In Dragon Ball: A brutal beating of Frieza at the start

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"The hatch material contains a highly efficient shielding layer, hindering active scanning." The sentinel's cold voice carried a hint of electrical noise, responding quickly and objectively, "We can only confirm the presence of a single life signal behind the hatch based on residual life field fluctuations. Energy characteristics... still cannot match any known aberrations or standard human spectra in the database. We cannot determine friend or foe."

Should they risk contact, or leave immediately? Lin Ye's mind raced, weighing the options like a high-speed processor. If behind the door truly lay a survivor, a crew member who had miraculously survived the dual catastrophes of the "Main Brain's" collapse and the destruction of "Echo," then he might possess crucial information about the ship's current state, the root cause of the "Main Brain's" collapse, and even that elusive "Anchor Protocol"! This might be their only clue to escaping this crumbling steel tomb. But... what if not? What if it were some unknown entity, uncorrupted by the "Whispers of the End," yet certainly not benevolent? On this ship, anything "abnormal" meant deadly danger.

Just as he hesitated, the heavy metal hatch with the number "Equipment Storage Room-047" printed on it was slowly pushed open from the inside, leaving a crack!

No light shone from behind the door, only a deep darkness that seemed to absorb all light. And the sickeningly wet, dragging sound, as the crack in the door widened, became clearer and louder, as if it were right next to your ear.

Lin Ye's index finger tightened slightly on the trigger guard, his muscles tensing, every cell screaming for danger. Li Sha also subconsciously mobilized the little spiritual energy left in her body, her fingertips glowing with a barely perceptible pale light. Although the alarm bells of her weakened body were ringing in her mind, she was still ready to support Lin Ye at any time.

The crack in the door widened in the suffocating silence (relatively speaking, ignoring the damned alarm), eventually stopping at about half a person's width, like a silent entrance inviting one into an abyss.

Immediately afterwards, a figure stumbled out of the darkness behind the door, or rather, it would be more accurate to say that it slid out.

It was a humanoid creature dressed in a tattered, standard spaceship engineering uniform, stained with dark dirt and an unidentified slime. But his movement was extremely bizarre, even terrifying... He didn't walk; his lower body seemed completely powerless, like two limp sacks of dough, relying entirely on his two thin, bony, veiny hands to cling desperately to the metal door frame, slowly "dragging" his entire upper body out. His legs dangled limply on the ground, rubbing against the cold, rough metal floor, producing a continuous, chilling, slippery, sticky sound.

When his face was lifted and exposed to the flickering blood-red emergency lights of the corridor, Lin Ye and Li Sha couldn't help but gasp.

His face was extremely gaunt, with high, prominent cheekbones, sunken eyes like a skull, and cracked, peeling lips that showed the ashen color of long-term malnutrition and severe dehydration. But what was most unsettling were his eyes... unfocused, without pupils, only a murky, blank stare, as if covered by a thick white film, like dusty glass beads. Yet, deep within this almost deathly blankness, there seemed to be an extremely faint, flickering spark of reason, clashing with the pervasive atmosphere of madness and despair in the surrounding environment, giving one a strangely contradictory feeling.

His chapped lips parted, and a labored, gasping sound, like a broken bellows, came from his throat. He seemed to be trying to say something, but he couldn't form coherent words; only the hoarse sound of air passing through his dry throat could be heard.

"Is it human...?" Lisa's voice trembled with uncertainty. The scene before her evoked both pity and an indescribable eeriness and unease. A sliver of remaining rationality prevented her from immediately categorizing the other party as an enemy.

Lin Ye remained vigilant, his gun still firmly pointed at any angle from which the other party might suddenly attack. He asked in a deep voice, trying to keep his tone steady, "Who are you? Which department are you from? Can you still speak?" He needed information, even just a few words.

Upon hearing Lin Ye's voice, the "engineer's" cloudy eyes seemed to shift extremely slowly, struggling to focus on Lin Ye. His knuckles turned white from gripping the door frame with excessive force, and his thin body trembled slightly, as if even the simple act of supporting his head had consumed a tremendous amount of his strength.

“…Escape…Quickly…Escape…” He finally managed to squeeze out a few indistinct, hoarse syllables, his voice filled with endless fear and despair.

