[There is something going on at Outpost 3. There is something going on at Outpost 3.]
Until his thoughts were interrupted by the sound of a telegram.
[Outpost 3! This is Outpost 3!]
Lill typed the content while translating in his mouth, "We are in danger! The 'school of fish' has suddenly shown an interest in us for some reason! This has never happened before! How should we deal with it now?"
"Don't worry, kid." Rossi just took out a bottle of beer from the cupboard. "If they want to watch, let them watch. What are you afraid of? They can't get in anyway."
"Rossi, I think you really want to stay here for the rest of your life." Gare looked at him speechlessly.
It's not that he thinks drinking would be a problem. This kind of wine made from fruits grown on the island is not strong in alcohol. It is more like a drink with alcohol flavor than wine.
But drinking while on official business - this behavior was too bad. He promised that if he reported it, Rossi would never be able to leave the island in his lifetime.
"Well, Fermaud, who are you trying to scare with those things?"
Rossi laughed, opened the bottle, and took a big gulp.
"Hahaha!" He became excited. "The smell of hemp fruit! So strong!"
"Don't worry." Then he walked over and patted Gare on the shoulder, comforting him, "Who taught me to do this? It was those so-called 'seniors'... Those people are as good as three people at escaping death. Don't worry, it's no problem~"
But this doesn't look like a problem at all.
Gare frowned, but his eyes were always looking outside.
The walls are made of poured cement and the shell is solidly made of alloy, and even the window glass is welded with a layer of iron fence.
With such a solid defense, he shouldn't be so nervous, but the scene at this moment was a bit too much, and Gare's experience did not allow him to remain indifferent to this scene.
That's "watching".
The fish in the Spirit Sea, no matter big or small, all the things they could see, made up of bright blue spots, seemed to come closer and look at the watchtower from a close distance.
They couldn't get in. Gare noticed that a giant squid about 18 meters tall tried to wrap its mouth around the top of the tower and bite it - the result was that all attacks were bounced off. They were powerless against physical obstacles in reality.
Are they intelligent?
Ignoring their weakness, just seeing that they gathered together as if forming a temporary alliance, even their natural enemies stopped attacking each other. It would be difficult for Gare to say that this behavior was subconscious, and he could not attribute it to nature.
If they are intelligent, even a little bit, don't they realize that they are doing useless work?
This is normal human thinking. If Lille was simply afraid, then Gare was even more afraid of the meaning behind it after thinking about it.
He felt that something was odd, which was why he did not stop Lille from asking for help.
[Describe your situation in detail.]
Both Xia Yibing and the research institute sent replies, asking them to provide detailed information.
Gare told Lille to report everything that had happened in the past few minutes.
Oh, he didn't say anything about Rossi drinking.
"You owe me a meal." He lowered his head and said, "On Monday night at Jinli's house, I will tell you what wine is."
Someone was squeezing his shoulders.
He didn't pay attention.
But the hand was getting stronger and stronger, and Gare had to look back, and saw Rossi standing there in a daze with the bottle of wine in his hand.
What is he looking at?
Instinctively, Gare also looked in that direction, and then he was stunned like Rossi.
He saw a person.
He wasn't sure if this thing could still be described as human, but its upper body was definitely human.
Like a school of fish, its entire body is made up of blue spots.
The upper body retains the basic human shape, but the facial features are so blurred that they can't be seen. The shoulders are thinner than those of an adult man, and the arms are thin and long.
As for its lower body—Gare couldn't tell what it was.
From the waist down it could still barely maintain its shape, but after about twenty centimeters there was only a pile of bright blue foam being dragged.
It was a bubble made up of light spots, which left a faint afterimage in the dark when dragged.
It was beautiful, but Gare was almost frightened to death.
He immediately thought of something similar he had seen in reality not long ago - those deformed prisoners!
The institute had conducted experiments before... Is this one of the three death row prisoners?
In reality, the foam below is probably all rotten blood and rotten flesh... Why did it pay attention to this place?
Could it be that it attracted the school of fish?
As the three men at the sentry post stared blankly, the monster began to move again.
It swung its body and swam back and forth around the sentry post, trying its best to show its full body. Sometimes it would get close to the glass and stick its blurry face against it.
Lil was terrified. This thing had no face at all. There were only densely packed tiny tentacles on its head, and at the end of each tentacle hung an eyeball that was not much bigger than a fish roe.
Damn—had he thought that was hair?
"It seems to be courting a mate."
Rossi said.
This is his instinct, there are some things he has to say.
This statement immediately attracted strange looks from the other two.
But when they set their sights on the monster again, they realized that Rossi was most likely right.
Courting?
Seeing that thing approaching the glass once again, with a beak as deep as the abyss revealed through the iron bars, Gare felt a deep chill in his heart.
"Continue to report."
He heard himself say hoarsely.
"While the signal is still there."
"…They must know immediately."
Chapter 29: Lost
At the institute, a young man in a gray coat walked towards the wheelchair and whispered something to him.
"Courtship?" Dr. Qiao opened his eyes and clenched the armrests of the wheelchair with his fingers. "Really? That thing really did that?"
"Yes." The man nodded. "The three agents are all above level 6. They can't possibly joke at this moment."
Grey Joe frowned and fell into deep thought, while behind him were several busy apprentices.
What they were busy with had nothing to do with the spiritual sea and spiritual tides outside. They were just a few topics assigned to them by Gray Joe, concerning biology and energetics.
