Vol 2 Chapter 73: Atonement: Faun (22)

Facing Samuel’s question, Ethan was just blank. He spread his gaze behind Samus and found that Schneider and others were also standing not far away, staring at him with a skeptical look.
Only Samus among these people had seen him mutated, but would Samus tell Schneider?
Ethan didn't intend to let Samus know about the chaotic images he saw, so he casually found an excuse, "Nothing, I just had a headache. Let's go."
They passed through the empty and long hall, Ethan remained silent all the way, listening to other people's various guesses.
"Such a large palace is not consistent with the usual architectural style of the horns." The sergeant said while looking around. "The shape of these pillars gives people a feeling of...very uneasy. I always think they will fall down. ."
"Isn't it possible that this is an ancient tomb or something? It's a sacred race or something, and 80% of it belonged to ancient princes and nobles. Maybe the style at that time was like this."
"Damn, those people with long horns seem strange enough at first, why do they even repair the tomb so strangely?"
"This may not be a tomb, but a temple." Stan lay on Schneider's back and whispered, "I have come into contact with many undiscovered ancient tombs on major planets in my business before entering the city. The entrance is made so obvious, and the site is chosen in such a damp place. Especially when the other party is still a nobleman. Instead, it is a temple. I heard that the corpse of the horned person is generally buried in a tree. But their temples are usually buried deep underground."
Ethan agreed with him. He had seen some photos of the horned temple, and they were indeed hidden deep underground like tombs. But the architectural style of this temple is not in line with the rounded style usually used by the horns, and it is too big, and it seems that it has been abandoned for a long time. The air was filled with a scent of decay, like a mummy that had slept for thousands of years.
Most importantly, there are no obvious sculptures of the great wise men worshipped by people here.
Finally the hall came to an end, but their steps stopped. At the end is a towering and dangerous straight stone wall. There is no wall or stone carvings. The wall is full of dense round holes, high and low, large and small, which is as uncomfortable as a pockmarked face eroded by wind and frost. The largest hole is the closest to the ground, and looks like a subway tunnel just dug out. All the stones at the entrance of the cave were corroded into pits and pits, and some translucent mucus films remained in the grooves. Those films spread all the way to the ground and spread all over the dusty ground.
The faint cold wind blew out from those holes, with a strong smell of fish.
"You said..." Samuel said first, "These things won't be where the bugs come out..."
What he said was exactly what everyone thought, but suddenly when someone actually said it, he still felt a tingling scalp.
Look at the number of holes, and then look at the holes as big as subway tunnels...
"So those bugs outside shut us in their nests? Do you want to store us for the winter?" Samus grinned bitterly, but the others didn't think it was funny.
The sergeant sighed, "We are dead."
Ethan suddenly walked to the nearest huge hole, reached out his hand to grasp the rock, and climbed up to stand at the hole. He suddenly heard a long sigh spreading to his ears along with the stench coming from his face.
"Ethan! Come back!" Samuel shouted eagerly behind him.
Ethan looked back at them, "You are waiting for me here, I will go in and take a look. Maybe there are other exits."
"What nonsense are you talking about! You didn't even have a weapon, what do you do if you encounter that kind of big bug?!" Samuel rushed over and tried to pull him off, but Ethan took a step back, and his face firmly rushed to Samuel slightly. Smiled and whispered, "Don't worry, I'm not afraid of them anymore."
Samuel was startled. He understood the meaning of Ethan's words.
He never wanted to recall the scene of Ethan's mutation, and didn't want to believe what Ethan had become...monster.
But he looks so normal now, no different from before? Maybe the mutation is only temporary? He kept telling himself that.
But now he has to start to doubt that if Ethan can really drive those huge bugs, then they are trapped here, does Ethan belong to their human side or the disgusting bug side?
His suspicion and hesitation did not escape Ethan's eyes, Beta took a step back, "Don't follow." Yubi took a deep look at him, then turned around, his figure was quickly swallowed by darkness.
He didn't even bring any lighting.
Samuel turned his head and saw the other three people staring at him incredulously. Schneider asked, "You let him in like this?"
