In the control room, the suffocating silence was finally torn apart by a violent reality.
The massive display, once divided into a dense grid, flickered as the three-quarters of infrared cameras monitoring the exterior of the pod were severed simultaneously, as if an invisible giant had ripped out their cables.
The screens jumped to blinding static before plunging into total darkness.
"Something's wrong!"
Ren Yi felt a shiver inside the sealed pod. Instinctively, he controlled his misty body to lunge backward, pressing himself against the inner wall.
In his perception, the surrounding black liquid—which had been a viscous, semi-ethereal sludge—transitioned from phantom to physical in an instant.
It was a bizarre sensation. To be specific, a process that should have taken an eternity was compressed into a single second.
It was incredibly eerie, as if God had pressed a fast-forward button labeled "Life Explosion."
An evolutionary process that should have spanned billions of years was infinitely condensed and squeezed into this fleeting moment.
It was like a primordial, lifeless ocean that, under the manipulation of some unknown physical law, suddenly generated organic matter out of thin air, spawned primitive microorganisms, and exploded with single-celled algae...
Then, this evolution spiraled out of control, becoming a malignant proliferation.
Flesh swelled, bones twisted and grew at impossible angles, and countless organs began a frantic metabolism before they were even fully formed.
A massive amount of biological tissue was created in that instant, rotting immediately due to the overcrowding, yet the speed of decay could not keep up with the rate of new growth.
In a heartbeat, the once-black amniotic pool turned into a sea of flesh, packed with fresh meat, viscous fluids, and bone fragments that shattered under the immense pressure.
Then, this sea of flesh opened its massive, bloody maw.
A torrent of information flooded Ren Yi's perception as the Anomaly Appraisal app began spamming notifications in his consciousness.
So that was why it hadn't reacted before. S-099 had not yet been "born."
But he had no time to worry about that, for his perception was showing him an even more shocking scene.
The alloy armor of the sealed pod's outermost layer was as fragile as wet cardboard before the surging flesh.
Accompanied by the shrill screech of tearing metal, the tide of flesh roared into the third and second layers.
It was unformed muscle tissue, mucus carrying a warm, metallic stench, and white bones shattered like dross.
They were like a gorgeous, rampaging banquet, rushing toward the core chamber with unstoppable momentum.
It all happened too fast. Evans was still facing Ren Yi, frozen in that eerie posture, waving his hand.
Against the backdrop of the chaotic tide of flesh, the boy's silhouette looked incredibly frail, yet it carried a bone-chilling quality against that vibrant, macabre background.
He stood before it all like the swaying lure atop a deep-sea anglerfish's head, or the hissing rattle at the end of a sidewinder's tail.
In the next second, the hideous wave of flesh swallowed Evans whole.
There was no scream, no struggle. The boy's thin figure instantly dissolved into the dense thicket of fleshy filaments and bone spurs.
After the massive maw swallowed the bait, its momentum didn't slow. It lunged straight for the final barrier—straight for Ren Yi.
"Damn it, the thing it really wants to eat... is me!"
Ren Yi realized the truth the moment the mutation occurred: this giant mass of flesh that had solidified in an instant was not a group of organisms, but a unified individual with a clear, singular will.
Without hesitation, he used his ability to plant a Seed.
That "Seed," originating from the level of rules, detached from his main body. Carrying a form of absolute causality, it attempted to forcibly implant itself into the body of the flesh beast.
But for the first time ever, the planting failed.
Ren Yi was stunned.
That was impossible! Although his ability wasn't complex, its essence as an Anomaly was a rule-level power.
When he encountered "Extinction" in the Three Cities World, the ability failed because the opponent lacked the five senses to target; when facing "Battle-Damaged Guy," it was because the frozen time prevented manipulation.
But with S-099, the very action of "planting" itself could not be established.
The scene before him left no room for thought. The outer two layers of the pod had been torn open, and after Evans was swallowed, the glass in front of Ren Yi shattered.
