Chapter 809: Chapter 72: Dissolving Man (Part 2)

"Hey, I say, what do you mean by staying this far away?" Simmons said somewhat displeased, "Is my money meant to feed dogs?"

"Shut up, Simmons, what’s the difference between five meters and fifteen meters?" said one of the mercenaries holding a gun, "No matter if it’s a ghoul or a haunting spirit that crawls out once you open the door, I can blow its head off in one shot! As for you, stop dawdling, and open the door quickly!"

"Damn it!" Simmons cursed, tucked the pistol back into its holster, then grabbed the car door handle with both hands and pulled back hard.

With a loud "bang," Simmons swung open the car door, causing himself to stumble and fall to the ground.

A strong smell of blood immediately filled the air, and thick gore flowed out from the edge of the car door.

"Holy crap..." The two mercenaries squatting in the ruins didn’t fire but stood up in shock, taking off their goggles.

Simmons scrambled away from the car, and the onlookers also rushed to one side of the street, trying to see inside the vehicle clearly.

"What the hell is this?"

Only then did the crowd realize that the stuff covering the car window was actually a layer of slowly wriggling flesh membrane—almost the entire interior of the car was covered with this flesh membrane.

And the person seated in the driver’s seat—if they can still be called a "person"—looked like a wax figure near a heat source, with flesh silently melting, transforming into thick blood plasma, flowing down along the car seat, pooling inside the vehicle, then spilling out from the edges of the car door...

The thick gore wasn’t just blood, but a mixture of melted skin, muscle, and internal organs of this "person."

But even more astonishing was that this melting person wasn’t dead yet!

Many areas of its body had already exposed ghastly white bones, but its hands were still gripping the steering wheel, and its right foot was still on the brake—though the leg bone had lost its strength, had the car not been in neutral, Simmons might have been hit to the ground earlier.

The "wax figure" turned its head with difficulty, opened its mouth to the crowd, but couldn’t make any sound—because its vocal cords and organs had melted away, fully losing the ability to speak.

In other words, it hadn’t fully died yet, which in itself was a baffling fact.

"Plop."

One of its eyeballs fell out of its socket and dropped into the "gore" on the ground.

The eyeball rolled in the gore for a few moments, then quickly "withered" and eventually merged into the blood plasm.

Immediately after, the muscles and ligaments connecting the upper and lower jaws dissolved, and its entire mandible fell off its face.

"Oh my God!" Simmons’s hands shook slightly, gripping his gun, but he never pulled the trigger.

In the remaining eye of the melting figure, Simmons detected a hint of plea.

"Sorry, I can’t help you." Simmons stepped back two paces and shook his head again, "Buddy, no one here can help you, sorry."

As everyone looked on, the infected driver’s body completely turned into a pool of blood and pus, leaving only a ghastly white skeleton in the driver’s seat.

"Did he... did he drive the car back like this?" One mercenary stammered, "And the other cars..."

Everyone instinctively turned their gaze to the other vehicles in the convoy.

"Should we... help collect his remains?"

"Don’t touch them yet." An experienced old Hunter shouted, "Unless you want to end up the same way!"

"Then what should we do?"

"Send someone to inform the owner of the Spring Breeze... also..." The old Hunter thought for a moment, "Under no circumstances should you open the doors of the other cars!"

"Why?"

"Judging by how fast this person dissolved, there’s no way he could have driven from the no-man’s land to Yumen... which means the dissolving process started when Simmons opened the door." The old Hunter immediately pointed out the crux of the problem.

"You mean, I killed him?" Simmons paused, asking.

"No, it’s not your fault. He was doomed no matter who opened the door." The old Hunter shook his head, "We should now try to save the people in the other cars... at least, don’t let them die before they speak."

"Could it be because of the air?" The bearded guy had a sudden realization, "Simmons mentioned that the car door was sucked shut, which indicates the vehicle was in a completely sealed state before; forcibly opening the door caused air to rush in... Maybe they were infected with some kind of special meme which, upon contact with air, starts dissolving their bodies..."

"Besides air, it could also be sunlight, or something else." A female mercenary with deep blue short hair said coldly, "Don’t rush to conclusions... A misjudgment could kill the people in the other cars."

The bearded guy shot her a glance, quickly walked to the second vehicle, knocked hard on the window, and shouted loudly, "Hey, brothers inside! I know your situation is urgent! But to save you, we need to confirm your current condition! If you can hear me, make a sound! Flash the headlights twice if you can!"

"Beardy, are you blind... don’t you notice this car’s headlights are already smashed?" A mercenary chided.

The second vehicle was a modified van, but its entire front end was already smashed flat, fortunate that the van’s engine was embedded beneath, not at the front, otherwise, it might have long been scrapped.

The van’s headlights didn’t light up, but the wipers suddenly started moving.

"He can hear me!" The bearded guy shouted excitedly, "He can hear my voice!"

Immediately, he patted the window again, shouted, "Brother! Hang in there! We’ll find a way to get you out! If worse comes to worst, we’ll pack these cars off to Dragon City! Trust me, Dragon City surely has a way to solve this!"

Before the bearded guy could finish, a rather unfamiliar young man walked up to him.

"Who are you?" The bearded man glanced at Sun Hang and asked.

Sun Hang ignored him but placed a hand on the car door.

"What are you doing?" The bearded guy looked displeased seeing Sun Hang’s move, "Don’t mess around! Opening the door now could get them killed!"

Sun Hang didn’t open the door but let a slender mycelium drill a small hole in the car door, probing inside.

"No emotions, no memories... nothing." Sun Hang said somewhat regretfully, "Just a chaotic mess of memes, cell apoptosis, and the body’s collapse is completely irreversible... he’s already beyond saving."

"What are you talking about?" The bearded guy stared at Sun Hang, "And who the hell are you?"

"I’m saying the one sitting inside is already a dead man."

"Dead man? Dead men don’t drive cars! He just responded to me!" The bearded guy argued.

"That’s just the residue of bodily reflexes."

"Bullshit, reflexes can drive a car?"

"An obsession... or you could understand it as the last breath these people held onto before dying." Sun Hang explained, "When you stopped the convoy, that breath dissipated."