Volume One: The Spiral Stone Inscription Chapter 29: The White-Bone Wasteland, Part Three—The Roundworm Keeper

A dark green glow suddenly illuminated the distance.

This caught Chen Fan’s attention. He walked toward it. Upon reaching the spot, he looked down to find a dark green stone the size of a human head buried within the yellow earth.

“Do not get close. That is a ‘Magic Source Stone.’ It can corrupt your flesh and spirit. The reason these arthropods have gathered here in such large numbers is because of it,” Catherine’s voice echoed in his ear.

“Do you need it?” Chen Fan asked.

“Leave this place immediately. I do not need it,” she said quickly, deeply concerned about his injuries.

Chen Fan nodded and scanned his surroundings. An upward-sloping tunnel appeared in his line of sight. He tucked away his safe, then strode toward the entrance of the passage.

The sound of rodents gnawing suddenly filled the air. Chen Fan turned back to look; far across the way, beneath the yellow earth wall, was a hole. Beside it, a yellow-skinned rat, two or three meters in size, was gnawing on a corpse.

A rumbling sound began as more and more yellow-skinned rats poured out from that hole. In the blink of an eye, hundreds had swarmed out, their numbers continuing to grow as they enjoyed this hard-won feast. Clearly, both the underground space and the yellow earth tunnels had been carved out by these rodents, only to be usurped by the arthropods for reasons unknown.

Chen Fan took a deep breath, stepped over the mangled flesh, and entered the upward-sloping tunnel. He finally reached the surface. The long night had passed; a beam of light shot from the east, illuminating his face. He dug a large pit, placed his safe inside, and gathered a pile of white bones. He climbed into the safe and shifted the bones to cover the top. Leaning against the metal wall, he drifted into a deep sleep, feeling utterly exhausted.

He slept for a full day and night.

The next morning, he awoke feeling a bit of strength returning to his body. After swallowing some dry rations from his pack, he strode toward the place where the golden-red light was shining.

“Why are there so many bones on this wasteland? Where did they all come from?”

Although he had been here for several days, his heart still trembled at the sight of these endless remains. He felt as though he were walking through a kingdom of bones. Looking out, there was nothing but skeletons—not even a single tree could be seen. A sense of crisis lingered in his heart, impossible to shake off.

He recalled his experience in the underground world, a wave of lingering fear and horror washing over him. At the time, he hadn’t seemed afraid, but that was not because he lacked fear; he had forced himself to remain one hundred percent calm because the situation was too perilous—a single moment of carelessness would have meant death. In that situation, he could not allow himself to show any weakness, as any frailty would surely lead to his destruction. His greatest strength was his ability to force himself to be focused and composed.

A person plagued by emotion, or one who loses judgment due to fear, would almost certainly perish in such circumstances. By perfectly adjusting his state of mind, he had overcome the difficulties and successfully returned to the surface.

The following four days were relatively safe. Although he was surrounded by bones, he encountered nothing unusual, let alone dangerous.

In the blink of an eye, the morning of the fifth day arrived. High in the sky, the bruised, head-shaped sun cast scorching light, baking the ground until it was searing hot. The weather was stifling, and waves of heat continuously battered his body. To prevent his mental corruption index from spiking, he dared not look directly at the bizarre sun above. He had an intuition—that this head-sun was watching him every single moment. Of course, this was just an intuition; he had no substantive proof.

An hour later, the world ahead suddenly grew dim. He looked up to see the sky crowded with dark clouds. Troubled, he scanned his surroundings and continued walking. Ten minutes later, he stopped again, brow furrowed, looking at a spot not far ahead.

A corpse lay there. A male corpse.

When he saw the face, his heart skipped a beat. The owner of the corpse was—Wang Yuan!

“How did he die here?”

His gaze sharpened. He drew his long blade and, in a combat stance, approached the body with small, cautious steps. Upon reaching it, he looked down. There was a thumb-sized hole in the man's stomach. Looking through the hole, he saw that the internal organs were gone.

