In the wake of that heart-stopping confrontation, a bizarre and fragile "peace" descended. The beast—whom David decided to mentally label "Patient One"—no longer showed any aggression. It simply huddled at the far end of the chasm, a dormant, living stone statue. Its dark red eyes remained fixed on him in the darkness, like a loyal yet fearful jailer guarding his own prisoner, and his only hope.
David seized this miraculous respite to begin mending his broken body. As a geologist, his knowledge of rock formations now became his greatest asset for survival. He carefully examined the texture and humidity of the cavern walls and soon found a tiny fissure seeping water droplets beneath a curtain of hanging fungi. The water was bone-chillingly cold and carried a heavy, mineral-rich taste of earth, as if from the planet's very veins, but it was the ambrosia of life.
Food was a trickier problem. The abyss was home to all manner of bizarre fungi. Some emitted a ghostly phosphorescence like will-o'-the-wisps, while others were as black as ink, like solidified darkness. Drawing on the biological knowledge accumulated from countless field expeditions, he began the most primitive and deadly form of self-experimentation. He tore off a small piece of the most common grey fungus, first touching it with the tip of his tongue. No numbness. He then chewed a tiny piece, holding it in his mouth for a long while, sensing for any unusual reaction from his taste buds or nerves. Finally, mustering his courage, he swallowed it and quietly awaited his body's final verdict.
After confirming it was non-toxic, this fungus, with the texture of soggy parchment and a complete lack of flavor, became the cornerstone of his survival.
His physical condition slowly improved, but the real challenge lay in how to "cure" his patient. The piece of blue moss was no bigger than a fingernail—his only, irreplaceable, precious sample. He had to treat it with the care and rigor of a Nobel Prize-winning experiment, allowing for no recklessness.
He began to treat the beast as an unprecedented research subject, starting a solitary observation without a notebook. He discovered that its behavior switched between two distinct states. Most of the time, it was immersed in pure bestial instinct: pacing restlessly, digging at the ground with its sharp claws, its throat rumbling with threatening growls. But at certain moments, especially when it stared in his direction, it would fall into a long stillness, its massive head tilted to one side, letting out that pained, whimpering sound. It was the ghost of "humanity" waging a silent, invisible, bloody war against the entity of "bestiality."
"I need more data," David whispered to himself, his eyes glinting with a scientist's unique fervor. "I need to verify the cause-and-effect relationship."
As if in a well-equipped laboratory, he began a controlled experiment, though the conditions were laughably crude. Using his fingernail, he scraped an almost invisible amount of powder from his treasured moss and sprinkled it upstream from his water source. When the moss-laced water flowed before the beast, it first sniffed cautiously, then recoiled as if scalded. But soon, an irresistible craving drove it slowly forward. It extended its long tongue and tentatively lapped at the strangely scented water. That day, David clearly observed that the time it spent in the "humanity" struggle state was significantly longer by several hours.
"Effective! But the efficiency is too low, and it's an extreme waste of the sample," David noted his first conclusion internally. "The active components in the moss need a more direct, more efficient way to affect its biological system."
How to apply it directly? Force-feeding? The risk was incalculable. If he triggered its beastly nature, his barely patched-up body would be disassembled in an instant.
His gaze eventually fell upon the beast's enormous body. Its rock-hard carapace was riddled with wounds, both old and new—scars from its endless, frantic self-harm against the cave walls. Among them, a wound near its shoulder blade was the largest and freshest, still faintly oozing a dark, almost congealed blood.
A plan, so audacious it bordered on madness, rapidly formed in his mind. He would create a "poultice," a concentrated preparation of the moss, and then, somehow, apply it directly to that open wound. An act of alchemy in the abyss was about to begin.
He found a relatively flat stone to serve as a mortar and a hard, smooth pebble for a pestle. From the precious moss, he carefully cut off about a third, treating it with the reverence one would a rare diamond, and placed it in the hollow of the stone slab. Then, he dipped his fingers into the spring water and precisely dripped a few drops onto it, beginning to grind, slowly and patiently.
An ethereal blue juice seeped out under the pressure, carrying a strange aroma—a mix of fresh botanicals and the ozone scent of a post-thunderstorm—and glowed even brighter in the darkness. Soon, the moss was thoroughly ground into a thick, deep blue paste.
This was his entire hope, his first scientific challenge to Landon's "divine power."
Now came the most dangerous, most fatal step of the plan: approaching it.
Holding the small stone slab like a priest approaching an altar, he slowly rose and walked toward the behemoth at the other end of the chasm. With every step, his heart felt like it would leap from his throat. He knew this was a gamble with his life on the line. He was betting that the sliver of humanity, imprisoned for countless years and on the verge of expiring, could, at the last moment, overcome the beast that had occupied the body, a beast that had accumulated centuries of madness and hunger.
The beast sensed his approach and instantly sprang from its crouched position into a threatening, aggressive stance. A warning growl, growing louder and louder, rumbled in its throat. In its dark red pupils, bestiality flared up again like a wildfire, consuming all reason.
David stopped, maintaining a fatal distance of about ten meters. He didn't risk moving closer. Instead, he raised the stone slab high, letting the wisp of blue light blossom clearly in the boundless darkness, like a spirit-guiding lamp.
"I'm not here to hurt you," his voice echoed in the empty chasm, carrying a strange calmness he himself hadn't noticed. "I'm here to help you. To help you remember... who you really are."
He repeated this sentence over and over, in an almost hypnotic tone. His gaze held no hostility or fear, only an almost obsessive focus and tranquility.
Miraculously, the beast's roaring gradually subsided. Its massive head began to tilt uncontrollably again, the red light in its eyes flickering violently, like two failing indicator lights on the brink of collapse. Chaos was the entirety of its consciousness now.
David seized the fleeting opportunity and took several more steps forward.
Five meters... four... three...
He could now clearly smell the suffocating stench from its body and feel the hot draft of its breath on his cheek. He could even see the stringy saliva hanging from its fangs. If it wished, it could tear him to shreds in a single moment.
He finally stopped just a single step away. He slowly knelt, bringing his eyes level with its enormous, pain-filled ones. Then, he reached out his hand. His index finger, coated with the cool, glowing blue paste, moved slowly, inch by inch, like a solemn ritual, toward the gruesome wound on its shoulder blade.
Time seemed to stretch, to solidify, in that moment.
Every muscle in the beast's body tensed to its limit. A final hiss, caught between a roar and a whimper, escaped its throat. Its claws gouged deep furrows in the ground, looking as if they might lash out at any second.
David closed his eyes. It was all or nothing.
The cool paste touched the hot, malevolently twisted wound.
The beast's body shuddered violently, but the anticipated attack never came. Instead, a massive, uncontrollable tremor shot through its entire frame like an electric current. It slowly lowered its raised claws. Its giant head drooped limply. Its dark red eyes stared intently at the smear of blue on its wound, which was slowly seeping in.
"Agh... ah..."
A new, unprecedented sound was squeezed from deep within its throat. It was an extremely strange noise, like a rusted machine trying in vain to imitate human speech. Its massive body finally went limp, collapsing heavily onto the ground. It no longer struggled, only panted heavily, as if it had just endured a war that had drained all its spiritual energy—a war against its past self, and its present self.
David knew he had won the gamble.