Chapter 15: Wrong from the Very Start

Chapter 15:
Wrong from the Very Start

 

SHORTLY BEFORE the alarm sounded, Flum and Milkit found a woman in Experiment Room #1. The name tag on her chest identified her as Clarice.

Flum decided to ask her about what happened back at their room.

“You heard a dozen voices outside your room but didn’t see anyone when you stepped outside? That’s impossible. You must be tired.” Clarice laughed and waved off her concerns, though the look of worry in her eyes was evident.

“You know what’s going on, don’t you? There’s no sense in lying.”

“Lying?” Though her voice was harsh, Clarice averted her gaze.

Flum glared at the older woman, deciding to crank up the pressure. She could tell just by looking at her that this Clarice woman was just like Dafydd, though her conscience got the best of her.

“Do you promise to not tell Dafydd?” Clarice asked.

“I’ll leave your name out of it.”

“All right then, fine. Ever since you arrived, the mental state levels of all of our subjects have been going off the charts.”

“Mental state?”

“The values we use to track the psychological condition of our subjects. The higher the number, the more easily excitable they are. If it gets too high, it begins to impact their body or their vital state…just like any normal, living person.”

“And these values are irregular right now?”

“Right. I thought we’d addressed it, but then things have reverted back to how they were at the beginning.”

“What does that mean? Will something happen?”

A dark expression washed over Clarice’s face at Milkit’s question. “The spiral will take over their bodies, and they will turn into creatures that attack indiscriminately.”

Flum was all too aware of what such creatures were like, though she found it odd that the transformation hadn’t happened already.

“And yet,” Clarice continued, “the test subjects have shown no signs of changing. Their minds appear to be intact. Dafydd decided it was a calibration error and instructed us to remain quiet.”

“Is that why no one showed up to call us for dinner?”

“It delayed the banquet preparations, yes, but Dafydd just left to call for Gadhio.”

“I don’t see how we can all just sit down and eat after hearing something like this.”

Flum turned on a heel and started to walk out of the room before Clarice grabbed her elbow to stop her.

“Wait, where are you going??”

“The Central Control Room, where else? I need to destroy the focal core and put an end to this once and for all!”

“Even as powerful as you are, there’s no way you can make it through that door. Besides, you realize that the dead in Sheol will transform if you do that, don’t you?!”

“Tia was able to move around for a few hours without it, wasn’t she? It’s better to get this over with before it’s too late.”

“The strange readings really might just be an error! Do you know how many years Dafydd and the rest of us have toiled just to see this day?! Please, I’m begging you, don’t give into impulse!”

“Don’t treat me like a child!” Flum’s anger was clear in her voice. “Do you guys even know what Origin cores are?! They aren’t a tool to help humanity. They exist purely to bring pain, suffering, and misery to mankind!”

“Be that as it may, the difference between a poison and a cure is only a matter of dosage!”

She’d heard the same excuses from Dafydd. Flum knew it would be impossible to win this woman over. Milkit stepped up to Flum’s side, joining her to shoot Clarice a stern look.

The standoff seemed like it could last forever, when a siren broke the silence.

“What…no way! Why is the emergency alarm going off?!”

“Emergency alarm? What do you mean? What happened??”

“I have no idea!”

Clang. Clang clang clang. Clang.

The three women turned their attention to the door and the erratic tapping coming from the other side. It was too quiet to be someone knocking and, what’s more, it seemed to be coming from a point close to the ground.

“Who in the hell…” Clarice let out an annoyed sigh and opened the door.

A young child came tumbling in.

“Gorne and Luluca’s kid? This is no place for children, you know. What are you doing here all alone?” Clarice leaned down to pick up the child, but the moment her hands made contact, her fingers immediately started to twist out of shape.

“Huh?”

Her fingers popped and cracked, filling the room with the sound of snapping bones as they continued to twist and break away. The deformation began to spread to her hands, up her wrists, and into her arms.

