Rules-related weird stories: 4016

May 9, 2023, 15:46, somewhere in the campus forest.

In that ancient and deep forest, darkness flowed freely in every inch of space like thick ink. The fog was like a ghostly veil, slowly moving between the trees, blurring the vision of many creatures and filling the forest with unknown terrors.

The current Mountain Man could no longer be described as equipped with ordinary exoskeleton equipment; a more appropriate term would be "exoskeleton armor." If Lin Yi hadn't seen it with his own eyes, it would have been hard to imagine that this set of equipment was assembled from several backpacks he carried with him.

Seemingly with the addition of other components, the current Mountain Man looked like a fully equipped "complete form." He had some dust on him and held a hardened, sculpted limb in one hand. It was certain that he had torn it from the body of a humanoid sculpture.

Lin Yi couldn't help but gasp, "This Mountain Man... could it be that he fought his way in bit by bit from the patrol circle of the humanoid sculptures?"

Those humanoid sculptures were clearly no match for him. Even the fanatical believers who charged up now were suppressed by Mountain Man in his "armor combined" state.

These fanatical believers seemed to have the ability to move quickly in the shadows, similar to the green-aproned chef. Lin Yi couldn't effectively capture their movements with his eyes alone, but he could still capture them with his perception.

However, Mountain Man remained unfazed even when facing multiple opponents, and even seemed to be getting stronger as he fought, which stunned Lin Yi.

"This exoskeleton armor is so powerful?" Lin Yi was secretly amazed.

Seeing that they couldn't defeat Mountain Man, the fanatical believers no longer held back. Their bodies swelled up, their muscles bulged, and their skin showed a morbid, bluish-gray color, covered with twisted blood vessels like the veins of ancient tree roots.

Their eyes flickered with a strange and cold golden light, looming in the fog, revealing endless ferocity and madness.

Fanatical believers... were not just fanatical believers, but also believers who could go berserk!

Lin Yi thought to himself that fanatical believers were, after all, heavily contaminated individuals. How could the bodies of contaminated individuals be weak?

However, compared to other aspects, their other aspects were stronger... Wait, were their other aspects stronger?!

"Could it be that physical strength is not their advantage...?" Lin Yi's heart suddenly skipped a beat.

In this state, the strength of the fanatical believers was greatly amplified. They stomped the ground hard with both feet, and the ground trembled slightly from the tremendous force. In this eerie and sinister environment, they charged towards Mountain Man like a gray lightning bolt, breaking through the fog.

A low roar came from their throats, a sound like muffled thunder rolling deep in the forest.

Mountain Man calmly responded, and the exoskeleton armor reacted quickly. The leg armor ejected white flames, and with the help of the powerful reaction force, the whole person leaped high, easily avoiding the fanatical believer's pounce.

In the air, he also took the opportunity to chop down the sculpted remains in his hand, but this was like an itch to the fanatical believer.

The fanatical believer missed, and its huge body crashed into a tree. The ancient trunk made a "creak" sound, and branches and leaves fell, spinning in the fog.

The other fanatical believers also rushed towards Mountain Man. They waved their thick arms, bringing a gust of wind. If one only looked at them being suppressed by Mountain Man, one would not be able to see how strong they were. But if one widened their field of vision, one would find that the surrounding thick old trees were scarred by their abrasions.

Kuai Hongji watched all this indifferently, still biding his time, like a mantis stalking a cicada, unaware of the oriole behind.

Mountain Man landed from the air, his feet firmly on the ground. He rushed towards the fanatical believers. At the moment of contact, he nimbly dodged to the side and pulled out a short stick of unknown material, slamming it hard at the arm of a fanatical believer.

The short stick fell, and the arm of the fanatical believer broke on the spot, but it was only broken.

At this time, the fanatical believer directly grabbed Mountain Man's short stick with his other arm and yanked him over.

Mountain Man decisively abandoned the short stick and quickly distanced himself from it. If he had been half a beat slower, his chest would have been pierced by the sharp bones exposed at the broken arm of the fanatical believer.

