Chapter 592: The Face in the Flesh.
The moment Thoren stepped inside, the atmosphere turned strangely quiet, and for several seconds he simply stood there, staring at the enormous entity at the center of the room.
The silence was so deafening it seemed to crawl beneath his skin. In the distance, he could hear the faint sound of something beating heavily.
This made the whole chamber feel as though it had been waiting for him.
At the center stood something that resembled a massive living tree. And instantly, Thoren knew immediately that calling it a tree was wrong.
It was made from human tissue.
The structure rose more than five meters tall. Its thick trunk formed from layers of flesh twisted and fused together, numerous branches extending from its upper body, each one bearing crimson leaves that glowed faintly.
It casted a dim red light across the surrounding darkness.
The roots were worse.
They spread across the entire chamber while some drove deep into the ground and others pushed straight into the walls and ceiling.
Thick strands of flesh connected them to the main body, and beneath the translucent tissue, a strange liquid could be seen flowing slowly toward the trunk.
Gurgle.
The liquid moved through the fleshy roots like blood through veins.
Thoren narrowed his eyes, taking in every detail.
Something sat within the trunk itself, a massive heart, embedded deep in the fleshy structure, its outline still visible beneath the layers of tissue.
Boom!
The heart beat, sending a powerful vibration through the chamber. The roots trembled, the strange liquid surging forward with powerful momentum.
Boom!
Another beat followed, and this time the entire chamber seemed to shake.
Thoren’s expression turned solemn.
He had seen many strange things since entering the Abyss, but this creature went beyond anything he had expected to find beneath the hideout of the Slave Trade Guild.
Yet that was not all.
Just when he thought he had seen everything the chamber had to offer, the flesh covering the trunk began to move, the surface twisting, the tissue slowly parting.
And then, a human face emerged from within.
Thoren froze as he was unable to believe his eyes.
’This!’
Disbelief flooded his face as his body tensed at the sight of the familiar features embedded in the monstrous tree.
"Cressida!" he muttered, his voice shaking.
He had thought of everything.
He had prepared himself for the worst before entering this place, and after discovering what the Slave Trade Guild had done to the people trapped in their laboratories, he’d believed he was ready for anything.
But this went far beyond anything he had imagined.
How could this be?!
How is this possible?!
His mind filled with questions as his eyes stayed fixed on the face before him, his fingers tightening slowly around the Vorlath Blood Compass.
He had personally witnessed Cressida’s strange existence before and had watched her killed by his undead and devoured by the Bleeding Desert.
He had seen her vanish in a way that shouldn’t have been possible.
He already understood something was deeply wrong about her nature, but he had never imagined she would turn up embedded inside a monstrous tree built entirely from human flesh.
His expression wavered between shock and disbelief.
For a moment he couldn’t reconcile the Cressida he knew with the thing standing before him.
Was this truly her?
Or simply another body wearing her face?
Had the Cressida he’d encountered before been connected to this all along?
And if so, what exactly was she?
The questions came one after another, but he forced the confusion down.
He had learned one thing since entering the Crimson Dunes. The more he knew the more impossible things became.
Every rule he’d once believed absolute had already been shattered more than once.
Death wasn’t necessarily the end.
A body wasn’t necessarily the true body.
And something that looked human could be far more terrifying than any beast.
He raised the Vorlath Blood Compass slowly, pointing it toward the enormous tree.
Taking a deep breath, his expression settled back into his usual calm. Though the shock in his eyes hadn’t fully faded.
Whatever Cressida had become, this place or this thing was clearly tied to her. And this only means one thing.
The Slave Trade Guild had been hiding something far worse than ordinary human experimentation.
Far worse than the taboo he thought he knew.
His gaze swept across the chamber again.
The countless roots, the strange liquid, the massive heart, the glowing crimson leaves. Everything seemed connected as the heart kept beating.
Boom!
The vibration rolled through the floor once more and his eyes narrowed.
The entire underground facility appeared linked to this single thing.
Perhaps this was the reason behind all the experiments.
Perhaps the guild had been using people and beasts alike as raw material to build something, or perhaps they had been trying to awaken something that already existed.
He thought the only evil thing that crossed into their world was the Crimson Womb but now, he knew he was wrong.
Perhaps, there was more evil in their world than he could ever have imagined.
Even though he didn’t know yet, he intended to find out.
The face embedded in the tree suddenly stirred and its eyes opened.
Thoren’s expression shifted slightly as those eyes settled directly on him.
There was no pain in them, no fear but only a faint trace of amusement. Slowly the corners of her lips curved upward.
Cressida looked at him with a condescending gaze, the way one might regard a frog at the bottom of a well.
"Are you surprised?" she chuckled, her voice soft and sweet.
Its pleasant tone jarringly out of place in the horrifying chamber around them.
Thoren didn’t answer right away, his eyes fixed on her. For several seconds neither of them moved as the massive heart kept beating behind her.
The roots trembled and the crimson leaves swayed faintly.
Yet Cressida’s expression never wavered and that same faint smile fixed on her face, as if everything happening around them meant nothing to her at all.