Chapter 122: Surface of the Abyss
Lin Ye and Mia were brought into the church by this squad. These people gave off a similar feeling to Heath—they were likely Heath's hunter companions.
The hunters were clearing out the spider nests within the church. They were quite powerful and quickly exterminated all the spider monsters.
Leading the team was an old hunter named Hawk, who served as a branch president of the Hunter Association and was a fourth-tier spiritual energy user.
Mia was quickly rescued. She wasn't injured, just numbed all over from being entangled by the silk strands, which had extremely powerful controlling effects. The silk strands were inscribed with some unknown runes inside.
Lin Ye was in a much worse situation. Since the silk strands were entangled with most of his organs, the hunters couldn't help him either, and his condition would continue to deteriorate over time.
"What should we do? Give him some healing medicine?"
"Useless. Without removing these silk strands, his condition will keep worsening. But these strands are too tightly entangled with him—there's no way to handle this. He's done for."
Hawk examined Lin Ye's condition and stated bluntly.
But Lin Ye didn't see it that way. He felt he could still be saved.
Lin Ye was originally a doctor proficient in human anatomy. After experiencing various simulation tasks and dissecting numerous mutation creatures, he had gained entirely new insights into living organisms. As long as he wasn't dead yet, as long as he still had mental energy, he had ways to make himself stand up again.
Lin Ye began carving various runes inside his own body.
First came cutting.
Lin Ye sliced through the taut silk strands to prevent them from continuing to contract and damage his internal organs.
Next came splicing, synthesis, and shaping.
He didn't plan to remove the silk strands but instead intended to make them part of his body.
Then came mutation.
He needed various parts within his body to coexist peacefully.
Finally, Lin Ye carved speed and strength runes in certain parts of his body.
The entire process resembled surgery, which was also Lin Ye's original profession.
While Lin Ye was repairing his body, the hunters weren't idle either. They carved numerous runes inside the church and made many other preparations.
During his self-surgery, Lin Ye occasionally used his mental energy to sense their preparations. Although he didn't learn any new runes, he gained some unique knowledge that gave him new insights into the items in his backpack.
The surgical process was extremely painful. Lin Ye never imagined he would one day perform such major surgery on himself without anesthesia.
Mia kept observing the surgical procedure beside Lin Ye. While she didn't believe Lin Ye would just end like this, she also didn't expect him to solve the problem so quickly and neatly.
Fortunately, the silk strands had a numbing effect, which allowed Lin Ye to barely endure it. When the hunters completed their preliminary modifications to the church, Lin Ye finally managed to get up from the ground.
"Hey, didn't you say he was done for?"
The squad consisted of experienced hunters. Since Lin Ye didn't conceal his movements, he was discovered immediately upon getting up.
"That shouldn't be possible. How could he recover from that condition?"
Hawk felt somewhat strange. The Heath he knew might know some healing techniques, but he didn't have the ability to treat injuries of this severity.
Lin Ye stood up and moved his body. He glanced at the hunter squad—judging from their facial expressions, there didn't seem to be anyone particularly familiar with him in this team.
This was good news. No matter how good his acting skills were, he couldn't be sure of deceiving Heath's close acquaintances.
"Are you alright?" Hawk approached Lin Ye. This time he didn't use spiritual energy to sense Lin Ye's physical condition—only enemies would do that.
"I'm fine, thank you." Lin Ye adapted to his new body as he spoke.
"That's good." Hawk didn't say more and turned to continue directing the hunters in preparing the church.
After adapting to his body, Lin Ye also began helping with the preparations while making some of his own arrangements.
During the church preparation process, mutation creatures continuously attacked the church. Lin Ye occasionally used the Peace gun to kill some third-tier creatures.
After the mutation, Lin Ye's spiritual energy absorption rate became faster. It only took a few minutes to add another bullet to the Peace gun.
The Peace gun's maximum ammunition capacity was only 15 rounds. Any excess spiritual energy was used by Lin Ye to deal with minor creatures.
"Aim for its head! Beautiful! Next one, hit that big-mouthed monster on the right! Shoot its stomach!"
Mia sat beside Lin Ye providing sensory support and emotional validation, though it was unfortunate he wasn't using a sniper rifle.
The hunters clearly noticed something was off about them, but perhaps considering the tense situation, Hawk didn't confront them about it.
Lin Ye also didn't plan to initiate communication with the hunters. The more he said, the more trouble it would cause. If they ended up thinking this situation was their doing, it would be problematic.
After preparing the church and securing a shelter, the hunters began discussing what to do next.
They still hadn't figured out exactly what had happened, only knowing that some kind of catastrophe had occurred here and many people had died.
Some hunters wanted to fortify the church and wait for rescue.
Some hunters wanted to fight their way out to seek help from larger towns.
Lin Ye didn't participate in their conversation, merely silently eliminating third-tier mutation creatures from the window.
After killing the 13th third-tier mutation creature, the Peace gun began to transform.
Through some cool-looking transformation that seemed to defy the law of conservation of mass, the Peace gun turned into a slender, silver-white repeating rifle.
The usage remained the same as before—inject spiritual energy to shoot, and recharge by killing enemies. When fully charged, the Peace rifle would reveal a new form.
The Peace rifle's power was slightly less than the Peace gun's, but each bullet required less spiritual energy. A 30-round magazine only consumed the spiritual energy previously needed for 5 bullets. Additionally, the rifle bullets were imbued with penetration properties and would explode inside enemies after penetrating their defenses.
Lin Ye coveted this characteristic greatly, but based solely on perceptively fired bullets, he couldn't understand the principle behind this effect.
While Lin Ye was slaughtering mutation creatures with the Peace rifle, the hunter squad reached a conclusion: most would remain to defend the church, while a five-person team would be sent out to seek help.
Lin Ye didn't try to stop the rescue team. He had no foundation of trust with the hunters, and speaking up randomly would only invite suspicion and provoke conflict.
Ultimately, this was just a story. No matter what he did, he couldn't change the hunters' fate.
In the Abyss, their destinies were already predetermined.
Lin Ye watched the rescue team leave the church and used the Peace rifle to clear a path for them. The rescue team quickly disappeared from their field of vision.
The hunters watched the direction where the rescue team departed with hopeful eyes. This was also one reason Lin Ye was unwilling to communicate—at least now they still had hope.
The truth was cruel, and they might not be able to bear it.
"It's almost dark," Mia suddenly spoke up.
"The Abyss has nights too?" Lin Ye felt a sense of foreboding.
"What happened before was just a simple welcome ceremony. In the Surface Layer of the Abyss, nightfall is when the real descent begins," Mia said gravely.