In response to Wang Yue’s question, Aminata’s mouth—which resembled a glowing, hollowed-out tree knot—split open. She pointed to a precision-cut gemstone at the very tip of her measurement pen.
“This is an ‘Actuation Stone.’ Its color represents the states of ‘entropy increase’ and ‘entropy decrease.’ The shifting red gradient indicates that this region is currently in a state of increasing entropy.”
Wang Yue frowned. “And the cause?”
Aminata’s fingertip scraped down several notches on the dial, producing a harsh, grating sound. “Approximately three kilometers from Fishmouth Town, a force is ’emerging’… Do not leave the town until our investigation is complete. Furthermore, recall all personnel working outside.”
The latter half of her sentence was directed at the leader of the Night-Watchers.
“Understood!” the leader responded in a booming voice.
Just then, Vida came running in from outside, shouting, “Little Principal!”
“Tell the students not to leave. We’re waiting for the investigation results,” Wang Yue instructed briefly before departing the town with Aminata.
The two crossed the Corrupt Root River and the riverside woodlands, entering a stretch of wasteland.
As their field of vision cleared, they saw an eerie, ominous red glow bleeding through the gaps of the Dark Forest in the distance.
Wang Yue felt a sudden pang of palpitations. She immediately activated the Amorphous Sheath, letting it cover her body. Aminata was not human and was indifferent to the pollution; as a Lantern-Bearer, she didn’t need Wang Yue’s concern. Wang Yue only needed to look after herself.
As they drew closer to the forest, a Phantom Light as red as fresh blood beamed toward them. It formed ethereal waves that rose to her waist, ebbed and flowed slowly like a tide.
Wang Yue had a premonition: if she deactivated the Special Grade Relic’s protective layer and allowed the Phantom Light to touch her skin, a terrifying reaction would surely occur.
Upon entering the forest, the pair found that the trees ahead had collapsed in massive swaths. They were rotting and disintegrating, forming a web-like network of connective tissue.
A layer of brown filaments covered the forest’s original layer of humus. Walking through the woods, their feet sank slightly into the ground.
Aminata crouched down to take a sample. Holding up her sampler to observe it, she said, “This might be a type of glial cell.”
Wang Yue scanned their surroundings. Embedded within the surface layer of filaments were strange seeds, primarily oval and polygonal in shape. Though their hulls were shriveled and hard, they were massive and teeming with vitality—like Demon Seeds gestating monsters.
Ed-Bear had surveyed the environment around Fishmouth Town in the past. This area was primarily populated by spruce and red pine, along with small thickets of currants.
Thinking of this, Wang Yue felt a jolt of alarm. Could these seeds be related to those two types of trees?
When she voiced her suspicion, Aminata nodded in agreement.
“Indeed. The evolution of life is incremental; it can only emerge from the foundation of existing functions. The seeds nearby are likely the product of ‘evolutionary algorithms’ performed upon this forest’s plant community.”
“Evolutionary algorithms? You mean there’s a will of some kind applying an evolutionary logic to the local life? The deconstruction and recombination of the spruce and red pine are the results of algorithmic optimization?” Wang Yue asked in shock.
“Yes,” Aminata nodded again. Her pace slowed as she wandered through the woods, turning her face toward Wang Yue. “Are you familiar with the Great Eruption of the early Genesis Era?”
“I’ve read about it in books. It was a period of material abundance, where matter constantly erupted from deep underground,” Wang Yue replied.
“The important thing wasn’t the matter, but the algorithms. Without algorithms, matter alone might not birth life for billions of years, let alone evolution…”
Aminata stopped in her tracks. Ahead was a cluster of pale red follicles, piled high like a conical tower.
Each follicle was packed with shimmering, translucent orange-red insect eggs, resembling salmon roe.
Wang Yue froze, her scalp tingling. With her exceptional vision, she saw the transparent spider larvae inside the eggs with a single glance.
