I created a foundation

She was the first to take a step forward. Her white shrine maiden costume formed a sharp contrast with her black combat uniform. She was like a sharp blade drawn from its sheath, cutting into the shadow of death without hesitation.

Ten team members followed closely behind, forming a standard tactical formation and following in silence.

Yotsuya Miko walked behind Saeko, nervously holding a compass-shaped spiritual power detector, and her [Yin Yang Eyes] had already been opened to the maximum.

In her eyes, the forest ahead was shrouded in a thick, almost tangible black miasma. The miasma was so thick that it seemed as if countless desperate souls were sinking and wailing in it.

Just as the last member of the team stepped into the forest boundary.

"and many more!"

Yotsuya Miko's voice suddenly rang out, with a hint of uncontrollable horror.

Saeko stopped immediately, and the entire team froze in place, all guns pointed in all directions.

"What's wrong?" Saeko lowered her voice.

Jianzi didn't answer.

She just stared at the spiritual power detector in her hand. The pointer, which had been pointing steadily forward, was now spinning wildly in place at a frequency that violated the laws of physics like crazy.

Her [Yin Yang Eyes] penetrated the layers of darkness and saw a scene that almost froze her blood.

Directly in front of them, under a giant tree about five hundred meters away.

A pale, thin, completely disproportionate humanoid creature, more than three meters tall, was squatting on the ground with its back to them.

Its body was twitching slightly.

A suppressed, intermittent sobbing sound filled with endless sorrow penetrated the barriers of space and, without warning, resounded directly in everyone's mind.

Chapter 157: SCP-096 "Shy Person"

The boundary of the forest seems to be the dividing line between life and death.

Just one step away, the air temperature suddenly dropped several degrees, and the cold and damp air mixed with the fishy smell of rotting leaves rushed into the nostrils.

Busujima Saeko raised her hand, and her tactical gesture was concise and clear - everyone on alert, stay where you are.

The ten elite investigators behind her reacted instantly. The sounds of breathing, footsteps, and the rustling of clothing vanished instantly. Like statues blending into the darkness, they silently pointed their custom-made rifles at every possible threat. Their gazes through their tactical eyepieces were calm and emotionless.

Only Yotsuya Miko couldn't remain calm.

Her beautiful eyes were now filled with pure fear. She clutched the psychic detector tightly. The brass needle no longer spun wildly, but now pointed straight ahead in a frightening manner. It trembled violently, emitting a mournful buzzing sound, as if it would break at any moment under the immense pressure.

"See you, son, report the situation."

Busujima Saeko's voice was very low, but it was filled with unquestionable calmness.

"In...in front of us..." Yotsuya Miko's voice trembled, her face as pale as paper, "there is...something."

The scene she saw with her [Yin Yang Eyes] was a thousand times more terrifying than the reaction on the detector.

The thick, ink-black miasma formed a massive vortex five hundred meters ahead. Countless twisted, tormented, and desperate souls struggled and screamed within the vortex, but were firmly bound by an invisible force, ultimately being pulled and devoured, transforming into the purest nourishment at the vortex's center.

And in the very center of the vortex, under an ancient giant tree that required several people to hug, a figure was squatting there.

The figure appeared unusually thin and tall, with pale skin emitting a bleak glow in the darkness, and completely disproportionate limbs curled up, looking weird and pitiful.

It turned its back to the team and covered its face tightly with a pair of scary-looking, bony hands.

"Woo...Woo..."

A burst of intermittent, extremely suppressed sobs, without any warning, crossed the physical distance of 500 meters and sounded directly in the depths of the minds of every member of the task force.

The cry was filled with endless sadness, grievance and pain, as if it was a lonely child who had been abandoned by the whole world and was hiding in a corner licking his wounds.

There was no murderous intent, no malice, only pure, heartbreaking grief.

"Command, this is Narukami. We have sighted the target."

Saeko reported to the rear in the lowest voice through the communicator in her throat, her eyes always fixed on the pale figure, her eyes as sharp as a knife.

"The target is an unknown humanoid, estimated to be over three meters tall and extremely thin. Its current behavior is... crying. I repeat, the target is crying."

"A large amount of damaged camping equipment was found in the surrounding area, and multiple victims were confirmed. Judging from the traces at the scene, the victims suffered extremely brutal physical attacks."

Kasumigaoka Utaha's calm voice came over the communicator: "Roger that. Command authorizes the continuation of Phase One of Operation Looking Glass. Remember, Saeko, observation is priority. Any form of active contact is strictly prohibited."

