"Should we report this?" Lille was a little overwhelmed.
"Of course!" Gare glared at him, then turned around and pointed at Rossi, "Keep watching the beach. Call me if anything happens!"
After sending the message back, Lille wiped the sweat off his forehead.
He was really nervous. Logically speaking, a child who grew up on an island like him shouldn't be like this, but somehow, he had a keen sense and always had a premonition that... this Eternal Night was unusual.
Chapter 27 Spiritual Tide
"Outpost No. 3 saw a woman on the beach?"
At the same time, Xia Yibing listened to the telegram code coming from the headset and raised her eyebrows speechlessly.
She knew every set of internal codes by heart. A rookie like Lille might have to flip through a book to ensure the accuracy of the translation, but she could get the answer just by going over it in her mind.
She was sure she wasn't mistaken; that's what Outpost 3 said.
Before she could understand what "seeing a woman" meant, various code signals came together in her headphones, all reporting warnings to her.
[They are coming!]
[All outposts on alert!]
[Everyone lock the doors and windows and don't go out. Everyone lock the doors and windows and don't go out! ]
鏉ヤ 钖楋纻
Xia Yibing quickly took off her headphones, stood up, walked to the window and looked outside.
She had chosen this house herself. In addition to its quiet location, it also had the advantage of being located at a high altitude. Standing upstairs, she could vaguely see the beach.
As she watched, bright blue spots began to appear on the beach one after another.
At first, these spots just crawled in the darkness. But soon, they sped up their speed and began to "take off", spreading outward like mottled fireflies, rushing towards the town ahead little by little.
This is the Linghai.
Xia Yibing watched the scene coldly.
She took out the telescope and carefully observed the scene in the lens.
Leading the way was a swordfish. It was large and very fast, with a dreamy blue body. It moved nimbly through the air, looking like it was alive.
This was already an abnormal situation - if it was a normal spiritual sea, the kind that the sailors talked about and that she had seen with her own eyes, then the fish should not be so purposeful, they would just swim aimlessly in the sea.
But the swordfish had their sights set on the town from the beginning. They were among the first fish to emerge from the sea and swim to the town. Once they arrived, they began wandering the streets with such concentration that it seemed like this was their territory.
If they see a living person on the street at this time, they may not attack, but they will also respond to the presence of a living person.
It's hard to say what their specific reactions will be, as it depends on their species - they will still act and hunt according to the nature of their own species.
[I saw the big one.] She vaguely heard a coded report coming from the earphone behind her, and she shifted the telescope to see a square-headed whale flying overhead, swaying its tail.
This thing is also made up of bright blue spots. It is tracking a giant squid. The tentacle monster has eyes bigger than a lighthouse. It is desperately moving its ten tentacles in the air to avoid being chased by the giant whale.
"A 15-meter-long giant squid, an 18-meter-long squarehead whale..." Xia Yibing's mouth twitched.
She had been in Dongquan Island for quite some time and had been through the Spirit Sea several times, but the appearance of such a giant creature right at the beginning still made her feel uneasy.
Normally it wouldn't be so early. Although the spiritual sea of Dongquan Island is special, what came out at the beginning were only small fish and shrimps. Big fish over 10 meters long usually had to wait until at least after 9 o'clock. There were even two times when she didn't see any big fish. There was really no pattern at all.
"See?" She pointed to the wonder outside and said to Black Owl, "This is why I won't let you out."
After the North Wind Sea Eagle came back, it acted very anxious, especially when it saw that she had locked the window. The big bird immediately pounced on it and tried to hit the glass. It was only after she tried hard to calm it down that it calmed down.
"Ga!" The black owl flapped its wings and stood on the table, looking around, "Ga!"
"This isn't the spiritual sea you usually encounter on the sea..." Xia Yibing reached out and touched its chin, "How dare you go out? If you're touched, you're done for."
