There's No Love In the Deathzone (BL) novel Chapter 174

Chapter 174: Chapter 168. Mind Corrosion

With a start, the blue eyes opened and the sphere clanked against the inside of the tubes.

Zein stumbled back, crashing to the floor and gasping for air. He could vaguely hear sounds, voices from the speaker, but his ears were still ringing and buzzing and he still wanted to pour his stomach content into the floor.

He crawled to the wall, propped himself up, and punched his mask open to breathe. The tube had been closed shut again, fortunately, so he didn’t have to ingest raw miasma fog into his lungs. He wanted to take some Golden Needle right now, but the stuff and the lighter were in his coat outside, and there was something more important he needed to do right now.

After he felt like he had stopped choking, Zein pushed his body up and slammed his fist on the communication button.

[Sir--]

"Record," Zein growled into the microphone, and he heard silence for two seconds--two excruciating seconds--before he heard clicking noises from the operation room.

[Recording]

"Subject; Vision. Location; Deathzone," Zein paused to take a breath, before continuing. "A scene of miasmic beasts marching together into one specific location. The estimated number is between 300-400 above ground. The observed types are as followed..."

And then Zein proceeded to mention every kind of beast he managed to recognize during his vision, including the likelihood of Specter-type as the commander.

"The marching beasts are heading toward a specific direction, in which a creature of a higher level resides. Said creature finds out my presence and calls me a spy."

Zein paused here, as he found it got a little harder to breathe now, probably because he didn’t allow himself to rest properly. But he wanted to get everything out of his memory before his crappy brain decided to forget some details.

And before his mind was riddled with the other thing happening in his mind.

[Sir...this is...is this true?]

Zein looked up with a deadpan stare. Did he look like someone who would stay there and choose to hold an impromptu audiobook concert?

[I...I’m sorry, Sir, please continue...]

[No--can’t you continue after you come out, for fuck’s sake?] this time, it wasn’t the operator, but the Chief Researcher Fei.

Zein waved his hand dismissively instead, and continued to speak into the microphone.

"Speculation; high possibility of communication between Specter’s cores regardless of locations. Requesting deployment of isolation barrier on every core."

Another silence, and then a series of cursing as the Chief Researcher gave out some orders to the espers and the guards. Zein used the time to take another deep breath and continued after a short rest.

"The core...attacks soul space," he closed his eyes, and gripped the table hard to prevent himself from shaking. "Esper protects their soul with mana, because it overlaps with their mana cores. Civilians had no such protection, so the miasma attacks their souls, straight to their minds. Use...mental healing...for the comatose researcher..."

[Fine, alright, we’ll do it! Now can you get out of there and let yourself get fixed?!]

"Yes..."

[Thank you!]

Fei’s aggressive remark came with the hissing sound of the opening door. Now that the adrenaline had left him, Zein didn’t feel particularly fatigued--unlike how he usually felt after looking at the vision from the shards. Probably because rather than seeing a recording of the past, he just saw what currently happening.

As the doctor examined his vitals, some espers from the security team came and talked to him about the isolation barrier. They sent four magician-type espers to put on isolation barrier magic on each of the tubes then. Seeing that the process was instantly approved, it was either Radia already gave them authority to act without his golden seal, or he already knew what just happened.

But Zein couldn’t afford to worry about getting chewed right now. He just wanted to crawl into a corner and smoked his Golden Needle. Which was exactly what he did after the doctor and the healer declared he was fine. He went to the little bedroom near the shard room, the one he used the first time, and just leaned against the wall, pulling his knees close to his chest, and biting on the mana stick.

Because contrary to what the doctor and the healer said, Zein wasn’t fine.

He was trembling worse than the day he heard the story about his father. He was trembling so much he could hardly keep the stick between his fingers. He would inhale, and then proceed to choke on the leftover smoke.

He wanted to just dove beneath the blanket and curled himself there for eternity. He wondered if he would feel better when he slept it off, but he was afraid he would see them again in his dream. His mother, his father, his brothers...Bassena.

"Haa..." the blue eyes flickered, as Zein slammed his head against the wall. It hurt, but he regained a bit of sanity at least.