"clear."

Saeko closed the communication.

She slowly pulled out the "Yeshai" from her waist. The huge blade did not bring any sense of security, but instead made the eerie silence seem even more solemn.

"With me as the center, small groups, advance in a fan-shaped pattern. Maintain a distance of thirty meters and take turns providing cover." Saeko issued new instructions. "Observers, report target status in real time. Everyone, adjust the sensitivity of the visual filter system to the highest level. I don't want to hear any surprises."

"Yes!"

The investigators responded in whispers, their movements in unison, without a single unnecessary sound, as they began to slowly move deeper into the forest. Their footsteps landed on the thick humus soil, making almost no sound.

Yotsuya Miko followed closely behind Saeko, her heart beating wildly in her chest.

She forced herself to calm down and focused all her attention on the squatting figure in front of her.

That thing...hasn't moved.

It just squatted there, stubbornly covering its face, as if it didn't care about the outside world at all and was immersed in its own sadness.

As the distance got closer, the torn tents and backpacks around it, as well as the dark red bloodstains that had long since dried and turned black, became increasingly clear to everyone.

A broken piece of trekking pole.

A can that has been violently ripped open.

There was also a lone, mud-covered woman's sneaker.

Every object silently tells of the one-sided bloody massacre that once took place here.

The "murderer" who had done all this was now crying and twitching all over like a child who had suffered a great injustice.

This extreme, twisted sense of disharmony sent a chill down the spine of all the battle-hardened investigators present.

What on earth is this?

What is its killing rule? Sound? Proximity? Or... something else?

The team stopped about 150 meters away from the target.

This is a relatively safe observation distance.

"Thermal imaging shows that the target's body temperature is extremely low, close to the ambient temperature." A team member in charge of observation reported in a low voice.

"No energy radiation reaction was detected."

"Vital signs... cannot be read. The instrument shows that the target is non-living."

Cold data after cold data was gathered into Saeko's ears, but she was unable to piece together any useful intelligence about that existence.

The unknown remains unknown.

Saeko frowned. She could feel that the spiritual pressure in her body was becoming restless because of the presence in front of her. This was a most primitive warning from her fighting instinct.

She gripped the hilt of her knife tightly and whispered into the communicator, "Command, the target information is unclear and cannot be effectively analyzed. Requesting authorization to use a courier drone for close-range reconnaissance."

"Authorization approved." Kaguya's voice came from the command center.

A team member immediately took out a palm-sized, dragonfly-shaped micro drone from the tactical backpack on his back.

With a barely perceptible hum of its motor, the drone silently took off into the air, transforming into an almost invisible shadow as it flew towards the giant tree...

Real-time images with extremely high definition transmitted from the drone immediately appeared on the large screen of the command center, as well as in Saeko and her teammates' tactical eyepieces.

The camera is slowly moving forward.

The pale and thin humanoid creature still maintained its original posture, motionless.

Its sickly pale skin was covered in crisscross patterns of old, seemingly self-inflicted scars, and its spine was jagged and protruding like mountain ridges.

Everyone held their breath and stared at the screen.

"Go around to its side, I want to see its hands." Saeko ordered.

The drone immediately adjusted its angle and began to fly in a smooth arc.

As the camera panned, the creature's disproportionately long hands, covering its face, became increasingly clear. There was no skin on those hands, only a layer of pale keratin covering the bones, and the nails were long and dirty, the crevices filled with dried blood and dirt.

The suppressed crying continued.

"Woo...Woo..."

Just as the drone was about to circle around it and try to capture the outline of its face.

"Zi la——!"

A sharp electric explosion sounded in the team channel without any warning!

"What happened?!" Saeko asked sternly.

"Report! It's... it's Team Member 3! His helmet visual system is malfunctioning!"

Saeko's heart sank and she immediately turned around to look.

At the rear of the team, an investigator clutched his helmet in pain, uttering a muffled groan. The tactical eyepiece on his helmet was uncontrollably flashing with chaotic snowflakes and garbled text.

[Prometheus-III] Filtration system... failed!

Almost at the same time, a change that no one could have predicted occurred.

In front.

The sad sobs that kept echoing in everyone's mind...

Stopped.

All sounds are silent.

Time seemed to be frozen at this moment, and even the wind stopped blowing.

The pale figure squatting under the tree, whose shoulders had been twitching slightly, froze.

It slowly, slowly lowered the pair of bony claw-like hands that were covering its face.

“No… don’t look!”