[542] Forbidden Holy Land (2)
* * *
A metal arm came into the ceiling of the elevator.
Eun-Kyung’s sword began to make a slash with a clatter, and the ceiling collapsed, sending Sirone and Yo into the jump.
“It’s not as deep as I thought.”
Judging by the height, the elevator stopped on the first basement floor.
“What if I go through the floor?”
Seeing Mucus block the stairs, I thought it would be dangerous to go too deep from the start.
Suddenly, the ceiling cracked open and electricity bounced, and the light on the elevator button came on.
“Is there electricity…?”
Before I could calm my startled heart, the elevator door opened by itself.
Along the stretched corridor, lights on the ceiling lit up sequentially, and the monotonous landscape of the laboratory greeted them.
Mucus was buried here and there, but it was enough space to be active.
“Let’s take a look from here.”
Sirone took Yo and strolled through the hallways of the laboratory.
Pneumatic locks were hung in each room, and numerous electric iron bars were stacked like blocks inside the glass walls.
‘Isolation Facility. Was it a place where animal testing was conducted?’
As I entered the central control room, the only door to which was open, the turbid air stung my nose.
There was a light stain of blood on the wall, and mucus halfway down the wall, as if it had leaked from the ground.
“There must have been a battle.”
Destroyed objects were thrown everywhere and there were bloodstains on the floor.
“It is not a battle. It is a one-sided massacre.”
It was such a sight to be sure.
“The electricity comes on…”
Sirone pressed the manager button in the central control room just in case.
With a hum, hologram monitors turned on all over the place, sending numerous three-dimensional images.
“Underground man…!”
As Yoga stiffened both arms and took a combat stance, Sirone raised her hand to stop it.
“don’t worry. It’s just an illusion.”
Sirone studied the image floating on the cylindrical hologram seriously.
A human and a monkey were spinning side by side, but after a while, the holograms overlapped and synthesized into a creature with the characteristics of an underground person.
‘What is it?’
As Sirone manipulated the options of the hologram device, a document appeared on the monitor on the side.
“Is it an ancient language? What is it written on?”
Sirone read while tracing her memories before hibernation.
“Dynamic Human Project. Government official approval.”
Having said that, Sirone kept her mouth shut and read only with her eyes.
It was because he seemed to understand a little why the children of the sun and the people of the underworld were reluctant to come here.
‘Oh my God…’
The contents written in the document were shocking.
In the aftermath of the nuclear war, 80 percent of humanity suffered from mutations, deformities, and decreased biological functions.
Humanity full of recessive factors has reached the point where it can no longer reproduce healthy offspring, so the Dynamic Human Project was attempted.
Combining artificially cultured primate and human genes to create a much stronger human than before.
That way, at least he thought he could survive in the destroyed world.
“Major. What is it written on? Are the underworlders going to be punished soon?”
Literally, this place was a forbidden sanctuary, and Sirone couldn’t find words to explain it.
“Are you okay? I don’t like the color of your face.”
At that moment, mucus flowed down soundlessly from the wall behind, and two eyes flashed open from a height of 2 meters in the slime.
When the eyes that looked around caught Shirone and Yo, the slime began to come out and come out in human form.
“So what is this…”
At that moment, Sirone sensed something with the Spirit Zone and quickly turned around.
“what!”
there was nothing.
Yogi turned around with his eyes wide open, relaxed his expression, and asked.
“Why are you like that?”
“There must have been something…”
“Maybe it was because I was too nervous?”
“no. The shape of the slime is different.”
Even if it was pushed up to the ceiling like when I first came here, the shape was completely different.
However, with Yo’s keen eye, he couldn’t confirm that.
“If you’re worried, can we just leave?”
Sirone pursed his lips and fell into thought.
As long as I realized what this place was like, I couldn’t go back to the colony like this.
‘Obviously, here’s the answer. If I do well, I might be able to get my memory back.’
Said Sirone, who made her decision.
“Let’s explore a little more.”
After escaping from the lab, the two set out to find a way down into the basement.
* * *
“The explosion is gone.”
At Miro’s words, Fermi accelerated.
“I’ll look into it.”
He quickly passed the block on his air skates, checked around the corner, and signaled that it was safe.
Lian, who arrived late, looked up at the tall buildings and said.
“Only this place wasn’t badly damaged.”
Marsha nodded.
“Still, are you more alert than before? Anyway, this scenery is definitely strange.”
As they each walked in the direction they were taking, Miro pointed to a building.
“Can you see it over there?”
It was a skyscraper covered in mucus.
“Someone has entered.”
It was clearly an artificial trace that there was a rough path in the loosely spread slime.
“Muckus is annoying. Moreover, with this amount…”
How much slime may be filled inside the building.
“Isn’t there no choice but to go and see?”
Miro moved first, and the remaining three followed.
The lobby was surprisingly clean, and only the stairs going up were full of mucus.
“Shall I pierce it?”
Miro pointed to the stairs and Fermi turned the corner and stood facing the lift.
“Looks like you went that way.”
After walking there, Marsha held on to the wall and looked down the elevator shaft.
Inside the box made of iron, there was a weak light.
“There is light. Is it an Abyss Walker?”
“You’ll know that when you go down.”
As the four of them went down the elevator shaft, something fell from the ceiling in the lobby.
