The laboratory was sparsely furnished. Two rows of shelves lined the walls, displaying Sealing Boxes, Echinoderm Demon Seeds, and jars filled with grotesque specimens.
At the far end stood a clean metal workbench. Beside it, a whiteboard was covered in maps, manuscripts, and planning documents.
Talitha rummaged through a toolbox beneath the table, pulling out a slicing knife. She gripped it tightly, her knuckles white, then turned to the little girl.
“Don’t be afraid. Someone will come to save us soon!”
“Mm,” Helen nodded obediently.
It was a hollow comfort. Until the moment she had stepped inside, Talitha had not seen the Lighthouse ignite. As a Guild employee, she knew all too well that conventional rescue would never arrive in time. If the Lighthouse couldn’t be lit, the town was finished.
The girl crouched, facing the closed iron hatch. She hardly dared to breathe, her fingers cramped around the knife as she prayed for a miracle.
In the silence, a horrific scraping sound drew closer. The vessels had reached the door.
Talitha held her breath and gritted her teeth. She was just a weak woman who usually needed protection, but in front of a child even younger than herself, she had to show courage.
Boom!
A heavy blow struck the iron hatch. The frame shuddered violently, and dust shook loose from the ceiling.
Then came a skin-crawling sound of pressure from outside. A moment later, a loud crack echoed through the room.
The alloy handle of the manual wheel controlling the hatch had been snapped clean off.
Talitha’s face twitched; she was on the verge of tears. Just as she was about to break, she felt a slight trembling at her shoulder. She glanced down to see the little girl clinging to her, face pale as death, shaking like a leaf.
Talitha took a deep breath and forced the words out. “Don’t be afraid. I’ll protect you.”
Helen’s expression softened slightly. She tucked herself behind Talitha, her little hand clutching the hem of the older girl’s clothes.
Screeeech—
With a metal-on-metal screech that threatened to burst their eardrums, a Vessel shimmering with pitch-black eerie light forced its way through the gap in the door. It coiled back like a demonic claw, seizing the iron hatch and slowly tightening its grip.
Before their eyes, the iron door buckled and twisted. Steel bolts snapped and nuts flew through the air like bullets. The heavy hatch was crumpled like a piece of paper and then violently ripped outward. It flew through the air in a heavy arc, crashing into the dirt outside with a dull thud.
Helen couldn’t stop herself from screaming. Talitha, however, lunged forward. With a look of grim determination, she swung her knife with every ounce of courage she possessed before terror could shatter her mind.
Clang!
A piece of the blade chipped off. The black vessel remained unscathed.
An instant later, the girl’s chest and abdomen were impaled by seven or eight sharp vessels. She was hoisted into the air, her limbs swaying limply. Warm blood flowed down the smooth surfaces of the vessels, losing heat so quickly it congealed into droplets that looked like dark cherries.
“Sister!” Helen shrieked. Through her trembling vision, she saw the vessels crawling toward her like snakes, ready to entwine her…
Suddenly, a figure burst into the courtyard like a whirlwind. It was Ed-Bear.
The vessels crawling across the yard reared up like provoked cobras, but Ed-Bear seized them with his tentacles. Needle-like synapses erupted from the point of contact, piercing the vessels and rapidly assimilating them. In an instant, the vessels became a part of him.
Ed-Bear flashed into the laboratory and scooped up Talitha from the pool of blood.
Bloody froth bubbled at the corner of the girl’s mouth, and the light in her eyes was beginning to fade. When she saw Ed-Bear, her lips moved, whispering hoarsely.
“You… you came…”
“I’m sorry. I’m late,” Ed-Bear said, his voice thick with pain.
The girl used the last of her strength to raise her hand. Her fingertips shook violently, as if she wanted to touch his cheek.
“So cold…”
Talitha let out a small, aggrieved sob. Then, her life came to an abrupt end. Her hand fell limp, her head lolled to the side, and more blood spilled from her lips as her pupils began to dilate.
However, Ed-Bear performed a quick check and found that her “freshness” was still acceptable; the injuries were manageable.
