Chapter 345: The Forest of Corpses and the Starry Night

Chapter 345: The Forest of Corpses and the Starry Night

Chapter 345: "Forest of Corpses" and "Starry Night"

“咈…咈…咈…”

As they continued to move forward, Lin Yi's breathing became slightly heavier, and his nasal breathing also showed some signs of disorder.

He sensed something and suddenly looked towards a certain place deep in the forest - he saw a flowering tree.

The snow-white flower buds are about to bloom, gathered in clusters, but they look awkward no matter how you look at them.

He took another closer look and was instantly horrified.

That's not a flower bud, it's clearly countless small skulls gathered together and placed on the treetops to form a strange skull flower!

Against the backdrop of the lingering white mist, the white skulls on the tree seemed to come alive, humming some strange tune through the howling wind.

When the wind blew, the skulls on the tree swayed loudly.

What's even more strange is that with the appearance of the first tree covered with big eyeballs and skulls, more and more similar trees began to emerge in the dense forest. They were looming in the mist, abstract and evil, exuding an evil aura.

As we walked, we saw ancient trees with twisted branches all over the mountains. Some of the trees seemed to have grown hands and feet. Where the leaves should have been, they turned into hands and feet one after another, but their roots were still in the soil and could not be pulled out.

The plants on this road seem to have broken away from the limitations of conventional "plants" and transformed from "plants" into some kind of hybrid life form of "animals" and "plants". However, if you observe more closely, you will find that those changes that are contrary to the normal biological map all carry a trend similar to sculpture.

Those things were like organs made of milky white gelatin, grafted onto old trees and continuing to grow.

Whether it is the eyeballs, hands and feet, or other parts of the body and organs, they all seem to be independent of each other.

"How about it, is this 'scenery' beautiful?" Lao Mo said calmly.

Lin Yi retracted his gaze and asked in shock: "What are those...?"

Lao Mo said: "These things are called the 'Forest of Corpses'... They are one of the 'research results' created by the fanatics."

"Those things you saw are all 'spare parts'. They can be used to assemble the young of the Wrathful Angel, or to repair the injuries on your own body... Of course, some of them can directly replace parts of your own body."

"For example, replace an eye, or other body parts..."

Lin Yi's eyes widened: "Fuck, what cyber ascension?"

Lao Mo didn't seem to understand the meaning of "Cyber" and had no intention of studying it. He continued, "The growth of these things is also affected by 'it' and carries 'it's' aura, which is similar to the passive effect of the scales. That's why those fanatics have the opportunity to pick up scales on its territory."

"I thought it was pulled out..." Lin Yi said weakly.

Lao Mo said: "'It' has long since broken away from the life form of 'artificial creation'. It grows and sheds its skin like a snake. The scales are what it sheds, and it also contains extraordinary power that far exceeds the Matrix."

"And the reason why 'it' has its current size is because every time it sheds its skin, it becomes larger. If this is not a gap between the layers but an area in reality, it would have been observed long ago."

Lin Yi immediately had a picture of a giant snake the size of a mountain appearing in S City University...

In front of "it", the size of those mountains is not big enough, and the size of the stadium may just be the size of an "egg"...

At this time, Lao Mo asked: "What time is it now?"

Lin Yi retracted his gaze and glanced at his watch: "22:34."

Lao Mo nodded: "Almost done, pay attention, there will be problems on this road soon."

Lin Yi quickly focused his attention.

Sure enough, at 22:35, Lin Yi began to feel some unreasonable changes in the ground beneath his feet. The originally soft sand began to become as soft as fat, and he felt a loss of balance when stepping on it.

After taking a few steps, he felt his center of gravity shift to varying degrees, swaying to the left with one step and rushing forward with the other, as if he was stepping on a water bed with extraordinary elasticity.

The trees around him also began to show the kind of distortion that had once only appeared in hallucinations.

Large tracts of trees seemed to have lost their original resilience and began to sway like water plants. The whole world seemed to be imprinted on a hypergeometric body that violated the laws of geometry. A distortion occurred that could not be seen with the naked eye.

Lin Yi looked at Lao Mo and discovered that Lao Mo seemed to have merged with the environment and was even twisted!

"You just go with the flow." Lao Mo's voice rang in Lin Yi's ears. Instead of helping Lin Yi, he began to teach Lin Yi.

“Keep your eyes on the road.”

“Don’t look at its distorted form… Look for the point in its motion that remains unchanged, reduce the distortion in your eyes, and make it appear relatively ‘normal’ in your perception.”

Lin Yi was confused by Lao Mo's words, and even completely unable to understand them.

"It doesn't matter if you don't understand. Just follow me and do it." After saying this, Lao Mo slowed down his pace, as if waiting for him.

However, this action of stopping still looked distorted in Lin Yi's eyes.

Lin Yi then tried to take a step forward.

When he stepped on it, the ground seemed to come alive and kept wriggling. The frequency was not something he could catch up with, but a golden light began to appear in his eyes.

When "Advanced Perception" was activated, everything around began to slow down, even the movement of the earth slowed down.

Lin Yi began to carefully feel the changes, looking for what Lao Mo called "the unchanging point in the movement."

Lao Mo originally wanted Lin Yi to explore slowly, but he didn't know what he sensed, so he quickly reminded him: "A line is made up of countless points, but the concept of 'point' is too subtle for me. You should enlarge the observation area a little bit..."

"Imagine that you are walking on an unstable suspension bridge, with wooden planks swaying under your feet. But whether it is wooden planks or anything else, there is a law behind it..."

"'Rules'... wooden bridge?" Lin Yi had a high level of comprehension and understood it immediately. "You mean, don't focus on the whole, and sort out the path under your feet first?!"

