The Lantern-Bearer sat regally before Wang Yue, twirling a single, iridescent Shell Coin between his fingers.
He looked like a confection of twisted red and black sugar shaped into a man, or perhaps a beautiful piece of craftsmanship wrought from glowing, molten glass. He wore the wide, exquisite hooded black robe exclusive to the Lantern-Bearers.
Is this Lord Infinite?
Wang Yue felt a flicker of nerves. The strongest Lantern-Bearer of legend was now standing right before her; she couldn’t even begin to fathom the extent of his power.
She lowered her head, though a strange, irreverent thought bubbled up in her mind. Despite her respect, she couldn’t stop herself from thinking he looked like a balloon dog—the kind made by twisting long balloons into cartoonish shapes.
She quickly shoved the thought aside and focused on the matter at hand. Lord Aurora had specifically requested Lord Infinite’s help, and she was eager to see exactly what he would do. She waited with bated breath, ready to be amazed.
However, Lord Infinite simply held the Shell Coin, remaining perfectly still. A harsh, grinding sound emanated from within his body, as if the twists of his form were tightening.
Suddenly, Wang Yue’s expression shifted from anticipation to sheer shock. Through the images transmitted by her Gaze Worms, she saw the twilight-shrouded city undergoing a cataclysmic transformation.
The massive, god-like shadows looming behind the citizens dissipated into nothingness. Simultaneously, the Black Granules—those parasites that clung like maggots to bone—evaporated into thin smoke.
People who had been burdened by shadows froze in their tracks, looking around in a daze before gasping in sudden, overwhelming relief. Meanwhile, those who had been obscenely wealthy collapsed to the ground, wailing in despair.
Wang Yue looked at Schumail the Skeptic in confusion. “Excellency… what did you do?”
“The authority once granted to this currency to measure value… I have negated it. It has lost its power, and therefore, it no longer possesses worth.”
Wang Yue was stunned. An ability? A Mystic Art? A fundamental rule? Or something else entirely?
She couldn’t guess the nature of the power Lord Infinite wielded, but her intuition told her it was a terrifyingly potent method that transcended her imagination.
***
Inside the great city.
Alice stood in the middle of the street. People were screaming, running, shouting, and smashing things in a fit of hysterics.
The cacophony drifted around her, lights and shadows flashing in a chaotic blur. A warm, putrid stench wafted up from the Sewers. A sudden gale swept through the streets, carrying scraps of paper and trash in spectral vortices.
Alice’s small head was crammed full of these fractured colors and sounds. Finding it all strange and incomprehensible, she looked to Little Candle for help. “What’s happening here?”
“The curtain has fallen, Alice. It’s over,” Little Candle replied.
“How disappointing. I didn’t get to see anything.” Alice scratched her forehead with a small finger, looking troubled.
“Don’t blink,” Little Candle added. “A new act is about to begin.”
“Really?”
Alice widened her eyes, looking everywhere.
Suddenly, a massive pile of shimmering Shell Coins was tossed out of a window, clattering and rolling across the pavement. Soon, more Shell Coins were being dumped out of doors like common trash. They piled up thick on the streets, looking like discarded fish scales that no one bothered to glance at.
Now that Shell Coins had lost their value, a replacement was desperately needed. Citizens poured into the streets to debate the future.
“How about gold? Gold is stable and easy to shape!” someone suggested.
“No good! What if we find a gold mine? Then everyone will have to become miners!”
“No gold! No miners!”
“We need something that can be produced steadily but isn’t easily forged.”
“Chicken heads! Let’s use chicken heads!” someone yelled.
The suggestion was immediately met with widespread approval. People rushed into the poultry farms, hacking the heads off every chicken they could find. They held the warm, bloody heads in their hands, cheering and shouting to celebrate the birth of their new currency.
The headless chickens, driven by instinctual panic, bolted into the streets.
Wang Yue watched it all through the Gaze Worms.
