Chapter 319

Chapter 319: The Cycle

These "The Walking Dead" had yet to discover Lin Qingliu’s presence. In fact, by looking at their unfocused eyes, it was still uncertain whether they could truly be considered alive.

Although the biological field still faintly existed, Lin Qingliu could not rule out the possibility that they had already suffered brain death.

Since he had witnessed this scene, he could not pretend to be deaf and mute; if he turned back now to the Graveyard of Sleep Pods, he felt it would betray his own conscience.

Should he interrupt them? Or should he continue to lurk?

After some contemplation, Lin Qingliu chose the latter.

To better track the five superpowered individuals ahead, Lin Qingliu transformed into a very common low-level extraordinary beast, bringing Fulan with him as they followed behind this group.

They stumbled forward, appearing aimless yet following some kind of rule.

Along the way, Lin Qingliu noticed many repetitive signs, such as the litter in front of the group and the countless footprints worn into narrow passages.

Eventually, as dusk fell, the stumbling loop seemed to reach a point. Lin Qingliu saw many black marks on the ground not far away; they were ashes left behind from burning, the remnants of extinguished campfires.

Sure enough, the group swayed and stumbled into a small open space before habitually setting up camp.

A man with bloodshot eyes set down his dripping, stained backpack with no awareness and opened it, pulling out a sleeping bag that was so worn it only had a few threads of fabric remaining.

This retirement-worthy sleeping bag looked as if it had just been fished out of a swamp, its once protective part now just a few remaining fibers, forming a deformed triangular prism filled with murky water.

This was likely the source of the drips from the backpack.

The man remained oblivious, unfolding the sleeping bag and laying it on the ground, then pulled out a second and third bag, skillfully preparing the campsite.

The others did not remain idle either; those who made fires prepared food, yet each person’s actions seemed to contradict what Lin Qingliu observed.

In his and Fulan’s eyes, the five before them looked like children playing house in kindergarten, creating everything they imagined with tools and materials that did not actually exist.

It was as if they wore a layer of… cognitive filters.

This was troubling.

In his extraordinary beast form, Lin Qingliu could not rub his forehead in exasperation and had to stay in the trees to continue observing from above.

They pretended to eat dinner, and then one person took the watch.

Everything seemed to proceed according to a set training script, or at least, that’s what Lin Qingliu originally thought.

About an hour passed when a smaller figure suddenly began to move.

She was the shortest in the team.

It seemed she had been pretending to sleep or had suddenly woken up. Her hands rustled within the non-existent sleeping bag before finally emerging from the opening.

She slowly turned her body and began to interact with a not-very-obvious small mound of earth.

Lin Qingliu could not understand what she was doing; this was not typical behavior for a superhero team.

Through the thick white fog, and from several meters away, he could see that the superpowered individual seemed to place something into that small mound, then carefully covered it with a handful of dirt, patting it down gently.

After that, a peaceful night followed. The next morning, as the white fog began to rise again, the world seemed to become incredibly clear.

This strange forest was, for a brief moment, illuminated better than the dim light that had mirrored the "The Walking Dead" the previous evening.

However, what continued to unfold remained unchanged.

The five individuals awoke from In Dream, quickly consumed some nutritional paste, and then repacked their already tattered survival tools.

The short superpowered individual glanced back at the inconspicuous small mound of earth before following the others as they stepped forward.

The group continued deeper into the forest until noon, when anomalies began to appear.

The forest, previously very quiet, only allowed Lin Qingliu to hear a few human footsteps and the gentle breeze rustling the leaves.

But as soon as the five individuals entered a particular area, everything transformed.

It was as if thousands of cicadas began to chirp quietly; the sound was neither sharp nor harsh, but it carried a strange power that unsettled the heart.

Lin Qingliu looked at Fulan beside him and found the kitten had instinctively arched her body, ready to spring into action at any moment.

He himself felt an indescribable sensation rising within.

Yet, not far ahead, the five individuals simply stopped, showing no signs of distress.

But that was the biggest anomaly!

Lin Qingliu suppressed the discomfort the sound caused him and began to focus intently on what was happening.

The five positioned themselves in a small open space, and then the humus layer beneath them began to ripple, almost instantly turning liquid.

Countless thumb-sized bugs crawled out from the ground, surprising Lin Qingliu—

Compared to normal Second Level insect-like extraordinary beasts that could slice a person in half, these bugs were like a group of underdeveloped creatures.

What happened next shocked him even more.

He watched as the wave-like swarm of bugs started to assist the five motionless humans.

They crawled up and down the five, helping them organize their equipment and tools from their backpacks.

Some that looked like ants even began to perform unnecessary sutures on the wounds of the five, which had long since dried up of blood.

Their huge mandibles sunk into the withered, corrupted flesh, using the insects’ considerable strength to connect the edges of the wounds.

For instance, four enormous ants stitched up a gaping wound on the leading man’s arm, which exposed the bone.

Then, astonishingly, these ants pressed their two front legs forcefully against the connections of their heads and chests, tearing their heads off their own bodies.

The behavior of these insects seemed to be controlled by some force, and the four ants tasked with suturing completed this action almost simultaneously.

After leaving their heads at the wounds for stitching, the bodies of the ants quickly lost strength and fell into the tide of writhing insects below, disappearing without a trace.

After completing a series of adjustments, the five individuals resembled meticulously crafted wasteland-style wax figures, lifted from the ground by countless bugs and moved in a specific direction.

Even though Lin Qingliu considered himself well-read in imaginative works from his previous life, he couldn’t help but be astonished by the well-coordinated and trained insects before him.

He looked at Fulan, and indeed found the same expression of astonishment mirrored on the kitten’s face.