I'm Trapped in the Block

Chapter 248: Chapter 246: Riddled with Rust

Mo Ling turned to look at Bai Zhou and found him still wearing that same dazed expression. There was no sign of anything unusual.

The Fishmen by the fortress tinkered for a long time before finally discovering why the components were failing.

”Why is it all rust? Didn’t anyone notice this before?”

”That’s not right! There was no rust at all when we landed. This appeared later!”

The Fishmen’s components had all sorts of strange functions because of the Fishman-language runes carved into them. But now, the grooves of these engravings were filled with ugly rust, rendering the runes completely useless.

”Get rid of the rust, quickly!”

The Fishmen controlled the components around them, lining them up in a row. They began to circle the fortress like window-washing platforms, and as they moved, the components shot beams of red light at the rust-covered surface.

After the red light passed over, the Fishmen hurried back to the fortress’s surface to check on the rust removal inside the engravings. The situation, however, was even worse than they had imagined.

”It didn’t work?”

One Fishman brought his face close to an engraving and scraped at the rust with an armored finger, but it showed no signs of coming off.

He then extended a sharp blade of light from his fingertip and carefully sliced inside the groove a few times. The light blade carved new scratches into the original rune engraving, but it had no effect on the rust whatsoever.

The Fishman froze on the spot, stunned by what he saw.

The other Fishmen rushed over to the rust-covered runes and tried everything they could think of to get rid of the rust.

”Use the rust remover!”

Using the components at their sides, they synthesized a semi-solid yellow liquid out of thin air and sprayed it onto the fortress. After waiting a moment, they washed it off with water.

However, the rust remover had no effect either. After several attempts, the amount of rust in the engravings hadn’t lessened in the slightest.

Not only that, but while the Fishmen were experimenting, the rust continued to spread. More and more components began to fail as the corrosion advanced.

The Fishmen began to panic. But no matter what they tried, the rust remained completely unaffected.

”What in the world is this stuff? This isn’t rust at all!”

They finally realized that this ”plague” creeping across the entire fortress was no ordinary rust.

In their desperation, some Fishmen even wanted to cut off entire sections of components, but Jeff quickly stopped them.

He raised his hand, opened a small gap in the protective shield, and swiped at the fog. Then he asked a subordinate, ”Is this fog related to the rust?”

”One moment, General. I’ll run a scan.”

The subordinate moved to the side of the fortress and, controlling a nearby component, carefully tapped one of the rust-filled rune engravings.

A moment later, he returned to Jeff’s side, his voice filled with excitement.

”They’re the same! General! The unknown substance in the rust is identical to the one in the fog! They’re actually the same thing—one is just a liquid and the other is a solid.”

”The fog solidifies and becomes this rust!”

As if worried Jeff wouldn’t believe him, the subordinate quickly transmitted his scan data to the entire Fishman collective’s communication channel. He even made a side-by-side comparison chart.

Mo Ling saw the comparison chart as well. He couldn’t understand the technical jargon, but the identical patterns and the conclusion were easy to grasp.

’A ninety-seven percent similarity rating?’

Aside from some differences in impurities and concentration, the fog and the rust on the fortress were indeed the exact same substance.

The moment the scan results were broadcast to the collective, another wave of panic erupted. However, the Fishmen quickly composed themselves. A team immediately commanded their components to project a protective shield, sealing off the entire fortress.

The fog was held at bay.

But even knowing the fog was the culprit behind the rust, they had no way to remove it.

Although the fog had been forced outside, the rust on the fortress continued to spread unabated.

Helpless, the Fishmen could only watch as the rust continued to devour the runes that were still intact.

It was like an inextinguishable fire consuming an entire building.

”Salvage the unaffected components. Leave the rusted ones behind.”

Jeff gave the order decisively. The Fishmen didn’t hesitate, immediately beginning the salvage operation.

Jeff stood his ground, silently gazing up at the ever-corroding fortress and the bustling Fishmen. The lights on his armor flickered faintly as if he were deep in thought.

Without moving, he slowly asked the subordinate beside him, ”Do you remember what the Chali Race said before?”

”What?” The subordinate didn’t immediately understand and just stood there, stunned.

”Death. Spreading death,” Jeff explained, then repeated the words of the Chali Race:

”The price of learning of eternal life is that everything around you will be tainted by death. Death itself will envelop you like a thick fog, accelerating the decay of all things. Even if you achieve immortality, this fog will haunt you forever.”

”The fog is death, and the rust is death. By understanding eternal life, we have become ensnared by eternal death.”

He looked at his subordinate and asked, ”Do we have records of the fog’s concentration?”

”Yes!” Though confused, the subordinate quickly sent the records to the communication channel.

It was a graph showing a continuous upward trend.

The x-axis represented time, and the y-axis represented the fog’s concentration.

Jeff stared at the curve on the graph for a long time before speaking again.

”Yes, the change in the fog’s concentration matches up.”

”The fog began to thicken the moment we learned the method for eternal life, but the rate of increase was relatively slow. After we began our experiments, the curve hit an inflection point. The concentration has been rising faster and faster ever since.”

Mo Ling glanced at the graph as well. The slope of the curve was indeed increasing, growing ever steeper.

’But what does that mean?’

Soon enough, Jeff stated his conclusion.

”The fog’s concentration is related to the extent of our understanding of eternal life.”

”In other words, the closer we get to eternal life, the closer death gets to us.”

As he spoke, Jeff once again swiped at the fog beside him, then summoned his protective shield, forcing the mist back.

However, as Jeff’s words spread through the collective, the live-updating graph suddenly changed. The already steep curve bent sharply upward, shooting nearly vertical.

The fog’s concentration surged once more.

”It seems this realization also counts as ’understanding eternal life.’”

Jeff shook his head, exasperated.

He likely never expected his own deduction to trigger such a violent reaction from the fog.

”So it’s tied to knowledge itself. This is going to be tricky.”

The suddenly enraged fog shrouded their surroundings in darkness. Outside the hexagonal protective shield, tendrils of mist beat against it relentlessly.

The roiling fog was like some unknown life form, desperate to get inside the shield.

Not only that, but black flecks began to rapidly crawl across the shield, like flakes of rust...

CRACK.

Mo Ling thought he heard the sound of something shattering.