The armored car quickly cut through the valley, which was overgrown with trees. The road was so bumpy, that even the shock absorber wasn’t able to hold back the shaking; sometimes they jolted heavily on a piece of rock, or root, or the trees bent over them to hit them, for they dared to travel among them. The edge of the Abyss wasn’t less dangerous than its deepness and forests.

     The group travelling in the car had not let out a single sound. All of them were tired; some of them even fell asleep. Their way back to the base turned out to be stressful. Lu Feng sat on the bunk closest to the driver’s cabin with crossed arms; sometimes he looked at his comrades from there, but he didn’t try to engage. Seraing was driving at the moment, and the next in line to get the wheel from his adjutant was Lu Feng – his turn was coming soon, and he saw no point in sleeping, or starting a conversation with the team. He wouldn’t know what to say anyway; he was certain that no one was interested in him, and it was always like this. He sat alone.

     The door of the driver’s cabin was open, and Lu Feng looked out at the star-sprinkled sky. He couldn’t see the land yet, for the front of the car was elevated for wider spatial vision – he was sitting way too low compared to where the windscreen had started.

     His eyes lingered on the green aurora’s frills, as they waved spryly, like a water-snake, creating ripples in the still water. The sky was the lake for the aurora, and he got lost in the green lustre; he just observed, as the snakes were dissolving at one point, to rebirth at another point, and follow the same route as their ancestors. This reminded Lu Feng of humanity. They followed each other, followed each other’s paths, but eventually everyone died.

     His time still hasn’t come yet.

     He survived this mission too.

     Then a slight shiver ran through his body as if he had fallen asleep for a moment, just to wake up from his dream right in the next second. All the tiny hairs stood up on his arms and nape, and he unwantedly straightened in his sitting. His mood went emotionless in a snap of a second – he shut down all the intimate thoughts about the aurora right away, as the tension crept up on his spine.

     His gaze jumped on the other passengers, and he didn’t hide how he scrutinised them. One by one… their team had been built up of Judges, soldiers and two scientists. There were quite a lot of them; the other vehicle they brought broke down on the way, so all of them – the dozen of Judges, the five-man military team, Seraing and him with the two doctors, were all pressed into this armored car.

     For first, his eyes swept through the Judges, but he already could see that they were not the source of this unpleasant tenseness arising in him. The soldiers were mostly cleaning their guns, none of them moved weirdly or dazed off, and their gazes were focused and clear. The two scientists were asleep, they were exhausted from the mission, however, both of them snored with peaceful and calm expressions, they weren’t pale, weren’t sweating, they had no nightmares or pain, that would yank their faces into a grimace.

      Lu Feng frowned. If this inkling didn’t come from inside the car – because it seemed like none of his companions had been infected, and of course, he himself hadn’t been either – then it could only come from the ambit.

     The Colonel stood up quickly, and jumped into the driver’s cabin. Seraing sat alone in there, and for his arrival, he turned to him for a moment.

   “Colonel… I can last for a bit. Rest.”

   “Stop the car.”

     Lu Feng felt his gaze on him, but he stared outwards, and scanned the place glowing in the dark with green light. They were at the mouth of the valley, they were about to step out of the Abyss’ periphery. The mountains weren’t so tight around here anymore, and the forest ended as well – a grassy wasteland stretched right in front of them. Thanks to the aurora, Lu Feng could see through the place very well, but he still had no full vision of the flat meadow.

     Seraing didn’t ask; he knew, Lu Feng would not request such things from him if he had no good reason for it. The armored car jolted once before stopping, then as the engine wasn’t roaring anymore, deep silence descended upon them.

     Behind his back, quiet questions flowed over Lu Feng from their companion, for which he straightened up, and then leapt back to the passenger compartment.

   “You five and you three, come with me.”

     He could go out alone too, but he wasn’t certain about what he felt. Sometimes it happened to him that he sensed the closeness of the monsters, even if the beasts wanted to raid them in utmost secrecy. However, it also happened that he wasn’t able to measure how many enemies he felt, and how dangerous they were – not without seeing them at least.

