Charles wondered.
Upon reaching a spot where the ground was completely covered in white strips of cloth, they found themselves before a circular area the size of a football field. Everyone's expression changed upon seeing what was inside the circular ground. The crew members with weaker stomachs covered their mouths and barely managed to stop themselves from throwing up.
Corpses... a myriad of rotten, mutilated corpses were arranged in a twisted and revolting pentagram on the circular ground. The pentagram was irregular; its points were all slightly slanted to the left.
Within the pentagram, parts devoid of corpses were replaced by incomprehensible texts written in blood. On the other hand, the corpses' bloodshot eyes were wide open, their faces frozen in fear, and their hair was caked with bloody dirt. Clearly, they had suffered tremendous pain before embracing death.
These corpses were the flesh monsters that Charles and his crew had encountered earlier.
Charles looked around but found nothing else. His gaze eventually turned to the Wailing Graffiti on the headless corpse.
"Where's 319?"
Crack!
A crisp noise akin to a tree branch getting crushed echoed, and Charles instantly pointed his gun at where the noise had come from.
Charles heard more noises, and they grew louder until a wave of flesh monsters rushed out. The flesh monsters were on all fours and were carrying a wooden frame on their backs; a man's head the size of a small house was on the frame.
Aside from the faint outline, the head's scalp was completely transparent, allowing Charles to see the brain inside the skull. He also didn't miss the black maggots squirming and drilling in and out of the rotting brain. Staring at the traces of decay on the new presence sent a shiver down the spine of the crew members.
However, Charles didn't pay that much attention to the head. His eyes were on the items surrounding the head. An antique-looking, rusty printer was one of the items surrounding the man's head, and Charles' intuition was telling him that he was staring at what he had been looking for in this voyage—319, the Soul Printer!
"399! It's me! Where did you get that big head? Weren't you only able to live in a pool before?" Tobba said excitedly. He was about to run toward 399, but Charles immediately pulled him back.
"You said it's friendly, right? Friendly to the point that the Foundation had even allowed it to go on a stroll?" Charles asked while staring at the massive head. It looked so grotesque that it couldn't be further from friendly.
"Yes, that really is 399," Tobba asserted. He then turned toward the head being carried over by the flesh monsters and shouted, "399, get me a serving of the sea urchin sushi from Canteen 3!"
The brain soaking in the crystal clear liquid inside the head quivered slightly. Soon, a plate of sea urchin sushi wrapped in seaweed appeared out of thin air right in front of Tobba.
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