The broken arm of the fanatical believer began to flow out of some viscous dark red liquid, and emitted a pungent stench, but soon the liquid solidified into a plaster-like substance.

The fanatical believer was in pain and let out a shrill howl. The sound echoed in the forest, as if even the surrounding fog was lifted a little.

This strange sonic wave seemed to spread out with some kind of evil power. When it reached Lin Yi's ears, it made a sharp "buzzing" sound, causing him to frown.

Mountain Man was caught off guard. Affected by the sonic wave at close range, the light on the entire exoskeleton armor flowed, and the flexibility decreased a lot.

The nearby fanatical believers seized the opportunity, and a part of them released this magic sound to interfere with Mountain Man, and the rest were ruthless. Mountain Man was forced to switch from attack to defense, and gradually fell into a disadvantage.

"You really haven't made any progress!" The berserk fanatical believer did not lose his mind because of the mutation of his appearance. "It was this level more than 20 years ago, and it's still the same now..."

"Your vision is too short-sighted! How much suffering do you have to endure before you realize... that the people in the physics community used so-called 'science' to anchor your world because they couldn't break through the shackles in their entire lives!"

"Give up!"

"Under the End, only transcendence is eternal!"

Mountain Man gritted his teeth when he heard this: "A bunch of depraved things without personality, are you also qualified to instigate others?"

The fanatical believer's attack fell like a waterfall, but the voice in his mouth was still calm, even with some bewitching power in the calmness: "The ancients were also educated step by step... Those gods with human heads and different bodies, who said that they were not evolved from people who accepted transcendence in advance and embarked on the path..."

"The species system of so many human-faced snake gods in the Chinese Classic of Mountains and Seas, the so-called Nagas in other regions, etc., is it not worth carefully considering the mythicality and authenticity of their existence?"

"They can educate, why can't we?"

"The books and civilizations in the long river of history are just chapters left by a few victors. Who said that the path we are taking now is not another path that existed in human history?"

Mountain Man fought and retreated: "You even brought out the Classic of Mountains and Seas, why don't you cultivate immortality? If you talk about cultivating immortality, is this appearance the result of your choice?"

"Citing scriptures and classics, you say you don't understand? Very well..." The zealots' tone remained calm, but their attacks intensified. "In the Late Ordovician period, the Earth experienced its first major extinction event, known as the Ordovician-Silurian extinction event, which directly led to the extinction of 60% of species. However, subsequently, marine biodiversity began to explode, forming more complex ecosystems..."

"Therefore, the Ordovician extinction event had a profound impact on the Earth's biodiversity, paving the way for subsequent biological evolution and marking one of the key events in the Earth's life evolution."

"I don't need you to lecture me!" Shan Nan evaded a zealot's attack, retreating steadily, his defense about to collapse.

"Now, the emergence of extraordinary power is a stronger guidance and revelation... As epochs change, a large number of species may become extinct, but the dawn and day after darkness may be the truly wonderful future!"

Not to mention Shan Nan, even Lin Yi was about to be dumbfounded.

《What? The zealots who promote the extraordinary actually know more science than I do?》

Comparable to Newton, the physics giant in his ominous later years!

Hiss—what?! Newton was a zealot?!

It's not scary for zealots to be brainlessly fanatical; it's scary for them to be calm and cultured.

For example, Shan Nan now has his rational understanding and judgment being mercilessly rubbed from mythology to science by the zealots. For a moment, he couldn't interject anything other than crude language.

Seeing Shan Nan, who had a high-profile entrance but was quickly failing, about to stage a scene similar to Captain Flame's famous moment, Kuai Hongji couldn't help but frown. A rare trace of worry appeared between his gloomy brows:

"This guy... is losing momentum a bit too quickly..."

He glanced again at the remaining zealots on the desolate land.