A human made of slime.
It was hideous, as if the skin had been peeled off, but the features were clear and the eyes were clear.
Commonly known as the Mucus Man.
“…”
Mucus slowly dripped down the top of Mucus Man’s head as he looked toward the elevator, then grabbed his face as if sucking in water droplets and pulled him to the ceiling.
* * *
After descending to the 4th floor, Sirone took a deep breath in the clear air.
“Wow…” I
looked around with eyes full of yoga joy.
It was an arboretum that could only be found in the tropics, and the leaves of numerous trees were growing along the walls.
“The ecological environment underground. Or rather, how did you hold on until now?”
It would have been impossible without constant temperature, humidity and light.
“Let’s just go down. Apparently this is…”
I was reluctant to take Yo to check the 4th floor.
“There is a bigger tree over there.”
But she was now stepping out first.
Upon entering the large arboretum sealed with glass walls, numerous computer devices were running and a huge tree stood in the center.
Sirone, who came in belatedly, could guess Yo’s expression just by looking at Yo’s back.
“Uh huh?”
Standing in front of Yo’s eyes was smaller than what he saw from the outside, but it was definitely the tree of life.
Embryos with taps were clinging to the branches, and the wide glass tubes that contained the roots were filled with mucus.
“How can we… we…”
As I muttered yoga, the slime in the glass container rose all the way up and grabbed the fetus and pulled it.
Seeing the faucet snap and fall into the mucus, Yoro screamed with a pale face.
“Kyaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah!”
“calm down! If you make a loud noise…!”
Yo wasn’t crazy.
“Arson! How did this happen! Why is the tree of life here? The sun called…!”
There was no way to know that it was Sirone, but there was a way to confirm it.
When I pressed the option button on the control device, the hologram turned on again and the explanation continued.
‘Human Extinction Prevention Project. Government Unofficial Approval. As expected…’
Like the Dynamic Humans, the Children of the Sun were not naturally evolved humans.
The contents of the document were telling us more shocking facts than what we saw on the first floor.
With more than 70 percent of plants and animals extinct and resources exhausted, humanity has finally realized.
That humans should no longer be involved in energy.
Human greed ruined everything!
Humanity needed a special manager who was not swayed by desires, and Mucus, a local energy circulation system, was born.
The significance of Mucus is to digest animals and plants with mucus to generate energy necessary for the ecosystem.
Eventually, however, as even the local energy dried up, it began to destroy and expand the limits of its territory on its own.
The system, which judged that the maintenance of the ecosystem took precedence over the preservation of specific objects, even digested humans.
In such a situation where the planet dried up, mankind’s conclusion was that the human power mechanism must be redesigned from scratch.
Silence Artificial Hibernation Co., Ltd., which was conducting a government-led human survival project, contacted the few remaining descendants of the fairies and established Fairy Biomimetics.
The result is the tree of life using solar power.
It was the belief that mankind would not disappear even if the world perished if there were organisms that could survive only with photosynthesis and water.
And now, the future they could never confirm was unfolding before Sirone’s eyes.
‘Mutants are the manifestation of the characteristics of fairies. The human obsession with the species is truly formidable. But…’
Sirone looked around the lab with sad eyes.
‘Is this really the future they dreamed of?’
thud! I got down on my yoga knees.
“no.”
Tears ran down my cheeks.
“Isn’t it? am i dreaming? We… are the children of the sun blessed by Ra, right?”
A long time ago, even Dynamic Humans and Children of the Sun would have known about the existence of this place.
However, it was a fact that one should never know, and it led to instinct and finally became a forbidden holy place.
“Arson! Tell me please! what are we Are you really human?”
“It doesn’t matter. It’s important that you are the only species surviving in this world right now.”
“But so far we…!”
At that time, Mucus, which had been submerged under the Tree of Life, wriggled out, and Mucus Man came out.
“Dangerous!”
As Sirone hugged Yo and rolled on the floor, Mucus dripped from the ceiling and covered the walls.
“What is that again?”
Sirone, who hugged Yo and turned her head, was horrified at Mucus Man’s hideous appearance.
“High-efficiency energy…”
As Mucus’ arms stretched out like rubber and rushed in, Sirone threw herself and fired a photon cannon continuously.
Mucus Man, whose shoulders and abdomen exploded, jumped up, and slime descended from the ceiling, grabbed him, and sucked him in.
“damn!”
It wasn’t the end of catching what was visible, but the entire Mucus filled with buildings was the enemy.
Mucus Man, who got a new body, climbed the walls like a spider and was immediately soaked into the slime whenever Sirone attacked.
‘How am I supposed to fight something like this?’
As Mucus Man rose from the floor and swung his fist, Sirone flung himself to the other side.
At the same time, thick tentacles stretched out from the slime on the wall.
“The Archon!”
As Yo, who came to his senses belatedly, was about to jump out, the arboretum’s door opened and a tall man passed by her.
Ignoring the acceleration, he blocked Sirone’s way and swung his greatsword, slashing away the tentacles.
“Sirone! Are you okay?”
When the blue-haired man turned his head, Sirone put on a dazed expression.
Then, new memories flooded into my head and began to connect with countless memories.
“…Lian?”
Syrone information recovery rate.
69 percent.
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