"Escape? From where? What happened? What's wrong with the 'mastermind'?" Lin Ye immediately asked, while carefully taking half a step forward to get closer so he could hear more clearly, but his body was always in a state of readiness to retreat at any time.

“…It…woke up…it’s different…it…” The engineer-looking man stammered, his face contorted with extreme fear, his muscles contorted as if recalling something horrific beyond comprehension. “…The mainframe…it’s not…it’s something else…down there…in the ’Abyss’…it woke up…”

"'The Abyss'?" Lin Ye's heart skipped a beat, as if he had touched a crucial clue. "What is the 'Abyss'? Where on the spaceship is it?" He recalled the Sentinel mentioning that the vibrations were emanating from below the core control area and the main power module. Could that be the so-called "Abyss"?

But the other party seemed unable to provide any more specific information. His mind was clearly on the verge of collapse, and he kept repeating "escape" and "it's awake." His emotions became increasingly agitated, and his body trembled more violently. He tried to crawl forward on his hands to leave the dark cabin and escape some kind of invisible fear, but his limp lower body became a huge burden, leaving him to struggle helplessly in place, like a fish out of water.

Just then, the sentry's warning sounded again, the tone still calm, but the content made Lin Ye's heart tighten: "Warning! Target's life signal has detected violent fluctuations! Mental readings are extremely unstable! There are signs of high-frequency unknown external signal intervention! The risk of loss of control has increased dramatically!"

Almost as soon as the sentry finished speaking, the engineer suddenly let out a shrill, inhuman scream!

His cloudy eyes were instantly filled with a frenzied, violent crimson, and the last glimmer of reason on his face was extinguished like a candle blown out by a gale! He abruptly raised his head, his neck cracking, and his teeth, visibly turning black and sharp, emerged from his gaping mouth, accompanied by a low, threatening, beast-like roar! His hands, which had been gripping the doorframe, suddenly curled into claws, their nails turning black and sharp, and with a gust of wind, viciously clawed at Lin Ye's face, who was closest to him!

A sudden change occurred!

"Watch out!" Li Sha exclaimed, her voice trembling with tension.

Lin Ye reacted extremely quickly, dodging to the side the instant the opponent lunged forward. At the same time, he used his waist to lift the heavy gun butt, seized the opportunity, and slammed it hard onto the opponent's wrist that was grabbing him!

"Crack!" A clear sound of bone breaking rang out during a break in the alarm, particularly jarring.

But the opponent seemed completely oblivious to the pain. Missing its first strike, it immediately twisted its body in a bizarre, boneless, mollusk-like manner, defying human anatomy, and lunged at Lin Ye's lower body once more! Its speed far exceeded the weakness and sluggishness he had just displayed!

"He's infected! Or... controlled by something else!" Lin Ye quickly retreated to create distance while calmly making his judgment. He didn't want to waste his precious energy on shooting, and the opponent's brief, fearful display of rationality just now also left him with a trace of hesitation and doubt.

"Let me do it!" Li Sha suppressed the dizziness and nausea caused by the excessive consumption of spiritual energy and concentrated her remaining mental strength. She raised her hands and an invisible spiritual energy shockwave with a faint white light pushed forward, not to kill, but to try to form a barrier to push the opponent away and temporarily imprison them in place.

The psionic ripples struck the engineer precisely, abruptly halting his forward lunge. The space around him seemed to turn into viscous glue. He struggled and roared frantically, his twisted body contorting in various illogical movements within the psionic restraints, making him appear even more bizarre and terrifying, like a mad insect trapped in amber.

“How…how could he become like this?” Li Sha maintained her psionic output, beads of cold sweat forming on her forehead, her face as pale as paper. “He was still somewhat conscious just now! He was warning us!”

"Perhaps it's some kind of erosion we don't know about, or... he himself is another, more insidious product of the 'Main Brain' going out of control?" Lin Ye stared intently at the frantically struggling, inhuman "former engineer," his brow furrowed. "Sentinel, analyze the changes in his energy characteristics before and after the mutation! Find out the cause!"

