novellaaa Chapter 1 The Devil's Lips
Chapter 1 The Devil's Lips
"My lord! I'm truly innocent... Ughhhh!"
"Shut your filthy mouth, you damned sinner! If you dare utter another sound, I'll break your legs!"
The dull thud of batons striking flesh, the crisp sound of bones breaking, the desperate screams, and the piercing laughter intertwined to form a chaotic symphony.
A cacophony of noises roused Simon von Alter from his slumber.
As the vision gradually cleared, the first thing that caught my eye was a cheap brown linen prison uniform.
The clothes were clearly ill-fitting; the shirt hung loosely on his body, while the pants were tightly constricted to his thighs, the rough fabric rubbing against his skin, stained with dark red, hardened bloodstains.
It seems he received a lot of "special treatment" during the transport.
Inside the carriage, the other passengers were all "sinners" dressed the same as him. They were placed on rusty metal benches, their wrists and ankles held together by cold, solid metal. The air was thick with the stench of sweat, blood, and a strong, nauseating smell of rust.
Where am I?
He had just begun to question this in his mind when the ambient sound provided the answer.
Clang, clang—
The sound of the axles turning was incessant, and the air was filled with a mixture of rusty smells and the smell of cheap diesel fuel.
A wave of dizziness washed over me, my ears felt like they were stuffed with cotton, and my eardrums were throbbing with pain…
Based on his experience as a medical intern, these are symptoms of decompression sickness.
This is a common symptom experienced by divers and pilots. As altitude increases or decreases rapidly, air pressure changes drastically, and the pressure inside and outside the eardrum cannot be balanced, resulting in a noticeable feeling of blockage in the ear. The vestibular nerve in the ear is also affected, causing persistent dizziness.
They were descending vertically in a hinged elevator, their destination seemingly an unfathomable abyss.
On the walls of the descending passage, dark green fluorescent moss emitted a faint and eerie glow, outlining the jagged contours of the rocks.
The texture of the rocks on both sides did not resemble a natural creation, but rather the dark red, slimy viscera exposed after the flesh and skin of some enormous creature had been stripped away.
Fragments of memory, like glass shattered by a hammer blow, pierced Simon's mind with sharp edges:
In his previous life, he was a medical intern who tragically died suddenly in a hospital...
In this life, he is a scholar in the locked library of the Steel Sun Empire.
This was a thankless job. Not only was the pay low, but every week you had to undergo an imperial interrogation, being questioned for three or four hours in a hot and stuffy little dark room by the censors. You would come out covered in sweat, and many colleagues quit because of this.
Simon was one of the few who persevered, simply because he preferred a quiet working environment and loved books and old parchment scrolls that contained knowledge and history.
I thought life would be a mundane, monotonous cycle, until that day...
A petty thief sneaked into the library and stole something, triggering an alarm. Simon gave chase.
Thanks to his strong physique honed through daily training, he successfully caught up with the thief under the shadow of the tall bookshelf and knocked him to the ground with a powerful punch.
The stolen goods fell to the ground...
A tattered diary, marked with a scarlet "taboo" mark, now only half-finished!
The tattered diary opened a page as if by a cruel twist of fate. What Simon caught a glimpse of was not words, but a distorted and bizarre diagram of fungal structure, depicting a blasphemous scene of flesh and aliens coexisting. With just one glance, the image was imprinted on his retina as if it were a living thing!
Boom—
The silence was shattered by heavy footsteps! The library's heavy oak door crashed open with a loud thud!
In the shadows and dust, there was a figure draped in a black robe and wearing scarlet metal armor, the two observation holes on the helmet emitting a chilling red light.
There were no words, only a large, cold hand covered in metal gauntlets, gripping his throat like an iron clamp...
On their chests, the armor bears their emblem—a precise scalpel crossed with a brutal butcher's saw, the symbol of the Empire's excision squads!
The Body Removal Squad belongs to the Empire's "Inquisition," and its members are inquisitors with the authority to directly try "heretics"!
The judge's emotionless, cold voice, like the grinding of gears, echoed throughout the library:
"Scholar Simon von Alter! You have violated the sacred laws of the Sun Empire by stealing and rummaging through contraband! Your body and soul have been corrupted, and you have fallen into an unforgivable sinner! Verdict: Atone with your flesh and blood!"
Without allowing him any defense, after the verdict was announced, a heavy metal fist slammed into his temple, and darkness swallowed his consciousness.
When he awoke again, he had been stripped of his scholar's robes and dressed in the burlap prison clothes of a sinner, and was being escorted by the guards to an unknown abyss.
A cold resentment flashed in his eyes. One absurd encounter, one brutal trial, and he went from being an imperial scholar to a "sinner" whose life was as worthless as grass.