“Haugh…! Wh-what’s happening?!”

“Aaah…gahahaha!!”

Flum looked over at the cackling child. A pair of pulsing, blood-red spirals filled its eye sockets. Blood spat from the gaping holes and ran down the child’s cheeks like tears.

“Clarice, get away!!”

Flum drew her Souleater and prepared to attack, but Clarice was still too close to the child for her to do anything.

“I…I can’t get away! I’m…I’m stuck? No, not stuck…it’s like it’s sucking me in!”

The disfiguration had made its way up her arms and threatened to start working down her torso, legs, and head. There was nothing that could be done to save her.

“It…hurts! Gaaaauugh! K-kill me, please!! It hurts so bad…! I can’t take it!”

“Gyaaaaahahaha!”

Flum swung her sword and cleaved the child and Clarice in half, finally granting her the sweet release of death. To minimize the suffering, she cut straight through Clarice’s heart.

The child she had bonded with, however, was another story. The mass of flesh and muscle began to squirm and crawl toward her. It looked more like a worm than anything human.

“Is that what the child really was?”

“I guess it was never human.”

From pregnancy to birth, this thing they’d been raising was a bloody mass under Origin’s control, simply copying human shape.

“That means Susy’s child will be the same. Why would Origin do such a thing??”

Even as she said that, she knew the answer. Origin wanted to strengthen its influence. The closer the Necromancy project got to its goal, the more pawns it gained. That was why it went to such lengths to make it look like these people were reproducing. There was an alien logic to it, though to Flum, it just seemed an extension of Origin’s desire to destroy humanity. Only a sadist would give people hope just to rip it away like that.

“We need to destroy the focal core, and quick!”

But would that also destroy all the cores of those living in Sheol? In any case, the focal core was at the center of all this—the siren, the transformed child, all of it—and needed to be dealt with.

Flum and Milkit dashed out of the room and turned toward Central Control, only to find a woman blocking their path.

“Luluca…right?”

This was the mother of the child Flum just chopped in half…or more accurately, the woman who birthed the human-like abomination. The bloody mass that was once her child crawled out of the room and slithered up her body and forced its way into her mouth, causing her jaw to dislocate and her throat to expand to an inhuman size.

It settled down into her stomach, leaving her looking pregnant.

“What, you think you can just give birth to it again now? You’re supposed to pour all your love into raising a child, you know! Is this how little you think of a human life?!”

Flum rammed her sword down into the floor and unleashed a prana storm on Luluca. The prana-powered wind let out an awful screeching sound as it cut large gashes in the reinforced floor, walls, and ceiling on its way past.

It was obviously overkill. Though the cores were themselves quite powerful, these revived corpses were hardly meant to fight or withstand such attacks.

When she looked down at the blood and gristle lining the floor, revulsion welled up within her.

“This is awful, all of it!”

Her face contorted in rage as bitterness swept over her. She felt Milkit’s arms wrap around her from behind.

“Th-thanks, Milkit.”

“It’s all I can do.”

“Well, I think it’s wonderful. Now let’s get going!”

Reinvigorated, Flum turned her mind to the task at hand and started again toward Central Control. Though it wasn’t very far, they’d have to make their way through the researchers’ quarters first.

It was just as bad as she expected. Reanimated corpses played with the bodies of the recently massacred. An awful stench hung heavily in the air. The walls were covered in blood like a fresh coat of paint.

“Out of the way!!”

Flum had to put her emotions aside until the battle was over. All she could do for the time being was keep moving, destroy Origin’s plans, and minimize the damage of the unfolding tragedy.

“Hya! Fwoo! Eyaugh!” She swung her blade in front of her as she ran, chopping through anything in her way. She could have taken them down with a Prana Shaker, but there was just too little room to maneuver. While it was incredibly easy to cut down each foe, the sheer number of them made for slow going, consuming Flum’s limited time.