“What kind of thing did this?” His eyes narrowed. He examined the rest of the body, searching for clues. Finding nothing, he placed the tip of his blade against the abdomen.

He twisted his wrist, slicing through the skin. As the skin parted, the reality within was fully revealed. Seeing what lay inside, his scalp nearly exploded. He staggered back several steps, for the body was packed full of—roundworms!

Hundreds of them. Each was as long as an arm and as thick as a chopstick, their surfaces smooth and glistening. They writhed, secreting viscous fluid. Their bodies were submerged in this slime.

Suddenly exposed to such a repulsive sight, he instinctively felt a wave of intense disgust. After retreating a few paces and checking the surroundings, he took a deep breath and continued his trek toward the golden-red light. He was very close to his destination now; barring any accidents, he would reach it within an hour.

Thirty minutes later, he saw another corpse—Qin Feng’s. His eyes were bulging, and two roundworms were crawling out from the corners of his sockets. His abdomen was distended like a pregnant woman’s, the skin rippling violently.

Chen Fan suppressed the urge to vomit and walked on. A moment later, he saw Yang Chao’s corpse. His death was even more miserable; he looked like an inflated balloon, his entire body swollen, every inch of his skin undulating violently.

Chen Fan backed away a dozen meters, feeling a sense of pity for the three of them. When their gear was poor, they had survived; now that they were well-equipped, they had met their end.

“Get the item and leave!”

His gaze hardened as he sped toward his destination. He was only six or seven hundred meters away. A red sea appeared in his field of vision, its waves rising a dozen meters high—a truly raging, turbulent sight.

Thirty meters in front of this sea grew a strange tree with a black trunk and a white crown. The tree was massive, requiring at least three or four people to encircle it. This caught Chen Fan’s attention, and he strode toward it. The golden-red light was shining from within the crown of this strange tree.

“Something feels wrong…” The closer he got to the tree, the more restless Chen Fan became. As everyone knew, it was difficult to observe the movement of trees with the naked eye, but the crown of the tree standing before him was in constant motion. The amplitude of this movement was massive, like a rubber band being stretched, to a degree that could not be ignored.

His brows locked together as he quickened his pace, wanting to see the truth for himself. Sweat beaded on his forehead, and his heart pounded faster. He finally reached the strange tree.

When he saw the crown clearly, he gasped and retreated four or five steps. The crown was not made of leaves—it was made of roundworms!

From a distance, the crown was writhing violently, and as it moved, it secreted large amounts of white, stringy slime. This white slime was active; as it poured onto the ground, it twisted and squirmed, likely containing countless eggs. As the sunlight filtered through the gaps in the clouds, the movement of the crown intensified. As if they had ingested poison, the roundworms stiffened their bodies, as if trying to snap themselves in two. Piles of roundworms rained down onto the ground like a storm! Though they fell, they would immediately begin crawling back up the trunk, over and over again!

“You finally arrived, collector of the Hunyuan Stone Carvings!”

The tree spoke. As the voice sounded, countless roundworms shifted to form a woman’s twisted face. Once the face was formed, the worms stopped moving. It smiled, the expression within a normal range at first. But as time passed, the smile grew more and more exaggerated, becoming bone-chilling and horrific.

“Are you from Earth, too? Why have you become this monster?” Chen Fan frowned, feeling an instinctive revulsion.

“Do you think I wanted this? You’re disgusted by me, aren’t you? I’m even more disgusted by myself than you are! I am the one who despises myself the most!”

“When I was on Earth, I was a great beauty. I was a senior at a prestigious university, and the wealthy heirs in my class lined up to pursue me!”

“I went out with them every day. Whatever I wanted, they bought for me. Even if I had asked for the stars in the sky, they would have found a way to pluck them for me! My life was supposed to be happy and perfect forever. Why did it end up like this? What kind of hellish place is this?”

“I am already in agony. I am on the verge of madness. Why must I still endure your look of disgust? Why?!”

