It was a lifeless world.
When Zhang Heng first saw it, he thought he had returned to the moon. There was nothing here except for the bumpy surface. The island was filled with a dead and desolate atmosphere.
Whether it was the soil or the rocks, they were all dark red. It was as if someone had deliberately painted them with fuel as a prank. When Zhang Heng tried to cut a piece of rock with Shrouded Scabbard, he found that there was a red viscous liquid flowing out of the incision. It looked like blood flowing in the blood vessels.
There were many of these red rocks on the island, and they came in a variety of shapes and sizes. They were scattered all over the place, and around these rocks were red pebbles. These pebbles were generally larger than ordinary pebbles, and they looked more plump. They actually looked more like … eggs.
Zhang Heng picked one up and knocked it on the red rock. As a result, a corner of the rock was knocked off, but the egg-shaped pebble remained intact.
So Zhang Heng used Shrouded Scabbard again. This time, it took him a little effort to dig the red pebble open, revealing what was inside.
It was a newly formed snake embryo, and it was still alive. At least when Zhang Heng cut the pebble open, it was still alive. Its body twisted a few times, but it obviously had not grown to the point where it could break out of its shell. Since it was released in advance, it could no longer absorb nutrients from the egg liquid. It struggled on the ground, seemingly trying to crawl back into the red pebble that was cut open. But the next moment, Zhang Heng stepped on its tail.
Zhang Heng wanted to see what the little snake in the red pebble was capable of, but he saw that the little snake's struggling movements were getting slower and slower. After less than a minute, it lay on the ground and stopped moving.
After that, Zhang Heng tried to kick the little snake with his toes, but the latter did not respond. Considering its age, the possibility of it faking its death was basically ruled out. So, Zhang Heng stabbed the tip of Shrouded Scabbard into the little snake's abdomen, all the way up until the upper jaw was cut open.
Zhang Heng squatted down and examined the little snake's body. He found that other than living in the hard red pebble, its external physiological structure seemed to be no different from ordinary snakes.
This was good news for Zhang Heng.
There were a lot of red rocks on this island, and there were countless red cobblestones around the rocks. If every cobblestone contained a small snake, and these small snakes had some kind of special attack method, once they broke out of their shells, even with the T-148, Zhang Heng would have to jump into the sea to escape.
But at least for now, it seemed that this worry would not come to pass. The dead snake also reminded him of something. He closed his eyes and thought for a moment, put the Shrouded Sheath back on his waist, and continued to walk towards the center of the island.
Zhang Heng had a hunch that something was waiting for him there.
…
Inside the station.
Although Meinan had no choice but to agree to Zhang Heng's request to stay on the island, she did not intend to just sit there and wait. Even if this station was not Jörmungandr's lair, it was an important place for its activities. Meinan still hoped to find some clues about how to deal with Jörmungandr.
The gods and creatures in Norse mythology were probably the most human-like of all mythologies. Almost every one of them had a variety of emotions and desires. They could be envious and enraged. At the same time, like humans, they also had weaknesses. Some seemingly powerful gods and creatures even had the weakness of instant death.
The most famous of them was probably Balder, who was killed by mistletoe. One day, Balder, the god of light, had a dream in which he died. His mother was horrified when she learned about it, so she asked everything in the world to swear to never hurt Balder. Weapons, stones, and even diseases and flowers swore to her.
Only the mistletoe was too weak to be asked to swear an oath. Loki later found out about this, so he urged the Dark God Hodor, who had always been at odds with the God of Light Balder, to throw a mistletoe at Balder. In the end, the God of Light Balder was pierced through the chest by the mistletoe and died. Loki was banished and punished by the gods because of this incident. In the end, the gods became enemies with each other. But that was a story for another time.
In short, this story seemed to imply that the Norse gods had their own Achilles' heel.
Meinan recalled the story related to Jörmungandr in Norse mythology, trying to find the latter's weakness. At the same time, she inspected the station. Milliped wanted to help, but Meinan politely declined. The main reason was that even if Meinan joined in, she would not know what to look for.
However, Meinan gave Milliped, who had nothing better to do, something to do. She asked him to look through the snake carcasses and see if he could find a snake corpse that was long enough to crawl into the pit.
So the two of them began to split up.
Milliped rummaged through the snake carcasses on the second floor, while Meinan returned to the first floor. She held a flashlight and scanned every corner of the station, not letting go of any clues. As a result, her dragnet search really paid off.
Meinan found a scratch on the back of a load-bearing pillar. At first, she did not pay much attention to the scratch. She thought it was just a normal abrasion during the construction process, but after a second look, Meinan noticed the pattern contained in the scratch.
The mark was not caused by an accident, but deliberately left by someone. Meinan tried to wipe away the accumulated dust on the pillar, revealing a line of crooked handwriting.
It's there. Danger!
It's there. Danger?
Meinan did not expect to see someone else's handwriting here. Considering that this place had been abandoned for more than fifty years and had become a snake nest, this line of words probably dated back to more than fifty years ago, when the subway line was still under construction.
Who could its owner be? One of the construction workers from back then? Meinan thought of the missing worker in Milliped's story. She wondered if this line of words was left behind by him as a warning to future generations.
However, this sentence was too vague. She did not know who the "it's there" was referring to. Was it Jörmungandr? Also, she did not know where the second half of the sentence referred to.
But Meinan could read from this sentence that someone had been here before them, and the last word "danger" was carved with great force. She could tell that the person who left this sentence was very nervous at the time, as if something terrible was about to befall him.
While Meinan squatted down to study the handwriting on the load-bearing pillar, a pair of eyes was quietly observing her in the tunnel on the other side of the platform.
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