At the side of one machine, a battered human body had been "embedded" in the flesh and blood. His neck was bent at an extremely unnatural angle, his head nearly parallel to the floor. His cheeks looked as though they had been gnawed on by some animal, a bloody mess with white facial bones exposed in many places.
Yet he did not seem to be dead. A pair of bloodshot eyes stared fixedly at Sun Hang and the scavenger girl who had entered.
"Help... help... save me..."
He struggled to part his lips and let out a faint plea for help. But every word he spat out was accompanied by sticky filth welling up from his throat and dripping from the corners of his mouth.
His torso had completely fused with the aberration's flesh... Rather than being embedded in the aberration, it was more accurate to say that he had become part of it.
Besides this scavenger, several other people were "embedded" in the aberration's flesh. Judging by their clothing, most of them were scavengers like him. One of them was even suspended upside down, feet pointing at the ceiling, his entire head wrapped in a huge mass of constantly writhing flesh... Yet his chest was still rising and falling rhythmically. He was not "dead," either.
Beside him was an elderly woman, still wearing an indigo work cap—the standard uniform for the mall's cleaning staff.
The cleaner's vital signs were already extremely weak. Her eyes were half-closed, and her breathing was barely detectable.
Sun Hang noticed that every person embedded in the aberration's flesh had several fleshy tubes connected to their bodies, like critically ill ICU patients covered in tubes. It was just unclear whether those tubes were supplying them with life-sustaining nutrients or draining what little vitality remained in