Currently, the zealots who have appeared are all those whose large plaster figures have transformed into spherical, furious angels and left, while those who "have work to do" remain unmoved, diligently doing their jobs.

"This won't do..."

"We need to step things up..."

Kuai Hongji silently descended from the gnarled branch and then, with a movement even more bizarre than the zealots, constantly shuttled through the fog where light and shadow overlapped...

He seemed to predict Shan Nan's retreat path, arriving at certain places in advance to make subtle adjustments to the surrounding environment.

Thus, in some vegetation areas that were not easily noticeable, some withered vines and old trees were suddenly broken, revealing some things that had long been abandoned...

After completing these actions, he returned along the same path to the edge of the desolate land, watching the movement from afar, still patiently waiting for something.

On the other side, Shan Nan, who was constantly retreating and traversing the forest like Tarzan, suddenly spotted something, his pupils contracting sharply!

"That is...?!!"

He saw an abandoned pole sticking out from the crooked old trees.

"An abandoned lamppost...?!!"

"No... How could there be one here...?!!"

Shan Nan was shocked, but he couldn't care less. He landed on a treetop with a swift movement, using the strength of his exoskeleton armor to boldly break through the environment. Upon closer inspection, he suddenly shuddered.

He saw that the lamppost was dilapidated, covered in traces of erosion from the years.

In the depths of this dark and dense forest, in this corner overgrown with ancient trees, it seemed like a lonely old man forgotten by time.

But what truly made Shan Nan feel fear and shock was that on the surface of this abandoned lamppost, there were actually traces of red paint...

"This is actually... the legendary batch of lampposts with red paint markings?!!"

Some red paint markings remained on the lamppost. The red paint had faded, no longer a bright red, but a dull, almost rust-colored dark red.

The handwriting of the markings had also become blurred, with some parts even peeling off, leaving only some incomplete strokes, like ancient mysterious runes, making people unable to resist guessing the meaning it once represented.

The blurred words vaguely seemed like...

「...Sent...6...」

"This is a 'Black Moon Outpost' lamppost... exiled here in the layers of time?!!" Shan Nan trembled all over, like... some martial arts masters who knew the inside story seeing a Dragon Slaying Saber.

Even though the Dragon Slaying Saber was already broken and dilapidated.

At the top of the lamppost, where the lampshade and light should have been installed, only a broken interface remained, and some of the surrounding decorations were also damaged and uneven, as if they had been roughly torn off by something.

Around it, tree roots, like winding pythons, protruded from the ground, tightly entwining the base of the lamppost.

Some tree roots even embedded themselves in the rust of the lamppost, as if to slowly devour it, making it part of the forest.

The surrounding grass also grew rampantly, taller than the base of the lamppost. When the breeze blew, the grass swayed gently, forming a sharp contrast with the silence of the lamppost, further highlighting its desolation and loneliness.

This abandoned, dilapidated lamppost with red paint markings was like a forgotten secret in the forest, quietly standing there, silently being swallowed and assimilated by the surrounding environment.

With an excited heart and trembling hands, Shan Nan took a deep breath, his arms tightly gripping the lamppost, and light flowed on his exoskeleton armor.

"Rise—"

Shan Nan roared, as if possessed by Lu Zhishen, directly uprooting the lamppost with one hand!

「Clang... Boom!」

The soil broke, the gnarled roots snapped, and the lamppost emerged like a sword from a stone, tearing open a corner of the withered wood!

"What...?!!" The zealot was shocked, "How is there a lamppost buried here?!!"

Not only him, but the other zealots also showed disbelief.

"And it's a lamppost with red paint markings?!!"

"Hahaha—" Shan Nan laughed wildly. Having been beaten all the way and even crushed on an academic level, he was now filled with heroic spirit, truly as if he held a divine weapon in his hand.

He seized this opportunity, his back armor opened, spewing white steam, propelling him to rush towards the zealots again!

Upon seeing the red paint lamppost, even in its broken state, the zealots all moved away from Shan Nan, fearing to be hit by a strike.