Making matters worse, their numbers were only increasing. There were so many, in fact, that Flum began to wonder where they were coming from. Many of them weren’t even wearing lab coats, suggesting that they had come in from outside.

“There are just too many. The hallway’s completely blocked off.”

The reanimated corpses packed tightly into the hallway. From the way they moved, it was clear nothing cognizant was steering them around. She wanted to just cut them all down, but the massive Souleater wasn’t suited for such close quarters.

If only I could find some sort of shortcut… I don’t know much about the facility’s layout. I’ll just need to find a way through.

Flum’s mind raced as she waded through the shuffling horde.

I could bust through a wall… No, that’s going to be blocked off, too. It didn’t look like there were any alternative routes, and trying to weave through these guys isn’t gonna happen. The only available space is…above them.

“…Above them. That’s it!” Flum wrapped an arm around Milkit and pulled her close. “Hang on!”

“Okay!” Milkit, who trusted Flum implicitly, wrapped her arms around her in a tight embrace.

“Gravity reversal… Reversion!” Flum kicked up off the floor the moment she cast the spell, landing effortlessly on the ceiling.

“Huh? What’s happening??”

“I’ll explain later, but right now this seems to be working, so let’s go!”

Flum ran unimpeded across the ceiling and over the horde. Giving Milkit a quick squeeze, she increased her speed and ran straight to Central Control.

 

***

 

Flum and Milkit stepped through the unlocked door and into Central Control. As soon as she took a breath, she wrinkled her nose. The room was filled with the smell of commingled bodily fluids.

Glancing around, the room looked nothing like it had when they were there earlier. Something—possibly human remains—was stuck to a wall, coated in a pink substance mixed with various flesh tones. Fingers, hands, legs, and arms grew around the room, fumbling and swaying. The fleshy mass was slowly enveloping the focal core.

Dafydd, who looked like he had only just arrived, stood in front of the massive black crystal. His gaze was fixed on something hanging just above it.

“That…looks like Susy’s face.”

Though the rest of the human limbs filling the room looked like they were hastily jigsawed together, her body was still mostly intact.

Her face was another story. Her eyes were hollow cavities, and half of her face had been consumed by a spiral mass of flesh and sinew. Her mouth looked like it had been torn open, even as it twisted into a mock-smile.

Her stomach—where her and Dafydd’s child should have been—had a thick blood vessel running along it that pulsed arrhythmically. If it was anything like Luluca’s child, the creature inhabiting Susy’s stomach was nothing short of a monster. Dafydd’s hopes and expectations would be met with little more than tragedy.

“Who do you think is to blame here?” He didn’t turn around.

Flum responded immediately. “Origin.”

Origin was to blame for all of this.

“It was wrong to believe in it.”

Dafydd laughed bitterly. “So I was wrong all along? You’re quite harsh, Flum.”

“Turning your back on the truth will only cause you more suffering. I spoke with one of your researchers, and she said that your metrics were off the scale since I arrived. You knew something was going on for some time, didn’t you?”

“Who can say? Then again, it looks like you figured it out in just a day’s time, so I suppose I was aware too, on some level.”

Even now, he wasn’t entirely convinced by the evidence in front of him.

“I think I knew, even as I preached my wonderful dream to all around me. Even as I fell further into my own fantasy. But…but I just wanted to fully lose myself in that wonderful dream. I refused to believe that my Susy being alive again could possibly be a lie. It… it shouldn’t have ended this way…gyahahahaha!”

And yet here they were.

All he could do was laugh. Out of sadness. Out of anger. The feelings rushing through him could no longer be named and categorized.

“And to think that this all came crashing down at Susy’s hands. Who would have imagined such a turn of events?? Why Susy? Why?!”

“Get out of the way. I need to destroy it.” Flum had neither the need nor the desire to listen to Dafydd’s rambling.

He turned around, throwing his arms up in an attempt to protect the core and his wife.