After all, the Spirit Sea has been wreaking havoc here for many years, and this happens every week during the Eternal Night.
Most people have long been accustomed to doing whatever they are supposed to do.
"Doctor?" the man urged. "Director Imaar is still waiting for a response."
"What response does she want?" Dr. Qiao smiled. "In this situation... I can't come up with anything out of thin air. My eyes are not machines, not to mention that they may not be real..."
"Not reality?"
"It was a dream!" Dr. Qiao nodded and pointed his finger upwards.
"Have you ever thought about this? The strange things in the gray fog might just be dreams of those great ones during their long sleep. They are just some small gadgets that come with the dreams and are not real threats at all."
"Ah... but this term is very strange to you young people. I call them great because they are indeed qualified to be so, although I don't like them at all. I hate to -"
"We caught an evil god and brought it back for research." The man interrupted to complete the conversation.
There is no other reason, it’s just that Dr. Joe has said this too many times.
At the research institute, he would randomly pick 3-5 people every day to talk nonsense, and what they talked about were either these things or the strange stories he encountered when he was young.
Everyone knew that it was because he was too old - so old that even his memory would have problems from time to time. Sometimes he couldn't even recognize who the other person was, and his periods of clarity were becoming fewer and fewer.
This is a very sad thing, which means that the Grey Joe that everyone knows is getting further and further away from the world of the living. Maybe one day they will wake up and hear the sad news of his departure. They have grief and respect for this, but they still want to squeeze out the last value of him.
That is, like now, he is not given any rest time. Gray Joe must continue to be active in the front line and be supervised... This is what he wrote in his suicide note.
Having his lines snatched away, Dr. Qiao looked up at him with dissatisfaction.
The man swallowed nervously.
He had just been transferred to the institute and was afraid that his behavior would offend the doctor.
However, Dr. Qiao did not say anything. It was not known whether he did not care or had forgotten. He just continued with the above topic and told him that the instinctive courtship behavior must be taken seriously.
"Because that means the Linghai virus has not erased the human traces in them. They still have human instincts, or nature." Dr. Qiao said, "They have proven that they have a certain degree of control over the fish schools, and they need to reproduce."
"But their numbers are definitely not enough. Dongquan Island is too vast and too big for them. There are only three of them...it will be hard to meet them again after they scatter."
"And this island is full of what they think are their breeding targets... that is, us."
“Just think about it, what will they do next?”
The scene changed, and Xia Yibing's face turned pale when he heard the report.
Stinky old man...you mean they could possibly attract more fish from the Spirit Sea? And then command them to attack houses and other barriers?
Grey-Joe could be said to have made it clear that if she couldn't read the meaning, she was stupid.
"But hasn't the barrier in reality been fine?" She looked at the bright blue light outside and also felt a strong sense of uneasiness.
"What is that?" At the same time, the three people in Outpost No. 3 discovered that there was another unusual movement outside.
It seemed that its long-term courtship behavior had not been responded to, and the "Corrupted Blood" - a name that Gare randomly gave it - began to become more and more anxious, and just now it tried to violently attack the outpost.
But it was of no use. Its behavior had no effect other than causing its head to be temporarily divided into many strips when passing through the iron bars, making it look even more disgusting.
It will hit the glass and will be blocked by the glass.
As long as they stayed inside, they were absolutely safe.
But this new thing - the thing that caused the fish to become agitated - looked so strange that even Lille put aside his fear and watched it.
This is a big guy, over 10 meters long, with a flat body and stacked shells on the surface. It has no chelicerae, two big bulbous eyes on the top of its head, and a pair of downward and inward-curved spines in front. It looks a bit like a combination of a hairtail and a shrimp.
It was very strange, they had never seen such a monster. But since it could appear in the spiritual sea, it meant that it actually existed in reality.
This was the result of the research institute many years ago. They confirmed through observation records that all the species appearing in the Linghai fish school are real - some people have never seen them because they only live in the deep sea, and some have long been extinct and their fossils cannot be excavated at this stage.
This new monster was moving towards this side. It obviously had a special status in the school of fish. Even the most ferocious tiger sharks gave way to it wherever it passed. They didn't even dare to look at it straight in the eye.
It was not until it got closer that the three discovered that there were countless tiny tentacles growing underneath the flat shell.
Not long, but dense.
It looks a bit disgusting, but it also seems to have a strange beauty.
"Want to bet they'll give us a live show?"
Rossi said with a smile, taking another sip of wine into his mouth.
Now even Lille glared at him. These words were too disgusting.
They all knew what "live performance" meant - the last time Rossi said this was at the Jinli Bar, where a couple who were drunk and heartbroken mistook each other for lovers and kissed each other in front of the crowd.
"They are a different species," said Garret. "At least they are not..."
He couldn't speak anymore.
Because the "Corrupted Blood" swam quickly to the giant shrimp, stretched out its palms that were too big for humans, and rubbed them gently on the giant shrimp's head.
They can't really be having an affair, right?
Garay was shocked.
He suddenly realized that the appearance of the giant shrimp might not be accidental. This thing seemed to be summoned by the "Corrupted Blood"!
Watching the pair of monsters warily and seeing them approaching the outpost little by little, Gare hesitated whether to send these things to the telegram.
This is just his guess.
Without confirmation, he didn't want to mislead others.