He pulled the vessels out one by one. His arm split into multiple tentacles that threaded into the wounds in the girl’s torso. He merged his biomass with her flesh, creating biological fillers. He performed root canal-like grafting, cleared internal hematomas, reconnected blood vessels, and repaired her organs…
Talitha’s body gave a sudden jolt. Her heart began to beat again.
She opened her eyes blankly. Her senses gradually returned, and her vision cleared.
She looked down in horror at the tentacles protruding from her chest and belly, which had already fused seamlessly with her skin. The other ends were connected to Ed-Bear’s hand… or were they his fingers?
Then, the tentacles detached themselves at the base. Only faint, pale marks remained where the wounds had been.
These “patches” were only a temporary fix. Once the supernatural power faded, her body would likely suffer an immune rejection response. But for now, her life was saved.
“As you can see, I am a monster,” Ed-Bear said calmly.
Talitha stared at him, her mouth agape. It was as if she hadn’t heard his words. Tears blurred her vision, and she suddenly threw her arms around his neck, sobbing uncontrollably.
“Shut up, woman.”
An instant later, Ed-Bear pinched her mouth into a pout. The girl let out a small glug sound, and her tears stopped.
Ed-Bear glanced at the little girl, who was still standing there in a daze, her limited understanding struggling to process the situation.
“Follow me,” he added.
He hoisted Talitha onto his back, took Helen by the hand, and ran outside.
“Where are we going?” a voice asked from his back.
“The Lighthouse.”
It was the only way to save everyone.
Ed-Bear charged into the street. Black vessels covered the walls and ground, sprouting clusters of eerie Mana Cocoons.
Talitha and Helen only perceived the scene as a series of sickly, maddening images. But within Ed-Bear’s Perception Field, countless simple oscillatory signals were being categorized, deduced, and converged into a torrent of Fourier transforms, all flowing into the Mana Cocoons!
This was the construction of laws, the mystery of the Primordial, the manifestation of the source of nature!
In Ed-Bear’s perception, this wasn’t ugly or grotesque. It was beautiful and dreamlike—an exquisite creation, a supreme ecstasy!
Splat!
A clump of Calamity Worms fell to the ground. The stone bricks melted slightly, glowing with a dark radiance like black lava.
The worms hatching from the Mana Cocoons began crawling toward a single location, as if something was summoning them—or perhaps they had always belonged to a single will.
Ed-Bear suppressed his flickering consciousness and sprinted toward the Lighthouse with the two girls!
The trio tore through the bloody wind and gray mist. Any anomalies or high-energy entities that lunged at them were pierced and shredded by Ed-Bear’s tentacles.
Whether it was the drifting Invisible Fiends, the black-furred Rippers, or the Amalgam Crows, none could withstand a single blow.
Those shredded, pierced corpses—drenched in foul, toxic blood—were pulled toward Ed-Bear by his tentacles. He didn’t need a mouth to eat; he simply merged and connected them directly to his body!
In just a few minutes, his size more than decupled. He became a patchwork monstrosity composed of countless grotesque limbs and broken organs, his slimy, shimmering surface sprouting infinite winding, coiling tentacles!
Finally, they reached the Fish Plaza near the town entrance!
The Lighthouse stood in the center of the plaza—a straight, slender spire of black stone piercing the sky!
A mass of crimson Phantom Light hovered at the entrance of the Lighthouse. This was the terrible signal source, constantly broadcasting a torrent of signals in every direction!
The girls couldn’t perceive the shifts in signal amplitude or phase. They only saw the gray mist suddenly surge like a tide, separating from the Phantom Light like oil from water. It was as if they were standing at the bottom of the sea looking up at the surface. Giant shadows swam through the sea of light, kicking up avalanches of white waves. Light trails bent and rippled, expanding into infinite, transparent distortions.
As Ed-Bear entered the plaza, he seemed to sense something. Suddenly, the myriad Mana Cocoons birthed by the vessels on the ground and walls began to swell and burst, violently spewing out Calamity Worms!
The Power of Rules scorched the air, and embers danced within the play of light and shadow!
The Calamity Worms crawled toward that mass of crimson Phantom Light, slowly converging into a physical form!
