I’m Trapped in a Cube - Chapter 260:

“Immortality is still there, General.”

“Mm…”

The conversation between the two became increasingly brief, and the Moon Altars in the sky were rapidly extinguishing.

However, the moonlight didn’t dim because of this, instead, it grew brighter and brighter.

Under the increasingly dazzling moonlight, the light points also danced faster and faster.

In the constant cycle of stagnation and flow, the last Moon Altar in the sky finally lost its light.

Yet the moonlight still existed, pale enough to be suffocating.

The shadow beneath Mo Ling’s feet no longer existed, but the light points beside him continued spiraling upward, flying into the air.

Cool air rolled from the depths of the fog, making one shiver.

“Where is this moonlight coming from?”

Mo Ling looked around but saw no light source, yet the surrounding fog maintained its brightness.

The spotlight had disappeared, but the light remained.

Not only that, but the light continued increasing in intensity.

Gradually, the moonlight became so bright that Mo Ling could barely tolerate it. Everything in his vision turned white, and his armor’s visual functions were also affected, constantly popping up warnings showing unknown light pollution ahead.

Finally, when everything around him was dyed white and even those light points could no longer be seen, the air solidified again.

This time the degree of solidification seemed higher than before. Mo Ling waved his hand through the air a few times and could even feel that jelly-like stagnant sensation.

It was as if he was pushing through a layer of gelatin—a very peculiar feeling.

Next, Mo Ling felt changes beneath his feet. The soft feeling of mud everywhere disappeared, replaced by a hard texture like stone.

Not only that, but there were also some groove-like carved marks that were very rough.

After adapting somewhat to the white light, Mo Ling finally saw clearly that he was no longer standing on an open space, but on top of a Moon Altar.

He didn’t know which part of the Moon Altar this was. The carved marks on the ground were blurry, but those runic lines were incredibly familiar.

“How did I get on the Moon Altar?” Mo Ling was also very confused.

He didn’t remember moving around randomly. Ever since many Moon Altars had appeared in the sky, he had stayed in place the whole time.

While still puzzling over this, the weak conversational voices came through the armor’s channel again.

“Which time is this?”

“The eleventh time, General.” The other voice seemed very happy. “It looks like we succeeded, immortality has been replaced!”

“Don’t rush. Double-check carefully with the other tribe members,” Jeff said calmly.

“Yes, General.”

After a moment, that voice came again.

“We really succeeded, General. In our cognition and recorded data, all knowledge about immortality has been completely forgotten.”

The other voice was incredibly excited.

However, Jeff didn’t respond for a long time, as if he had fallen into silence.

“What’s wrong, General?” the other voice asked in confusion. “Is something not right?”

Jeff still didn’t respond, and the other voice didn’t continue asking. Mo Ling almost thought they had noticed him eavesdropping and left the channel.

Fortunately, before long, Jeff’s voice came again, though there was no excitement in that voice, instead, it was incredibly serious.

“Do you still remember why we wanted to replace immortality?”

“…”

The other voice also fell silent for a long time upon hearing this question.

He probably fell into the same confusion Jeff had experienced earlier.

“I don’t remember… General, I only remember that we need to replace immortality. I don’t remember anything else.”

Now neither of them spoke again.

Mo Ling listened to their conversation and immediately understood everything.

For the mermen, immortality wasn’t just a “skill” they could use, but also a kind of “knowledge.” When immortality was replaced, this knowledge would disappear completely.

Including the cost of immortality and the harm it brought, they would forget all of this.

Of course they couldn’t remember why they wanted to replace immortality either.

Understanding immortality would bring death, so the mermen wanted to forget immortality. But after forgetting immortality, they also forgot why they had wanted to forget immortality.

“General, I asked the other tribe members, and none of them understand why we were so obsessed with forgetting this skill,” that voice said in confusion.

“How long did it take us?”

“Two thousand two hundred years.”

“Why would it take so long to forget one skill? What did we do before?”

“I don’t know… General, the records… they’ve all disappeared.”

The two fell into silence again, clearly unable to process the current situation.

Mo Ling listened to their conversation and suddenly realized that these ancient mermen might have forgotten much more than he had originally imagined.

They were probably completely bewildered now too.

Before long, the conversational voices sounded again.

“Why are we all in this state?”

“I don’t know.”

“Why are there so few components left?”

“I don’t know.”

“Let’s leave it at that for now. Since we previously spent such a great cost to forget this skill, it must have serious problems. Our immediate priority is to figure out our situation.”

“Yes, General. I’ve briefly explored this island, but the conditions on this island are very strange.”

“Go ahead.”

“There’s a fog on this island that can accelerate the decay of objects. The animals and plants on the island have all evolved anti-decay abilities, and there are some rather peculiar carrion-eating creatures. But the strangest thing is that our bodies are also on this island…”

“Bodies?”

“Yes, our bodies seem to be occupied by other souls. They also call themselves the mermen race and use the same language as us, but their technological level is very backward—extremely primitive.”

“Is this a race that can forcibly seize bodies? Can our current combat power deal with them?”

“We haven’t discovered any body-seizing behavior from them yet. We can test them first, and if we can handle them, we’ll take our bodies back.”

“Alright, let’s do that. Have all tribe members assemble.”

“Yes.”

As the words fell, Mo Ling found that the Moon Altar beneath his feet instantly dimmed, with only those runic lines glowing faintly, flickering constantly like breathing.

A familiar humming sound echoed all around.

In the fog, it seemed like people were running on the Moon Altar. Several figures flashed in the dense fog.

Seeing this scene, Mo Ling also quickly became alert, vigilantly watching those gradually approaching figures.

However, there seemed to be many of those figures. They kept shuttling through the fog, seemingly avoiding those glowing runic lines rather than coming for Mo Ling.

But they were also getting closer and closer to Mo Ling.

Finally, that group of figures rushed in front of Mo Ling…

At the front of the crowd, a familiar fish head looked at Mo Ling. The Christmas hat on his head was conspicuously bright red, and the white ball had swung forward due to the sudden stop, hanging in the center and looking quite comical.

“Who are you!” Jeff spread his arms, summoned water currents, and vigilantly stared at the cube-headed figure in armor before him.