Chapter 106: Ghost Cathedral （ Two ）
“There’s a situation here.”
The students suspended mid-air immediately stopped descending. Wasp said, “Eagle Bone, deploy bio-reaction detectors inside the passage, synchronize 3D scanning, set up shock bombs, and activate signal jammers, leaving only our communication domain.”
“Received.” Eagle Bone hadn’t descended yet and, as the last team member, went down with the relevant equipment.
One of the logistics personnel also went with him, slid into the passage, opened the equipment case, and deployed according to the command.
The rest continued their descent.
Song Hu deliberately adjusted his posture and landed on the ground with Lian Xinyi, showing him considerable care.
This detail drew glances from the other students.
When did Song Hu and Lian Xinyi become such close friends?
However, Lian Xinyi’s terrible luck was unmatched; before the combat even began, his face was already injured, with a fresh scratch across the outer side of his brow bone.
Fortunately, his special ability was taking effect, and the wound healed at a visibly noticeable rate, leaving behind only a bloodstain that proved his “successful opening” record.
“Captain, Professor Yun, there are indicator lights for a hovercar lane behind the waterfall, and relatively fresh scraping marks remain on the rock face, indicating recent use,” Eagle Bone reported the situation.
“As expected of ‘Unlucky Lian.’ That kid’s passive skill triggered again,” Yun Fei’s mouth showed a hint of a smile.
“‘Unlucky Lian’?” Su Ninglong asked, confused.
“It’s a nickname given to him in private, probably meaning continuously unlucky.”
“If you ask me, ‘Lian Jiujiu’ is better. He’s not unlucky, he’s lucky. If you give him that nickname, people might actually believe he’s unlucky. Negative labels can easily form psychological suggestions and quite possibly change someone’s luck.”
“Alright, from now on, we won’t say that. We’ll call him Lian Jiujiu. If he asks, say it was you who gave him the nickname.”
“In terms of deviousness, you still take the cake.” Su Ninglong looked around, feeling a bit bored, and finally asked, “What is the Secret Spirit behind the parasite? You can tell me now, can’t you?”
Yun Fei was happy to answer, “Throat of Aggregation, a Three-Star Secret Spirit.”
Su Ninglong had seen this in a book she read, which was borrowed from Xing Yuan’s Assistant Yu.
“I know, it’s the cousin of Fear of the Cold Abyss.”
Yun Fei looked bewildered, unable to connect the relationship: “Cousin?”
“That’s right. They both deal with parasitism, and their names have four characters. This guy is more manipulative than Fear of the Cold Abyss, so isn’t he a cousin?”
Fear of the Cold Abyss appears in extremely cold regions or deep space. Its followers may summon it for ten years and still not receive a single glance, much like its aloof characteristic.
However, the Throat of Aggregation is different. It’s like a shark that smells blood; as long as there are many believers, there’s a chance to find it. It likes to hide in places of faith, quickly gathering parasites together.
However, the knowledge in books only goes this far. To understand more, a teacher’s popular science explanation is needed.
“Teacher Funi, can you explain it to me in detail?” Yun Fei liked to be concise, and Su Ninglong feared he would summarize it in a single sentence.
Funi adjusted her thick glasses that had slipped down her nose.
Deliberately lowering her high-pitched voice, she spoke like a witch telling a horror story, imbued with magic that attracted Su Ninglong to listen carefully.
“The Throat of Aggregation is a complete fraud. Its believers always receive wonderful feedback from it. As believers gradually increase and gather together, it will be summoned.”
“All believers will witness the divine spectacle of its descent, shining brightly and singing beautiful songs, before splitting into countless small tentacles to inject power into its beloved believers.”
“The ignorant believers will voluntarily offer themselves, becoming its hosts, and in a short period, all of them will turn into parasites. Large amounts of parasites, like giant calla lilies, emit a scent that smells ‘sweet’ to Secret Spirits, attracting weaker Secret Spirits nearby.”
“The Secret Spirits will devour the parasites, and the ‘seeds’ hidden within the parasites will seize the opportunity to bloom, absorbing the Secret Spirit’s power.”
“Day after day, all the parasites will become the Secret Spirit’s final dinner, until they are all wiped out. That aloof fraud will then disappear and head to a new place of faith.”
Su Ninglong’s mind suddenly struggled to process the information.
She needed to organize the information; in other words, being a believer of the Throat of Aggregation offered no benefits at all.
The parasites were like a piece of poisonous, rotten meat used to lure flies, and then the ‘god’ would eat the flies and leave.
