There was a terrifying wound there, torn open from the chest down to the abdomen, and a strange greenish hue seeped out from between the blood and flesh.

Brian Cooper knew what that was.

He stood silently in place for a while, then withdrew the foot he had just stepped forward with, returned to the corpse, and plunged the blade of his sword into the dead man's abdomen. After stirring it a few times, he pried out that streak of green.

He hoped his suspicion was wrong, but the truth was right before his eyes, telling him that all his guesses were correct.

It was a green insect egg.

※※※

Compared to the insect eggs Brian Cooper had previously found on the corpse in the Jade Hall, the one he discovered now was clearly of the same kind. But there were differences as well: the egg in the Jade Hall was shriveled and damaged, its vitality fragile, looking as if it had been congenitally underdeveloped. But the egg he saw now glowed with a deep green light, lush and vibrant, exceptionally plump—one could say it was brimming with life.

In fact, in terms of development, this egg was much better than the one in the fourteenth Jade Hall. Brian Cooper even noticed that some tiny tentacles had already grown from this egg, clutching the corpse’s flesh, probably to absorb the nutrients and essence from the body.

This also explained why these eggs would be found on corpses.

Brian Cooper's face was as cold as water. He stared at the egg for a while, his gaze icy. Suddenly, he raised his sword and stabbed fiercely at the egg.

But just as the tip of the sword was about to touch the surface of the egg, he suddenly stopped. In that instant, it was as if something had occurred to him, and his face, which had been ashen, abruptly turned a little pale.

He slowly lifted his head and looked around. All around him were corpses—near and far, whole and torn apart. Amidst this hellish scene, under the afternoon sunlight, strands of eerie green light began to flicker ceaselessly across the battlefield-like ground.

On those corpses, among the flesh and blood, even in some incomplete pools of blood and flesh, the number of green lights was countless.

For a moment, Brian Cooper even felt as if he was surrounded by a sea of green insect eggs, and he was seized by a terrifying illusion that he was about to be submerged, struggling to breathe.

The number of eggs here was ten times, even a hundred times more than what he had seen in the Jade Hall!

His face turned deathly pale.

Chapter 8: Green Eggs (Part 2)

The wind brushed the treetops, and the forest let out a low, deep breath, as if it were the voice of this land—always silent, yet having just witnessed a bloody massacre.

Brian Cooper did not flee in panic. He had not been scared out of his wits. In this dreadful place, at this very moment, he displayed a rare and unimaginable tenacity.

He decided he could not just walk away.

Among the dead here, some were friends he knew, most were strangers, but no matter what, they were all people like him. So, he had to do something.

He began to act in silence. First, he went to the edge of the forest and gathered a large pile of dead leaves and branches, both picking and chopping as he went. Then, at the very center of this bloody ground, where the corpses were thickest, he piled them up. He returned to the Jade Hall, found the storeroom, and retrieved the large barrels of kerosene originally stored there for blasting mountains and building roads.

Expressionless, he poured the pungent oil over the corpses of those who had once been his companions, dousing the woodpile most heavily. He tried not to miss a single corner, even dragging back some bodies that had been thrown far away and tossing them into this mountain of corpses and sea of blood.

He worked for a long time, the entire process unfolding in a strange, silent stillness. The world was quiet, as if heaven and earth, forest and wind, and everything else were silently watching the every move of this small but resolute man.

A small mountain of corpses was piled up there, growing ever higher and thicker. At the same time, a strange aura emanated from the mound—a gathering of more and more green lights, joining together in the gaps between the bodies, flickering with a ghostly glow.

By dusk, Brian Cooper had finally finished all his preparations.

By then, the vast majority of the corpses, limbs, and flesh had been thrown into the central spot. Even after so many days, the stench was still almost suffocating. The emptied oil barrels lay on the ground, the remaining kerosene slowly dripping out, mixing with the dried, blackened earth.

Under the setting sun, Brian Cooper, his face weary, struck a flint and lit the torch in his hand.

The flames roared wildly on his torch. He slowly turned around, looked at the mountain of corpses, and his lips moved slightly, as if he wanted to say something. But in the end, he said nothing.

He only closed his eyes, took a deep breath, then opened them again and, with all his strength, hurled the torch.

The fire blazed through the air, drawing a bright arc, and under the setting sun, landed atop the mountain of corpses.

"Boom!"