The elevator, carrying his turbulent thoughts, tirelessly descended into the deeper darkness...
Clang—Squeak!
The elevator suddenly stopped, emitting a piercing metallic scraping sound, and finally came to a halt, the enormous inertia causing the prisoners to stagger.
The guards removed the iron shackles from the prisoners and ordered them to line up and walk forward.
Looking into the distance, a narrow crevice remains between the joined rock walls, forming a terrifying spectacle resembling "lips".
At the entrance to this bloody hell, the Blazing Sun Empire constructed its own cold order using metal.
This is a steel lair located in the "Devil's Lips".
The space was exceptionally open, yet it felt oppressive and cramped due to the ubiquitous steel structures. Huge, rusty steam pipes, like thick blood vessels, crisscrossed along the rock walls and dome, while several heat dissipation wells spewed out milky white steam, radiating scorching heat.
A humid, scorching wind, thick with the stench of rotting flesh, raged violently against his disheveled black curly hair, like the breath of a giant beast.
Simon von Aalt, once a scholar confined to the library, now a "sinner," straightened his slightly hunched back against the fierce wind.
In his pure black eyes, despair was forcibly suppressed, replaced by an almost cold focus.
He was innocent, that much is certain, but in this hellish scene, no one will speak out for him.
He can only regain his freedom by himself.
Amid the guards' shouts and shoves, the criminals passed through four steel gates covered with spikes and arrived at a wide square.
In the center of the square stood a circular sculpture, which made the sinners stare wide-eyed and terrified.
Simon stared solemnly at the sculpture, the emblem of the Steel Sun Empire, and proof of the empire's conquest of this land.
The empire's coat of arms is a man-made metal sun made of countless gears and pistons. At the center of the sun is a human face cast from molten metal, expressionless, with two deep holes in its eyes, which now indifferently gaze down upon the sinners in the square.
On the left side of the square, a heavy iron gate covered with rivets slowly opened inward amidst the noise of the hydraulic system.
In the darkness, a dazzlingly white figure slowly emerged...
He was unusually gaunt and hunched over, wearing a faded, out-of-place priestly robe.
Beneath the hood was a face covered in deep wrinkles, rough and ugly like dried tree bark, with sunken eyes and cloudy pupils that were almost indistinguishable in the shadows. His figure appeared unusually thin and weak under the wide robe, as if a gust of wind could blow him over.
His gray, cracked lips twitched stiffly upwards as he tried to put on a kind smile, but it only made his deeply lined face look even stranger.
"Welcome to the abyss, lost children."
The old man's voice was hoarse and dry, yet it carried a strange, soothing gentleness.
"Your flesh and blood are stained with sin, your souls are defiled by taboos, but the great emperor has never abandoned you. He has mercifully given you a precious opportunity for redemption. Go to the deeper abyss, bring back pieces of the devil's flesh, and you will be able to embark on the path of atonement."
His withered fingers pointed to several large, foul-smelling barrels covered with tarpaulins beside him.
"Take up the relics of the pioneers and embark on your path of atonement."
He lifted the tarpaulin, and a strong stench of blood and humid slime hit him.
Seven sinners, including Simon, gathered around the large barrel, collecting their "initial equipment"...
The bucket was filled with all sorts of inferior equipment stained with dark red blood, green slime, and even suspicious bits of flesh: worn-out leather armor, tattered coarse cloth clothing, rusty nail guns, chipped and dulled daggers, and a simple leather bag made of some unknown animal hide.
"Go ahead, children, this is the Emperor's grace!" The priest's voice carried a morbid fanaticism.
With a sharp look, Simon swiftly pulled out a nail gun that was relatively clean, but still had dark brown stains on the barrel and grip.
The corresponding knowledge surfaced in his mind: the Type 3 Skull-Crushing Nail Gun, an ancient artifact developed during the first expedition of the Lieyang Empire.
The advantages are high damage and cheap ammunition, while the disadvantages are single-shot loading, extremely short range, severe bullet drop after 20 meters, and complete loss of accuracy.
A nail gun, a leather bag, and a dagger—these were the equipment he chose.
He persisted with the nail gun, opened the magazine, and found that it still contained a steel nail bullet.
Suddenly, the strange phenomena intensified!
Ding--
A crisp click of a gun being cocked suddenly rang out from his left!
A tall prisoner with a scarred face deftly disengaged the safety of his nail gun, then whirled around and pressed the muzzle firmly against his target—the withered, hunched priest's forehead!
"Damn old bastard!" The scarred prisoner's eyes widened, bloodshot, his roar distorted by fear and madness. "You want me to go to that hellhole to die? Don't even think about it! Get your henchmen out of here right now! Or I'll blow your head off!"