Trickster Hunter.

Chapter 607 A Whale Fall
Sun Hang broke off a small piece of compressed biscuit and threw it at Nur. Nur's hands trembled, and he failed to catch it. The biscuit fell to the ground and immediately got covered with sand.

But Nur immediately picked up the biscuit, wiped off the sand with his hand, and hurriedly stuffed it into his mouth.

The moment his taste buds touched the food, Nur's eyes widened in surprise.

This impact was no less devastating than the devastating effect of braised beef noodles/Longjiang braised pork trotters rice on the Shu Han soldiers; in those few seconds, Nur's brain went completely blank. (Reference: "If Zhuge Liang had been provided with an unlimited supply of instant noodles/Longjiang braised pork trotters rice, would the Northern Expedition have succeeded?")
After swallowing the small piece of compressed biscuit completely, Nur's breathing suddenly became extremely rapid as he stared intently at the remaining biscuit in Sun Hang's hand.

But the lingering pain in his body kept a sliver of his reason, preventing him from lunging forward to grab it. Instead, he stammered and pleaded with Sun Hang, "Could...could you give me...give me a little more?"

Seeing Nur's reaction, Sun Hang couldn't help but turn the packaging of the compressed biscuits over to take a look—he wondered why the other party's reaction was so strong when there were no prohibited items on the ingredient list.
It seems these survivors really haven't eaten anything decent...

“If you can answer all my questions,” Sun Hang said, taking a whole box of compressed biscuits directly from his backpack, “these are all yours.”

Nur swallowed hard, and after a few seconds of intense internal struggle, he chose to surrender.

"What are you asking?"

Where is your settlement located?

“...the coffin of the envoy,” Nur replied.

"Where?"

It took Sun Hang more than ten minutes, and he even had to use his mind-reading ability, to figure out what the so-called "messenger's coffin" was from Nur.

To put it simply, it's the remains of a giant sand worm.

The giant sand worm is not immortal. Each giant sand worm has a lifespan of about seventy years. In the final stage of its life, the giant sand worm's body will sink into the depths of the sand sea and bury itself in the yellow sand.

Unlike most strange creatures, the remains of the Sand Giant Worm do not completely disappear after it dies; instead, they leave behind an extremely hard shell.

The remains of these giant sand worms, sunk deep in the desert, are like huge underground pipes, which have become a natural sanctuary for the survivors. Due to the enormous size of the sand worms, the settlement of five thousand survivors can only occupy a very small area among the remains.

The graveyards chosen by the sand-sinking giant worms are often near abundant groundwater—water filtered through sand and gravel to the point of being drinkable. In fact, underground lakes and dark rivers may be found inside the remains of the sand-sinking giant worms.

This reminded Sun Hang of a saying.

"When a whale falls, all things come to life."

If there is an oasis in this sea of ​​sand, it must refer to the remains of these giant sand worms that created the sea of ​​sand.

According to Nur, there were at least three settlements of survivors at the site of the remains, but the beliefs of each settlement differed, so there was very little interaction between them... Even when there was interaction, it was mostly filled with hostile friction rather than friendly communication. When Sun Hang asked how the survivors survived in this barren land and what use they had for collecting the secretions of the giant sand worms, Nur gave an even more astonishing answer, yet upon reflection, it felt strangely reasonable.

In this land, when a woman becomes pregnant, a priest will perform a divination for the unborn child, and the result of the divination will determine the child's future fate...

These infants were divided into two categories—one called the "Blessed," who were normal humans like Nur; and the other called the "Sinners," who were born deformed and would gradually lose their human form as they grew older, eventually becoming enormous, hideous monsters.

Upon hearing this, Sun Hang assumed that the settlement of the remnants would expel or kill these "punished persons," but in fact, these "punished persons" were the most important resource for maintaining the entire settlement of the remnants.

That's right, "resources".

The condemned would neither be banished nor killed outright; instead, they would be kept in designated areas by other survivors. Hunters like Nur would collect the secretions of the giant sand worms to feed the condemned.

This feed has an extremely high feed conversion ratio; a single sack of feed is enough to increase the weight of the condemned by tens or even hundreds of kilograms.

In return, the condemned would contribute everything they had to provide the settlement with what it needed to survive.

Bones, leather...and blood and flesh.

Sun Hang immediately understood where the leather and bones used to make the sand boat came from... Judging from the thick bone that served as the main mast, if the longest bone on the condemned person was the femur like that of a human, then the condemned person must have been at least twenty meters tall.

“So, your food… is from the condemned…” Sun Hang looked Nur up and down, who was almost choking on the compressed biscuits, and couldn’t help but ask him again to confirm, “…meat?”

Nur swallowed the food in his throat with some difficulty, took a sip of water, and then nodded vigorously at Sun Hang.

He suddenly realized that these survivors could neither be considered ordinary people nor infected individuals—they were perhaps a special existence somewhere between ordinary people and infected individuals.

Their current living conditions may just be the world that those online who insist on harmonious coexistence between humans and monsters "yearn for".

Whether they truly admire Sun Hang is unknown. After all, there are too many people who talk about ideas but are only interested in business... Whether they genuinely want humans and monsters to coexist harmoniously or just want to profit from this slogan, Sun Hang doesn't have time to discern them one by one.

Getting back to the main point, Sun Hang believes that people like Nur are most likely "new species" that evolved on their own to adapt to the environment of the occupied areas.

They must carry the monster meme within them—blessed pregnant women (referring to normal people) give birth to cursed beings (referring to infected individuals or monsters formed from human mutations), while the blessed beings consume the flesh and blood of the cursed beings without any harm... These two things already show that the blessed beings and the cursed beings are actually the same species.

However, the meme becomes like a genetic trait within them—it is recessive in the blessed, but becomes dominant in the condemned.

(End of this chapter)