The voice was filled with rage and madness; it was clearly in the depths of torment. But who wasn’t in pain? Everyone was suffering.

Chen Fan’s gaze turned cold. “There are countless bones on this wasteland. I don’t know how many people have died—this was all your doing, wasn’t it?”

“What does it matter if things are good or bad? No one cares about your feelings. Everything is just your fate!”

It laughed. “Hunyuan Stone Carving collector, greetings! My professional identity is… a roundworm breeder! Come, experience my pain and hatred. Hahahaha!”

*Rumble!*

Trillions of roundworms turned into a white, viscous sea, sweeping toward Chen Fan with overwhelming momentum! The scale of the attack was massive. Although it was only a Level 1 mutated creature, its methods were too perverse, almost impossible to fend off!

Chen Fan let out a cold snort and summoned his combine harvester. With a roar, he drove the mechanical beast, charging through the endless sea of roundworms! As the steel tracks rolled forward, white furrows appeared on the ground, filled with the corpses of tens of millions of roundworms. Their bodies were crushed, but even in pieces, they continued to writhe with stubborn, tenacious vitality.

The droning continued as tens of millions more were swallowed by the threshing drum, transformed into viscous, granular matter that sprayed across the sky. A thick layer piled up on the windshield, obscuring Chen Fan’s vision!

*Crack!*

There were too many worms. Under their relentless assault, the windshield showed signs of severe fracturing. He estimated they would break through the glass within a minute, enter the cockpit, and devour him alive!

Chen Fan’s eyes flashed with cold light. He drove the large combine harvester at full speed toward the trunk deep within the sea of worms!

The creature panicked, quickly summoning billions of worms to block its front and stop Chen Fan from approaching. Chen Fan pressed forward, cleaving through the waves; the worms blocking his path all turned into white, viscous pulp! The stench of rot wafted through the cracks. Chen Fan vomited while keeping his hands on the controls, his heart as firm as iron, unshakeable!

*Boom!*

The large combine harvester slammed into the trunk. Amidst a heaven-shaking, miserable shriek, the trunk was shredded into a sky full of wood chips!

The so-called roundworm breeder perished on the spot.

High in the empty crown, a large black iron box—presumably its personal property—fell toward the ground as the tree was pulverized. With the trunk destroyed, the billions of worms, having lost their commander, became even more frantic and chaotic, turning into a white storm that slammed into the combine harvester.

*Bang!*

The harvester was smashed apart. Millions of worms embedded themselves into the glass windows, writhing violently, desperate to consume Chen Fan. They were so close—only ten centimeters away. Two of them were nearly touching his nose.

Chen Fan did not panic. Everything was within his precise calculations.

Two seconds later, a massive surge of heat erupted from beneath the harvester! Under the force of the violent impacts, the fuel tank had been damaged! The electrical circuits had also been severed! The result of the two combining was inevitable—the fuel tank was about to explode!

He pulled out the safe and dove inside!

*Rumble!*

Terrifying, high-temperature flames engulfed a thirty-meter radius. The very space seemed to shatter and melt! Under the impact of the horrific heat wave, billions of worms were blasted into nothingness, turning into a sky-filling rain of white, viscous slime that poured down from above! A massive crater appeared where the tree had stood!

The safe was blown back a dozen meters, heading straight toward the black iron box! Chen Fan burst out of the safe and tucked the iron box into his system inventory.

There were still too many worms. Even though a large portion had been vaporized, compared to the whole, it was still a vast number. They swarmed toward Chen Fan from every direction. They were too fast; if he tried to escape on foot, he would likely be overtaken.

Chen Fan steeled his heart and sprinted toward the red sea ahead!

Upon reaching it, he was shocked once again—corpses were floating on the surface of the red sea! But this was no time for hesitation. He took a deep dive and, with a splash, plunged directly into the red water.

The sea of worms swept over, pouring into the red water like dumplings into a pot, chasing after Chen Fan with frantic speed.