Barbie Strikes (Part 2)

As all kinds of Eight-Armed Eight-Eyed Giant illusions appeared around the world, temporary agencies established by some countries specifically to deal with the "Antarctic Crisis" discovered through satellite remote-sensing imagery that, at the same time, the monster in Antarctica had begun expanding at a frantic pace.

As that black substance congealed into a wildly writhing mass, spreading and extending in all directions as it continuously proliferated, Antarctica's temperature also underwent drastic changes. It first plummeted sharply, then rose rapidly, with the heat source coming from beneath the monster that covered most of the glaciers.

If this continued, Antarctica's glaciers and ice sheets would begin melting rapidly, with enormous consequences for coastal regions and the global climate.

Although the black monster was now expanding rapidly and its total coverage had reached more than a hundred thousand square kilometers, that was still far short of Antarctica's more than ten million square kilometers. It was not as some media outlets claimed, that "the monster had swallowed Antarctica." But without question, at this scale, controlling such an area was already enough to cause region-wide effects.

And any such effects occurring in Antarctica were bound to bring global consequences.

Moreover, no one yet knew what that black monster actually was, how it had appeared, what exactly it intended to do, how large it would grow, what effects it would have on Earth's ecology, or what kind of damage it would inflict on humanity's living environment.

Every attempt to approach Antarctica had proven unfeasible. Whether ships or aircraft, once they entered a certain area, they lost control, making it impossible to collect samples for research. Everything could only be analyzed indirectly through various remote optical imaging data, changes in the composition of the surrounding seawater and air, and similar means. No definite conclusion could be reached;