"He...he said he knew what he was doing. He wouldn't let us follow."
Schneider put down Stan on his back and frowned, "Do you believe him?"
Samuel hesitated and nodded.
Now two of the four of them are seriously injured, so they should not act indiscriminately. They decided to move to a place close to the wall a little further away to rest and wait for a while. Stan lost a lot of blood, sprinkled the remaining hemostatic medicine on the wound, but still oozes blood. The burns on the sergeant's arm were also getting worse. Although it was bandaged, the sergeant seemed to feel itchy and would often scratch hard. And gradually, there was an unpleasant smell on the arm.
No one knows if the acid of those bugs is poisonous.
Schneider and Sergeant continued to try to use pagers to contact the headquarters for help, but for some reason, all the electronic devices on their bodies could not transmit or receive any signals. It's like being cut off from the whole world by an invisible wall. The sergeant finally threw the communicator to the ground angrily and gave up.

Dark, instinctively scary color, is the final color that all colors are mixed together, and it also represents the color of everything and zero, existence and nothingness.
Ethan used to be very afraid of the dark. When he was a child, he accidentally dropped his father's portable capsule into a water glass, and was once locked in a cramped closet by his father. At that time, his mother went abroad to perform. Only he and his father were at home. He was locked up all day. No matter how much he begged for an apology, it was useless, almost thinking that his father would not let him out again.
From then on, he was afraid of darkness and narrow spaces. When he was sleeping, he was also used to turning on a small dim light by his pillow. When Roland saw it, he laughed at him and was afraid of the dark.
But now, he realized that he didn't feel any anxiety, and the frequency of his heartbeat remained normal. He even liked this kind of darkness a bit, he couldn't see anything, but he didn't know why he could perceive his direction.
Perhaps he was born in the dark.
The bumpy road under his feet reminded him of his intestines, and he suspected that he was walking in the belly of a huge monster. Thinking that if it is really intestines, it might be digested into a pool of excrement soon, he actually laughed in a low voice.
He tried to feel in the silence whether there was a thought transmitted to him by Tanithel, but his mind was still empty and it was frustrating. He hadn't heard from Tanithel for a week, and he almost began to wonder if their temporary soul binding had expired? Or did he accidentally fail to notice the thought passed to him by Tanithel? Or... something happened to Tanithel?
He refused to believe in the last possibility. Because he didn't know what he would become if something happened to Tanithel.
At this moment, I suddenly heard a sigh in my ear.
The sigh was so close, it seemed to be in his ear. He could even feel the exhaled air blowing the hair of his ears.
"Who!" Ethan shook his head.
The darkness looked back at him in silence, as if it had turned into a solid, wrapping him like a bug in amber.
Ethan took a few more steps, and this time he felt something sticky on the back of his hand. He staggered a few steps in the opposite direction quickly, and sternly asked, "Who is here!"
The darkness was still silent, and just as Ethan felt that he was about to lose his patience, a childish, unnatural voice that couldn't hear his gender said, "We are here. It's been a long time."
The voice is weird, like a tongue that is not flexible, with a strong accent.
Ethan tried to reach out and touched in all directions, but couldn't touch anything. He ran forward, trying to get rid of the unreal sound that was not known if it was his hallucination.
But the voice followed him.
"It's so cold, so cold, so crowded..."
"We are leaving...to a warmer place...to wait for the coming of God..."
"The egg... the egg... the spawn... the expansion..."
The rigid mechanical, childlike voice followed him like a nightmare, unable to distinguish the direction and source.

The others were asleep, and Schneider watched the night alone in the dark, looking at Samuel's sleeping face with some wonder. He turned the light on the gun to the darkest, and the gentle light stroked Samuel's profile, making his always hard and strong silhouette softer, more like a real Omega than usual.
Schneider lowered his head and looked at his palm. Somewhat dazedly, he might die here with him.
