A figure stumbled in and shut the door behind him.
He wore a dark hooded coat, the hood pulled low, almost obscuring half of his face.
The exposed lower half of his face was gaunt, his lips pressed tightly together, revealing a sense of suppressed pain and exhaustion.
His movements were stiff, especially his left side, which seemed uncoordinated.
It was Matou Yan Ye.
He had just returned, having finished another attempt to forcibly activate the incomplete magic circuits within his body, trying to make his body adapt to the torture of the Imprint Worms.
The excruciating pain in his body and the burning sensation in his nerves left him nearly collapsed, but the flame burning in his heart sustained him.
"Sakura... endure just a little longer... I will definitely... obtain the Holy Grail... and take you away from this hell..."
He leaned against the wall, panting, and moved his feet with difficulty.
As soon as he stepped into the hallway, he felt that the atmosphere was wrong.
It was too quiet.
Then, his gaze locked onto the figure he loathed and feared, Zouken Matou, who was standing there in a strange, raised-hand pose, motionless, surrounded by a few eerie, deep-red lights, like a grotesque statue.
Kariya's pupils contracted sharply, and his heart gave a violent jolt.
"What happened?! That old worm..."
His vigilance and the instincts honed from years of living on the edge of danger instantly spiked to their peak!
Before he could even think, he felt a swift gust of air strike suddenly from the side of the back of his head!
"Someone!"
Kariya was horrified, and despite the excruciating pain and sluggishness of his left side, he desperately tried to twist his body to dodge or defend—
"Thud!"
A muffled sound.
Jack's baseball bat struck Kariya precisely on the side of his neck.
The timing and angle of her strike were impeccable, perfectly exploiting the moment when the opponent was physically incapacitated and his attention was drawn by Zouken Matou.
Kariya's vision went black. Without even seeing the attacker's appearance, his body went limp, and he collapsed to the ground, losing consciousness.
Jack walked out of the shadows, looked at the man lying on the ground, and then at the unremarkable baseball bat in her hand.
She crouched down, poked Kariya's cheek lightly with the end of the bat, and observed his pale, haggard face and his unnatural white hair, as well as the side of his body that was still twitching slightly in his unconscious state, looking very painful.
"This person... it seems there are worms moving inside his body too? And his condition is very bad."
Jack made a calm judgment.
"Is he the same kind as that old man? But it feels... a bit different."
She didn't quite understand why this family was all related to worms, nor did she understand why they had to make themselves suffer so much.
But she remembered that the mission directive was to obtain the "qualification" and minimize unnecessary attention.
Knocking out this person who had suddenly returned and might cause interference was a reasonable action.
After confirming that Kariya wouldn't wake up for a while, Jack ignored him.
She stood up and began to wander around the first floor of the mansion.
Meanwhile, deep beneath the mansion.
The light here was almost completely swallowed by darkness, with only the phosphorescent minerals embedded in the walls providing a little illumination.
The air was foul, filled with a nauseating, fishy, rotting stench and the faint, rustling sounds of countless arthropods crawling.
This was a massive Worm Cave.
The walls and ground were covered in a thick, constantly writhing carpet of insects—a horrific sight formed by countless Imprint Worms.
In the center of the sea of insects, a young figure lay quietly.
She wore a thin white slip, her eyes open and vacant. Her originally black hair had turned a dull purple, and countless insects were crawling, burrowing, and seeping over her small body...
She seemed to have lost all sensation, just numbly enduring it all. In her purple pupils, the endless darkness and insect shadows above were reflected, with only a trace of an emotion called "despair," weak enough to be almost extinguished, remaining in the depths.
"Can anyone... save me..."
This thought could barely even be formed by her own mind; it just drifted like the lightest dust on the edge of an abyss where her consciousness was about to sink completely.
Then, in her unfocused pupils, a ray of light was reflected.
It was not phosphorescence, but a deep red like the embers of a sunset.
Several translucent, deep-red jellyfish with elegantly extended tentacles had appeared, unbeknownst to anyone, in this foul Worm Cave.
They emitted a soft light, and wherever they passed, the swarming Imprint Worms, as if encountering a natural predator, retreated in fear, clearing a path.
Sakura Matou looked blankly at these beautiful and strange halos, unable to stir even a ripple in her dead, silent heart.
The next moment, a deep and gentle weariness surged like a tide, wrapping around her broken consciousness.
She didn't even have time to feel fear or confusion before her eyelids closed heavily, and she fell into a dreamless sleep.
In the last instant before losing consciousness, she seemed to see a tall silhouette holding a black umbrella, standing quietly at the entrance of the Worm Cave, crimson eyes watching her.
Long Night Moon stood at the edge of the Worm Cave, the tip of her umbrella tapping the ground lightly. Her crimson eyes swept over the hellish scene, finally landing on the small figure who was already sleeping soundly, gently enveloped by the light of the deep-red jellyfish.
Long Night Moon returned to the hallway, several deep-red jellyfish phantoms gently carrying the sleeping Sakura Matou and floating behind her.
Her crimson eyes swept across the hallway and landed on the figure lying face down.
She raised an eyebrow and walked forward slowly.
"Matou Yan Ye... the person of this generation of the Matou Family who barely counts as a 'master'..."
Long Night Moon brushed her fingertips across her forehead. From the fragments of memory of Zouken Matou and Kirei Matou, she had already pieced together the general outline of this man: a second son who had fled the family and was forced to return, who had voluntarily accepted Insect Magic transformation to save a certain girl, and was now struggling painfully on the verge of collapse.
"A pathetic obsession," she commented softly, her tone devoid of sympathy or sarcasm, merely stating a fact.
Her gaze dropped, stopping on the back of Kariya's left hand—there, three bright red command spells were as striking as a brand.
"master qualification..."
Long Night Moon curled the corners of her lips slightly.
It was truly effortless to obtain.
She extended her right hand, her palm hovering downward over the back of Kariya's hand.
A deep-red glimmer seeped from her palm, winding down like a living thing, gently "wrapping" around the three command spells.
The light lasted for about three seconds, then retracted—and the red marks on the back of Kariya's hand had already disappeared.
Long Night Moon turned over her left hand.
On the back of her fair hand, three brand-new, bright red command spells were slowly emerging, their patterns clear, emitting a faint fluctuation of power.
"Now," she muttered to herself, "it is time to summon."
As for these two people...
Long Night Moon's thoughts stirred, and she sent a brief report and request to Madam Herta via their mental link.
System Space
In the vast, pure white space, Madam Herta stood before a huge, curved screen.
The screen was divided into several frames.
The woman with gray-white hair crossed her arms.
She looked at the request sent by Long Night Moon, a flash of contemplation in her purple-black eyes.
"That old worm Zouken..."
Madam Herta's voice was calm, "Just kill him. As for Kariya..."
She paused for a moment.
After quickly browsing the "Biography Summary of Kariya Matou" based on the basic information of this world line, she made a judgment:
"He can be spared. A poor wretch gnawed half to death by worms won't be able to stir up any trouble. But just to be safe... let him have a'sound sleep' for the next few days, so he doesn't wake up and do anything irrational that might interfere with our plans."
The command was transmitted instantly through the system.
Matou Residence Corridor
Long Night Moon received Madam Herta's reply, her crimson eyes glancing at the stiffly standing old man.
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