She had never seen anything so absurd. In the dim twilight, headless chickens were running everywhere. The jagged stumps of their necks were encrusted with blood crystals that looked like bursting pomegranates, stark against their snowy-white feathers. They flapped their wings and sprinted on two legs, swarming through the streets in a frantic, apocalyptic dance.
Surrounded by these headless chickens, Alice made her way out of the city and continued upstream along the river.
The terrain rose sharply. A blood-red light radiated from between the mountains, spreading out like a brilliant fan. At the edge of the massive planet, a mirage-like silhouette appeared in the deep firmament—a jagged, withered husk that melded into the lead-grey sky.
The surroundings were bleak and desolate. Shadows flickered everywhere, and the atmosphere felt heavy with ill omens. Even the vegetation had become nonsensical.
The trees didn’t grow properly; they were twisted and warped like a cracked painter’s palette. Vibrant, multicolored fruits hung from the branches, but upon closer inspection, they were actually clusters of venomous frogs. The frogs hung upside down, their four legs splayed, connected to the tree by thin, root-like stems. They swayed gently in the wind, letting out occasional croaks.
“Ah!”
Alice let out a sharp cry. She realized her body was changing! Her calves had become hexagonal prisms, and her fingers had sharpened into pyramidal spikes. Her dress felt like a triangle cut from stiff cardboard, and her feet resembled crude wooden carvings.
She reached up to touch her face, and her hand met sharp edges. Her face had become a plaster bust made of geometric planes. One eye was higher than the other, and her hair felt like tough, rolled-up paper.
“I… what’s happening to me?” Alice asked in terror.
“Don’t be afraid, Alice,” Little Candle consoled her. “This isn’t the real you. It’s just your image within someone else’s dream.”
Alice calmed down. Though it felt bizarre, she knew anything was possible inside a dream.
“The dream’s distortion of reality is far too great,” Little Candle said, his voice low.
“If we go any further, uncontrollable events will happen frequently. It will be hard to handle,” the little crow warned.
“But we have no choice.”
“Then we move forward!”
Hearing that they had to go on, Alice was terrified. She kept telling herself: I am the Savior. I have to make everything normal again. This is my mission…
This self-suggestion bolstered her confidence, and her steps became steady again.
As they passed through a field of boulders, long, narrow eyes peered out from the cracks in the rocks. The weeds twisted on the ground like rats’ tails, coiling loathsomely around her toes.
These eerie, distorted sights made Alice anxious once more. She turned to her companions for help.
Little Candle suggested she put on her Kaleidoscope Glasses.
Alice called out, and a pair of glasses immediately appeared in her hand. They had white frames and diamond-cut lenses that shimmered with a magnificent, hallucinogenic glow.
She slid the beautiful, gaudy glasses onto the bridge of her nose. The world before her instantly transformed into a whirl of vibrant, spinning lights and shadows. She wasn’t afraid anymore.
Alice swung her arms and walked forward, reciting verses she had learned from the Poet as if she were on a casual stroll.
Giant spiral shells were scattered across the riverbank ahead. Snowy-white mollusks crawled out from within them. Their skin secreted a slime that looked incredibly slippery, yet they possessed human faces.
Their eyeballs were perched on the ends of tentacles, swiveling to scan their surroundings. Their teeth scraped against the moss on the river stones, making a horrific grinding sound.
The shells were their homes, featuring beautiful patterns and precise Fibonacci spirals. They looked sturdy, elegant, and scientific.
The Snail-men answered in strange, popping tones. Their jelly-like mouths contained crooked human teeth, some of which glinted with gold.
They told Alice that “Bite-Bite” was coming.
“What is Bite-Bite?” the young black-haired girl asked, puzzled.
Before the Snail-men could answer, a blood-curdling howl echoed from the distance. It grew louder and louder as it approached.
The snow-white bodies retracted instantly. The heavy shells slammed down against the ground with a wet thud, sealing them off from the world.
