Industrial Cthulhu, starting from the island lord

Chapter 144 The Curse of Eternal Life.

"I have a bold idea."

Hughes blinked, Chloe's words interrupting his thoughts.

She had already sat up, stopped moving, and was looking over hesitantly.

There was still a trace of blood at the corner of the girl's mouth, which was slowly sliding down and then dripping onto her black nun's uniform with a "pa" sound.

"Oh, it's dirty."

She lowered her head in annoyance, her orange-red hair a little messy, like a ball of fire.

"How was the effect of drinking the blood just now?"

"It's not working very well." Chloe tried to rub the bloodstain, but it only made it smudge bigger. "Well, I don't want to discourage you, but it actually has no effect."

"That's a pity. It seems my blood can't dispel the pollution." Zeus looked down at his finger. The cut that the girl had just made was not big and would heal soon.

"No, not necessarily. I just thought about it. Drinking blood doesn't actually count as entering the body."

"How to say?"

"For example, if I have contamination [in my body], it could be anywhere, but not my stomach. It seems the definition of contamination, both inside and outside the body, is different from what we usually think."

This seems to make some sense. Zeus had experienced persistent contamination in his body before, but there was indeed no contamination in his stomach.

The location of the pollution is really accurate. Even if he keeps moving, it can still appear in the flesh and blood without any deviation, as if the pollution does not come from the outside world, but from his heart.

"So drinking blood is not okay. It's not that your blood can't be purified, but the method of drinking it is wrong. It's like performing a ritual. The ingredients used are exactly right, but the steps are off by even the slightest bit, and the intended effect won't be achieved."

Chloe's eyes were shining, and they seemed to gradually brighten up, as if she had thought of an idea.

"So I have an idea. Maybe it's a little too bold. I wonder if you can accept it."

"You can tell me first. I'll tell you whether you can accept it or not after I listen to it." Xius thought for a moment and looked into her eyes. "By the way, I have a question. Why do your eyes light up when you are excited?"

"Eyes shining?"

Chloe was stunned and shook her head: "My eyes don't shine, do they? Is it because the room is too dark and you saw it wrongly?"

She looked over in confusion, tilted her head and blinked, her eyes like two bright candles in the dim room.

Zeus frowned. He always thought that this was some kind of effect of supernatural powers, such as the brightness of eyes increasing as the mood improves, but she didn't know?
That should have nothing to do with her extraordinary ability. Could it be his ability?
Perhaps the symbiotic contract gave him new abilities, such as being able to intuitively see other people's moods.

Zeus looked carefully at Chloe's eyes. Her pupils were also orange-red, the same color as her hair. The light emitted from them was not dazzling, but rather fluorescent like a cat's eyes at night.

"Forget it, let's not talk about this. Just tell me what you think first."

Then Xius saw that the girl's orange-red pupils suddenly brightened two levels.

"Okay, but let me tell you in advance, I'm a transcendent and won't get hurt by something like this. I hope you don't get scared later." She bit her lip and said, "I want you to really put your hand inside me and try it."

Hughes' eyes widened.

"I am a Nymph, a unique and extraordinary path possessed by the Fire Moth. Its primary abilities are concealment and escape, and its perception is also exceptional. However, few people know that this path possesses a unique ability."

Chloe was now lying flat on the table, her fingers clasped together in front of her chest. She looked at Hughes, who was standing beside her, and said encouragingly, "Come on, don't worry, you won't hurt me."

"Are you sure? This is too weird, isn't it?"

Xius's expression was complicated, and he looked very hesitant and conflicted.

"Come on, I'll continue telling you." Chloe's voice was firm, and she tried to keep her eyes open without blinking.

Xius took a deep breath, calmed down some of the hesitation in his heart, and put his hand on the girl's face.

Chloe smiled, her eyes curving slightly. Her eyes were already big, and when Zeus got closer, they looked like two bays of lake water with an orange-red bottom sand beneath the surface.

Zeus gritted his teeth and dipped his fingers into the lake.

".The ability of the [Nymph] is limb reconstruction."

"My internal structure is completely different from that of humans, and what you see is not real."

There was not much resistance and the fingers sank in. Zeus only felt that his fingers were entering the jelly. He did not dare to move and stopped hesitantly.

Suddenly, he felt a warmth on his wrist. He looked up and saw Chloe's hand holding his arm, guiding him to explore inside her body.

"Don't worry, it's totally fine. Even if you smash my head, I won't die. At most, I'll lose my mouth and won't be able to talk to you."

Hughes' fingers almost completely entered Chloe's eye sockets, and the warm touch told him that this was not an illusion.

It was really amazing. The finger clearly entered her pupil but did not force her eyeball open. It was as if the orange pupil was just painted on. The girl in front of him was just wearing human skin, and she looked completely different inside.

"Your ability is too weird. I even doubt whether you are still human." Zeus couldn't help but sigh. He felt that his three views were challenged.

"It's a small price to pay. Transcendents are like this. They bear the curse, gain power, and gradually drift away from humans."

Chloe said it nonchalantly, as if she really didn't feel lost at all, but Zeus felt that even if she was a fire moth, even if she had devoted her whole body and soul to the truth, it might not be so easy for her to abandon her human body.

"It seems to me that Nora hasn't changed at all."

"Her? Humph." Chloe chuckled. "The extraordinary people in the Silent Temple are all... pitiful. She is the [Buried], right? Did she tell you that she can't die?"

"She said she didn't expect eternal life to be so simple. I was shocked at the time."

"Eternal life? It is indeed eternal life. The eternal curse of the Silent Temple is truly famous."

Zeus frowned. "Isn't immortality good? So many people desire it. To be honest, I'm confused as to why those nobles didn't secretly become transcendents to gain the ability to live forever."

"Who told you they're gone?" Chloe sneered. "You should go to their church choir. It's filled with heads wailing day and night - their torment knows no end."

Zeus's movements stopped and his eyes slowly widened.

"Legend has it that at the northernmost tip of the North, in the Pure White Realm where no one can reach, there stands a peak made of diamonds. It's the pillar of the world that holds the sky together, preventing it from collapsing. It takes a year to climb it, and another year to circumnavigate it. Every hundred years, a two-headed bird the size of a sparrow arrives, sharpens its beak twice, and then flies away. Once this diamond mountain is ground flat, the pillar collapses, the sky falls to the ground, and the first second of eternal life is gone."

"Now, do you still like eternal life?"

(End of this chapter)