Tentacles / Mission Complete

At this moment, the laboratory had already been swept up by an invisible yet very real energy storm.

Most of the instruments and research equipment in the lab danced wildly as if controlled by invisible strings, flying everywhere and turning the entire laboratory into a complete mess.

Yet Seele, standing at the very center, seemed to be surrounded by an invisible barrier. No matter how violently the outside world was tossed about, everything within her vicinity remained calm as ice.

But Ishiu knew that beneath this calm lay something unimaginable.

Braving the surging energy storm, he trudged toward Seele one difficult step at a time.

It was not that he did not want to rush over faster, but resisting that terrifying energy storm already took everything he had just to keep himself steady. Otherwise, he would have been swept around like those laboratory instruments.

"Seele, Seele, don't be afraid! I'm coming! You have to hold on!" Ishiu gritted his teeth as he pushed forward step by step, shouting at Seele.

But the laboratory was already filled with deafening noise, and the alarms kept blaring nonstop. Ishiu had no idea whether Seele could hear him, so he could only force himself onward.

Whoosh!

A sharp metal shard torn loose by the energy storm flew toward Ishiu. He wanted to dodge, but could not. He could only barely protect his vital areas and let the sharp piece of metal slash across his arm, tearing away a large chunk of flesh.

"Hiss—" Ishiu let out a muffled groan. The intense pain briefly blanked out his mind, but this accident was only the beginning.

Then came the second, the third—an apparently endless stream of objects crashed toward Ishiu.

Ishiu felt like Tang Sanzang enduring eighty-one trials. He dodged whatever he could, and whenever he could not dodge, he protected his vital areas.

Even so, by the time he finally reached Seele's side, he was drenched in blood. White bone could faintly be seen through his arm, and there was not a single patch of uninjured flesh left on his body.

The worst time was when a cabinet struck him in the head. If he had not reacted quickly and grabbed the edge of Seele's experiment table, he would probably have been sent flying.

During this process, he seemed to hear Cocolia and Little Pudding's voices. They sounded extremely agitated, but he could not make out what they were saying.

"Ha... ha..."

Ishiu panted heavily. His entire body ached, and his mind was not very clear either. If he could, he truly wanted to close his eyes and sleep properly right then.

But he knew that he had not struggled all the way over here just to rest.

He barely pried open his eyelids and finally recognized Seele amid the world that had turned entirely red. He gently shook her body and spoke softly in a hoarse voice that was nearly as ragged as a broken gong.

"Seele, it's all right now. Your brother is here."

"Ishiu... gege..."

As though she had heard his call, some of the pain eased from Seele's twisted little face. Then, she slowly opened her eyes.

"Seele, are you okay?" Ishiu tightly held her hand. He felt as if Seele's hand had already lost all warmth and sensation. If he could not see her lying on the experiment table right now, he would hardly have believed she was really here.

"Ishiu-gege... leave quickly... Don't worry about Seele anymore, or you... will be quantum assimilated too..."

Seele seemed to use up all her strength just to say those words. After speaking, her eyes closed again.

Ishiu froze. Quantum Assimilation?

Looking down, he saw that the hand holding Seele's had indeed begun to fade. Yet he himself felt nothing, and even his sense of pain seemed to have vanished.

The feeling was strange, like someone drawing on a blank sheet of paper, then erasing it with an eraser.

Seele and he were now those drawings being erased.

"What kind of joke is this?! I... will never let anything happen to you!" Ishiu gritted his teeth and used all his strength to lift Seele from the experiment table.

But before he could take a step outside, Ishiu felt the world spin. The scenery before his eyes changed rapidly—the white walls, the instruments flying everywhere, and... Little Pudding's figure at the doorway, desperately trying to rush inside—all of it rapidly receded.

By the time Ishiu came to his senses, he was stunned to discover that he had arrived in a completely unfamiliar space.

He stood atop a floating stone slab. All around him was chaos, like a sea of mist with no visible end.

Countless similar slabs floated beside him. They varied in size and shape, but they had one thing in common: every one of them was broken.

Below the slabs was a bottomless place like an abyss. Ishiu only glanced at it once before a chill ran down his spine. A voice inexplicably rose in his heart, warning him never to fall. It felt as though something unimaginable would happen if he did.

Above him was a sky blanketed by dark clouds. As far as the eye could see, there was not a trace of light. Yet in the middle hung a streak of seven-colored radiance, as if it had torn open a gap and injected a sliver of hope into this lifeless world.

