I'm Trapped in the Block

Beside the high wall.

A soldier stood ramrod straight, reporting to Captain Su on how he had discovered this suspected escape route for the Theseus Cells.

"This is the territory of the Broken Tree Sheep. They live by gnawing on tree hearts and ore."

"After the riots stopped, I was leading my squad on a routine patrol. We’ve never encountered a situation like this when patrolling this area before."

"But today, we found the entire forest filled with blood and dismembered limbs from a massacre."

"We followed the trail of blood here and found this cave entrance. It looks like it leads straight outside the high wall."

At this, the soldier felt a wave of nausea and quickly took a gulp of water.

Captain Su crouched down, glanced at the bloodstains, and then touched them with his bandaged hand.

"Still fresh?"

"Yes," the soldier replied.

Captain Su stood up and asked, "Do the Broken Tree Sheep have any natural predators?"

The soldier pondered for a moment. "They do, but their predators only hunt them for food. I’ve never seen a slaughter this brutal. Everything was normal when we came by yesterday. It’s unlikely that a natural predator did this."

Captain Su shook his head, refuting him. "It could be an act of ’surplus killing.’"

The soldier was confused. "Huh? ’Surplus killing’?"

"It’s when a predator slaughters more prey than it can eat or store, often with extreme cruelty. Like a cat playing with a mouse," Captain Su explained.

After listening, the soldier thought for a long while before shaking his head again. He took out his electronic tablet and showed the captain a picture.

It was a picture of an incredibly ferocious-looking goat.

Like a poorly made, AI-generated image, the goat had two enormous horns sticking straight out of its head like chainsaws, gleaming with a metallic luster.

Its fur was a rough, grayish metallic color, like curled iron wire. Its eyes shot out an unnerving red light, like camera lenses.

’An electronic goat?’

"This is a Broken Tree Sheep," the soldier explained, meeting Captain Su’s skeptical gaze. "That’s why most predators don’t dare to mess with them."

Captain Su nodded, beginning to understand.

He walked over to the massacre site and unearthed some stiff, gray fur and a broken chainsaw chain from the mud.

The soldier followed behind him and continued, "Even the natural predators of the Broken Tree Sheep only dare to ambush old, weak, sick, or isolated individuals. They would never attack the flock.

"Besides, their meat is tough. Large predators wouldn’t risk injury to hunt them."

Captain Su nodded. "Let’s go look at the entrance again."

Back at the entrance, its bizarre appearance made everyone feel nauseous again.

The entrance was not large. It was circular, about the height of a person, and located on the edge of a small earthen mound, creating a vertical passage between the inside and outside.

The most disturbing part was the inner wall of the cave, which was covered in writhing, white, oval-shaped nodules of flesh, like bee pupae.

Each of the densely packed nodules had a black dot on its tip, which seemed to sense the surrounding light and dark like an eye.

The group’s arrival caused all the nodules to twist toward the outside of the cave.

A true nightmare for anyone with trypophobia.

Li Luo, however, wasn’t afraid. He picked up a branch and poked at the wall. Mo Ling wanted to stop him but couldn’t in time.

Fortunately, when the branch touched the nodules, they just writhed and pushed the branch inward.

Seeing this, Li Luo let go. The nodules continued their motion, carrying the branch deep into the cave.

The scene left everyone bewildered.

A few more tests followed: stones, leaves, a dagger...

The cave seemed to accept anything, pulling everything inside. It didn’t seem to have any self-awareness.

Li Luo searched the database, but it was empty. Not a single piece of similar information.

Mo Ling peered into the depths of the cave. As far as he could see, there were still the same fleshy nodules, stretching to an unknown distance.

"Did you bring the probe?" Captain Su asked the soldier behind him.

A spider-shaped probe was placed in the cave. Propelled by the fleshy nodules, it advanced into the depths.

Everyone gathered in front of the screen, anxiously watching the footage sent back by the probe.

The cave was winding, and the walls were consistently covered with the dense nodules. After a few turns, the signal began to weaken.

They could still barely track the probe’s location, and as it moved forward, a 3D map of the cave was automatically generated on the screen.

The soldier watched closely and exclaimed, "It’s not leading out of the high wall! It’s going down!"

But it seemed the cave hadn’t ended. The probe continued its descent, and the speed at which the nodules propelled it was increasing.

The picture grew increasingly blurry.

Just as everyone thought the feed was about to cut out, the probe suddenly collided with an oncoming Black Shadow.

CRACK!

The Black Shadow knocked the probe into a 180-degree spin before continuing to rush toward the cave’s entrance.

The screen went black.

The flashing signal indicating the probe’s location vanished from the screen, and the 3D map, half-drawn, froze.

Everyone stared at each other in dismay, but they reacted quickly.

"Quick, secure the entrance!" Captain Su shouted.

The soldiers raised their weapons, aiming at the cave mouth. Some of them immediately set a trap at the entrance.

They formed a circle, waiting for the Black Shadow to emerge.

The nodules at the entrance swayed slowly like seaweed, and after a short while, they began to contract.

The fleshy nodules churned, and suddenly a gray furball covered in viscous fluid was pushed out, landing on the ground.

’We were expecting some powerful beast, but it’s just a furball?’

The soldiers were all stunned.

The furball uncurled its body, revealing a baby Broken Tree Sheep lamb.

Although it was small, its musculature was perfect. The chainsaws on its head were sharp and tough, making it look like a robust billy goat.

This strange little Broken Tree Sheep got to its feet and stepped right into the trap the soldiers had set.

BAA!

It wailed and collapsed on the ground.

Seeing this, the soldiers, who should have been attacking, were confused.

But just then, Mo Ling noticed something was wrong—there was a Red Rope Worm inside the lamb’s brain!

So, while the soldiers were still frozen in place, Mo Ling had already attacked. The chainsaw horns were instantly stripped from the lamb’s body by Mo Ling.

Blood immediately gushed from the top of the lamb’s head. Trapped and unable to move, it was in a helpless position.

Seeing that the lamb could no longer resist, the soldiers lowered their weapons. One of them took out a capsule and threw it.

The capsule burst open in mid-air, unfurling a tough alloy net that trapped the lamb. Only then did everyone relax.

Mo Ling, however, remained on high alert. In his vision, the lamb’s flesh was healing at an incredible rate, and an abnormal liquid metal was surging within its body.

Suddenly, the liquid burst out of its body, tore through the alloy net, and shot toward an approaching soldier.

Mo Ling tried to teleport the flying liquid, but the thing was too fast. He couldn’t stop it.

The liquid slashed past with a SHINK.

The soldier remained frozen in a state of shock, his body already sliced in half at the waist!

Snapping back to their senses, the others quickly launched another attack.

Seeing this, the lamb’s eyes actually showed a look of fear. A flash of white light severed its trapped limb, and with a kick from its remaining leg, it leaped back into the cave.

Mo Ling quickly followed the lamb with his vision, continuously creating bloody holes in its body, but the lamb’s healing speed was actually getting faster and faster!

Even if its head was severed, it could regenerate it in an instant.

Mo Ling quickly calmed himself down. Remembering the nature of the Red Rope Worm, he stopped his attack.

’What is going on with this lamb?’