One person: Starting with the Snow Drinking Blade

Feeling nauseous and irritable, Zhang Chulan felt his stomach churning and his throat churning with acid. He wanted to vomit, but couldn't; he could only swallow hard to suppress the sour taste.

Xiaoyun's body trembled even more violently.

Her small hands were icy cold, as if she were holding a block of ice. She gripped Nie Lingfeng's clothes tightly, her nails digging into his skin through the fabric until they bled, but she was completely oblivious.

It made a faint, unconscious whimper, so quiet it was almost inaudible, but everyone in the silent passage could hear it. The whimper wasn't like crying; it was more like the instinctive, desperate groan of a small animal whose tail had been stepped on.

His large eyes were filled with extreme fear. It wasn't the kind of fear one feels when seeing something terrifying—it was a primal, soul-deep fear of facing something incomprehensible, irresistible, and inescapable.

Chen Duo also frowned.

An uneasy throbbing sensation ran through her veins.

Chen Duo had never felt that kind of "fear" before. Even when faced with Nie Lingfeng's cold aura, it only shrank back, not like this—as if it were being pressed down by something, unable to breathe.

"What kind of creatures are they raising in this godforsaken place?"

Zhang Chulan, panting heavily, tended to the wound on his leg while glancing back at the Ice Gate with lingering fear.

The banging sounds outside the door grew weaker and weaker.

It wasn't that the insects had given up—the "bang bang bang" sounds were becoming increasingly sparse and spaced further apart. It was more like something... had dispersed them? Summoned them away?

No.

They are the ones retreating.

The insects are retreating.

It wasn't because they were afraid, but because something even more powerful was coming. They had to make way.

At the end of the passageway, a faint, unstable, dark red light emanated from within.

The light wasn't continuous; it flickered on and off, like a heartbeat—no, that was the frequency of a heartbeat. With each "thump," the light flashed; with each "thump," the light dimmed. Perfectly synchronized.

Accompanied by a clearer, more resonant "thump...thump..." sound, like the beating of a giant heart.

And the sticky sounds of liquid flowing and flesh rubbing together—"glug...glug..."—like something thick being stirred.

The group slowed their pace, held their breath, and approached gently.

Exit of the passageway.

It connects to an underground space that is beyond description and beyond imagination.

Zhang Chulan's flashlight beam shone out, stretching far, far into the darkness, but it never reached the opposite wall. He felt as if he were shining a flashlight into the night sky—the beam disappearing into the endless void.

This is no longer a natural cave.

Instead, it is a giant underground dome, comparable in size to several football fields, formed entirely by artificial modification and hollowing out of the mountain's interior!

The dome was impossibly high; when a flashlight beam was shone directly up it, the beam grew thinner and dimmer until it disappeared into the darkness—it couldn't reach the top at all. Visually, it was at least a hundred meters high, perhaps even higher.

The dome was covered with intricate metal frames, thick pipes, and cables. The metal frames intertwined like a spider web, covering the entire dome. The pipes varied in thickness, some thicker than a person, others as thin as a finger, arranged densely like blood vessels or nerves.

There were also many enormous, searchlight-like lighting devices that had long since been extinguished. Their lampshades were over two meters in diameter, the glass was shattered, the filaments were broken, leaving only empty shells, like dead eyes, looking down from the dome at everything below.

The center of the dome—

It is the light source and "heart" of the entire space.

A massive, suffocating, and indescribable "lump of flesh"!

Zhang Chulan's mouth slowly opened, unable to close.

The mass of flesh was roughly an irregular oval shape. It was over fifty meters in diameter—longer than a standard swimming pool. It was also over twenty meters high, equivalent to seven or eight stories.

It occupies almost half of the central space of the dome.

It is not a purely biological tissue.

The surface is covered with a dark, thick outer layer, as if it were made of biological keratin and metal fused together. The outer layer is not smooth, but is covered with intricate patterns and veins—some patterns resemble the veins of a leaf, some resemble the lines on a human palm, and some resemble the circuitry on a circuit board. The patterns gleam with a dark, metallic sheen under the flashlight beam.