Ishiu did not understand how he had been in the laboratory just moments ago, only to suddenly arrive here. But he remembered what Seele had said earlier.

"So this is... Quantum Assimilation?"

Ishiu did not dwell on it for long. He quickly began searching his surroundings for any trace of Seele. If he could come here, then Seele had to be here too.

Ishiu could vaguely guess that only his consciousness, or perhaps his soul, had entered this strange space. His body, which had been covered in blood moments ago, was now completely unscathed. That alone explained everything.

"Seele! Seele!"

He examined the space around him while calling Seele's name, but received no response.

Until he vaguely spotted a flash of blue on a stone slab directly beneath the seven-colored radiance.

"Seele!"

Almost instinctively, Ishiu decided that it was Seele, even though he could not actually see clearly.

Little Angel.jpg

Tentacles

He hurried toward that direction. Although there was no path, with the floating broken stone slabs and the Seven Nights Assassination Technique's Flash Step, Ishiu moved as though walking on level ground, without slowing in the slightest.

Soon, as he advanced and descended at the same time, Ishiu gradually made out the blue figure. Sure enough, it was Seele.

She lay quietly on the stone slab, her beautiful eyes shut, seemingly unconscious.

But the slab beneath her kept slowly sinking, as if it were about to carry Seele into that endless abyss.

Ishiu grew increasingly anxious. Shadows flickered beneath his feet, and afterimages leaped through the air. He pushed Flash Step to its absolute limit.

Finally, he landed on the stone slab where Seele lay.

"Seele! Seele! Wake up!" Ishiu lifted Seele from the ground and anxiously called her name, but Seele was like Sleeping Beauty and gave him no response.

Ishiu pressed his lips together and glanced at the darkness beneath them, like a bottomless abyss. He knew this was not the time to hesitate. Since Seele could not be awakened for now, he would take her upward first.

Having made up his mind, Ishiu held Seele in his arms, secretly exerted strength through his legs, and stomped down hard. His whole body seemed to fly as he directly leaped onto a stone slab nearly ten meters above.

Flash Step—One Rabbit

"Ishiu... gege?"

While Ishiu was hopping upward, Seele slowly opened her eyes in his arms.

"Mm, I'm right here." Seeing that Seele had finally awakened, Ishiu was immediately overjoyed. He temporarily stopped on the slab beneath his feet so he could check on her condition.

"How do you feel? Are you hurt?"

"Ishiu-gege, why did you come here? Didn't I tell you to leave?" Rather than answering him, Seele bit her lower lip. Her gaze at Ishiu was filled with both anxiety and gratitude.

Ishiu looked at her calmly. His tone was gentle, but it carried an unyielding determination that seemed to come from his very bones. "Do you think I would stand by and watch something happen to you? You call me your brother, so I have to shoulder the responsibility of being one. As long as I'm here, I will never let anything happen to you."

"Brother..." Seele stared blankly at Ishiu as mist gradually welled up in her azure eyes.

"All right, this isn't the time for sentimentality. Whatever you want to say can wait until we're out of danger." Ishiu was not the sentimental type. He did not have the nerve to put on some heartwarming sibling act with Seele at a time like this. Safety came first.

"Mm, I'll listen to you, Brother." Seele obediently nodded and unconsciously wrapped her arms more tightly around Ishiu's neck.

"By the way, Seele, do you know where we are? How do we get back? And what exactly is this Quantum Assimilation?"

"This space we're in should be the boundary of the Sea of Quantum." Seele spoke hesitantly, because she did not know for certain. She simply had an inexplicable instinct telling her that this was the Sea of Quantum.

"As for the Sea of Quantum, Brother, you can think of it as another space, one connected to our world. If we stay here for too long, we'll be quantum assimilated and completely enter the Sea of Quantum."

"What happens after entering it?" Ishiu asked.

"I don't know, but... we probably won't be able to return..." Seele said softly.

"I understand. Then how do we get back?"

"There. That is the gap between the Sea of Quantum and our world. If we can reach it, we should be able to return." Seele pointed at the streak of seven-colored radiance overhead.

"Over there?" Ishiu looked up and found that it was still quite far away. Still, floating stone slabs surrounded them, so getting there was not impossible.

"Good. Seele, hold on tight. I'll take you back right away." Ishiu let out a small sigh of relief. Now that he knew how to leave, things would be much easier.

"Mm, Ishiu-gege, I believe in you." Seele shifted her position and climbed onto Ishiu's back. She gently rested her cheek against his neck and spoke softly.

