However, just as Undying Path slung his cane back over his shoulder and prepared to turn away, a sudden change erupted.
At the heart of the explosion, where flames soared into the sky, the earth split apart without warning. Accompanied by the teeth-grating sound of flesh tearing, a monstrous tree so enormous it was suffocating forced its way up from the ruins of the Shared Wish Gang.
It was a colossal tree beyond all reason. Its grotesquely swollen, tumor-like trunk was densely covered in hundreds upon hundreds of twisted faces contorted in agony. Countless crimson branches of flesh lashed and writhed madly through the air like dancing tentacles. As this thousand-faced monstrosity emerged, the once-bright Phantom Moon above Dove River District seemed to be corroded by some invisible despair, and the entire world gradually took on a nauseating, viscous shade of blood-red.
A scent of decay and rebirth mingled in the air.
It was the scent of Abundance.
Yet there was no life in this Abundance. There was only endless, warped, suffocating proliferation.
Undying Path froze mid-step, the pupils beneath his hat brim instantly shrinking to pinpoints.
His cane slipped from his shoulder, its tip striking the bridge with a dull thud, but Undying Path did not notice.
His gaze remained locked on the thousand-faced tree that was still shooting upward. The shock on his face turned to gravity, then from gravity into an exceedingly complicated... wariness.
"What is it?" Pearl keenly caught the direction of the great detective's gaze, as well as the muscles that had suddenly tensed, and quietly asked.
Following his gaze, Pearl looked toward that blood-red sky as well. A trace of gravity crossed her exquisite face.
"I never thought... there would be a Master insane enough to summon him." Undying Path gritted his teeth, his