"Creak... Creak... Creak—"
Amidst the roar of metal, the ancient ruins, dormant for countless ages, gradually revealed their inner space, spreading an indescribable stench outward.
"Retreat, retreat! It's so stinky it's burning my eyes, even more ridiculous than the standing socks in the boys' dormitory...."
Master Fuli covered his nose, showing a look of disdain, and directed Miyel to retreat backward.
The airflow from the "mental asylum" ruins did not trigger any intuitive warning, so it might not be toxic, but just from the smell alone, it was comparable to a biochemical weapon.
Even Unos, who opened the door, changed his expression after smelling the strange odor permeating the air.
Unos held his breath, took out a walkie-talkie, and instructed the assault team to enter the ruins for disinfection and elimination.
He himself retreated and walked towards the location where Master Fuli and Professor Wu were.
"Things are a bit unexpected; we might be facing the worst-case scenario among all our assumptions...."
"There's a smell inside the ruins." Unos walked to Master Fuli's side, gently covering his mouth and nose, turned to look at the open ruins, and said:
"In other words, before we opened the ruins, the internal space was completely sealed. The environment inside might have even been in a vacuum state, thereby preventing the diffusion of the stench of decay and keeping it locked inside."
"Or it could be due to an earthquake, which caused deformation of the ruins building, allowing air to enter and trigger a chain reaction inside."
"Either the former or the latter is not good news for us."
Smelling stench in the Spirit Particle Ruins is definitely bad news.
The former would mean that the inside of the ruins always remained in a relatively stable vacuum environment. Considering the biological characteristics of the First Epoch, there might actually be survivors inside.
If it's not the former, but rather the latter, that's also very bad news.
If an earthquake destroyed the building's seal, allowing air to flow into the ruins, causing the interior contents to decompose and emit a foul odor, then surely the data and documents inside have completely weathered into a heap of black ash.
The point of traveling thousands of miles to excavate ancient ruins is to find the internal document records and the application method of Spirit Particles by the dominant civilization on Blue Star.
The stench basically means going home empty-handed, and potentially having to spend a lot to clean up the ruins.
Any survivor from the Spirit Particle Era would be a considerable nuisance to human civilization.
"...Spirit Particle data and documents!"
Master Fuli murmured, looking up at the sky outside the cave, showing a sense of wonder.
Whether there are data and documents is uncertain, but the gathering speed of Spirit Particles did accelerate substantially.
And all these changes occurred after Unos opened the door to the ruins.
"Sir! This is Assault Team No. 2, we are now in Section A of the ruins, we have a situation to report..."
Just as Unos finished speaking, the walkie-talkie in his hand suddenly emitted a sharp call and urgent reporting sound.
Unos frowned, looked at the walkie-talkie in his hand, and asked, "Please describe your encounter, I need to understand the cause based on your description."
"We saw an egg, a gray egg." The assault team member continued on the walkie-talkie:
"It feels like a drawing, transitioning from a sketch into a colored painting... this thing might be the dangerous source you previously mentioned, sir."
Upon hearing this, Unos's face changed, and his body shot straight into the internal ruins.
"Miyel, you are responsible for Wang Ya's safety."
Seeing Unos leave, Master Fuli looked at Miyel and gave instructions, then jumped from a silver tray onto Professor Wu's shoulder.
"Professor, let's go inside and take a look too!" Master Fuli said to Professor Wu.
"Alright!"
Professor Wu was momentarily stunned, displaying a helpless smile on her cheek, she said.
Seeing Master Fuli speak, she originally thought Master Fuli was preparing for a combat mode to quickly rescue the possible Spirit Particle documents and data in the ruins.
Unexpectedly.....
Master Fuli actually jumped onto her shoulder.
Wu Qingqing walked towards the ruins, ignoring the stench permeating the air and entering the hospital hall.
The entire ruins were rectangular, with the hospital located centrally in a square shape. The area, according to measurement estimates, should be about 130 acres.
The buildings behind the hospital have yet to be cleared out.
The hospital hall was empty, with only a large round table placed at the entrance, somewhat resembling a reception desk.
After the assault team entered the hospital, they set up emergency lights along their path, not very bright, but the scattered light sources were enough to illuminate the hospital interior.
"Everything in the ruins has decayed..."
Master Fuli glanced at the hospital hall; there was no regular furniture or medicine, only black clay-like substances spread across the ground.
Although Ansheng didn't have archeological experience, he was quite experienced in farming.
He could immediately tell that the black substances on the ground were a type of humus soil.
And these humus soils were likely the result of the decay of patients and items in the mental asylum.
After observing the hospital environment, Master Fuli jumped down from Professor Wu's shoulder, stepping on the humus-covered ground.
"The environment is much cleaner than I imagined; I thought the mental asylum would be littered with Plant vs. Zombies remnants...."
Master Fuli sighed, following the direction of the Spirit Particle concentration, running on all fours ahead, leading Professor Wu towards the interior of the ruins, where the concentration gathered.
The first floor had no Spirit Particle convergence points, which means there were no threats.
Upon entering the second floor of the "mental asylum," Master Fuli saw Unos, who had entered the ruins earlier.
"A good news, a bad news."
Standing at the entrance, Unos glanced at Master Fuli coming up the stairs and said.
"Huh?" Master Fuli looked puzzled, walking up the steps to the second-floor entrance, seeing the scene clearly, his face froze in confusion, similar to Unos standing at the entrance with a twitching mouth, asked:
"Good news?"
"I can't see how there can be any good news...."
The "egg" reported by the assault team was now seen by Ansheng.
However.
The gray egg was massive, occupying an area of about twenty square meters, elliptical in shape, lying in the hall on the second floor of the mental asylum, covered all over with endless, various biological limbs.
Humanoid arms, bird wings, and odd-toed ungulate hooves were all chaotically pieced together on the egg.
The so-called "egg" was breathing.
And the assault team Unos sent ahead had one team with nine members, all looking infatuated, touching the strange "egg" with their hands, muttering incomprehensible words.
Saying things like angels, God, Jesus nailed-up photo frames, surprised to find it only needed one nail to hang on the wall.
The "egg" clearly had the capability to bewitch people's minds.
Unos said there was good news.
But Ansheng, seeing it all from start to finish, couldn't imagine what good news could be inside this ruin.
"I just saw the 'egg' eat someone and it spoke an English phrase, at least, it has consciousness, possibly capable of verbal communication." Unos said.
"... You're quite humorous, aren't you? You've said the bad news, so what's the good news?" Master Fuli looked at Unos.
Conducting in-depth logical interaction with a mental patient in a mental asylum?
Aren't you afraid the hospital director might confine you too?
If.
The "egg" truly possesses intelligence, wouldn't dealing with it become even more arduous?
"What I said is the good news." Unos said.
"Then... what's the bad news?" Master Fuli's face showed a hint of exasperation.
"The English phrase it just said was 'Hate,' 'I have no disease,' 'I am the king of the world.'" Unos pondered and said, "I speculate that the ruins we excavated might be a mental asylum."
"The patients here are thoroughly insane, maybe later on they'll chase us around with knives."