The eye that suddenly appeared in the camera feed surprised everyone. Matoimaru reflexively shouts a curse in another language. Lin Ye had to hold down Magallan's hand to stop her from dropping her laptop in fright, while biting his own tongue to keep his voice down. Even Skyfire, Blue Poison, and Frostleaf seemed to barely hold their own screams in.

"What the hell is this?!" Matoimaru shouts with wide eyes, "Who is that?!"

No one answered, because of the difficulty in trying to recognize a person with one eye alone. It was just this one eye that felt very wrong. As if it was staring straight at them through the lens of the drone, sending chills down their spines.

"Is it an Ursus soldier?" Skyfire was the first to calm down and say, "Have they already returned?"

"I don't think so. That doesn't seem to be the case," Magallan continues to maneuver the drone through her connection. As the camera moves backwards, the owner of the eye also slowly appeared on the screen.

Soon everyone could see a man with an ordinary look and expressionless face. Compared to his unnerving eye, the rest of the man's face was much more normal.

But Lin Ye still couldn't help but feel that there was something else wrong with him.

"This... I seem to have seen him before..." Skyfire frowns in thought for a moment, "He's with the Ursus contingent."

As the camera continues getting further, everyone can see that the man is wearing an Ursus military uniform, confirming Skyfire's statement.

"But, why does he look like that?" Skyfire asks, "Where are the others and SilverSword?"

As Skyfire's question hung in the air, Magallan continued controlling the drone near the man. It was as the man's eyes followed the drone that everyone realized what was wrong with him. His expression was too dull, and his eyes were glazed over. As if his very soul had been taken away from him.

"Something is not right with that guy," Even Matoimaru could see that something was wrong, "Has he been hypnotized?"

"He most likely is..." Blue Poison mutters in an uncertain tone, "But then why is he back? Where are the others?"

"Let's just go over there and ask him." At this, Lin Ye stands back up, and sheathes Maple, keeping a firm grip on it. "I can break him from his trance. Maybe we can get some answers from him."

Skyfire jumps to her feet, "I want to go with you."

"Everyone is going." Lin Ye says as he walks towards the entrance of the tent.

He needed to keep everyone together so that no one would go missing. Nothing seemed right, right now, but so what? He may not have known what was going on, but he did promise Kal'tsit he'd take care of his team.

Magallan nods and then sets the drone that was outside Ursus' tent to patrol the surrounding area.

The Ursus soldier's gaze continued to follow the drone but without moving his body, only his neck. When the drone began to move behind him, his neck began twisting to an unnatural degree.

This time, Lin Ye suddenly felt something was very wrong, and immediately shouted.

"Stop! Magallan! Stop!"

But Lin Ye's warning came just a fraction of a second too late.

*Crack!*

Just as Magallan began to redirect the drone, the drone hovered just a bit further behind the man's head. In the next few moments, everyone saw a shocking sight. The soldier continued to turn his head, and when he reached the natural limits of how far he could twist his neck, he did not stop. Lin Ye then discovered that this man wasn't a Liberi like Olivia, when the man's neck made a horrible, sharp crack that ringed in the silence. After breaking his own neck, the soldier stopped moving.

"Fuck!" Lin Ye was so dumbfounded, he couldn't help but curse, "What the hell just happened?!"

The others didn't reply, clearly caught off guard as much as he was.

"Let's go! Hurry!" Lin Ye shouts at the rest, before rushing out.

Everyone could understand the urgency in Lin Ye's words and immediately followed after him Lin Ye.

Of course, as Lin Ye ran he made sure that everyone was following him. Even though he was in a hurry, he didn't want his team to suffer from his own stupidity. It's okay if he was the only one that was affected by this, by now he's an expert when dealing with that, but he didn't want to make others suffer for it.

Although the Lungmen and Ursus camps were less than two hundred meters apart, in this weather and with everything that was happening, a distance of two hundred meters meant that many things could happen.

It was important that everyone followed him and not be too far away from him, at most he estimated Maple had a range of 3 meters. He didn't truly know if Maple really had an ability to undo and fight against mysterious forces but it was the only thing that he could rely on for now.

Therefore, Lin Ye used Maple to protect the group on their way back to the Ursus' tent.

Once they were near the tent, they did not immediately run inside, instead they slowed down, cautiously approaching the area, paying close attention to everything with every step they took.

They eventually reached the tent after around four minutes of running.

When they entered the tent, everyone saw the soldier who they had just seen, still maintaining eye contact with the drone. Except now, he had taken a seat on a chair with his back and twisted head facing the entrance.

When Lin Ye entered the tent, he just so happened to make eye contact with the red eyes that had remained wide open.

As the only one with medical experience amongst all the people present, Lin Ye quickly approached the man.

Although he knew there wasn't much hope, he still wanted to rescue the soldiers. He did somehow return after being hypnotized, after all. Maybe this soldier knew what had happened, and if he touched him he could be freed from his hypnotism and tell him what had happened to the others.

But when Lin Ye's hand touched the soldier's neck, his body freezes up in an instant.

Behind Lin Ye, Skyfire notices his reaction, "What's the matter?"

"I knew that he was dead. His neck was broken after all, how could he not be dead," Lin Ye's voice was now as soft as a whisper, "But why is he this cold?"

Hearing Lin Ye's words, the rest of the expedition that had gathered around him, all adopted puzzled looks.

Lin Ye takes a deep breath.

Calm down. Calm down.

Despite his chanting to himself, he could still feel a weight settle in his gut.

Lin Ye looks around at everyone, and then says softly, "This corpse is already cold."

"Dead?" Matoimaru asks.

"Yes, dead." Lin Ye slowly lifts his hands from the corpse, looking at those red eyes, still frozen open. Then he slowly says, "The time of his death should have been around an hour ago"

Everyone's eyes widened.

"It may be a bit inaccurate to judge the time of death based on body temperature, but..." Lin Ye slowly says, "This corpse is too cold. He definitely didn't die two minutes ago. The time of death was at least one hour ago. The question now is how could he still move?"

{Rhodes Island's Psychologist}

Draft by Jaq

Proofread by PanzerComrade56

Edit by Jaq