Chapter 399: Operation
While Sigurd was enjoying a peaceful breakfast on one side, Mobius was on the other—poking at the meat on her plate with a knife and fork, humming a little tune.
"Hmm~ hm-hmm~~"
A beautiful girl's humming—soft, sweet, almost melodic.
But the melody itself was strangely quiet and cold, like a venomous serpent crawling through the stillness of night. It made the air creep with unease.
Screech!
Her metal fork scraped the plate sharply. Mobius's eyes narrowed, those bottomless serpent pupils shifting toward the massive metal chamber occupying most of the laboratory.
The sealed, black metal door carried a weight of oppressive solidity—yet at this moment, cracks were slowly spreading across its surface.
Mobius watched the cracks with a gleam in her eyes. Her small pink tongue brushed lightly across her lips. Then she flicked her hand.
Clatter!
"Doctor Mobius, please refrain from wasting food or polluting the workspace."
"What's the problem? Klein is here, isn't she?"
"…It's true that I'm the one who cleans up, but still… sigh..."
Klein's flat, emotionless voice ended with a subtle sigh of resignation. She knew it was pointless to chide Mobius—Mobius was simply this kind of person.
Mobius's eyes curved as she smiled, but from the depths of that smile surged a cold, slicing killing intent. Ambition—vast and ravenous—overflowed from her gaze.
"Finally… the time has come. Are you ready, my little lab rat? Hahaha!"
…
Rumble… rumble…!
In the resting-domain's outdoor café drenched in warm sunlight, the sudden tremor made the entire world quiver.
"???"
The girls all froze mid-bite, mid-chew, mid-laugh. A dozen eyes snapped toward Sigurd, who was calmly lifting a fried egg with his fork.
Sigurd placed the egg in his mouth. While the world shook, he chewed unhurriedly, swallowed, and used the small towel beside him to wipe his mouth.
Only after this sequence of graceful, composed motions did he press one hand against the table.
BOOM!
A sudden thunderous impact—like a massive natural disaster had been forcefully pinned down. The shaking stopped instantly.
"I'm going out," Sigurd said mildly, pushing back his chair as he stood. A heartbeat later, his figure vanished.
…
Using the preset virtual coordinates, Sigurd teleported directly into Mobius's domain.
There, perched atop her signature floating craft, sat Mobius. Her long skirt fluttered elegantly in the wind, revealing flashes of her strikingly pale, luminescent feet. She cupped her face with both hands, smiling at Sigurd with a deranged, lovestruck gleam.
"…?"
Data windows flickered into existence before Sigurd's eyes, rows of numbers flashing rapidly. After scanning them, he shook his head and met Mobius's gaze, expression calm and cold.
"Doctor Mobius," Sigurd said, "you never disappoint. You really did tamper with it."
"It was just a bit of tinkering. Well? Are you satisfied?"
Mobius tilted her head slightly, licking her lips. The curve of her smile twisted further—darker, more unhinged.
Behind her, the sealed metal chamber was already at its limit, riddled with countless fractures, trembling violently under the pressure of whatever force churned inside.
BOOM!
Crackle—!
As the two faced one another, the first explosion hit—metal bursting apart.
A blood-soaked claw tore straight through Mobius's slim waist.
"Hahahahaha!"
Mobius threw her head back and laughed.
Blood spilled from her mouth, staining her neatly aligned white teeth crimson.
And yet, she spread her arms wide—posing triumphantly, basking in her own madness—as she cackled:
"This is my masterpiece! Are you satisfied now, Sigurd?! Hahaha!"
Hissssss—
Mobius's manic laughter lasted only a moment before she was torn apart—claws and a gaping maw of black matter ripped her to shreds. Blood, cloth, and fragments of her flight gear scattered across the room, as though she had been devoured alive by the very monster she created.
"Ahh… honestly."
Sigurd shook his head with a quiet sigh, showing no change in expression as he calmly studied Sin Mal's new form.
She wore no clothing; her small, pale, childlike body was fully exposed before Sigurd. Like a beast, she crouched on all fours, her limbs wrapped in black, metallic-like material that formed claws. Her head tilted up, lips pulled back in a feral snarl, revealing two rows of shark-like teeth. A murderous aura rolled off her in waves.
"Hah… hah… hah…"
Sin Mal's lips were drawn wide, breath heavy and ragged. A silver strand of drool slipped from the corner of her mouth and hit the floor—and the moment it touched the metal, it sizzled, burning a black scorch mark into the surface.
But none of that was the most striking thing.
The most eye-catching change was the left side of her face. Starting from her grey eye, black matter coated almost half her features, writhing and crawling like a living parasite. It crept down across her back, where a massive maw—full of teeth, warped and jagged—had grown. Claws and other grotesque structures branched outward, all of them aimed squarely at Sigurd with hostile intent.
"Sin Mal…"
Sigurd touched his chin, his eyes reflecting silent analysis.
The distorted world seen through Sin Mal's eye was a materialization of the darkness within human hearts, and also a record of time's erosion—an amalgamation of a person's current twisted state, plus the actions of their past and future, all projected into Sin Mal's unique temporal dimension.
Judging from Dr. Mobius's entire experiment, this monstrosity of black matter was likely a fusion of temporal and mental energies.
"As expected of Dr. Mobius… pushing Sin Mal's potential to the absolute limit."
Sigurd murmured under his breath, watching as the girl bearing that darkness lunged at him, sprinting forward on all fours like a fired arrow.
Crunch!
The sound of teeth piercing flesh.
Sigurd raised one arm, letting Sin Mal's bite sink into it. Her jaws tore into his skin—yet he used the wound to halt her charge.
Her own fangs paused.
But the monstrous maw on her back did not.
From above, the black, tooth-filled jaws snapped open and lunged downward toward Sigurd's head.
Shhhhk!!
…
In the rest chamber, darkness swallowed what had been a clear, serene sky.
The girls fell silent, all staring upward.
"If you're not scared of getting smacked, come on out. There's a bunch of us here—you think we're afraid of you?"
Kiana, lying across Raiden Mei's lap, spoke lazily as she rested and recovered her strength. Even in the half-real spaces of the Elysian Realm, her fragment of spatial authority let her sense clearly who was hiding in the sub-dimensions.
The others followed her gaze. But as the realm's creator, Mobius's mastery here was overwhelming—they saw nothing unusual.
In the void world, Mobius pressed her palms together. The green rings on her fingers tapped against each other with crisp, metallic clicks.
Clack! Clack! Clack!
"With Sigurd's blood as a lure, that rationality-broken little mouse should be very persistent… It'll keep the most troublesome one occupied, but not for long."
"I wanted to scatter these materials across different sectors and pick the cutest one to play with, but he's re-stabilized the entire realm… tch. Of course he came prepared."
"A direct fight, one against many, is disadvantageous for me. So I should withdraw… is that what you think I'd do?"
"How naïve."
Mobius narrowed her eyes. The void in front of her rippled, and the image of the rest chamber sharpened into perfect clarity.
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