Chapter 746: Flesh-and-Blood Mountain Range
After going around the Black Patch, Lin Ye and his group continued forward. As they gradually moved away from the chasm, the surrounding white walls grew fewer, and the ground color shifted from white to a light gray.
"Are we going the wrong way? Could those people have walked this far?"
Colt suddenly stopped. He felt they should search for the exploration personnel near the chasm.
"Those exploration personnel have been here for a while. If the area near the chasm were safe and they could find it, we would have run into them already. They're not near the chasm, which means they can't stay there. Either they can't locate the chasm, or they're hiding from the people who dragged them in here. I've calculated the maximum straight-line distance they could have moved. Later, we just need to take the chasm as the center and walk in a circular route to find some survivors."
Lin Ye wasn't walking aimlessly in one direction—he'd already figured out a method to find survivors.
"That actually works?"
Colt was starting to have trouble understanding the detective profession.
"A little further ahead and we should be just about..."
Lin Ye suddenly stopped. He saw a gap appear on the ground in the distance, and inside the gap, there seemed to be some biological remains.
"Wait! I can't catch my breath..."
Wen Luo knelt on the ground, letting out rapid, gasping breaths. She was on the verge of suffocation.
"Fall back first."
Lin Ye pulled Wen Luo up, preparing to move away from the gap, but after taking just two steps back, he stopped again.
A gap had appeared ahead as well, and inside it, some biological remains were visible.
Lin Ye turned his head. The gap behind them hadn't disappeared. Not only that, but similar gaps had also appeared on their left and right.
"You all stay here."
Lin Ye took a rope from his duffel bag and handed one end to Colt. Then, holding the other end himself, he approached the gap alone.
After walking a few steps forward, Lin Ye realized it wasn't a gap at all—the ground had simply been severed. Before him stretched a bottomless pit.
The pit was piled high with the remains of all kinds of creatures, forming a mountain range made of biological debris.
Most of the remains were completely dead, but some still retained biological activity. They stared at Lin Ye with malevolent eyes, as if trying to drag him into the mountain, to become part of it like they had.
Lin Ye couldn't see the bottom of this mountain of remains, nor could he see its end. He moved along the edge of the ground, and before long, he found himself back at his starting point.
The piece of ground they stood on was completely surrounded by these mountains of biological remains, with no path leading away.
Lin Ye returned to the others and found his three teammates already lying flat on the ground, as if this position offered them some relief.
"...I'm almost done for. It's not an oxygen problem—I just can't breathe normally."
Colt barely managed to force out a sound. Ephesus and Wen Luo were already unable to speak.
"Hang on a little longer."
Lin Ye took a bag of pale yellow powder from his duffel bag. He walked to the edge of the ground, poured half the powder into the pit, and scattered the other half on the ground.
Some of the still-active biological remains began fighting over the pale yellow powder. Several sets of remains jumped onto the ground and started licking up the powder like dogs.
_Bang bang bang bang bang bang bang bang bang!_
Lin Ye used his rifle to shoot the vital points of those active remains. Soon, they completely lost all biological activity.
From a biological structure standpoint, these creatures weren't weak, but after losing their spiritual energy, the remains had become fragile and brittle.
Lin Ye picked out four relatively intact sets of remains, took out the pale yellow liquid syringe he'd obtained from that young man earlier, and injected each set with one-quarter of its contents.
While injecting, he selected the biological structures that could absorb the liquid quickly. This wasn't difficult for him.
Soon, the four sets of remains regained biological activity and began twitching violently.
Lin Ye threw the four sets of remains into the flesh-and-blood mountain range—one set in each direction.
This was an ancient sacrificial ritual. As a Master of Ritual Studies, Lin Ye naturally knew how to complete a ritual.
The problem was that completing the ritual required offering at least four lives as sacrifices, and he couldn't exactly use his own people as offerings.
Lin Ye returned to the others. After the ritual was complete, the trio's condition had noticeably improved.
A white, bone-like cube appeared on the ground—presumably the feedback from completing the ritual.
Lin Ye picked up the cube, glanced at it, and tucked it into his pocket.
"...Is it over?"
Colt picked himself up off the ground and looked around. Those mountains built of flesh and blood had vanished.
Earlier, even with his eyes closed, he could still see those flesh-and-blood mountains closing in from all around.
"It's over. If you don't need to rest, we can start looking for those survivors."
Lin Ye helped Wen Luo and Ephesus to their feet. The deep pits around them had disappeared, and he decided to begin their circular search from here.
"Can you still tell the direction? I'm not even sure if we're still in the same spot."
Colt was afraid Lin Ye would take the wrong direction, and then they might never find their way back.
"As long as the position hasn't changed, I won't get lost. If it has changed, then it doesn't matter which way I go."
Lin Ye hadn't detected any spatial fluctuations, but in a place like this, he couldn't be sure they were still in their original location either.
"Can't we go back and find the chasm first?"
Wen Luo felt it would be better to confirm their escape route first. Otherwise, even if they found survivors, they wouldn't be able to bring them back.
"We don't have that much time. Even if Susie hasn't lost her memory, she can't hold off those enemies outside who know the situation here. The metal door can only buy us so much time."
Lin Ye quickened his pace. They had very little time left.
The three followed behind Lin Ye, beginning their circular route. They'd barely been walking for ten minutes when they ran into a human wearing the same pale yellow protective suit.
"Who are you?"
Through the suit's small window, they could see the person's face. It was a man in his forties.
"I'm an exploration personnel member. You all must be too, right?"
As he spoke, the man approached Lin Ye. Even when Lin Ye raised his gun barrel, the man didn't stop.
So Lin Ye simply opened fire.
_Bang bang bang!_
The bullets pierced the protective suit but failed to kill the man inside.
"Why did you attack me? What's wrong with me?"
The man stopped and asked with a hint of confusion in his voice.
"You look too normal."
Lin Ye fired several more shots at various parts of the man's body. But even when he hit the head, the man's expression didn't change in the slightest.