“I won’t let you touch Susy!”

“Then I’ll just have to go through you!” Flum let loose a Prana Shaker.

A wriggling tendril that looked like a deformed human limb stretched out and blocked the blast.

“Susy…you protected me. That’s…that’s right, you really are back! I’m sorry I said all those awful things, Susy. No matter what you may look like, I still love you. I love you, my beloved Susy!”

Flum still wasn’t ready to give up. “All right then, I’ll just cut you down myself!”

She lunged toward Dafydd, swinging the Souleater at the tendril as it moved into her path. The massive black blade cut halfway through and stuck fast.

“Nng… What the hell?!”

Another tendril lashed at Flum. The Souleater disappeared in a flash of light, and Flum jumped clear.

“It’s no use.” Dafydd smiled darkly. “The focal core has accumulated so much power within it that it’s now far beyond any normal core. It may not be weaponized like that of the Chimera and Children teams, but I can still make use of its massive power reserves, if I only will it.”

“But…there’s one…weakness you’re…overlooking!! Hyaaaaaaaaah!!”

If she couldn’t make it through the tendrils, she would just have to focus her efforts on the focal core itself. Flum sprang high into the air and, at the apex of her jump, shot a focused blast of prana from the tip of her blade, the Prana Sting aimed at a narrow gap in their defenses.

Another tendril whipped out of nowhere and took the blow head-on.

Flum jumped back to grab Milkit just before a tendril managed to reach her. The two tumbled across the floor, just out of range.

“Aaaaugh…aaaaaaaah…oaaaaauuuugh!!”

“Susy?”

While Flum battled for her life, Susy had began to transform, now that she’d assimilated the focal core. Her enlarged belly began to pulsate before, moments later, it burst wide open. Out came a child covered in a thick, sticky liquid.

“Susy…you’ve given birth to our child! It’s…it’s so beautiful!!” Dafydd ran to the figure lying on the floor.

“Aaugh…uwaaugh! Fhaauh! Hwaauh!” It refused to look at him. Its bloody, pulsing spiral eyes were locked on Flum.

“Lukoh…Lukoh Chalmas. That’s your name, you know. Susy and I talked a lot about it before you were born. Now you’re the newest member of our family.”

Dafydd could care less about the form his child had taken. He felt nothing but love for it. Human or not, even as its limbs began to twist and deform—none of that mattered to him in that moment.

“Aah, you’re so warm. You’re all the proof I need that Susy is truly alive and back with us. You have no idea how happy I am to hold you, Lukoh.”

Not only had he managed to bring his wife back from the dead and make a life with her, but now, they had a child. Perhaps he couldn’t actually save anyone like he intended, but as far as Dafydd was concerned…he’d found his happy ending.

“My dear, dear Lukoh…” Dafydd held Lukoh tight to his body, rubbing his cheek against his child’s through the thick mucus, blood spattering onto his face from the churning spirals.

It wasn’t mucus covering his child at all.

“Nnngh…haauh…Lukoh…you… Susy and I…will raise you…together…nngaaah!!” Lukoh and Dafydd’s bodies began to merge where their skin touched.

“Raise…and…nngh…happy…and…gaaaugh!”

The fusion of their bodies finally reached his brain, sending a painful shock through his paralyzed body. He could do nothing but scream as a trail of drool dripped out the side of his mouth.

“Master…look at Dafydd!”

“I don’t get it! He knew these were fake, so why would he go and do something stupid like that?!”

Lukoh was still connected to Susy by a red umbilical cord. Dafydd’s body slowly merged with the cord, traveling up along it toward Susy’s body.

“Aaugh… Lukoh… Lukoh, where are you?!” He searched blindly with his hands while his lower body was enveloped in a warm, fleshy mass of muscle. His cheek tensed for a moment as he seemed to realize what was happening to him, though the expression quickly gave way to one of tranquility. “So that’s how this all ends, I guess. We may not be able to live together, but this…this love is good enough for me. As long as you, Lukoh, and I can all live together as a family, I…I’m…”

He seemed to have given up on everything at this point. He’d failed to save anyone, himself included, and yet, this was the path he chose.