     The Judges mostly followed him without resistance – they were all trainees, hence they couldn’t really turn down the opportunity. But the soldiers were still hesitant. One of the scientists also woke up, before Lu Feng would get out.

   “Wh-why did we stop? Are we under attack?”

     Lu Feng turned back, as he opened the middle door of the car.

   “You come too, doctor.”

     The doctor visibly regretted immediately that he’d woken up, but Lu Feng didn’t pay attention to him anymore; he jumped out of the car, and placed his hand on his pistol, as he walked forward.

     The air was truly freezing, especially here, the entrance of the valley, draughty and windy, instantly bit into his face. The Colonel just endured it without a word or a grimace, as the needle-like piercings made his skin numb; his eyes swept the environment, and he slowly walked forward, out of the woods into the wasteland. His fingers were resting lazily on the handle of his gun, ready to draw it immediately – but in the end, he did draw it, when the shivering sensation suddenly gushed down on him with fresh strength.

     He paused for a moment, and then stepped into the last tree’s shadow, when he reached the edge of the grassy flatland. He heard the quiet crackling sound behind him, when his people and the soldiers followed him, and the doctor’s silent hissing from the cold – he tried to hear through these noises to notice anything else.

     The icy winter wind loudly howled on this land, bringing the smell of damp, rotten leaf mould, and some even stinkier, bloodlike odour. On the other side of the grassy meadow, another forest was stretching, and Lu Feng quickly recalled the map – this forest was just a small spur, and stood as a natural isolation wall between the Abyss and Flatland 2. This was a large area regardless, the trees on the opposite side seemed like tiny ants in his eyes.

     There were many movements around him: the long grass was waving in the wind, the canopies of the trees were rustling, his people were stirring behind him, faraway monsters were howling into the night, and the aurora was undulating above him too, sometimes lighting up the landscape with its glare, sometimes withdrawing its help from him. Lu Feng looked up, then around again, and carefully stepped out from behind the trunk.

     He reached the meadow, and holding his pistol with two hands, he sharply listened to all the tiny inklings. With a movement of his hand, he signed not to follow him, and the stirring behind his back halted. The squeals became that much quieter.

     He went ahead about five meters already in the grass. He paid attention to every flutter, his gaze slowly swept left and right, but continuously, so as not to miss something… And finally, he found it.

     At his right, a few hundred meters away from him, there was a monster. With its blackness, it totally camouflaged into the landscape, however, the aurora’s green light flashed on its armour a bit more brightly, and it was large enough to stand out of the grass quite obviously.

     Lu Feng halted for a moment, ready to aim his gun at the monster, while he slightly squinted. He knew that he saw something that was not the usual sight of this part of the Abyss.

     It was a giant cockroach. As for exactly which type from what they knew of, he couldn’t tell from this distance yet, but it didn’t matter that much. This was still the Abyss.

     Usually, the monsters’ hunting and mating patterns were very distinctive, with easy-to-follow habits, and it was rare for certain groups to dare setting foot on another field. And it had basically never occurred that a single individual would volunteer to discover a place that it was not advised to go to.

     What was a cockroach doing in the Abyss? Frowning, Lu Feng began to walk towards the phenomenon, and signed the others to follow. He heard their steps again when they moved.

     Cockroaches were omnivores, they could find plentiful food for themselves in a small radius, and they mostly moved in groups. They consumed carcasses as well as the different mineral matters from the soil. However, they didn’t have lethal weapons or venom. They didn’t need it, since they lived and moved in large numbers, and this could scare away many predators. Although, because of that, they couldn’t defend themselves. Especially alone.

     The insect class monsters had no chance in the Abyss. Almost all xenogenics that lived here consumed insects, and they boasted a much more dangerous arsenal of weapons. Even though there weren’t many differences between their size, a cockroach would not come to the periphery of the Abyss if everything was alright with its behaviour.

     Maybe is it some hybrid mutant? Lu Feng had not seen any sign that would support this suspicion.