Before he became the chief of the forbidden city's guard, he was sent to collect the pirates who had been harassing the Earth Alliance border with the garrison. In that fierce battle, his comrade-in-arms and his lover-a strong and beautiful female Alpha, was instantly steamed by the pirate's new microwave gun in front of him. And he was seriously injured in that war, and his right hand was somewhat inflexible, and he was no longer suitable for being a frontline officer. Because he successfully protected several civilian hostages, he was transferred to the Forbidden City after being awarded several medals. Originally, the chief of the guard was a spare job with less money and more money, because most of the actual management was done by the supervisors of the east and west districts, such as Vasilev in the east district. As the chief of security, he only needs to be responsible for formulating basic guarding and defense policies, patrolling the forbidden city from time to time, and ensuring that enough inhumans are arranged for all atonement tasks issued by the forbidden city committee.
But probably because of his character, he just likes to do it himself, and he has taken a lot of the work that was originally in charge of Vasilev and the head of the West District to him. He probably wants to keep himself busy so that he doesn't have to think of his lover who has been dead for several years.
It wasn't until he found Samuel, and saw his beast-like alert and hard eyes deep with anxiety and confusion. That look is so similar to his former lover. It is true that Samuel was completely different from her, but after her death, Samuel was the only one who moved his heart.
He wanted Samuel, wanted to embrace that cheetah-like strong and beautiful body, wanted to see his face soaked in desire, wanted to hear his full lips call out his name.
If they are going to die here, then he hopes to speak out the obsession that has been torturing him before the end comes.
He looked at Samuel's side face in fascination, and leaned down slightly, trying to steal a kiss on that cheek. But he just leaned down, but Samuel opened his eyes suddenly. The dark brown eyes turned slightly and looked at him faintly.
Schneider's body became stiff, and he quickly sat upright, as if he were well-behaved.
"Do you want to kiss me?" Samus asked in a statement of fact.
"No." Schneider retorted too quickly, and the reason was a bit lame, "I just want to see if you are really asleep."
Samus sat up slowly, his eyes gleaming in the darkness, "It seems that Ethan is right."
"what?"
"He said you like me."
Schneider wanted to refute the denial, but he didn't know why it turned into the sentence he asked before: "...you believe him?"
"I didn't believe it, but I believe it now." Samuel looked a little funny, and raised his arms to stare at him. "The chief security officer actually fell in love with me, a big and rough inhuman. Should I feel honored? ?"
His stabbing tone pierced Schneider's heart for a while, looked away, and whispered, "Don't talk to me in this tone, I don't owe you."
"You're right. I always owe you." Samuel saw a faint sadness on his handsome but too serious face, and his heart softened. He lowered his voice and asked, "Are you sure it wasn't because of your special situation last time. Then I helped you. You accidentally fell in love with me as your Alpha?"
Schneider's cheeks flew into a blush, but the light was too dark to see it, "Don't feel too good about yourself!"
Samuel laughed in a low voice, leaned forward, deliberately leaning close to the awkward guard chief, and frivolously outlined Schneider's jaw with his fingers, "Then if I kiss you now, would you beat me?"
"……meeting!"
"Would you like to try it?"
"Dare you!" The chief guard's angry look was originally majestic and intimidating. For some reason, Samuel felt a little cute at this time.
Samuel was about to tease a few more words, when suddenly he heard a cry of pain from the sergeant. The sergeant who was originally lying on the ground was rolling on the ground with his burned arm, as if it was so painful.
Schneider rushed over and told Samuel to hold him down, and he carefully untied the bandage covering his arm.
Then he almost vomited.
On a large honeycomb-like pitted wound that has festered and drained pus, a large swath of white-flowered maggots have been born, greedily devouring the carrion.
When the sergeant saw his arm, he suddenly screamed, "No, no, no, no!!!"
Samuel and Schneider both looked at each other in shock. The rate of deterioration and decay was so fast that it was simply abnormal.
However, judging from the recent missions, they seem to be far away from normal.
Schneider said to the sergeant in a difficult voice, "The infection is too serious and may need to be amputated."
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Happy Chinese New Year everyone~~~ Thank you little angels for the red envelopes~~muuuuuua!!!