Mutation
Translator: Cinder Translations
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Figures clung to the stone slab in layers. The mysterious woman was impaled in the chest by a spear wielded by the leading man, her blood spraying out like ink, staining her white gown and the lips of the invaders.
There was no resistance. The woman simply stared indifferently at them as they rushed forward, using their weapons to strike her, then hungrily pouncing on her like a pack of starving wolves, devouring her broken body.
Those who couldn't pounce simply gathered around, greedily licking up the blood that flowed from her and spread on the ground.
This all happened on the stone slab, bathed in a faint blood-red hue. The entire scene had the texture of an oil painting, and against the backdrop of night, it cast a sorrowful and desolate dark tone.
Chen Ran, immersed in the subconscious influence exerted by the carved image, enjoyed the experience. He didn't see anything wrong with the actions of the townspeople. The only regret was that there was no fitting background music at that moment.
Such a religious, mass-like scene was deprived of proper musical accompaniment.
It was truly a waste.
It was like waking up on a Croatian beach in the afternoon, with the crystal blue sea spread before you, a servant quietly approaching with sleeves rolled up. Everything was so harmonious and comfortable it was almost maddening.
But the next second, the impeccably smiling servant poured a Tuscan red wine onto the caviar, then scooped it up and slapped it across your face.
That's how Chen Ran understood the scene.
This understanding, clearly, wasn't something Jiang Cheng, struggling near the poverty line, could conceive.
The woman had already been covered by a mass of figures. During this process, she did not resist or make a sound.
Jiang Cheng forced himself to look away from the woman's position, his eyes subtly reflecting faint light.
His gaze wandered around the stone slab. He was not a hunter; it was just the instinct for survival in an extremely calm state.
The scene made him uncomfortable, but he keenly felt that within this discomfort, there was also an odd sense of discord.
For Jiang Cheng, the discomfort was just the shock brought by the scene itself, especially since in the modern world, where legal concepts are relatively well-established, such tragedies like cannibalism were rarely seen.
The perpetrators would even be given titles like "demon," such as the notorious "cannibal demon."
But the discord felt different. It meant something was wrong.
After a moment, his pupils suddenly contracted.
He found it.
No, it wasn't those people; it was the woman!
The stone slab was already crowded with people—some were eating flesh, while the less fortunate were kneeling nearby, greedily licking the blood that spread across the ground.
There were at least dozens of people on the stone slab, with more than a hundred surrounding it.
The entire slab was almost entirely stained red with blood.
Where did all that blood come from?
There was only one woman on the slab, along with the elderly man, and the little girl whose half-body was left, her eyes wide open in death. So, how could there be so much blood...
Wait!
When his gaze passed over the little girl's remains, Jiang Cheng's focus froze. He saw... the corners of the girl's eyes slightly lifted, and her mouth stretched into an exaggerated grin.
She... was smiling?
The little girl, cruelly split in half and left to rot on the stone slab, was actually smiling?!
In the next moment, his view sharply zoomed out, and even with Jiang Cheng's composure, his breathing began to quicken.
The man whose limbs were chopped off, the woman whose abdomen was split open, the elderly man with his head pierced like a trophy on a spear, and the bloodied children who were slaughtered—everyone who had been killed was smiling.
Their pale faces, mostly stained with blood, did nothing to hinder their eerie smiles.
What was even more terrifying was that Jiang Cheng could clearly feel that this smile was genuine.
They didn't hate those who slaughtered them. On the contrary, there was an air of gratitude, as if they were thankful to the invaders for killing them.
Why?
"Crack, crack, crack—"
The continuous, delicate sounds echoed in Jiang Cheng's ears, and the image in his mind began to change. The blood-colored barrier that had appeared earlier started to slowly rotate.
His heart trembled slightly, and in his mind, a commanding message crashed into his consciousness. Something significant... was about to begin.
The next second, everyone on the stone slab fell to the ground. They struggled and rolled in the blood, as if enduring extreme pain.
Each of them opened their mouths wide, as if screaming.
Yet even though their mouths were about to tear, Jiang Cheng couldn't hear a sound.
A middle-aged man convulsing on the ground stared at his arm. The skin on his arm slowly bulged, stretched, and stretched again... until it became blood-red and transparent.
The next second, a thick bone spur burst through his body, and from his arm grew a bone structure resembling a fish fin.
The mutation spread like a plague. A boy's back was ripped open, his clothes shredded, revealing a spine thicker than that of an adult man.
What was more terrifying was that, on both sides of the exposed spine, a pair of wings with a bloody membrane unfolded.
The creature, no longer recognizable as a boy, screamed as it rolled in the blood.
Some had sharp horns growing from their heads, and others even had two more thick arms growing beneath their ribs, resembling the forelimbs of crawling creatures.
There were even some who had completely mutated into monsters over two meters, even three meters tall.
They roared, howled, and even tumbled together in the blood.
The agony of mutation was obvious. Covered in blood and mucus, they tore at each other, venting their pain and frustration.
Jiang Cheng clenched his fists, his fingertips turning white from lack of blood. The scene before him completely shattered his understanding. This wasn't a ritual; this was... evolution!
It was like how the fallen angels transformed into demons.
But the difference was that their evolution was completely chaotic, without any purpose. From an evolutionary perspective, most of the things on this slab were defective.
They didn't follow the basic principles of survival.
Their existence seemed to only serve one purpose: challenging some authority, showing those who called themselves righteous, like the spiritual leaders and others, that there was still a hellish battlefield in the world.
After the blood-red mist dispersed, these ugly creatures began to group and run towards the forest. Their bodies were large, but their movements were clumsy, like babies taking their first steps.
Soon, they all disappeared into the forest.
Jiang Cheng stared in the direction they had gone. It was towards the sea.
Immediately, the image of the old woman's description appeared in his mind—those ships that were mysteriously attacked, and the heavily armed special forces on the old woman's ship.
And the message left after the attack, a transmission from the ship's captain.
He shouted, "It's hell! The gates of hell... are open!"
So that's it.
(End of the Chapter)
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