     However, at this point, it occurred to him that the cockroach didn’t notice him or the soldiers, instead it was going in the opposite direction, moving away from them. It was already a miracle it didn’t hear them – maybe the wind helped them, blowing from the front, so it wouldn’t carry their smells towards the monster. Regardless, the cockroach could’ve seen them.

     The grass became somewhat shorter, and other plants had appeared between it, as Lu Feng still approached the creature with slow stealth. Now he could see that it was a winged hunter cockroach – the rarest yet most worthless type; none of its parts could be recycled for anything at the base, so they never tried hard to look for them. In fact, they lived close to the Abyss, so maybe this one just stumbled here after chasing its dinner.

     And Lu Feng also could see that the hunter cockroach perhaps was still chasing that exact dinner, this is why it didn’t fly right away from here. All the monster’s attention and concentration were aimed at its prey.

     Lu Feng’s gaze carefully swept through the cockroach’s surroundings to study of what could’ve made an insect act this way. It should be a very appetizing prey if it was able to make the bug forget about its ambit. The Colonel began moving in a wider circle with narrowed eyes to see what was ahead of the cockroach. There weren’t any other of its species here, so keeping enough space between them, he was still safe even if the monster spotted him.

     The monster probably stopped at some point, because as Lu Feng approached it – this time from the left – it seemed much bigger now. Lu Feng slowed down, and paid more attention to his steps. He only gave a glanced to his escort, then he made a low handsign to scatter. Only the doctor and one of his Judges approached him still.

     As they stalked the stagnant cockroach in a crescent shape, gradually they also halted, keeping a certain distance from it.

     Lu Feng knelt down, hiding into the grass deeper, but only that much to still see the scene.

     That was the moment when he noticed.

     He only caught the flash of it from the corner of his eyes. If the aurora wasn’t glaring so vividly at this moment, maybe he wouldn’t have seen it.

     The source of light bounced back extremely brightly on the cloudlike mass. At first, Lu Feng thought the thing itself was fluorescence, but then he realised, he was wrong. It was just so purely white it reflected back every light source stronger Yet this cloudmass was tiny and it hovered very low. And when he looked at it with squinting eyes, it didn’t even seem to be that much of a gaseous, but some soft, liquid matter, which the wind drifted as it pleased.

     Lu Feng had never seen such a sight. He didn’t let the shock conquer him, and from this distance, he had no chance to inspect and understand what kind of monster could that be, if it was even a monster – now it rather seemed to be a lifeless blanket, which floated left and right in the wind like trash, occasionally getting stuck on the grass blades. But he had time for this after.

     He saw the cockroach getting ready to attack. It wasn’t as stagnant as Lu Feng thought, just its movements became so slow that it was almost invisible to see with the naked eye. The insect scouted its prey, and was ready to jump and fly, its wings slightly vibrating, yet soundless. It was a master of ambush, it knew how to be very silent and unnoticeable, and from where to approach its prey to have a successful hunt.

     However, this was also true of the Colonel.

     Sometimes on his knees, sometimes in squatting, but hunching down he approached it in stealth, to such distance that his pistol still could send the bullet flawlessly and in precision.

     It wouldn’t be necessary to kill the monster. Actually, they even could go back to the car, and drive away, the cockroach clearly didn’t pay any attention to them. But the whole situation was extremely weird to just leave it like that. If a change had occurred in one of the insect species’ behavioural habits, they had to know about it.

     Lu Feng aimed the monster’s head before it could leap. One shot is enough. He was only twenty meters away from the hunter cockroach, and it still didn’t notice him.

     BANG!

     The insect was about to fold its legs and launch itself onto the mindless, white mass when Lu Feng’s gun fired. The bullet made a hole in the cockroach’s head from the side, for which the creature stumbled, and looked at him with its small eyes; in their depths, there was a red glow. It let out a quiet shriek, and it turned towards Lu Feng with its full body, ready to jump on him instead of its previous victim. Although it was rare that cockroaches would attack soldiers, the conclusion of the fight was certain.