"Analysis in progress... Before the mutation, the target's energy characteristics closely matched those of human crew members recorded in the database who suffered mild psychological trauma, accompanied by signs of severe physiological exhaustion." The Sentinel's data stream scrolled rapidly on the terminal screen. "At the moment of mutation, an extremely brief but extremely intense unknown psychological pulse was detected. The source direction... through triangulation, pointed to the lower region of the spacecraft, and the signal's penetration path depth far exceeded the range marked on the known structural icons. The pulse's energy characteristics have some similarities to the 'Final Whispers' contamination spectrum, but the core frequency and fluctuation pattern are significantly different, exhibiting more... aggression, coercion, and... a certain orderliness."

"An unknown mental pulse? From deeper within the spaceship? Not the 'Whispers'?" Lin Ye's heart sank, a chill creeping up his spine. This almost confirmed the engineer's last words before losing control: "Down there," "It's awake," "It's different." Could it be that the "mainframe's" loss of control wasn't merely a collapse of its own logic or contamination by the "Whispers," but had also unexpectedly disrupted the balance, releasing or awakening something older, more terrifying, and entirely different within the spaceship? That place known as the "Abyss"?

"What do we do?" Li Sha looked at the monster that was still roaring and struggling in the psionic restraints, constantly attacking the psionic barrier. A trace of pity flashed in her eyes, but more so a resolute determination to face reality. "He... he's beyond saving. I... I can't hold on much longer..." Her arms began to tremble slightly, and the psionic light flickered.

Lin Ye paused for a second, a complex emotion flashing in his eyes, then slowly raised his rifle, adjusting the energy output to the lowest stun setting. Although the hope was slim, perhaps even futile, he still wanted to try, to see if he could subdue his opponent, perhaps… there was still a sliver of hope for research or a chance to salvage the situation?

However, just as his index finger was about to pull the trigger...

"Pfft!"

A sickening, muffled thud, like flesh being pierced by a hard object, came from the engineer's chest.

A sharp bone spur, pale in color and with the texture of some kind of fossilized skeleton, covered in dark red viscous liquid and a few pieces of tissue, pierced through his tattered engineering uniform without warning, protruding from his chest near his heart! The tip of the bone spur was still dripping viscous liquid.

All the engineer's movements and shouts came to an abrupt halt. He lowered his head with great difficulty and extreme slowness, staring incredulously at the sharp object that was not his own body emerging from his chest. The last trace of frenzied bloodlust in his eyes was quickly replaced by a deathly, lifeless gray. Then, his body went limp, collapsing completely to the ground like a puddle of mud, twitching twice before falling still.

Lin Ye and Li Sha suddenly looked up, their eyes blazing, staring intently at the still-open, dark hatch that resembled the mouth of a giant beast.

In the dense shadows within the doorway, a short, hunched figure, whose outline seemed haphazardly pieced together from countless pale, uneven bones, was slowly retracting the grotesque bone spur dripping with viscous fluid. The movement possessed a cold, inanimate precision.

Moreover, it... or rather, they, are not just one.

In the darkness behind the first bone-spiky monster, several more pairs of small, ghostly green lights, like will-o'-the-wisps, appeared. They were eyes, eyes filled with the most primal, pure greed and predatory desire, staring intently and emotionlessly at Lin Ye and Li Sha outside the door.

A cold, viscous malice, so different from the frenzied twisted cultists, yet more orderly and pure, like a living poisonous fog, spread from the darkness within the doorway, instantly enveloping the two people at the entrance of the corridor...

Chapter 571 Bone Spurs and the Abyss

Time seemed to freeze for a moment amidst the piercing alarm and flashing red light.

Inside the corridor, the air seemed thickened and chilled by the monsters that emerged from the dark chambers. There were about four or five of them, roughly the size of small human children, but their bodies were covered in pale, rough, seemingly randomly spliced ​​bone armor. Sharp bone spurs protruded menacingly from their joints, like weapons born for slaughter. Their heads were almost entirely devoid of flesh; on their bare, irregularly shaped skulls, their eerie green eyes burned like will-o'-the-wisps, fueled by a pure thirst for life energy and a primal desire for destruction. No rationality could be seen, only the instincts of a predator.

The weapon that killed the mutated engineer was one of the extended, retractable, sharp bone spurs, like a mantis's foreleg. It was now slowly retracting, dripping dark red slime.

“It’s… a new aberration?” Lisa’s voice tightened, and she instinctively took a half-step back, leaning against the cold bulkhead. She had already expended a significant amount of her psionic energy restraining the engineer who still retained a sliver of sanity; now, facing these monsters radiating a completely different, more purely physical malice, she felt a pang of fear and helplessness. These “skeletons” felt entirely different from the gore-covered aberrations.