It was disgusting!
Su Ninglong: “Why do Secret Spirits fight and devour each other? Is it possible to use this to deal with Secret Spirits?”
Both Yun Fei and Funi couldn’t answer this question. Secret Spirits couldn’t be studied up close, making many experiments only remain at a surface level.
Even with the extensive data provided by hunters, many mysteries remained unsolved.
Simulators could only mimic a portion of their known characteristics and grant them a small amount of freedom, ultimately failing to yield objective conclusions.
Only those with brilliant talent like Yang Zhu could undertake research work, but even he couldn’t collect data 24 hours a day, and he could only research low-star Secret Spirits.
Yun Fei vaguely replied, “Just like humans fight and attack each other, Secret Spirits might also have factions.”
Su Ninglong nodded, accepting this explanation for now.
…
As soon as the inner court students reached the ground, they quickly set up two defense lines under Wasp’s command.
The back door of the Ghost Cathedral was a thick metal gate, long sealed and located in a damp, dark environment, already covered in mottled metal oxidation fragments.
With the defense lines set up, Wasp gestured.
The team members immediately hid on either side of a window. One student approached to listen, then gestured that it was safe.
Wasp ordered them to proceed.
The student reached out and touched the window; it was unclear what they did.
The stained-glass window opened silently.
Even from such a distance, Su Ninglong could feel the intense ominous aura within.
A tumor was hanging in front of the window, contracting and expanding like a pumping heart, connected above to countless vein-like networks.
On the side of the tumor was a human profile.
Lei Qingya, who was lying beside Su Ninglong, couldn’t help but lean out a little more to see clearly; she felt the human face was somewhat familiar.
Yun Fei pulled her back, “You haven’t undergone resistance training yet, don’t look too much.”
Lei Qingya broke out in a cold sweat behind him. It had only been a short time, and she had already fallen for it.
She raised her telescope for another look, but the familiar human face was gone, replaced by countless tangled veins.
She lowered the telescope, “Can I receive resistance training later?”
Yun Fei remained silent, and Lei Qingya understood his meaning: no.
She pursed her lips and had to stand up.
The light on Youmu Star was dim, but the tiles on the roof of the cathedral still shone golden.
Looking at those tiles, sadness welled up in her heart, accompanied by waves of human-like muttering spreading around.
Lei Qingya simply turned her back to the cathedral, choosing not to listen or look. She didn’t want to become a captive of the Secret Spirit.
“You’ll get used to it. I also considered being a hunter back then; in fact, being a guide allows me to utilize my strengths better.” Xing Yuan comforted her, “At your age, it’s normal not to like a mundane life, but you can ask the old seniors. They will definitely tell you that stability is the best. We’ve saved ourselves decades of detours compared to them.”
Lei Qingya chuckled, feeling somewhat comforted, but not entirely.
At this moment, Funi unfolded a 3D map of the Ghost Cathedral and then took out a chipped stone slab eroded by time.
Su Ninglong glanced at Lei Qingya, who had returned to normal, and asked Funi, “What is this?”
“A Sacred Artifact.” Funi offered no further explanation and pointed her finger at the inscribed text on the stone slab.
As her finger moved, the text flashed with silver light.
An incomplete whisper echoed in Su Ninglong’s ears: “Seal… history… dust… ahead…”
“Ahead? What’s ahead?” Su Ninglong, without hesitation, showed her curiosity.
“You can hear it too?” Funi raised her glasses.
“Is it strange that I can hear it?”
Funi smiled, “Not strange. My two assistants can too. Everyone hears different content. What did you hear?”
Su Ninglong recounted what she had heard.
“You weren’t thinking of anything at the time, were you?”
“Then it’s correct. The results of our divination are all the same.” Funi had also heard similar content, “This is a divination Sacred Artifact, incomplete. If I want to repair it, I must find the other parts.”
Su Ninglong recalled the directional cultural relics Funi had mentioned before; could this be it?
“To find the other parts, will we need the right time, place, and people?”
Funi was amused by Su Ninglong’s words, “It’s very likely that’s the case.”
The team below had already begun their actions. They placed the Qiankun Divine Shrine below the window. After a while, there were no signs of Secret Spirits escaping or spreading.
One student raised a crossbow, and a deep blue arrow accurately pierced the pulsating tumor.
Instantly, the arrow released an energy field, causing the tumor to tremble.
“What kind of weapon is that?”
“A crossbow bolt,” Yun Fei replied concisely.