The attacking tendrils slowed and then stopped as Susy focused her energies on consuming Dafydd.

Milkit spoke aloud to no one in particular. “Is that…is that really love?”

She wasn’t expecting an answer. Nor did Flum really have the personal experience to talk about love. But she could say one thing definitively:

“No, that’s not love at all. Dafydd just couldn’t take the pain any longer. That’s why he bought into these sugar-coated lies—to cover his own shortcomings and convince himself he was happy. This was suicide.”

All the Necromancy project had really done was allow Dafydd to put off the inevitable. The moment Susy died, he lost all reason to live.

With the Necromancy project using Origin cores like they were, they were all living on borrowed time.

“Now that Dafydd’s been assimilated, there’s no one left to protect the core. I just hope it doesn’t put up too much of a fight.” Even as the words left her mouth, Flum knew she was setting herself up for disappointment.

As she raised her sword up into the air to strike at the core, she heard clapping in the background. The sound felt distinctly out of place.

A woman in gaudy attire appeared behind the now deformed Susy. She let out a high-pitched laugh. “My, my, what a wonderful show you’ve put on for me!”

“What are you doing here, Satils?!”

“Ngyah!”

Flum brought her sword down in a powerful strike, but Satils managed to block it with a wave of her right hand, despite the reversal magic Flum had put into the blow.

“How barbaric, Flum Apricot. But unfortunately for you, such simple attacks won’t work on me—not with the power of the focal core running through my body!”

“I knew it didn’t make sense for Susy to do this all on her own! So you were behind it the whole time?”

“Correct! I’m quite proud to say I wrote the whole script. It was pretty emotional when the baby popped free from Susy, wouldn’t you say?”

“Wh…y…wo…uld…you do…”

Dafydd barely managed to choke out the words. He had been absorbed up to his shoulder before the process stopped—probably also a part of Satils’ plan.

“Like I said, this is all my doing. I used the power of the focal core to control Susy and turn her into a monster. It’s as simple as that. Lukoh being born and you being absorbed were aaaaall a part of my plan! Kyahahahaa!”

The body parts growing from the walls and floors were Satils’ doing, too. Susy was as much a victim of this as Dafydd.

“That’s…not possible. How…could you…this room…”

Only Dafydd and a select group of researchers were allowed to enter this room. It seemed absurd that Satils could walk right in when even Susy couldn’t get past the door.

Satils face lit up at the question. “You can thank none other than Gorne Forgan for that. He’s worked up a bit of a debt, you know? I thought I’d make use of it, so I put him and Echidna in touch while I was at it.”

“He…gave information…to Chimera? So that’s…that’s why Chimera was able to…make so many advances lately!”

“That’s right. They used what they’d learned about the technology behind the focal core.”

“Gorne, you…you spineless…!”

Gorne was more than his assistant; Dafydd had considered him a long-time friend. Alas, that sense of camaraderie wasn’t mutual. Gorne thought of Dafydd as little more than the man who wrote his paychecks.

“I must say, the look on your face is divine, Dafydd. I’ve looked forward to seeing it for some time. Obviously, I’ve been funding the Necromancy project in the hopes of bringing it to market, but I absolutely love seeing people like you, with your sugary-sweet fantasy worlds filled with love and friendship, have their hopes and dreams dashed against the rocks. It’s such a splendid feeling!”

“So that was the only reason you approached me?! Just to see it all fall to ruin??”

Flum couldn’t help but feel there was something strange about their exchange. No, that wasn’t right. She felt that way ever since she came to Sheol and met with Dafydd.

He’d never once said anything about Satils being brought back to life.

“Did you not know that Satils was revived?” she demanded.