     One of the soldiers had fired his own weapon – a uranium projectile automatic gun. In the next second, the uranium shell hit the creature with bright, white light, exploding its body by its waist, and then went out with a red flash, while the monster simply fell into two parts. It still screamed and writhed for a while – these specimens could live without their heads, but this time it had no chance for that. Its death was certain, slow but steady.

     Lu Feng carefully stood up. His eyes were dazzling a little for he looked into the bright light before; now he squinted, and then, while the jogging soldiers approached the cockroach, with the doctor walking over as well to check its condition, his gaze already searched for something else.

     The white mass was still sauntering there, holding onto the grass blades; like a sheet, resisting against the strong, howling wind roaming around boundlessly on this open land, unstoppable.

     Lu Feng slowly went closer to it. He didn’t even lower his weapon; he aimed it at the blanket instead. He didn’t know what he was dealing with, however, besides carefulness, another feeling began overcoming him. He was curious.

     The previous shiver caused by the monster was gone. But he couldn’t say he didn’t feel a thing. His alertness turned into a kind of safer, more inviting sensation. Lu Feng was certain that the white thing was also a monster, but he couldn’t feel dangerous aura from it; oppositely, it seemed friendly. He rarely experienced something like this, maybe mostly with plant-infected xenogenics. Although, they’ve also emitted brief warnings to chase away anything approaching them.

     This white thing… seemingly didn’t sense him.

     Lu Feng was a meter away from it.

     He lowered his gun.

     Now he could see it better. The whiteness was a big chunk of tiny strands. The strings attached to the grass were so tiny and delicate like spider webs. After some thinking, he realised that he should call them roots.

     He slowly descended beside the phenomenon. He moved carefully, even though it was obvious that the strange body hadn’t sensed him, or at least didn’t care for him, but Lu Feng didn’t want to scare it. As he leaned forward, almost completely hunching above it, a specific, cold odour suddenly hit his nose, which only could be sensed above soft, moist soil in dark places. It was not mustiness, but a much healthier thing, something that one could even smell in their own home by opening their fridge…

     The fragrance of the mushrooms.

     It was a very delicate aroma, like the hyphae, which clung onto the blades, and the man could feel it only because he was leaning over it from close. Even if the wind wouldn’t blow, Lu Feng certainly would still not sense it from further away.

     But this mushroom was extremely weird.

     He’d never seen such a mushroom that was not rooting on anything. He also had never seen such a mushroom that could freely roll around with the wind. And he also had never seen such a mushroom that hadn’t had a single main body. Stems, like those without caps, looking like worms, standing tall in groups; spheres, like the puffs scattered around the ground like large, colourful pouffes; pies growing on the trunks of trees, like a staircase for small creatures as if they were inviting them up to the canopies. And of course, like the normal ones with caps, which were seen most often, because the base cultivated them for consumption purposes.

     This one had nothing, just its hyphae, although at one spot it condensed, and seemed a bit bumpy too. Would that be the “cap”? It had a slight cap-like shape in the middle, but it had no stem, and anything else that could indicate what it was. And that cap was knotted by hyphae, actually.

     Definitely, it was some mutant mushroom, a harmless, weird little creature. Lu Feng felt calm next to it; he knew, he had no reason to fear it, but at the same time, he wanted to inspect it more.

   “Colonel…”

     It was one of the Judges. He descended upon one knee behind him, and when Lu Feng glanced over, he saw that the young man was staring at the mushroom too.

   “The doc says the cockroach was no different from common hunter cockroaches… Very… very strange. Very unusual that it came this far for a prey. But it had no physical signs that could cause this behaviour. Like… it’s like…”

   “… How is it?” Lu Feng asked, urging him.

   “Like if it had fallen into a trance… maybe. Was it chasing this thing? Was this the reason? This… what is this, sir?”

     Lu Feng looked back at the mushroom. Strange, huh? Very strange. But instead of answering the young Judge, he put on gloves.