The network of connective tissue spreading across the ground was integrated with the eggs, providing them with nutrients, energy, and the neural signals required to drive the evolutionary algorithms.
“Are these also optimized products of the evolutionary algorithm?” Wang Yue asked.
“In biological evolution models, ‘predators’ serve as a filter. The mutual selection between predator and prey creates a positive feedback loop…”
As Aminata spoke in her calm, melodic tone, one of the spider egg towers burst open. The internal eggs had completed their “calculations,” and a swarm of tiny spiders began to crawl out.
The nail-sized hatchlings absorbed nutrients from the connective tissue network, rapidly bloating in size. Their bodies radiated intense heat as they secreted foul-smelling metabolic waste… within minutes, they had grown into full-sized adults half the height of a human!
Wang Yue stood dumbfounded. The red spiders weren’t the scary part; it was the cold, ruthless efficiency of the algorithm.
The algorithm had intentionally accelerated the birth of these predators just to speed up the feedback loop!
The red spiders possessed a crystallized plating that appeared in a regular honeycomb pattern, acting as armored plates that made their shells incredibly difficult to pierce. They were vastly different from any of their natural kin.
Their legs were sharp and pointed, with a purplish-red toxin seeping from the tips. A mere scratch on the skin would allow the poison to enter the body and kill the prey.
A swarm of red spiders lunged toward the two women. In the next instant, however, their bodies broke down into vomit-like slime mold. They died one after another as countless fungi sprouted from the earth, forming a miniature forest of mushrooms.
Wang Yue clicked her tongue in amazement. The Decaying Aminata’s methods were truly bizarre. To think that back when she was “acting” with Lilith, she had actually tried to fight her with a simple hand-blade… it felt ridiculous in retrospect.
Wang Yue also noticed that these mushroom trees possessed characteristics of ferns. Their surfaces were covered in fine fuzz, and the caps featured feathery, branching stems. They were clearly a modified strain of fungi.
The two continued forward. Since the mutation was still in its early stages, they encountered few obstacles and soon reached the source of the red light.
Before them was a lightning-shaped rift in the earth, stretching for hundreds of meters. Chaotic auroras erupted from the crack, forming leaping arcs of light and flowing curtains of color, like firelight reflecting out of purgatory.
***
Returning to Fishmouth Town, Wang Yue informed the students about the rift and the mutations, warning them not to venture out on their own.
The little witches had only recently escaped the clutches of the Restorationists. Still shaken, they were now faced with an ominous calamity, leaving everyone feeling lost and anxious.
After the meeting, Matcha handed a stack of forms to Wang Yue. In her crisp voice, she said, “Room Leader… I mean, Little Principal, these are the choice-of-intent forms for all the students. I’ve made a summary on the first page. Please take a look.”
Wang Yue glanced at the green-haired girl, sighing inwardly. If Dorothy were still here, she would likely be the one acting as the little secretary.
Then again, perhaps Matcha was more suited for it?
No, no, Dorothy wouldn’t be bad either—she cost twenty ounces of gold!
Wang Yue looked down at the summary page—a clear rose chart with elegant, neat handwriting. The key sections were even highlighted with colored pens.
Tsk, this really is a job for Matcha, she thought.
Browsing through the data, seventeen percent of the students hadn’t decided on their future direction. Eleven percent wanted to return to their hometowns. Sixty-three percent had filled in the word “Tail.” The rest were miscellaneous.
“What does ‘Tail’ mean?” Wang Yue asked, her tone strange.
Matcha stood on her tiptoes and whispered into her ear, “Your tail… can’t it…”
“Eh?!” Wang Yue instinctively covered her backside, exclaiming in surprise, “Then doesn’t my tail become public property?!”
Her identity as a Faithless had already been exposed; she had to use witchcraft to escape the Academy, so there was no way to keep it hidden anymore.
However, she had thought that since the Academy was on the brink of dissolution, exposing her identity wouldn’t matter. She never expected the entire school to be eyeing her tail!