Then Ishiu stopped hesitating and continued hopping upward.

"Phew... phew..."

After traveling nearly halfway, Ishiu's speed slowed slightly, and his breathing became more labored.

That was only normal. After all, he was human, not a god.

After hopping all the way down to the lowest level, then carrying Seele and jumping for so long, even a body forged from iron would not be able to keep going.

"Brother, how about we rest for a while?" Seele wiped the sweat from Ishiu's forehead with concern.

"No need. I'm not tired. We're almost there. We'll be back soon."

Of course, saying he was not tired was a lie. Ishiu did not know whether he was currently a consciousness projection or a soul, but the exhaustion in his body was very real. Still, as the seven-colored radiance drew closer, he gradually became excited and temporarily ignored his fatigue.

Yet there were always unexpected twists in this world. How could the Sea of Quantum, which Cocolia feared, possibly be a place one could enter and leave whenever one pleased?

Having just landed on a stone slab and prepared to leap again, Ishiu suddenly felt danger prick at his senses. A powerful warning surged into his heart, and before he could think, he instinctively dodged to the side.

Bang!

The spot where Ishiu had just stood was smashed apart by a dark purple, tentacle-like object, sending shattered stone flying everywhere.

"This is..."

With a brief moment to catch his breath, Ishiu turned around. When he saw what was behind him, his pupils suddenly contracted. Countless dark purple tentacles had extended from beneath the abyss, twisting and spreading as they surged toward him like a sky full of snakes.

"Fuck!"

Ishiu could not help swearing. What the hell were these things?! They looked way too disgusting!

"Ishiu-gege, run! Those are Quantum Tentacles! We absolutely cannot let them wrap around us, or we'll be trapped in the Sea of Quantum forever!" Seele's little face went pale. She clutched Ishiu's neck tightly, and after only one glance at the tentacles, she fearfully looked away, not daring to look again.

"Fuck! I'm not some magical girl, so why the hell am I dealing with tentacles?!" Even without Seele telling him, Ishiu knew he could not let those things catch him. Perhaps because he had read too many similar comics in his previous life, he had actually found tentacles rather cute.

Of course, he no longer felt that way when they were coming after him.

Mission Complete

Ishiu pushed off with his feet and began sprinting for his life. He was actually even faster than before. People really did unlock their potential when faced with danger; it was not just something people said.

But the tentacles pursued him relentlessly, as if Ishiu were cough syrup. They clung tightly to his heels, moving even faster than he was.

If those tentacles had possessed brains, Ishiu would not have been able to dodge them so easily with the subtlety of his movement techniques. He would probably have been tied into some obscene pose long ago.

But that did not mean he could rest easy, because there were simply too many tentacles. There were so many that even Ishiu, who did not have trypophobia, broke out in goosebumps.

He did not even dare look back, afraid that a single distraction would ruin everything.

However, something puzzled Ishiu during this process. The tentacles seemed to be primarily targeting Seele. He himself was like the free extra in a buy-one-get-one deal; they were not particularly interested in him.

Ishiu told Seele his suspicion, and Seele gave him an explanation.

"I think it's because I've been quantum assimilated for too long, so they want to drag me into the Sea of Quantum."

"So that's it." Ishiu finally understood. Thinking about it carefully, he had seemingly been in this strange space for less than twenty minutes. It appeared he had not been here long enough to draw the tentacles' interest.

As Seele watched the ever-increasing tentacles behind them, then looked at the boundary that was still some distance away, she did not know whether she and Ishiu could both escape if things continued like this.

But when she learned that the tentacles' main target was actually her, an idea formed in her heart. She simply did not want to say it.

Because she knew Ishiu would never agree to her request, no matter what, so she could only...

"Seele."

Ishiu's voice sounded beside her ear, jolting Seele out of her thoughts.

"What is it, Ishiu-gege?" she asked.

"Hold on to me. Never let go." Ishiu spoke calmly. "If you fall, then no matter the cost, I'll pull you back up."

"...Brother..." Seele's eyes widened involuntarily. She stared blankly at Ishiu's profile. Though still youthful, it made her feel even safer than Cocolia. Had he already understood what she was planning?

Just as Seele knew Ishiu would never abandon her, Ishiu also understood Seele's personality. He knew that at times like this, she would often make what she believed was the most correct and easiest choice.

So he would not stand by and let that happen. He had said that he would bring Seele back, and he absolutely would.