“Not like it.” Lin Ye’s eyes were sharp as a hawk’s, quickly scanning every detail of the group of bone-white monsters—their movements, postures, and the bone armor covering their entire bodies. “Their energy signatures are completely different from the flesh-and-blood aberrations spawned by ‘Echo.’ More…primitive, more direct, like tools highly specialized for killing. Sentinels, record and analyze! Find their weaknesses!”

"Recording. Target energy characteristics: High physical aggression, abnormal bone density, physical defense estimated to be more than three times that of a standard human soldier. Mental fluctuations show a high degree of uniformity, suggesting the existence of a low-level group consciousness or unified command. The energy attributes have a weak low-level correlation with 'Whispers of the End,' but the manifestations are completely different, extremely biased towards physical enhancement and hunting instinct. No matching record in the database. Tentative name: 'Bone Walker.'" The Sentinel's cold voice quickly reported the analysis results.

“Bone Walkers…” Lin Ye murmured the temporary name, his unease growing stronger. Deep within the spaceship, there were indeed other “things.” These “Bone Walkers” didn’t seem to be products of the twisted evolution sought by “Echoes,” but rather more like… efficient scavengers, or hunters existing specifically for a certain purpose.

"Hiss—!"

The lead, slightly larger bonewalker let out a sharp, piercing screech, like bones grinding together, shattering the brief stalemate. Its eerie green eyes were fixed on Lin Ye, seemingly identifying him as the greatest threat. Its hind legs, covered in bone armor, slammed into the ground, even scraping the metal floor. Its entire body transformed into a white blur, moving with astonishing speed, lunging straight for Lin Ye's face! Simultaneously, the bone spike on its arm, the one that had just delivered the kill, sprang out again like a venomous snake, accompanied by a foul stench, aimed directly at Lin Ye's throat! Intending to kill him instantly!

"You're courting death!" Lin Ye's eyes turned cold, his killing intent surging. Against this kind of purely physical attack enemy, a rifle with depleted energy was actually ineffective; close combat was far more efficient. He instantly swung the rifle behind him and fastened the sling. Just as the bone spike was about to strike, he executed a precise sidestep, narrowly dodging the fatal thrust! At the same time, he clenched his right fist, his arm muscles bulging, the faint traces of energy remaining on his knuckles swirling around (though its effectiveness against this type of enemy might be diminished, it was better than nothing). A heavy, powerful hook punch, brimming with all his explosive force, slammed into the bone walker's ribcage joint like a cannonball!

"boom!"

A dull thud, like striking solid metal, echoed through the corridor. The bone walker was sent flying sideways by the powerful punch, crashing heavily into the metal wall with a loud clang, even creating a shallow dent and producing a sickeningly loud cracking sound. It struggled to get up, but a dent was clearly visible in its ribs, cracks appeared in its white bone armor, its movements became unusually sluggish, and the light in its eerie green eyes dimmed considerably.

However, Lin Ye frowned slightly and shook his slightly numb fist. He felt the recoil from his fist was unusually hard; the monsters' bones were far stronger than expected, almost like alloys. Moreover, the energy of order attached to his fist seemed to have a far less noticeable purifying and restraining effect on them than it had on the "Echo" creations; it was more like a pure energy shock. These guys might have a high resistance to energy attacks.

Just as he repelled the first one, the other bone walkers moved! Instead of swarming forward like wild beasts, they displayed astonishing, almost military-like coordination! Two attacked from the front and sides, brandishing bone spikes as feints to draw Lin Ye's attention, while the other two, with their small stature and incredible speed, moved like ghosts, skimming the ground, respectively targeting Lin Ye's unprotected ankles and Li Sha's flanks and rear! Their division of labor was clear, and their attacks were cunning!

"Get out of my way!" Li Sha shouted, forcing herself to stay alert. Although she had very little psionic energy left and her head was throbbing, she could still use basic psionic strikes. She pushed forward with both hands, and an invisible wave of power, carrying a faint pale light, shot out and struck the bone walker charging towards her precisely!