“Brought…back? Is that what happened? So…so that’s how she gained control of the focal core. We were played from the very beginning.”

Gorne, or someone from the Chimera team working through him, must have taken a core from the facility and used it on Satils. That didn’t quite answer how she’d been able to live beyond the reach of the focal core for so long, but it wasn’t beyond the realm of possibility that Chimera had used the information Gorne sold them to make a focal core of their own.

“Well, Dafydd, I think I’m about done with the appetizer. Let’s move on to the main dish.”

“You’re…still not done?”

“Of course not. I’ve saved the best for last.” Satils smiled broadly, baring her bright red gums and glossy white teeth. Her gaze, expression, and voice all betrayed her crazed ecstasy. “Your beloved wife, a certain Susy Chalmas, was attacked by two adventurers who tortured her to death. She died with tears streaming down her face, screaming your name over and over. The adventurers, Tryte Ransila and Demiceliko Radius, were real scum-of-the-earth types who turned to crime to pay off their massive debt.”

“Why do you know their names? The guild wasn’t able to find anything!”

“Must I explain?” She offered up a wicked smile.

Dafydd’s voice quivered. He looked like a lamb ready for the slaughter. “You…you ordered her death?”

“Now, now. They wanted to kill Susy. I just hated the sight of her. I mean, she was always going on about what was right and just, helping people without accepting payment, and she always ruined my carefully crafted plans without any good reason. Obviously, she had to die!”

The thought that she could be wrong didn’t even seem to cross her mind.

“Watching her writhe around in pain, her hands and ankles smashed, screaming your name, was absolute rapture! That’s when it hit me—Susy dedicated herself to justice just so I could kill her. What a great and wondrous God we have, to put a woman like her on this planet just for my delight and delectation!”

“Is that…is that the only reason? You killed her just to satisfy your own twisted urges?!”

“I have money. I have power. There’s no shortage of elites like me who feel compelled to eliminate the weak!”

“Nnnnggaaaaaauuuugh!!” Dafydd finally gave in. This was probably the first time in his life he ever felt such uncontrollable anger rush through him.

“Ah, yes, your expression is nothing short of divine! This alone makes all those years of pouring money into your project worth it. Yes, yes, my investment has truly paid off in such exquisite pleasure! Gyahahaha!” Her cackle echoed throughout the room. It was like she’d been waiting for this precise moment.

“You’re sick! Rotten to the core!”

“Rotten? Hardly. This is how the world works. Anyway, I’ve had my fill for now. I think it’s about time we say goodbye to you, Dafydd.” She tapped her heel on the floor, and Susy returned to absorbing Dafydd.

“I’ll kill you…kill you! You…yooooooooou!!”

He screamed through the whole process, though this only seemed to bring Satils even more pleasure.

“It’s all over for you now! You can writhe, flail, yell, scream, cry… None of it will do you any good! That Susy right there, and even your child…they only look human. Your life, and even your death, was all pointless!”

“K-k-k-kill…nngg yo…you…” Dafydd’s cries ceased as his head was sucked in.

“Dafydd…” There was a certain sadness to Milkit’s voice. He may have made mistakes, but she hardly felt he deserved such an awful end.

Satils’ laughter broke the silence. “Well, well. Why, I need a break from all that laughter…but you two are up next. I may have been brought back to life, but I fully intend to pay you back for all the pain you inflicted on me last time.”

She pointed in their direction and curled her finger back toward herself. Two tendrils flew toward Flum, trying to seize her in a pincer.

Flum grabbed Milkit and jumped out of the way in time to watch the tendrils slam into each other and twist together. Now combined, they sped up and slammed into her head-on.

“Nnngyaaaah!” Flum managed to block the blow with her Souleater. The tendrils slammed into the wall and were absorbed like a raindrop into a pond.

“It sounds like defending yourself is taking all you have. That’s quite all right—I love watching people resist the inevitable. Seeing a weakling struggle in vain is so very enjoyable.”

