Chapter 23: The Bronze Tree
"It seems we've messed up again!" Lu Li sat up, supporting himself on the ground—or rather, on the fleshy surface. He had been sucked into the ocean-type monster's stomach, fully conscious throughout the process.
Humans usually pass out from injuries due to the body's self-protection mechanism, which reduces nerve stimulation. When conscious, a person receives a large amount of information from both the external world and their own body. The sensory information from injuries overloads the nerves, triggering the self-protection mechanism to induce unconsciousness and avoid further damage.
However, Lu Li had complete control over his body. Despite the nausea from being lifted into the sky and the pain from crashing into the ocean-type's stomach, he forced himself to stay awake, enduring the agony.
Because of this, Lu Li realized he might have gone too far again. The sensation of entering the ocean-type monster's stomach was similar to entering the morgue and even reminiscent of the illusory dream. This feeling made Lu Li understand that he had entered another layer of space.
"Compared to other types, the ocean type is overpowered. Its massive size and terrifying suction are one thing, but having an internal space of its own is absurd," Lu Li assessed his injuries. Thanks to the fleshy walls, the damage was minimal. With his control over his body, he estimated a full recovery in half an hour, though it would consume a lot of energy.
"I need to find a way out of this ocean type's body first," Lu Li thought. He remembered seeing all three of them getting sucked into the sky but ending up in different ocean types. However, he could unexpectedly sense the nurse's presence.
Lu Li knew that despite his close connection with the shadow mask, the link would break when separated by space, just as it did when he entered the morgue. If the ocean type's stomach was a separate space, the link with the nurse should also be severed. Yet, he could still sense her, albeit faintly.
"This is intriguing. The internal space of the ocean type already surprised me, but to think these spaces are interconnected," Lu Li pondered. He opened the small booklet he carried, finding no information about space-related items.
"If the internal space isn't the ocean type's natural ability but comes from a peculiar item embedded in them, causing this interconnected internal space," Lu Li speculated. "Moreover, the hospital hasn't explained why the morgue transformed like this."
Gradually, Lu Li realized the key points. There was likely a space-related treasure causing the morgue's transformation and affecting these ocean types. He walked on the fleshy surface toward the nurse's direction. Despite the ocean type appearing only ten meters long from the outside, he had already walked farther than that inside its stomach.
"And this wall…" Lu Li's shadow tendrils formed a blade, cutting at the fleshy wall and floor. However, it seemed unreachable, as if there was always a layer between him and the wall. Observing his feet, he noticed he was actually hovering slightly above the ground.
As he continued, Lu Li encountered other creatures, mostly beast types, in unbelievable numbers. He estimated that even if the morgue was full of bodies and all the masks went berserk, there wouldn't be this many beast types.
"Why are these beast types so weak?" Lu Li wondered as his shadow tendrils twisted a giant snake into a knot, shattering the mask on its back. The nurse knew little about the beast type's abilities, as mask rampages were usually quickly dealt with by the special combat unit, and beast types were rare.
After killing the snake, it was absorbed into the fleshy walls, becoming nourishment for the ocean type. This process repeated endlessly, with countless beast types fighting but never eating or needing to eat.
"Wait, these beast types…" Lu Li noticed something peculiar. Although the beast types resembled various animals, each had a mask. After seeing so many, he realized these masks were highly similar.
"There are three types of masks," Lu Li identified, noticing that beasts with the same mask wouldn't attack each other, even if they were natural enemies, while those with different masks fought to the death, regardless of symbiotic relationships.
"I see. The beast types I encountered aren't true beast types, or they're just parts of them," Lu Li realized. "The real beast types are only three, each representing lust with terrifying reproductive abilities, capable of spawning various beasts. The nurse's snake giant form misled me."
"This means the nurse's abilities have much more potential to be explored," Lu Li thought, following the faint sense towards the nurse. He soon encountered a strange object.
It was a bronze tree, about three meters high, with a disc-shaped base supported by three legs resembling tree roots. The tree trunk was a bronze pillar with round branches extending from it, each bearing hollow bronze fruits of varying sizes.
The sense of connection with the nurse emanated from one of these bronze fruits. There were about forty fruits, some as small as a fingertip, others larger than Lu Li's head. The tree was also adorned with cloud-like and dragon-like patterns.
Upon seeing the bronze tree, the patterns seemed to come alive, imprinting themselves into Lu Li's mind like a spell, containing vast, mysterious information.
A bronze fruit the size of a bayberry detached from a branch, transforming into a stream of bronze energy that flowed into Lu Li's body, circulating before settling in the shadows behind him and disappearing.
Outside the morgue, Professor Liao received a phone call, "What? Item 27, the storage cabinet anomaly in the hospital, has collapsed and vanished?"