"Bang!" The bone walker was thrown away by the psionic shock, rolled several times on the ground, and knocked over an abandoned toolbox. But it shook its head, seemingly not too badly hurt, and immediately got up again, its eerie green eyes even more ferocious.

But another bone walker, which was skimming the ground and attacking Lin Ye's lower body, successfully took advantage of its companion's feint and Lin Ye's blind spot. Its sharp bone spikes, like the stinger of a scorpion, pierced straight into his fragile ankle ligaments! If this hit, Lin Ye would instantly lose the ability to move!

At the critical moment——

"call out!"

A thin but extremely precise beam of crimson energy shot out from behind Lin Ye—or more precisely, from the rifle's auxiliary firing port connected to his wrist terminal! The beam, as if it had a life of its own, instantly pierced the very center of the Bone Walker's head!

It was the Sentinel! Through Lin Ye's terminal, it forcibly overloaded the last bit of energy remaining in the rifle, connecting to the aiming assistance and micro-control firing system, providing this decisive and precise shot at the critical moment when Lin Ye couldn't attend to anything else!

The eerie green light went out instantly, like a candle being extinguished. The bone walker twitched, collapsed to the ground, and lay motionless, leaving a small, charred hole in its skull.

"Well done, Sentinel!" Lin Ye praised amidst the chaos, feeling slightly relieved. At the same time, he swiftly swept his leg low, sending a bone walker that was feigning an attack from his left side off balance and crashing heavily to the ground! Before it could struggle, Lin Ye's massive foot slammed down with tremendous force!

"Crack!" A chilling cracking sound rang out as the skull of the Bone Walker was crushed, scattering white bone fragments and a little dark slime everywhere.

The remaining two Bonewalkers (including the one Li Sha had repelled) let out a rapid, sharp screech as their companions fell one after another within seconds, their voices seemingly carrying some kind of message. They ceased their attack and began to slowly retreat, their eerie green eyes fixed on Lin Ye and Li Sha, especially on the terminal on Lin Ye's wrist that had just emitted a deadly beam, their vigilance heightened to the maximum.

"They...are scared?" Li Sha gasped in surprise. These monsters, which seemed to have only a hunting instinct, actually showed signs of fear and retreat?

“It’s not just fear,” Lin Ye said, his vigilance growing even stronger as he stared intently at the retreating Bone Walkers and the still-open, dark hatch behind them that seemed to connect to hell. “It’s more like they are… reassessing the danger level of their prey, or waiting for instructions. Sentinel, did you notice their coordination just now? And their current behavior pattern?”

"Recorded. The target exhibits tactical thinking and highly efficient group cooperation capabilities far exceeding those of basic organisms. The retreat behavior is consistent with risk avoidance patterns after encountering strong resistance and suffering losses exceeding a certain threshold. It is speculated that there is a higher-level command node behind it, or a highly unified collective consciousness remotely controlling it."

Just then, the two retreating bone walkers had reached the hatchway. They did not retreat back into the darkness, but instead stood on either side of the door like trained guards, their eerie green eyes still fixed on Lin Ye and his companion like searchlights. They neither advanced nor retreated, forming an eerie standoff.

Then, a deeper, hoarse hissing sound, with a strange and unsettling rhythm, slowly emerged from the darkness within the door.

The moment the sound rang out, Lin Ye and Li Sha both felt a slight mental lapse, as if countless cold, tiny needles were simultaneously probing the periphery of their consciousness, trying to find a crack to burrow into. Even more chilling was that the remains of the previous mutated flesh and blood, which should have been completely dead, that had not yet been cleared from the corridor, began to wriggle slightly and unnaturally in response to this low hissing sound! As if drawn and summoned by some invisible force!

"A mental attack? Or... summoning allies?" Lin Ye shook his head violently, forcibly dispelling the nauseating mental assault, his face turning extremely pale. He could clearly sense that what was behind the door, in terms of both energy level and threat, was far superior to these "Bone Walkers" who were acting as "soldiers"!

"Warning: High-intensity, highly inducing and corrosive complex mental fluctuations detected! Source: Deep within the gate, approximately 15 to 20 meters away. The fluctuation frequency is highly homologous to the 'Bone Walker,' and the intensity exceeds that of an individual 'Bone Walker' by more than three orders of magnitude! The mental barrier has been slightly impacted! Recommendation: Highest priority, evacuate immediately! Repeat, evacuate immediately! Current odds of victory are less than 5%!" The sentinel's warning was unprecedentedly urgent and serious, and the data stream on the terminal screen flickered wildly.