She was playing with her pet here, while on the other side, in the institute, several agents were transferring the death row prisoners according to the pre-arranged arrangements.
There were three prisoners in dark grey prison uniforms, barefoot, with a 36-40 pound iron ball tied to their right foot, and they were being escorted outside with a staggering gait.
"Hurry up, hurry up!" The escorting agent was very impatient, "I told you it's just a routine inspection, why are you dawdling? We're not sending you to be shot!"
The three men turned their heads and looked at him. Their eyes were so dead and full of death that he felt a little frightened.
They wouldn't guess that this was a dead end, would they?
The agent seemed even more nervous, but he still held his ground, banging the barrel of his gun on the fence: "Quick, quick, quick! Or I'll shoot you!"
[Observation targets 1 to 3 have been delivered to the designated location.]
Another three minutes passed, and a reporting code came from the headset.
[Observe their reaction to contact with the Linghai fish.] Xia Yibing replied.
This was an experiment they had arranged in advance to observe whether the fish in Linghai were carrying that strange virus.
It was cruel, she knew. But how could she confirm it if she didn't do that? Everyone was not stupid, they wouldn't go out on their own initiative, so it couldn't be confirmed without contact.
They are death row inmates anyway.
The woman looked very cold.
If you want to blame someone, blame yourself for abandoning your faith and becoming evil followers. I won't feel sad for you.
Outside the institute, three death row inmates were carried into a special cell by their torsos.
Rather than calling it a cell, it was a large iron cage placed outside. There was a sling above the cage, and after they entered, the door to the passage closed quickly, and the sling began to creak and turn.
As the cage shook, it was suspended in the air.
The three prisoners finally realized that something was wrong. They shook the cage desperately to squeeze out, but the alloy-cast bars could not be moved by human power.
They had all heard about the mysterious stories of Dongquan Island, and also saw the school of blue fish approaching the research institute. They began to tremble violently, screaming and cursing wildly.
[Target No. 1 begins to make contact with the Spirit Sea.]
One of them paused and looked down at his feet.
There, a sparkling blue tentacle was wrapped around his ankle. In the darkness, he saw a huge bulb-shaped eye. Below the eye was a soft, dreamy umbrella cap, and the tentacles grew out of the umbrella cap.
There was a look of confusion on his face, and he felt his body sinking, along with his soul.
The solid prison made of alloy could not hinder him at all. He passed through the fence as if he had lost his fixed shape, and was dragged by the giant jellyfish to swim in the ocean of floating spirits.
Gradually, his body was dyed blue, from his clothes to his flesh, turning into a pure blue light.
[Transformation of target No. 1 completed.]
[…No abnormality]
Nothing unusual?
Xia Yibing frowned, then quickly relaxed.
No abnormalities are best.
Really...what was I expecting?
"It looks like I can go back with you on Monday." She reached out her hand to tease Black Owl again, "I'm not good at potions, so I'd better let Aisuen prepare it for you."
The black owl narrowed its eyes. It couldn't scratch its chin by itself. Every time Xia Yibing did this to it, it enjoyed it extremely.
[Director...the situation has changed.]
Xia Yibing paused.
[Target 1 begins to undergo unknown distortion.]
[The process of the unknown transformation is very similar to what Agent Fairmouth described. He is turning into that kind of monster.]
[But his body did not disintegrate.]
[He turned into that kind of monster... He seemed to have joined the Spirit Sea as that kind of monster.]
Xia Yibing opened her mouth slightly, unable to conceal her inner horror.
She suddenly remembered what the doctor had once told her, that he didn't understand why that strange virus would destroy human genes.
"I don't understand..."
"Generally speaking, viruses have evolved over a long period of time, and they generally don't cause too much fatal harm to the host...even if they have turned it into this."
"But this virus seems to be aiming to destroy the vector and the host. It didn't leave us any fragments. It's all broken and completely disrupted genetic code... What on earth do they want to do?"
The sound seems to still echo in my ears.