   “Take out a smaller container. And one of the nutrient solutions, that we use for plants. I gather some samples from this. Maybe it was not the cockroach that was strange, but this place. We rarely came here before. Maybe it keeps a different ecosystem than the other parts of the Abyss. Look around, if there is anything else.”*

     The Judge answered, then jumped on his feet, and started running towards the forest, where they left the armored car. The soldiers were still observing the carcass in the hope of getting off its armour. It was pointless. Cockroach-armour broke easily, so they couldn’t make anything out of it. Usually, they didn’t even come off in one piece. Lu Feng saw the doctor chattering around as well; it seemed like he didn’t care for the cold or sleeping anymore, enthusiastically explained something that Lu Feng couldn’t hear from this distance with the blowing wind.

     The Colonel turned back to the mushroom, and then he took out a case from his coat’s inside pocket. There was a scalpel in it, and sacs, cotton swabs and forceps. As he accurately spread these out on the ground, he kept one eye on the mushroom. It lingered away sometimes, letting the grass go with its hyphae, then made a circle, and came closer to him again. Lu Feng didn’t follow it like a maniac; he quickly noticed that the mushroom wasn’t trying to escape from him, just riding the wind.

     Like if it was enjoying it.

     At last, Lu Feng leaned over again, and holding the forceps in his left, he grabbed the hyphae where the mass was the bumpiest. Then he cut into it with the scalpel.

     The blade cut through it so easily, like a hot knife cutting the butter. The mushroom’s hyphae froze, then they shrank as if they felt pain. Lu Feng frowned. Although mushrooms were living existence too, certainly, they weren’t able to feel such pain, and could not show such reaction to pain as a human or an animal. Maybe it was just some kind of self-protecting function. Some mushrooms were changing colours, or released poisonous puffs into the air when they were cut.

     Opening the bump, Lu Feng’s hunch turned out to be correct. There was a small fern under the hyphae. This one didn’t seem to be a mushroom either, had no cap, no stem. Yet, as it curled up, Lu Feng guessed that this should be the seed – the spore. It was much larger than he expected.

     The Judge had already returned – he was running like his life depended on it, just like before towards the car. He almost collapsed beside Lu Feng, falling on his knees.

   “I figured, Colonel. This is a mushroom, isn’t it? Where is the main body?”

   “This is its main body.” Lu Feng replied, before straightening up. The forceps in his left was not grabbing the mushroom anymore, but its spore.

     The Judge held a small, cube-shaped jar and a big bottle of green liquid in his arms. After the unspoken urge, as the Colonel looked at him, he poured the solution into the jar. Lu Feng waited in silence to these moves to be finished, and then as the man held out the jar towards him, Lu Feng dropped the spore into it. The Judge immediately sealed the jar. For a moment, both of them stared at the small box.

     The spore lifelessly floated in the pale liquid, its hyphaes loosened up a little on its body by the moisture, and flew after it like hair. There was something cute in this tiny fern. It looked so helpless, it had to be protected.

     Lu Feng reached out again. Although the spore was a better sample for research purposes – it had a longer lifespan and contained more genetic information – he wanted to bring some of the older version too. But as soon as he grabbed the hyphae with the tip of his fingers, they dissipated for his touch. Like earlier, when the blade cut through the fabric of the hyphae so effortlessly, and let him take the spore, they didn’t stay together. He gave up on it.

   “We won’t bring more. If it stays here, it will regenerate.”

     The Judge stood up, and as if he tried to protect the jar from the wind, he hid the spore under his coat.

   “I’m taking the sample back to the car.”

     Since then, the armored car drove out of the forest into the wasteland – Seraing probably heard the news of the event, and wanted to come closer to them.

     Lu Feng put away his tools before standing up, but for one last time he glanced at the mushroom. It was such a pity, that he couldn’t take away the whole thing, but in fact, the spore was a large enough specimen piece so not to be a necessity to do that.

     He memorised its traits well, carving the looks of it into his mind, and this weird behaviour the mushroom showed him.

     Now it was shivering as if it found the wind too icy. Of course, it was cold, but it didn’t bother the thing earlier. Perhaps, it was still trembling because Lu Feng cut it?

