Endless ocean waters rushed forward, as if chasing the thick clouds descending from the sky.
Scanning the seabed, Ashley saw bizarre humanoid flesh chunks submerged in crystal-clear water.
It was impossible to tell if they were human, humanoid animals, or merely organic matter shaped like people.
They had infant-like pink tender skin and malformed, blurry outlines. Their excessively swollen forms made them look like corpses, yet there was no decay—they were fresh as ever.
Inside the translucent flesh, bones a size too small for the body were torn apart and scattered in jelly-like soft tissue, like monstrous snakes struggling to burst from shed skin.
These humanoid chunks crowded together, limbs entwined—you hooked on me, me wrapped around you—their edges compressing and fusing to form a vast seabed reaching to the heavens.
Their hair and nails still grew: clusters of soft, dense black hair swayed freely underwater, the shortest over ten meters long, while twisted nails formed horny coral blooms, the largest rising above the surface like a witch’s palms grasping the sky.
Ashley felt unprecedented weakness; her spiritual flame flickered in the wind, on the verge of extinguishing.
A blood-flesh seabed of dead husks and malformed fetuses—the primordial biological matrix settled at the world’s birth—merged with the roiling thick clouds in the dark, profound sky, forming a horrifying dead silence.
It was like sitting on a train hurtling toward life’s end, scenery flashing past the window backward at high speed.
Ashley spotted three other people of unknown identity, cloaked in soft, lightweight crow-feather raincoats. Even water droplets slid off the glossy black feathers without wetting them.
All three went barefoot, stepping on the soft, grotesque flesh seabed. Each footfall sent layered electrical signals rippling outward, extending to the horizon.
Finally, they stopped before a small island.
A low voice rang out.
“Did you feel it?”
“The position is right here.”
“The Singularity.”
“Time… not yet.”
“Wait patiently…”
The island formed from reefs protruding from the seabed, the accumulated flesh minced by sharp stone edges.
These pitch-black reefs resembled both stone and bone, edges crystalline, emanating an eerie, ominous black glow.
“Loran, how’s the sacrifice?” The leader turned to the fourth team member.
Ashley saw a pale bone mask, narrow and elongated with four hollows—long eye sockets with irregular edges, nostrils like cracks.
The woman crossed her arms gently over her belly, tilting her head in a motion full of maternal affection. Sickly tenderness welled in her deep eye sockets.
“She’s sleeping peacefully. Seems fine with the long journey.”
“If the records are accurate, this activates the highest-level sacrifice—Heaven’s Blood Drop. You’ll be baptized and gain rare power in this world.”
In the mere tens of seconds they spoke, the island silently doubled in size!
The black reefs rose visibly to the naked eye, gradually revealing shapes like ancient sculptures cut by bizarre geometry.
All looked up in unison to the island’s peak. Between two opposing stone ox horns, a pitch-black new moon slowly rose.
“Snort—hiss—”
Accompanied by a violent gasp, Ashley jolted awake from the nightmare. She opened her innocent eyes wide, gaze darting in panic, but fog on the transparent face mask blocked her view of the outside.
She steadied her mind, slowed her breathing, and first tried moving—her wrists and ankles felt tight from a restraint suit binding her body, hands twisted behind her back and secured with high-strength fabric.
Once the fog cleared, Ashley saw the white panel walls, impeccably clean. The only exit was a sturdy iron door with a rotating wheel.
“I’m not dead?”
Ashley frowned in confusion.
“Ah… Why did I do something so stupid…”
In hindsight, there were many more sensible ways to handle it, but for some reason, her head heated up, and she just had to clash with the Tribunal’s big sister.
Thinking back… she regretted it immensely.
“This isn’t normal. I need to reflect properly…”
After pondering, the reason might be the Jenkins Family bloodline carrying factors of madness and violence—indifferent to morals, unscrupulous for goals.
Though only a brief ‘stay,’ she’d been influenced.
Good news: she hadn’t died.
She could see tomorrow’s sun again.
Ashley discovered through inhalation that the piercing wound in her chest had vanished—whether illusion or miraculous treatment, this world’s biotech was highly advanced.
Bad news: treated as a heinous criminal, she got the full Hannibal Suit—restraint jacket, face mask, and gurney.
The tiny loli was wheeled by guards toward the courtroom. Under the spotlights, fierce eyes glared through the bite-proof mask ahead—pretty badass, she thought.
Ashley felt a hidden thrill.
But what about Flora?
That fragile, sensitive child might do something foolish again.
So worrying…
Maybe… break out?
The thought sparked, her instincts stirring, but she quickly calmed and suppressed it.
Reason told her it was a terrible idea.
Just as she felt at a loss, the iron door’s lock wheel clicked crisply.
The door opened slowly and silently. A tall woman strode in with a gust of cold wind, followed by a little loli peeking and tiptoeing after her shadow.
“Teacher, I did great! I caught her—she went still the moment I grabbed her. Maybe it’s bloodline suppression; cops naturally counter bad guys…” Amber grinned wide, gesturing proudly.
She seized every chance to boast, repeating it all morning, unable to resist showing off.
Ashley rolled her eyes dramatically—what the hell, it had nothing to do with her?
