Her Tentacles 79

Chapter 79: The Lighthouse

Lin Ran was moved by Shu Yao’s confession of love.

Just as she was about to embrace her and the flowers together, she saw her girlfriend, who had just confessed her deep feelings, naturally take a step back, her palm on her shoulder, and asked calmly:

“We’ve already reached the abyss, haven’t we?”

“What’s the situation outside?”

The love-struck monster could only put away her overflowing tenderness and instead connect with her main body’s senses at this moment.

Perhaps it was because her main body was completely hidden by this darkness, causing all her nerves to be surrounded by this darkness, so much so that a strange feeling, different from before, suddenly appeared in Lin Ran’s heart.

This darkness seemed to be very happy.

Happy that she had returned here.

It was even somewhat eagerly opening its arms, accepting her and getting close to her.

So strange.

…Could this darkness be alive?

Lin Ran’s expression was a little puzzled. She was baffled by the strange thought that had popped into her head. It wasn’t until Shu Yao, who had been staring at her expression, her voice also unconsciously softened a little:

“What’s wrong?”

Her attention was drawn by her words. Lin Ran was slightly distracted, and the mysterious and strange feeling just now suddenly disappeared without a trace.

This darkness that enveloped the monster’s main body was as quiet as before, no longer trying to send her any message, just quietly existing here.

She frowned slightly. “I have a strange feeling. I’m not sure.”

Shu Yao: “Huh?”

She closed her eyes and felt it for a moment, then asked Lin Ran, “Is it… the feeling of being watched by something?”

Hearing her say this, Lin Ran immediately became nervous.

She knew that her return could not have escaped the [Lighthouse]’s perception, but she had not expected that the dark barrier that had been able to resist the [Lighthouse] before was now powerless against the [Lighthouse]’s will.

Yaoyao was clearly in her body, and the [Lighthouse] had already projected most of Its will into the human world. Why could It still have such a powerful influence in the abyss?

…

Lin Ran was very nervous.

She distracted herself by manipulating her main body, slowly patrolling this darkness in the outer land, wanting to carefully search for some different traces in this place where creatures were scarce and which she was extremely familiar with, having wandered here countless times since she was born.

Her black and red tentacles were like a searchlight, one half raised, feeling the scent of the seawater flowing into the darkness, and the other half was like the palm of a rock climber feeling the cliff wall, passing over the crevices on the ground inch by inch.

And in this special space.

Her dark eyes were exceptionally solemn. She even put down the flowers with some helplessness and walked up to Shu Yao, not knowing how to check for her abnormality.

Or rather.

Even if she did find out, she didn’t know what to do.

Like before?

But Shu Yao was already in her body. If she were to recklessly pour her power into her again, even if she escaped the [Lighthouse]’s gaze, she would also be assimilated by her unconscious power.

The worst result would be to be mutated by both her and the [Lighthouse] at the same time.

Seeing Lin Ran’s nervousness, and her hesitance to even touch the corner of her clothes with her open palm, Shu Yao suddenly chuckled.

Although she didn’t know if her abilities would be abnormal if she used them here, she had no choice but to accept that these unwillingly acquired abilities had long since become a part of her body in the countless field missions of the special department.

Like the meaning of breathing to her.

And so, after feeling it for a moment, she said again, “The one staring at me is different from before. There’s no chaotic [babbling] sound.”

It shouldn’t be the [Lighthouse].

However, hearing her say this, Lin Ran did not relax.

Because her main body’s tentacles had felt that the seawater flowing into this darkness, and the pitted marks on the ground crevices, were completely different from her memory.

There were strange plants growing in this darkness.

The feeling of the seawater was also different.

It seemed that during the time she had been away, the abyss had unknowingly undergone some changes, some changes that made her feel a little uneasy.

Lin Ran tried to let her main body do some activities in the darkness, and at the same time, she would confirm with Shu Yao every once in a while if the feeling of being stared at was still there.

After answering “still there” more than a dozen times in a row—

Shu Yao even vaguely felt that the gaze on her did not seem to have any malice, and was even a little curious. So she simply sat down at the dining table where her girlfriend had prepared food for her, and at the same time, she propped her chin on one hand and looked at the other person in the room.

“You’ve lived here for a long time. Shouldn’t you be very familiar with the existence here?”

The Lin octopus, who had left home young and returned old: “…”

She should indeed be very familiar.

Because she had been born and had lived here for a long time, she even knew the breathing rhythm of the sea waves clearly. When she was most bored, she could even learn from the sea anemone in that tropical coral reef.

She only needed to quietly spread herself out into a pancake, lie on the ground, and then she could accurately extend her tentacles at a certain moment to grab the food that floated past her.

Now, facing the greatly changed abyss, she wavered for a while between “telling the truth and making her girlfriend worry” and “covering it up and fooling her for now.”

Finally, she looked at Shu Yao’s expression.

She honestly replied, “I was familiar with it, but the environment of the abyss seems to have changed.”