     Maybe… some kind of rue crept into Lu Feng’s heart, just for a moment.

     He looked around on the meadow. Where was this mushroom coming from? He couldn’t see any similar, white mass in sight. He knew where the mushroom forest was in the Abyss approximately, but it was pretty far away from here. In fact, this place was far away from everything.

     As he started walking back behind the others, he merged into his thoughts.

     The fact, that they found something like this, brought up a few questions. Two such creatures lurking on this place that had a different natural habitat. The mushroom and the cockroach both ventured far from their home as if something attracted them here. What could that be? And right in this moment, when he also decided about that they must take a detour in this direction, on their way back to the city?

     Because they haven’t planned coming here, actually. Since their other car broke down, they couldn’t let themselves run into a bigger group of monsters – which happened quite often, when they were leaving the Abyss. The monsters knew they were ready to set, and they always tried to ambush them. They knew, where would humans enter and get off with the armored cars, they were intelligent enough to jump on them along the roads. Now, the group couldn’t risk it, since they already had only one vehicle, so Lu Feng decided to take a wider turn to avoid the unnecessary encounters. This was a fairly unexplored area – they mapped it a long time ago, but when they were on a mission, they didn’t take this path, or if they did, they only drove across the meadow without stopping, not setting up camps.

     Was it a coincidence? Was there any more strangeness on this land? Lu Feng kept looking around, but he couldn’t see anything unusual. Wind, bending grasses, and green lightfrills reflected on the landscape. They left the cockroach’s carcass there, the other monsters will clean it, if they notice the smell of its blood – but there was no other life around them either. It could even be called peaceful. He saw the soldiers on the way back to the car, and his Judges scattered around as well to fulfil his order of searching the place for other abnormalities. In vain.

     Only two gouged wheel tracks indicated the road. Seraing stopped there, and leaned out of the window when the soldiers and Judges climbed back to the car. The doctor returned first, and only Lu Feng stopped far away from the vehicle. He noticed Seraing’s gaze.

   “Colonel… are you feeling alright?”

     It was a weird question. Lu Feng didn’t answer, just lowered his eyes. Suddenly… somehow he felt some urge to look back… but he resisted. The mushroom probably was still there, on the grass. It will get better, it was able to move. He had no reason to look back.

     In the end, he didn’t answer Seraing’s question, he directly walked to the driving cabin instead.

   “My turn.”

     Seraing hesitated for a few moments, observing his face, and then he nodded, crawled out of the driver’s seat, and went back to the resting place. Lu Feng climbed up, fastened his seatbelt, then waited until he heard the clanking of the doors. When everyone was inside, he started the engine… but in his mind, he saw white strands in front of him writhing, when he cut into them. Pain… was it? Can a mushroom feel pain at all?

     If it wouldn’t act this strangely… if it wouldn’t tremble so much after Lu Feng cut it, he probably wouldn’t care for this question, which had never occurred to him before. He quickly eliminated the animal class monsters, they didn’t suffer for long, and with plants, even if they reacted to a cut, it was more of an offensive reaction, or some kind of defence mechanism. Not on this… almost human-like way.

     The Colonel stared at the road, frowning. Suddenly, he felt as if he tormented a small pet.

     Certainly, he was imagining things.

     Lu Feng drove all night, and soon he exiled this question to the back of his mind. When they took the wheel from him for letting him sleep in the last few hours of the road, Lu Feng returned to his previous seat, to his lonely corner behind the driver’s cabin, and took out his notebook. He was thinking for a while about mentioning the cockroach, but he decided that it was meaningless. The cockroach had no plus information for them in the end, and they didn’t bring any sample of it either, according to the doctor’s examinations and conclusions.

     Then, he wrote his usual report.

            2.14, wilderness, return home, collected 1 abnormal fungus sample (spore).*

Previous part:

Accidental Encounter

Next part:

Last Encounter

*Notes:

The highlighted words were in the official english translation. J I just wanted to make them more obvious.

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