But this time she seemed to know why.
"Spiritual Sea...?"
she muttered.
Could it be that the purpose of that virus is to cause the human body to disintegrate and merge into the spiritual sea in such a grotesque manner?
It’s just that the spiritual sea didn’t exist at that time, so there was no follow-up after the physical body collapsed?
With such a horrible guess, she couldn't help but cast her gaze into the night sky, staring at the school of fish swimming past the window.
"What on earth are you..."
"what."
Chapter 28 Courtship
The special spiritual sea phenomenon of Dongquan Island has lasted for hundreds of years since the island was discovered.
When something that has lasted for hundreds of years suddenly becomes different from the past, whether it is a good change or a bad change, it takes time for anyone to adapt.
...Not to mention that Xia Yibing was 100% sure that this change was for the bad.
For her, the only good news now is that they have not let their guard down or relaxed just because the mysterious virus suddenly disappeared.
Fortunately, these ghost things can't pass through walls.
As she thought about it, she stroked the black owl's feathers and suddenly turned to ask it, "How do you usually survive the sea fog?"
If fish can hide in the water to avoid the unknown invasion brought by the gray fog, then birds must fly into it.
It is definitely not as simple as "passing through it". As far as Xia Yibing knows, there is a high possibility that the lives and animals passing through the gray fog will get lost in it.
Lost - if you are not familiar enough to recognize at a glance what the things are that come out of the gray fog again, you can't even say that those things are distorted, you can only regard them as missing.
This is how people are, so we need to open up waterways.
The same is true for animals, but there are always a few animals that are exceptions.
The Borean Sea Eagle is one of them. The fact that they are given such a name means that they can travel freely on the sea, and the gray fog and mystery have never affected them.
Or has the impact already occurred? Is immune attack one of the impacts?
"Ga!" The black owl flapped its wings uneasily. It didn't understand what the woman said, but it was smart and could roughly sense that the woman had doubts about it in some way.
"What should I tell you?" Xia Yibing shook her head, "You can't speak..."
A beast is a beast. She could not possibly regard Black Owl as a true friend or family member. It was not qualified to do so.
If she really had to make a choice, even if she wasn't comparing Black Owl with Hitzfeld, but comparing him with Ethan and others, or even the young agent Gare whom she had just met, when she had to sacrifice Black Owl to save people, she wouldn't hesitate at all.
But when it comes to "speaking" -
She opened the drawer and picked out the small paper packages that Black Owl had sent her one by one. Xia Yibing held them and gestured, comparing the names of the medicines written on the letter, and looked at Black Owl with strange eyes from time to time.
The sharp look made the bird even more uneasy. It began to walk around on the table with its neck sticking out, flapping its wings from time to time, and the strong wind blew away the manuscript paper.
Aisuen said the potion was easy to mix, was it because she had already tried it?
Xia Yibing's expression was uncertain because a bold idea just came to her mind: feed the Black Owl the potion to make sure that she could establish the so-called mysterious connection with the Black Owl, and then send it into the gray fog to check out the situation.
For hundreds of years, whenever the Spirit Sea appeared on Dongquan Island, the islanders would retreat and not come out. In other words, no one had ever seen what the outside world looked like when the Spirit Sea descended.
Oh - of course she would not doubt that the Linghai itself was man-made. After all, that would require the other party to survive for many years, and no bastard should be able to live that long.
But the changes that have taken place in Linghai during this period are man-made - is this speculation worth verifying?
"But I seem to have always passed in chemistry?" Xia Yibing looked worried.
Although Hitzfeld told her in the letter that "this matter is very simple, just add the medicine into the crucible within the specified time", she knew very well that some things were not as simple as the masters said.
The girl was very considerate of her and divided the medicine packages into two parts. The amount of medicine powder in each small package was measured, which saved Xia Yibing the pain of counting.
She began to count whether there was anything in the house that could be used as a crucible.