“Your advantage won’t last forever!” Flum gave into her anger and launched another Prana Shaker at Satils. Right before it hit, her arm transformed into a blade, and she took the attack head-on.

“You seem fixated on the idea that my body or my core are weaknesses you can take advantage of.”

There wasn’t a mark on her.

Satils rushed toward Flum and raised her arm. The power of an unseen spiral began to form around her hand. “This is more powerful that anything you can imagine.”

She swung at Flum with her sword arm, shooting off spiral blasts. Satils followed up with an attack nearly identical to the Prana Shaker, but launched from her bare hand, and more powerful than what Flum could pull off on her own.

“Haaugh?!” Flum blocked the attack with the broad side of her sword; the sheer force of the blast blew her back into the wall.

“Hmm, perhaps I should kill little Milkit here first?”

“Not a chance in hell!”

Flum pushed off the wall with such force that she flew straight through the air at Satils. Her sword slammed into Satils’ sword arm. A loud crack resounded throughout the room as Flum’s reversal magic met with Satils’ spiral power.

Unsure of what else she could do, Milkit tried to stay out of the way, escaping to a corner of the room. A quick look at her new surroundings revealed human limbs sticking out of the walls at odd angles, making her even more worried about what to do if another tendril appeared.

The corridor outside the room was filled with the reanimated corpses, and she imagined it was probably a similar scene above ground as well. As far as she could tell, there were no safe spaces left in Sheol.

“You realize you’re using both hands while I’m only using one, no?” Satils kept Flum’s blade locked down with one hand as she swiped at Flum’s head with the other. At the end of her swing, she loosed a blast of spiral energy from her palm.

Flum jerked her head to the side to dodge the blast, throwing her off balance. With a chuckle, Satil took advantage of the moment to ram her fingertips into Flum’s stomach.

Even though she didn’t have the leverage to put much speed or power into the attack, it still smashed Flum upward into the ceiling. Her head slammed against it so hard she blacked out for a moment. Satils leapt to where Flum was stuck in the ceiling, yanked her up by the shirt, and threw her into the floor.

Flum used her magic right at the instant she made contact with the floor to reverse her momentum, sending her flying straight toward Satils, her Souleater stretched out in front of her.

Satils blocked this attack, too, with just her hand. “You sure like to bounce around a lot. Humans aren’t supposed to be that resilient… How have you not broken any bones yet?”

“Why do you care?! You can break my bones or crush my body—it won’t stop me from putting an end to you, Satils!”

Satils chuckled. “We’ve got a brave one here. You remind me of an adorable little puppy that growls just a bit too much. Now, I wonder what that puppy over there sounds like when it whimpers?”

“Gah, stay away from Milkit!”

“Are you really in any position to worry about others?” Satils took advantage of Flum’s momentary lapse in concentration. She stretched out both hands and hit Flum with a powerful blast, throwing her toward the ground before she herself dove off the ceiling and punched Flum in the stomach while she was still in midair.

Flum’s body arched in an unnatural position. Blood sprayed from her mouth as her bones shattered and organs ruptured. She hit the ground with such force that the floor groaned beneath her, and a powerful shock wave reverberated through her body.

“Auunngh!”

Even the enchantment lessening her pain couldn’t fully eliminate it. Making matters worse, her body was too shattered to move; it would still be some time before her wounds could properly regenerate. Satils looked at Flum collapsed on the ground and laughed at her powerlessness, then turned her attention to Milkit.

With a wave of her hand, a tendril with a face growing from the tip sprang out of a loose arm and began to pursue the young girl.

“I’m…not…gonna let you…lay a hand…on her!”

Humans have a way of digging deeper and summoning up more strength than they ever thought possible when a loved one is in danger. Flum’s bones still hadn’t mended. Moving, much less standing, should have been impossible.

Should have.

And yet she was back on her feet and walking toward Milkit.