Seeing Lin Yi’s enlightenment, Lao Mo quickly said, “The waves are endless, but we only need to find one of them and follow it to the other side!”

Lin Yi said excitedly: "I understand!"

"It's not enough to just understand, get moving!" Lao Mo said, and he quickened his pace, leaving Lin Yi enough space to "catch up". Lin Yi took a deep breath, no longer paying attention to the distorted environment like seaweed around him, and focused all his attention on the limited space in front of him.

Take one step, feel the distortion within three steps, and observe the waves within ten steps.

He stumbled forward like a toddler, his movements were very awkward, but he still took every step within a safe range, and his progress was rapid. Within a few minutes, he could walk smoothly on the twisted ground.

At this point, his observation distance was far enough to be able to observe Lao Mo's back.

What’s interesting is that the figure of Lao Mo, which was extremely distorted in his perspective at the beginning, is no longer distorted when he observes it now. The road under his feet is no longer as distorted as it was at the beginning, and the feedback of stepping on it has also become much more "normal".

And this feeling of "normal" is becoming "more normal"...

"It's 'overwrite'!" Lin Yi suddenly understood something, "I overwrote the abnormality of the surrounding environment onto my own perception of the environment! It's not that the environment has become normal, but that I have integrated into this environment!"

In Lao Mo's words, it has already matched the frequency of the swaying of the wooden bridge.

“I switched myself from my original ‘channel’ to the same ‘channel’ as the distorted frequency band of this road?!”

In fact, there is no need to talk about "channels", this is the change in "layers", which penetrates from the first layer of the napkin to the second and even the third layer!

After a few more minutes, the road under his feet was no longer twisted at all, and Lao Mo's back also became extremely normal.

Lao Mo sensed his change and turned to look at him. A very ugly look of relief appeared on his face. "Not bad, not bad. You are adapting to the environment really fast... I am beginning to doubt whether you are a chameleon."

Lin Yi chuckled and said, "You taught me well."

"It's just barely acceptable. Let's stop bragging." Lao Mo made a cross and continued, "The road you are walking on now is the third stage to the Art Building."

"To be more precise, only when I walked along this road did I truly come into contact with the world where the art building is located."

Lin Yi was suddenly startled and quickly looked at the surroundings.

“This… is this?!”

"Take a good look at this. This is definitely a 'scenery' you have never seen before."

What unfolded before Lin Yi's eyes was indeed a world he had never seen before, a world that he could not even imagine.

The dense forest that originally grew around him turned into twisted and rough dark lines with green as the main color. The fog also turned into white lines. They were clustered here and there, surrounding one different center point after another, forming one spiral turbine after another.

From a distance, this is a world full of whirlpools. Originally it was just an ordinary distortion, but now it has formed a whirlpool of varying sizes.

Such a world shocked Lin Yi, and at the same time, he thought of a masterpiece -

"Starry Night?!"

Hearing Lin Yi's exclamation, Lao Mo was stunned for a moment, then he laughed: "Really?"

Lin Yi's shock could not be described in words. At this moment, he felt as if he was thrown into a starry night, and the starry sky was like the whirlpool he was in now!
"This... is this really a "Starry Night"?!"

"Are you dreaming?" Lao Mo denied it bluntly. "It's just a similarity. When you observe the outside world in this layer, you will see similar images. It's like oil-paper umbrellas with different patterns. When you fold them up, the patterns exposed on the surface of the umbrellas are almost the same as long as the colors are similar."

"Oh..." Lin Yi seemed to understand something.

"To put it bluntly, all chimpanzees look the same, but each one is actually a little different. If you're not an expert, you can't tell the difference. The principle is similar."

"Oh I see."

In this world full of whirlpools, the road under their feet becomes the only straight staircase.

And this scenery was indeed spectacular, as if the world was presented to him in another form.

Lin Yi couldn't help but ask: "How did this come about?"

Lao Mo shook his head and said, "I don't know. Maybe you can write them down and savor them slowly when you have time. If you can understand the mysteries here, you may be able to get some inspiration to crack "Starry Night"."

Lin Yi was surprised and asked, "'Some inspiration for deciphering "Starry Night"'? Are you talking about the "Starry Night" in the art building?"

"You even know this, and you still say you're not an official?" Lao Mo laughed, "You're just an experience student, but you only know things that 'experience students can't know'."

This thing is hard to explain, and Lin Yi could only smile bitterly and take it.

Then, he suddenly had an idea: "Oh, by the way, can you tell me what "Starry Night" is?"

Lao Mo said: "Everyone knows that it is a painting that Van Gogh left in the Art Building, but everyone also knows that it is more than just a painting."

“Uh, isn’t this nonsense literature…?”

Lin Yi just complained in his heart, and Lao Mo continued: "Then by chance, some people found the law of "layer transition", which is the "scenery" you see now."

"The first 'Apostle' who had a stable layer of vision observed this scene and realized that it had some similarities with 'Starry Night'..."

"After a long exploration and heated discussion on layer transitions, the Apostles came to a conclusion that is widely accepted - that is, coordinates."

"Coordinates?!" Lin Yi's pupils shrank slightly.

"Yes, the coordinates." Lao Mo nodded and continued, "["Starry Night" is most likely a coordinate], a coordinate that can only be found when the layers are jumping, a coordinate that corresponds to endless mysteries and the extraordinary!"

“So Van Gogh…”

“So Van Gogh left something somewhere on the Grand Line, left a coordinate, and said, ‘I left everything there, go find it if you want’?”

What the fuck is this extraordinary OnePiece?!

Vincent D. Van Gogh?!
The words of complaint were churning in his stomach, but in this context, Lin Yi didn't utter a word. Instead, he continued, "So what did Van Gogh... leave behind?"

(End of this chapter)