However, such an answer couldn’t satisfy Su Ninglong’s curiosity. “Teacher Funi, can you explain it to me in detail?”
“Of course,” Funi whispered, “That’s a cognitive interference sniper arrow. When the arrow hits the target, it can generate a cognitive interference field specifically designed to deal with Secret Spirits like the Throat of Aggregation. Each tumor is a part of the Throat of Aggregation, a tubular neural network that provides it with perception. If we disrupt its perception, it will inevitably send parasites to defend it.”
“It’s all protected by parasites?”
“You won’t think so in a little while.”
The moment the cognitive interference field took effect, within ten seconds, oddly shaped parasites appeared within the field of view of the telescope.
Su Ninglong felt her eyes become unclean. These monsters had similarities to the two monsters she had seen on Starlair Street; they were all abstractly ugly.
Their skin was festering, and a black vascular network appeared on the surface, intertwined with a layer of tumor-like mucus tissue, forming purple-black veins resembling spreading tree roots.
Their facial features were completely distorted, somewhat resembling zombies.
Song Hu stood behind the human wall and quietly said, “Halt.”
The two parasites crawling out of the window froze. The two students beside them had already formed a reflex arc, raising their hands to shoot. Their guns were pulse-based weapons; a single shot at a parasite caused it to explode.
Although the students each had their own personalities, their synchronicity in dealing with monsters was very high. A silent understanding flowed between them, resulting in high efficiency.
Suddenly, gunshots echoed from within the valley, and everyone stopped their actions.
Yun Fei asked the logistics technicians, “What’s going on?”
The technicians brought up the images, “According to intelligent analysis, the sound is from a long-range attack weapon. Most likely, someone in the front courtyard initiated a firearms attack.”
Ten seconds later, the monitoring screen of a mechanical spider confirmed the answer.
“There are five people in combat suits entering from the front, hunting parasites through the corridor. The image shows a large number of parasites moving towards the corridor.”
Yun Fei said to logistics, “Immediately apply to the Star Alliance to investigate the person surnamed Chu. During the investigation, all his functions and powers are to be suspended. Damn it, they dare to interfere with a rotation zone, they must be tired of living.”
After cursing, he added, “Wasp, did you hear that?”
“Heard,” Wasp immediately ordered everyone to stop their attack, close the windows, and retreat to the defense line.
“Why stop?” Su Ninglong’s ‘ten thousand whys’ flared up again, and she asked without shame.
Not asking anything would make one a big fool.
Funi quickly explained, “Earlier, it was mentioned that when parasites gather, they attract Secret Spirits. We disrupted the Throat of Aggregation’s perception precisely to make it dispatch only a small number of parasites to investigate. Repeated interference can gradually kill a large portion of the parasites, giving us time to deal with their corpses. Attacking indiscriminately upfront is dangerous; each tumor is a shared sensory organ of the Throat of Aggregation. It will mistakenly believe that our interference is from accomplices of those people, and similarly dispatch large numbers of parasites.”
“Stand by for half an hour and observe the situation first,” Wasp instructed the team members to deploy optical environment simulators on the defense line and stand ready.
From above, they could no longer be seen, having hidden themselves.
Su Ninglong, sitting on a cushion, looked up at the optical camouflage screen above, “Will the combat duration be very long?”
“It depends. In five years, the Star Alliance has eliminated three Throat of Aggregation entities. If we count the documented records of past generations, ten have been eliminated in 200 years. The fastest was a two-hour swift attack, which happened a year ago. The slowest took five days, fifty years ago. The former resulted in two severe injuries and three minor injuries. The latter, six deaths and three severe injuries.”
Funi used data for comparison to help Su Ninglong understand better.
The technician’s eyes suddenly narrowed, and he said with a trembling voice, “Professor Yun, they… they are going to lure the parasites out of the Cathedral… should we warn them?”
The gunshots grew more intense. Yun Fei’s tone turned cold, “Send a level four disaster notification to the Star Alliance, stating that Chu Lin’s non-standard operation and unauthorized entry into the rotation zone by his personnel will lead to an expansion of the contamination area.”
Almost as Yun Fei uttered the last word, the technician had already contacted the Star Alliance headquarters, which immediately revoked Chu Lin’s position as branch director.
In just ten seconds, Chu Lin received a message via internal software from the Star Alliance, pointing out his violation of regulations, intentional expansion of contamination, and requiring him to undergo investigation, prohibiting him from sending any further messages or issuing commands.
Chu Lin was stunned. He looked towards the plaza, where five hunters were leading a group of parasites towards the main gate.