Even without the sentry's reminder, Lin Ye knew they absolutely couldn't fight head-on. Their condition was already at its worst—ammunition and energy were almost depleted, psionic energy was exhausted, and physical strength was severely depleted. Facing an unknown and powerful being that might possess mind control or summoning abilities, staying would only lead to certain death!

"Go! Quickly!" Lin Ye made a decisive decision, shouted, and without hesitation pulled up Li Sha, who was also exhausted. Without even checking the direction, he ran as fast as he could along the route that the sentry had highlighted on the terminal screen, leading to the deeper part of the B-7 area!

In the instant they turned to flee, they seemed to sense the gaze of something from behind the dark hatch piercing through space and landing coldly on their backs.

The deep, rhythmic hissing continued, without an immediate pursuit. But the dark hatch, and the terrifying presence that might lurk within, were branded into their minds, emanating a chilling aura of overwhelming power at the level of life itself.

The two dared not look back, running with their last ounce of strength, their hearts pounding in their chests. The whistling wind and their own heavy breathing filled their ears. Only after rounding several bends and completely leaving the eerie hatch out of sight, and even the unsettling hissing sound gradually fading into silence, did they dare to slow their pace slightly.

Leaning against a relatively intact metal equipment box that looked like a discarded logistics control console, the two men, holding onto the cold box, breathed heavily, sweat soaking their underwear and dripping from their chins. The relief of surviving a close call mingled with the chill of facing the unknown terror.

"What...what the hell was that?" Li Sha asked, her voice still trembling from running. "They looked...completely different from the 'Echoes'? More like...another kind of disaster?"

“I don’t know.” Lin Ye shook his head, his face so dark it could drip water. While cautiously observing the surroundings, he quickly said, “But it’s definitely related to the ‘mainframe’ going out of control and the system crashing. The ‘abyss’ that the engineer mentioned before he died, and the unknown mental pulses detected by the sentinels from the lower levels of the spaceship… I now suspect that our destruction of the ‘Echo’ core, or the collapse of the ‘mainframe’ itself, may have broken some kind of balance, releasing something older and more troublesome than the ‘Echo’.”

He raised his wrist and looked at the updated area map on the terminal screen. The area they had just escaped from was marked as "High Threat - Unknown Life Forms," ​​and below that, the darkness representing unexplored areas seemed to contain endless danger. The "abyss" that the engineer had mentioned was very likely there.

"We must find a stable communication method to contact the outside world as soon as possible, and we must also find a way to safely enter the core control area and shut down or control the 'mainframe'." Lin Ye clenched his fist, his knuckles turning white from the force. "This ship is not just collapsing, it is becoming a larger tomb, or rather... a hatchery and hunting ground for some terrifying being."

Just then, the terminal screen on Lin Ye's wrist suddenly flickered violently a few times, and the Sentinel's voice came through, accompanied by obvious signal interference noise:

"Received a...intermittent encrypted message from the spaceship's internal public communication channel...signal source...severely interfered with...unable to pinpoint exact location...attempting to decode...decoding complete...content...as follows..."

After a burst of loud, jarring static, a broken, utterly terrified, and desperate young male voice forced its way through the interference from the terminal's small speaker, each word trembling:

"...SOS! SOS! This is...Third Logistics Support Group...Alpha-734...We...we are trapped in the emergency shelter near the main intersection of Area B-12! SOS! Is anyone here who can hear us?! Repeat, any survivors who can receive this signal! Those...those white bone monsters! They appeared out of nowhere! They're everywhere! They're attacking the shelter's gate! The defenses are about to collapse! They...Ah!!!"

After a piercing, distorted scream, the communication signal was completely severed by some powerful interference, leaving only a continuous, irritating buzzing tone echoing in the silent corridor.

Lin Ye and Li Sha exchanged a sudden glance, both seeing utter shock and a chill in each other's instantly pale faces.

White, skeletal monsters... and they weren't the only ones who encountered them!

These terrifying hunters, known as the "Bone Walkers," are rapidly appearing and spreading throughout other areas of the spaceship! Furthermore, they are already launching organized attacks on survivor outposts!