This change must be related to the [Lighthouse].

But Lin Ran also temporarily could not sense any threat.

Shu Yao was not surprised by her slowness in things other than eating. Now that she was deep behind enemy lines and facing such bad news, she could still nod calmly and then say, “Then what are your plans?”

Lin Ran didn’t speak, but saw that the person sitting at the dining table was a little sleepy, and had even raised her hand and yawned.

Then she looked at the person standing by the table again.

But in the short time from walking from the balcony to the dining table, Shu Yao had not even picked up her utensils to eat, but her expression had already changed greatly—

From the original tense, clear-headed, and always ready to deal with a sudden crisis, to this listless, drowsy, and even as if she were about to fall asleep in the next second.

“Yaoyao.”

Her vocal cords were tense as she looked at her girlfriend sitting at the dining table with concern. “Are you sleepy?” But now was not Shu Yao’s rest time.

Shu Yao was not on guard against her. When she was asked this, she couldn’t help but nod.

Then she realized something was wrong.

She instinctively reached for the side of her leg where her dagger was usually tied, wanting to use an external force to wake herself up, but what her palm touched was only a piece of smooth, light-forged fabric.

She had already forgotten.

The habit of living at home was to change into home clothes.

Then, her gaze was a little unfocused, as if she were fighting against the fatigue and drowsiness that had come from nowhere. She only had time to lightly hold the corner of the table with her palm.

“Lin Ran, I…”

The next second.

She lost consciousness and completely collapsed by the dining table.

As her body went limp, Lin Ran, who had been standing nearby, timely caught her. As she gently held her horizontally, her deep black eyes completely cooled down.

Her long eyebrows also rarely furrowed.

An indescribable anger welled up in her heart.

…

Just as the [Monarch Slayer] was manipulating its main body, changing its previous strategy, and beginning to explore the changes in this darkness more quickly, and trying to walk out of the darkness, to find more clues of change in the junction between the outer land and the Eternity, in order to solve Shu Yao’s inexplicable drowsiness.

The person who had fainted at the dining table had fallen into a strange dream.

The dream was a vast expanse of brightness.

All around, in all directions, was the same brightness.

If she had to describe it, Shu Yao felt that in the past, she had only been able to imagine this endless white with no change in light when she had heard descriptions related to ‘heaven.’

So bright.

This is too bright.

She held this thought and stayed in this endless light for a long time in a daze. Until at a certain moment, as if a gust of wind had blown past her body, she was blown into a roll.

Transparent bubbles emerged from her side.

She wanted to raise her hand to see what this strange bubble was, but what she raised was…

A black and red tentacle.

It was more slender than all the tentacles she had seen Lin Ran transform into before.

As if it were a newborn octopus baby.

She spat out another string of bubbles. In a daze, because she was swept away by this air-like ocean current, she drifted very far, which caused her to change direction, and she was actually blown out of that light zone.

The bright color dimmed a little, and there were also different sceneries such as mountains and rocks, green seaweed, and red coral nearby.

At the same time.

She was pushed by the water current, and was able to change to an upward-looking angle that she could not have done before.

Looking up from below—

Shu Yao finally saw the existence that was shedding light on this area.

The countless rays of light were just fine threads extending from Its body. It was incomparably large, hanging high above. The center where those fine threads led to was a soft, glutinous, and semi-transparent main body with extremely high brightness.

This angle suddenly reminded Shu Yao of the gift she had casually brought to the blind date, and had first met Lin Ran with.

A teardrop-shaped, transparent pink crystal bottle that had been transformed into a micro-landscape bottle, with a little prince figure she had made out of clay inside, and an artificial moon stuck at the mouth of the bottle.

Previously, when she was making that gift, Shu Yao had also put herself in the little prince’s shoes, wondering what it would feel like for him, who was in the bottle, to see that artificial moon.

Now she completely understood.

Because she, who was shrouded in this light, also seemed to be trapped in a small bottle.

But now, she did not want to get rid of this bottle. On the contrary, she had a strange sense of security, just staring at the existence that was suspended in mid-air and seemed to be endlessly emitting light.

It was unknown how much time had passed.

A thought popped into her head: it looks like jelly.

And the moment this thought was born, a burning sensation of emptiness suddenly came from her stomach, and an eager impulse to eat completely dominated her.

【So hungry, so hungry, so hungry—】

【Eat, eat it! Eat it!】

【Wuwu, hungry!】

When the hunger appeared, there were also insignificant, noisy voices that entered her mind.

Shu Yao, who had lost all reason from hunger and was completely unable to resist this impulse, was unknowingly manipulated by her tentacles to swim toward the huge, soft, glutinous, and infinitely bright existence above.

I want to eat.

I want to eat this big, bright, soft, and delicious-looking thing!

A hungry light appeared in her eyes. And when she was pulling herself back and swimming back to the place shrouded in that light, she even directly opened her mouthparts and took a bite of one of the fine threads that was hanging down from above.

“Gulp.”