It was a deep green monster.
An Zhe crouched down and examined it.
It was nearly dead. In its abdomen were three bloody holes, each the size of a bowl's rim, from which thick black liquid was flowing. Its skin, which consisted of fine scales along with protruding spines and lumps, feebly rose and fell. Four of its five eyes were compound eyes, and they were shrouded over with an ominous layer of white. The fifth eye was tightly shut, and the dozen-or-so fist-sized compound eyes on the backside were dimmed.
In the Abyss, it was rare to see mortally wounded monsters like this one. This meant that it had just eked out victory in a struggle and that the aroma of its blood had not yet been noticed by other hunters.
It was not large, about the length of a newborn human baby. Of course, that did not mean it had always been that length, because the polymorphic-class monsters of the Abyss could freely change between many forms and sizes. Pauli had said that this would be inconceivable under the previous theoretical framework because some substances would vanish into thin air and other substances would appear out of thin air, but if it was explained using waves and frequencies, the changing of forms was merely an alteration in frequency, which was easy to achieve and understand.
Now, the reason why it looked like this on its deathbed may have been because it wished to die in this form. Perhaps it was its original form, or perhaps it was its favorite form.
An Zhe gently touched its head with his hyphae, but there was no reaction whatsoever.
"It's almost dead." He frowned slightly as he looked at the monster.
Next to him, Lu Feng only said, "It's raining."
An Zhe tilted his head back and saw that dark clouds had gathered overhead. With a "plop," a raindrop fell between the layered branches and leaves of the trees and vines and splattered on the ground. In the following second, yet another drop landed on the monster's wound. It spasmed, seemingly feeling pain from it.
The summer rain came so swiftly that in just a few seconds, white raindrops came pelting down thick and fast, sounding like drumbeats as they struck the leaves. Lu Feng covered An Zhe's shoulders and head with his uniform coat. An Zhe said, "When we came, there seemed to be a cave nearby."
He grabbed Lu Feng's hand and stood up, then hesitated for a few seconds. In the end, though, he picked up the small and trembling monster, and the two of them walked toward the nearby mountains.
"The shape isn't quite right," Lu Feng said.
But An Zhe did not feel anything in particular, for the Abyss had never been short of strangely shaped landforms.
The cave mouth was right there, a quiet opening between tangled vines.
The monster in An Zhe's arms was still trembling. Many years ago, he had dragged the severely-wounded An Ze back to his cave in a similar manner. Although he knew in his heart that the cave before him now was definitely not the cave from back then, he had the strange feeling that time and destiny were overlapping and that he was traveling the path from back then once more.
However, when he stood at the so-called cave mouth, he finally believed Lu Feng's assessment.
The cave mouth was not the commonly seen irregular opening, but an approximation of an arch. It was an abandoned building, squeezed by the raised ground into its current appearance. Within the Abyss, there really were some of humankind's ruined cities scattered around, and the sites had various buildings with different functions. In the span of a hundred years, the creatures of the Abyss grew upon and infested them.
Once inside, the surroundings were pitch-black with the occasional fluorescent glow from plants. An Zhe put the monster down, then placed the flashlight in an appropriate spot. The flashlight lit up a limited area. This place was a spacious hall, its furnishings long since decayed. It seemed to be a church. The walls were mottled with signs that monsters lived within, but they seemed to be from a very long time ago.
There was a sound of carapace scraping against stone as the dying monster moved five centimeters toward them. An Zhe reached out and touched the fluff on its limbs, and the monster's head turned. Unlike mammals, insects' eyes lacked pupils, so it was difficult to make out what their vision was focusing on, but An Zhe knew that it was looking at him.
Why was it looking at him? What was it thinking? What kind of feelings would a five-eyed monster have when it was on its deathbed? An Zhe did not know. Strands of white hyphae climbed up the monster's body and gently covered its deepest wound.
Its limbs twitched, as though the monster wanted to come to An Zhe, but in the following moment, all movement ceased.
It was about to die.
An Zhe looked at it without retracting his hyphae. It felt like there were eyes on him, and when he turned, he discovered that Lu Feng was leaning against one of the church's crumbling pillars with arms crossed and gaze cast in his direction, as though he were observing An Zhe's every movement.
"Did you do this often?" Lu Feng asked.
"Sometimes," An Zhe replied.
He knew what Lu Feng was asking. If he encountered a wounded creature in the Abyss, he would drag it back. Occasionally, a seriously wounded creature would live due to recovering in the safe cave, but the vast majority of the time, it would die.
It had been the same with An Ze.
Lu Feng was still looking at him.
"At that time, did you already have a human's consciousness?"
An Zhe thought back for a moment, then shook his head. He was just a mushroom at that time, and furthermore, he did not know how to describe a mushroom's living state in human language.
He pursed his lips, then continued. "If my hyphae broke, I would feel pain, and I was afraid of dying. So when I saw them about to die, I would think of ways to help."
After a long time, he saw Lu Feng smile. "That is something you would do."
The coat had gotten wet from the rain, and this place was particularly dark and damp. Fortunately, the backpack they always carried around contained a few blocks of charcoal. They set up a stand, made a fire, and turned the flashlight off.
"Are you cold?" Lu Feng asked An Zhe.
An Zhe shook his head, but he still moved closer to Lu Feng, and Lu Feng draped an arm around his shoulder.
Neither of them spoke. An Zhe leaned against Lu Feng's shoulder and watched the dancing flames.
"Will I be able to find An Ze?" he asked after a long while.
He and Lu Feng had agreed to stay in the Abyss for one month and at the base for one month.
Lu Feng did not dislike the Abyss. An Zhe even felt that the Colonel preferred the Abyss to the base. The Colonel knew many aspects of the Abyss like the back of his own hand. In this month, he could also collect many samples for the research institute. But no matter how skillful Lu Feng was or how much the scope was narrowed, the Abyss was still very big.