"Are you still the same?" The red hair lifted effortlessly with each new movement of the girl.
"Who would've thought, your playfulness hasn't changed a bit!" Werner moved quickly; his entire body except his head started resembling that of a snake.
"I think that's not bad, unlike your paranoia."
"Paranoia... What are you talking about?" They were about to reach the towers.
"Forgot the human language while playing with the locals here?" She leaped from tree to tree as Werner moved at the base of those same trees.
"Your tongue is just as sharp even in the last cycles of your life!" The girl's face stopped smiling at the question, but shortly after, it regained its bright smile.
"At least something remains with me..."
"Are you suggesting that I taught you poorly along with 'Before'?" Werner tried to look at Kali, but the dense forest hindered his view.
"I'll never forget the teachings with her," the girl casually replied.
"Ha, maybe I'm wrong, and you're still the same. Maybe you'll become part of the 'Great Life'?"
"I decline, Werner, I decline," came the swift answer in a ringing and soft female voice. "I don't want to be the same kind of creature as you!"
"It's amusing to hear that from you, but I'll let that insult pass. After all, you're one of the Notes, and besides, we'll soon meet the Lord himself!" A calm voice said this.
"Who is this Lord? Why are you so afraid of him?" Kali said lightly.
"It was a long time ago when I first found the 'scriptures.' It says: a man whose name was on the lips of the past, in the face of the present, and the terror of the future - that is the Lord of the Forgotten Sea, the strongest being of the human race, our main headache of the future. But..." Kali interrupted him.
"He has appeared now."
"Yes, that was the only time the 'scriptures' were wrong..."
"Do you think this is an isolated case? After one, comes two..." The girl smiled.
"I hope your words are untrue; otherwise, it will be incredibly difficult for all of us, the Notes. Moreover, 'Re' won't withstand such an early confrontation!" They were just about to reach the tower.
"You're only worried because 'Re' won't be able to fight the so-called 'strongest of the past'?"
"No, it's just that upon his arrival, we were supposed to destroy a large part of the shards, and here... there's a new 'dungeon' as well."
"Don't worry; I'll free 'Re' from some of the work," she began to detach with greater force from the tops of one tree to another, barely touching the tree.
"This might be your biggest folly, Kali," he started accelerating to keep up with the girl.
"Maybe," the girl replied calmly and affectionately, slightly opening both eyes.
The girl sensed a tremendous amount of Eden beneath her feet.
"Are we already this close?"
"Unfortunately, yes," Werner calmly replied.
**
"What was that guy, he broke my finger?!" Anna carefully touched her broken finger. "I hope you'll burn in hell, you bastard! You also tried to stop me from gaining knowledge! I'll kill everyone, without exception!" She muttered angrily to herself, holding the notebook tightly in her hands, making sure it couldn't be torn out and lost.
On this notebook, with great difficulty, Anna managed to write down all the words of the Supreme Enturion and the symbol on the killer's mask.
She panted, rested, and continued to run. Her entire mind was there, at the end of that corridor, where there was no light, where she felt the answer might be.
It could have gone on forever, at least that's what the girl thought, but unconsciously she desired to eat, drink, and much more.
"Damn, what uncomfortable shoes!" She tried to adjust the shoes that were rubbing against her heel.
She stood not far from two passageways when suddenly, the buildings began to rearrange. Two entrances closed, creating a new, third, and only passage for now. The girl glanced around several times, clutching her stomach, and after some thought, she decided to run further.
"The truth in front of my eyes, you've already done so much, so I won't return empty-handed!" Murder, escape, infiltration, all of it had crossed the line, and it seemed like she wasn't satisfied and was deriving pleasure from this imagined "freedom," desiring to continue her bloody path downward.
Sitting down again, she began to descend down the dark staircase. It was considerably faster because she no longer attempted to be careful but simply rushed headlong.
After about ten minutes of descent, she saw a light, the same white glow that had illuminated the corridor before. She quickly found herself there. But it was an entirely different room, nothing like a corridor. It resembled more of a strange laboratory.
And Anna understood it; she had studied for years, but these "devices" here, hundreds of capsules with something akin to flesh inside and some green liquid. It was a large space filled with these "flasks," ranging in size from human bodies to larger. Some were much larger than a person, comparable to trees or huge animals.
The floor, as well as the walls and ceiling, had a white glow, but at the bottom, there were also green lines. They went from one capsule to another, connecting them into one "system." Anna moved, following the lines, thinking that somewhere there might be another altar or something from the ancestors. But these lines possessed strange energy; it wasn't Eden, but just by looking at the liquid inside, one could understand that upon contact with something, it would either disappear instantly or explode.
She examined the capsules; she was afraid of the strange contents in them but kept going. These beings inside moved, showing her they were alive.
"Just ignore it, ignore it," the girl said to herself, trying to follow the lines on the floor rather than the capsules.
Suddenly, not far from her, her eyes spotted something familiar. The shape, people—they were soldiers from Norca, her country. All of them were in capsules, just like hundreds of other creatures.
"This..." she exclaimed. Some of them she recognized—workers, scientists, and many others who died under the "debris" when digging mines and scattering the bones of the ancestors.
When her eyes glanced around again, she saw a strange device—a computer. Multiple monitors on a small table. This object didn't stand out from the general view of the room, making it hard to see among the hundreds of haphazardly arranged capsules.
"How does this contraption turn off?" She tried to do something, pressing buttons; her crystal on her hand began to react. It intensified its glow, as if feeding off the power of this "table," but after three flickers, it cracked and shattered—the passage of time had destroyed this treasure for the girl.
"What, how is this possible?" She tried to gather the shards back into her palm.
"A-a-a-ah!" The girl screamed in pain; a sudden pain pierced her knee. As her eyes lowered, she saw a pool of blood, causing her to scream even louder.
A shot, a precise shot from a pistol, deprived the girl of her leg. Her eyes searched for the source of the shot until they settled on the man standing at the entrance, leaning against the wall. His battered appearance immediately revealed who he was.
"Wait!" She reached out to him, but a shot preempted her attempts to speak, creating a hole in her skull.
"I don't know who caused that guy's death, but your mistake was thinking you'd leave me alive after causing so much harm!"
Arlok coughed again; it was hard for him to stand, but he tried to fight himself and move.
"This is the breeding ground for these creatures..." He surveyed the capsules.
"Yes, indeed, their indicators completely match those we encountered earlier."
"They need to be destroyed; get the 'starkiller'!"
"But your condition, you won't be able to handle using the sword!" Aria tried to argue, but Arlok summoned the sword from his cloak into his hand. White particles gathered and formed the sword.
Carnage approached the table and picked up the notebook, placing it inside the cloak's internal storage; he felt their appearance. Two Notes stood straight behind him. The girl partially opened her eyes to see Arlok, while Werner transformed his body, turning his hands into huge blades.