Of course, Ren Yi still had a card to play.
That was his Anomaly Artifact, the 【Let the World Feel Pain Together】 Bead, or the "Pain Bead" for short.
By activating this bead, he could temporarily jump out of the current "time slice."
In this state, even if S-099 swallowed the entire laboratory, it wouldn't be able to touch him, as he would be at a different set of dimensional coordinates.
However, if he reappeared after a short time and his current position was already occupied and filled by S-099's dense mass of flesh...
Then a piece of unprecedented "art"—or rather, an explosion—would likely occur inside this land ship.
It was easy to imagine that Ren Yi himself would be blown into ragged pieces by such "art," making it quite difficult to put himself back together...
"I wonder if the pain of being blown up counts as a specific pain... does this thing even have pain receptors?"
Ren Yi's thoughts raced at lightning speed.
"If I feedback that pain to S-099 right after the explosion, and then give this guy a shot from the Raindrop, I wonder if it'll work..."
Just as Ren Yi was about to gamble everything on the Pain Bead, his sharp perception detected a variable.
In the control room, the moment the screens went black and the flesh erupted, Dr. Cyril slammed the intercom button on her desk. Her voice was sharp and decisive:
"Do it!"
Her "do it" wasn't about a button; it was a literal "hand."
The target of her order was the runner, B-406, who had been standing outside the door of the adjacent sealed pod.
At that moment, B-406 stood expressionless before an open emergency hatch.
His skeletal B-129 Withered Claw was already extended, and his mechanical prosthetic eye flashed frantically, reflecting the few remaining real-time feeds from Ren Yi's chamber.
He was "grabbing" through the monitor!
His goal was undoubtedly to pull Ren Yi out.
After a split-second of weighing his options, Ren Yi did not activate the Pain Bead. That thing could still be used even if he were swallowed.
Ren Yi chose to trust this "rescue" orchestrated by Dr. Cyril herself.
Screech—!
In the next instant, a violent spatial pull erupted in Ren Yi's area.
He felt his main body seized by a withered, cold, and irresistible force that dragged him backward with absolute strength.
However, his evacuation speed was ultimately half a beat slower than the frenzied flesh.
A portion of his white mist was instantly covered by S-099's surging flesh.
He had a small piece bitten off.
Since the grab logic of B-406's Withered Claw required the user to identify the target as a "whole," independent object, that small piece of mist that had detached from Ren Yi's main body was abandoned at the moment of the logic check.
He didn't feel much; Ren Yi frequently divided himself anyway, but the sensation of having a limb severed was still unpleasant.
His perception blurred as the world turned upside down.
The suffocating stench of flesh vanished instantly. Ren Yi found he had escaped that dark liquid pool and was back in the isolation room under the incandescent lights.
His perception immediately swept to the runner, B-406, outside the door.
The moment the mission was accomplished, B-406 seemed to have his strength drained. He quickly retracted the Anomaly known as the Withered Claw and retreated rapidly.
The moment Ren Yi appeared, the laboratory's defense mechanisms responded frantically.
Buzz—!
Layers of high-energy laser grids lit up in front of Ren Yi, followed by the heavy thud of half-meter-thick alloy blast doors sliding into place.
Within a second, Ren Yi was completely isolated from the hallway outside.
B-406 stood at the end of the corridor, looking at the tightly sealed blast doors, and let out a long sigh of relief.
He wiped the cold sweat from his forehead, and his mechanical prosthetic eye gradually stopped flashing.
He believed he had successfully returned the dangerous B-013-A to its cage.
However, what this runner didn't know was that during the thousandth of a second he had faced Ren Yi's main body with the Withered Claw, Ren Yi had already firmly implanted a Seed into him.
Separated by the heavy blast doors, Ren Yi floated calmly in the white light.
"Thank you."
"Consider this your delivery fee."
Rate on N.U.
