Chapter 548 - 545: Flesh and Blood Coffin

Chapter 548: Chapter 545: Flesh and Blood Coffin

The patterns of flesh and blood within the coffin assaulted Mo Ling’s mind.

These headless, withered bodies were indistinguishable from human ones. The tightly packed organs would twitch from time to time, a nauseating sight.

Mo Ling had to withdraw his vision for a moment. After composing himself, he extended it again to inspect the other coffin-like hollows.

Sure enough, every single Matrix Tree in this forest contained the body of a Healer. There were no exceptions.

After confirming this, Mo Ling immediately peeled open another nearby Matrix Tree, revealing the body within to Li Luo and Xi.

Xi froze completely when he saw another body appear. Then, he slowly walked over to the peeled-open Matrix Tree.

"It’s the Administrator again... How can this be?"

In disbelief, he ran to the first tree and then back again, comparing them over and over. He finally confirmed that the bodies lying in the two trees were identical.

Xi also noticed that both bodies wore the same bracelet and were in the exact same posture, as if they had been copied and pasted.

Soon, Mo Ling peeled open a third tree, and then a fourth. Beneath the smooth, cut surfaces lay more headless bodies, each with their arms crossed. All of them wore the unique bracelet on their wrists. Now, even Xi was beginning to doubt his own judgment.

"Every one of them is the Administrator. Impossible!"

"Is there only one Administrator for Senluo Island?" Li Luo pressed.

"Yes. Although other Healers often come to help, they usually have their own duties. There’s only one person specifically in charge of managing Senluo Island."

As he spoke, Xi raised his hand and pointed at the body in the tree. "That’s him."

"Could someone else be using the Matrix Trees to duplicate his body?" Li Luo’s guess was exactly the same as Mo Ling’s.

"But I don’t remember Matrix Wood having that ability..." Xi said, confused.

’No, I have to get a closer look!’ Xi made up his mind. He walked toward one of the trees and cautiously reached out for the withered body.

His fingertips passed through the flowing pus and touched the wrinkled skin.

The moment he touched the body, Xi felt that something was wrong.

’It’s so soft.’

It seemed he could poke right into the body without any effort, just like the tree bark from before.

’Is this fake, too? Another kind of suture-construct?’

Xi’s arm plunged directly into the withered body, and he began to feel around inside it.

’No skeleton... the organs are a mess... and there’s some plant tissue. It seems this has also been completely stitched together. Is the outside the only normal part?’

Xi bent his arm, reaching upward. Above a Healer’s thoracic cavity was a special organ used to connect the "light cluster" and the physical body. Xi wanted to check if that organ was still there.

As his arm moved, a GURGLE GURGLE sound came from within the withered body. The wrinkled skin was pushed up, bulging into the shape of an arm that slowly extended upward.

’Almost there... It should be right here...’

Xi fumbled around slowly, trying to find the organ.

However, just then, he touched a slimy hand. Before he could react, the hand suddenly grabbed his arm and yanked him inward.

Xi hadn’t expected this at all. He lost his balance and fell toward the body, and was immediately dragged inside the tree by the slimy arm.

Everything went black. By the time Xi came to his senses, he was submerged in the viscous pus.

’I’m inside the body?’

Xi could feel fragments of organs pressing in on him from all sides. The hand still had him in a death grip, pulling him upward. No matter how much he struggled, the hand refused to let go.

’What the hell is this thing!’

Xi reached out with his other hand, trying to pry the slimy arm off. But the slippery fluid made his efforts useless, and he inevitably slid deeper into the flesh and blood.

Xi didn’t know how long he’d been sliding through the flesh, but his consciousness was starting to fade.

’Is this body really that big? Even a Matrix Tree isn’t this big...’ He was being thrown around by the slimy hand, even rounding a few corners, yet the flesh seemed like an endless ocean.

Just as Xi was beginning to despair, the slimy arm holding him suddenly vanished. He continued to slide forward from the momentum, gliding through soft organ fragments until he hit a tough, flexible membrane.

He immediately tore open the membrane, scrambled out, and fell to the ground.

Blinding sunlight instantly shone down. Covered in slime, Xi struggled to his feet.

It was only then that he noticed a figure standing in front of him.

In the figure’s hand was a severed arm, the cut perfectly smooth.

"Senior?" Xi asked in surprise.

That’s right. The figure standing there was the Senior he knew so well.

"Do you recognize this?"

The Senior held the arm out to him. Xi immediately saw the bracelet on its wrist.

"This is the arm of the Senluo Island Administrator. He’s the only one who wears this bracelet..." Xi explained earnestly to his Senior.

"Did you save me, Senior?"

Looking at the smooth cut, Xi guessed that his Senior had severed the arm.

The Senior nodded. "I saw it grab you, so I followed you in. But I only managed to catch this arm... Do you know where we are?"

’Where are we?’

’Aren’t we in the Matrix Tree forest?’

Xi paused for a moment and looked around, but he couldn’t see any sign of Li Luo.

There were no Matrix Trees around, either—just him and his Senior. In the distance was a vast lake. They were currently on a grassy patch by the shore...

As for what was behind him, Xi thought of the membrane he had just torn. He turned his head and saw that behind him was a creature that looked like a giant pufferfish. There was a huge, torn hole in its belly...

’Did I really just crawl out of a pufferfish’s stomach?’

"An Inflated Pig?"

Xi recognized this creature. It was one of the protected species on Senluo Island.

Unlike other endangered species, this one’s status was entirely due to its own bizarre habits.

The creature had little meat and was highly poisonous, so other creatures generally didn’t prey on it.

However, Inflated Pigs reproduced very quickly. They would rapidly take over a body of water, their massive, balloon-like bodies packing it so tightly that the water level would rise and cause floods.

What was even more terrifying was that these creatures could also survive in the air. They would multiply and begin to occupy the shoreline, their bodies growing ever fatter as their numbers increased, breeding everywhere.

These habits attracted many enemies. Their fat bodies had no defenses, so many creatures would kill them for sport.

And so, this species with such a strong reproductive ability was killed to the point of near extinction.

The Healers placed them on Senluo Island and had to periodically cull their numbers; otherwise, they would quickly overrun the entire island.

But that wasn’t the main point. The dead Inflated Pig behind Xi had no suture marks on its body, meaning it was a completely normal Inflated Pig.

’Could it be that the suture phenomenon doesn’t cover the entire island?’

But why had he crawled out of an Inflated Pig’s stomach?

Xi’s mind was filled with questions. After looking around once more, he was even more bewildered.

"Where is this?"

"..."

And so, Xi and Mo Ling stood facing each other, falling into silence.