“Why, you…!”

She lunged at the tendril pursuing Milkit. Satils broke out in a wide grin at the sight.

“Stay away, Master!”

By the time Milkit called out her warning, it was too late. Flum couldn’t stop. The whole room began to tremble as something tried to force its way through the facility’s floor.

“Huh?” Flum felt the ground beneath her feet rise, before the floor burst open like a geyser expelling hordes of demons. In an instant, she found herself completely surrounded.

“Master!!”

So chaotic was the force swallowing Flum that she couldn’t even hear Milkit’s cries.

“How wonderfully exceptional to see someone give up their life to save a sub-human, a slave! Kyahahaha!”

As Satils’ laughter boomed throughout the room, the newly arrived creatures rushed to bond with the focal core, engulfing Flum with their roiling bodies. Some of the creatures still retained their human forms, while others were too far gone, though all had the same spiral marking their bodies as core hosts.

“These are Dafydd’s failed creations. He was too nice to just kill them outright, so he locked them up in the basement instead.”

Perhaps he had held out hope that one day he could save even his mistakes.

“Fortunately for me, I can use them to further increase my power. Oh, Dafydd, what a pitiful existence you lived. It’s like you were put on this planet purely for my use! In fact, I think you were! Just as God put Susy here for me to kill, it was God’s plan for you to live and die just to fulfill my dreams!”

Satils threw out her arms in a declaration of victory as the creatures continued to climb out of the ground and merge with the focal core. It grew larger and larger, losing its shape.

Her feet began to transform, like they were melting away, as she, too, joined the focal core.

She belted out an ear-piercing laugh. “Well, it looks like I got rid of that annoying little gnat. I want to see your face twist in pure, blissful agony, dear little Milkit. I think I might spend some time torturing what hasn’t yet been absorbed of that Flum girl to death…and you’ll have a front row seat.”

But then—Satils froze in place.

“Aah, yes…that’s right. Of course. I guess that’s what I must do.”

Her previous excitement suddenly nowhere to be seen, she began to move again.

“Well, my plans have changed. I won’t be killing Flum. It seems I have places to go.”

“Satils…you’re also one of the reanimated dead, aren’t you?” Milkit said.

“You dare compare me to those puppets?! Watch your mouth! I’m different; I was chosen by Origin! If that wasn’t the case, why would I be able to bond with the focal core and use its power like this??”

“All the others believed that too—that they were living and acting of their own will! But it’s just Origin causing you to think that!”

“Shut up! What do you know?! The only reason you were born on this planet was to be squashed like the bug you are!!” As Satils let her anger consume her, tendrils burst to life all around the room, attempting to smash Milkit.

Milkit had anticipated that. But now that Flum had been swallowed, the only thing weapon she had against Satils was the truth. If Satils could be believed, Flum was still alive somewhere inside her body. But Milkit was too weak to fight on her own, and there was nothing she could do…

“Connection!”

The world around Milkit changed in the blink of an eye. She was now outside that cruel, deranged lab. She looked to the child who had teleported her to safety and gasped. “Haah?!”

She was mere centimeters away from blank eye cavities filled with twisting and contorting spirals.

A moment later, Nekt’s face returned to normal. She pouted slightly at Milkit’s reaction. “I’ve gotta say, it’s pretty rude to look so scared of the person who saved you.”

“I…I’m sorry. Thank you, Nekt.”

“No problem. But it looks like I was too late for Flum, huh? Though I doubt Papa would kill her. He has plans.”

“Why wouldn’t he kill her?”

“By bonding with Flum, Papa would gain the power of reversal and be free of his one weakness.”

“But they’ve tried to kill her before…”

“There’s the Papa that wants her to live and the one that wants her to die. His consciousness is still split.”

“There’s more than one?”

Nekt’s information made the situation surrounding Origin even more complicated. Before they could continue their conversation, the ground began to shake as something massive tried to burst out of the earth.