The blood vessels varied in thickness, some as thick as an arm, others as thin as a finger, densely intertwined and covering the entire outer skin. They were slowly wriggling—not breathing, but "eating." Expanding and contracting, expanding and contracting, as if devouring something.

The outer skin is inlaid with countless crystalline organs of varying sizes, resembling eyes, emitting a dark red light.

The crystals weren't transparent; they were murky, as if something was flowing inside them. A dark red light emanated from deep within the crystals, flickering like half-closed eyes blinking.

That unstable red light is emitted from here.

The mass of flesh was pulsating slowly and rhythmically.

"Thump..."

With each pulsation, the entire mass of flesh contracts like a heartbeat—not a complete contraction, but a wave-like contraction radiating outward from the center, like ripples spreading when a stone is thrown into water.

The entire space trembled slightly. The ground beneath your feet shook slightly, the walls trembled slightly, the air trembled slightly. The tremor was not terrifying—but unsettling, as if you were standing inside a huge, living creature, a creature that was alive, had a heartbeat, and was breathing.

It emitted that dull "thump...thump..." sound.

Countless thick "umbilical cords," resembling blood vessels and a mixture of biological tissue and metal tubes, extend from all directions of the fleshy mass.

Some of the pipe systems connect to the dome—those metal frames have special interfaces and slots, with one end of the umbilical cord inserted into them, like a plug into a socket.

Some of them are deeply embedded in the surrounding rock walls and ground—the umbilical cord penetrates the rock, causing it to crack, and dark red liquid seeps out from the cracks, leaving dried, blood-like streaks on the rock walls.

Even more impressive are the densely packed, honeycomb-like metal "rooms" that extend around the dome.

The metal rooms, arranged neatly and stacked layer upon layer, cling to the rock walls surrounding the dome. Each level has a protruding metal walkway for walking and maintenance. The walkways are connected by iron ladders, resembling a giant, vertical honeycomb.

The number is in the hundreds or thousands.

Most of the rooms had their metal doors tightly shut. Thick iron plates were welded into the door seams, and heavy iron chains and locks hung on the doors. The chains were rusty, and the locks had long lost their luster, but they remained firmly locked, as if imprisoning something.

But some are open.

Inside, the outlines of various twisted and grotesque creatures were revealed, soaking in a pale green nutrient solution!

The outlines were blurry and distorted by the nutrient solution and glass. But you could see that some looked like people, but their limbs were out of proportion, too long or too short; some looked like animals, but had things that shouldn't be there; and some looked like nothing at all, just a blurry, unrecognizable mass of flesh.

Some of the rooms are even still in operation.

The nutrient solution inside bubbled and gurgled, like someone breathing. The bodies twitched slightly in the liquid—no, not twitching, more like unconscious, reflexive muscle contractions. It was as if they weren't completely dead, but not truly alive either. They hung suspended at the boundary between life and death.

And below the mass of flesh—

It was a huge "blood pool" that emitted high temperatures and a pungent odor, and was boiling with a dark red, viscous liquid!

The pool of blood was larger than the lump of flesh, occupying almost a third of the space at the bottom of the dome. The surface of the liquid resembled a pot of boiling soup, constantly bubbling, and each bursting bubble released a pungent odor.

Limbs, broken bones, and even partially digested remains of experimental subjects, still discernible in their outlines, tumbled about. An arm emerged from the liquid, fingers outstretched as if pleading for help, before slowly sinking. A head floated to the surface, its face still bearing the expression of death—fear, pain, despair—before being swallowed by bubbles.

The sound of flowing liquid and rubbing flesh comes from this.

Several thick tubes protruded from the bottom of the fleshy mass, inserting themselves into the blood pool like straws, constantly sucking up the "nutrients" within. The tubes had segmented protrusions that bulged and throbbed, as if swallowing—that was drawing the liquid from the blood pool upwards and transporting it into the fleshy mass.

The entire space was filled with an intense, almost overwhelming odor, a mixture of blood, medicine, metal, and pure malice.