On the Ceiling

When Larkspur stepped into the gate of the Anomaly Countermeasures Bureau, just as she had seen before, there was not a single light around her, and everything in the darkness was silent.

Unlike ordinary darkness caused by a lack of light, the deep space of the Anomaly Countermeasures Bureau was so dark that even a magical girl's eyesight was insufficient to see anything clearly; she could only vaguely discern the outlines of objects.

This further suggests that something is amiss with the Anomaly Countermeasures Bureau.

Larkspur stood still, casting a detection Spell Formula, shimmering with magical light, into the hall before her. After confirming that there were no hidden ambushes in the darkness, she then erected several layers of barriers and officially stepped inside.

She strode forward, her footsteps echoing in the empty hall.

Click, click, click.

As she continued forward, a sound emanated from the darkness.

Soft rustling sounds.

The subtle, chaotic noises never ceased.

This made the Larkspur stop in the empty hall, looking around curiously.

Why did all of this feel so familiar to her?

She continued walking forward, the crisp sound of her heels striking the ground dispersing the surrounding noise. After a brief silence, it was replaced by a murmur of whispers.

There were men and women, young and old among them, and the only thing they had in common was that they were all laughing.

The laughter awakened Larkspur's memory, finally reminding her of the source of this familiarity—it was the dream she had experienced before.

The hall was dark, and laughter came from an unknown source. This scene was exactly the same as my dream.

But once she realized this, Larkspur's brows furrowed even more.

She didn't understand what the connection could possibly be.

Without a doubt, what she is experiencing now is reality. So, what exactly were her previous dreams? Were they a premonition? A warning? Or some kind of trap?

The doubts in her heart remained unanswered, but this did not stop her; she simply quickened her pace and continued forward.

She was not afraid of danger or enemies; her only worry was not finding clues and not being able to solve the problem.

As she continued forward, the snickers and echoes of her footsteps mingled and overlapped around her. These sounds gradually grew sharper, and finally, like in the Larkspur's dream, they began to evolve into noise.

The Larkspur remained expressionless and unmoved, simply raising its hand to reinforce the barrier around it, isolating the sound waves from the noise.

"A boring trick," she said, not succumbing to the noise as she had in the dream, but instead reaching out to grasp the azure wand in her hand and whispering, "Magic Construct, release."

Countless blue magic threads appeared around her as she spoke. They were densely packed and trembling, spreading outwards after the Larkspur beckoned and raised its hand.

These magical threads rapidly sliced through the surrounding area, each thread as sharp as a blade, emitting a uniform whistling sound as they cut into every corner of the space.

As long as the enemy has a physical form, it is impossible for them to evade such an attack.

As long as she reacts to the Larkspur's attack, whether by retaliating or blocking, she can quickly locate the enemy's position.

Larkspur didn't believe the dream, but she wouldn't ignore the warning signs within it either. She was inclined to believe that there were indeed enemies in this space.

However, Larkspur doesn't have time to play hide-and-seek with that enemy right now; she needs to be quick, the faster the better, as she knows she doesn't have that much time.

So she had to use her Magic Armament to force the enemy out of the darkness.

The magical threads spread outwards, and as the attack reached every corner of the space, the echoes, voices, and laughter vanished as if they had never existed.

However, the sensation transmitted through the silk thread made the Larkspur slightly widen its eyes.

"... Are you kidding me?"

She hadn't said that in a long time.

The threads did indeed strike the enemy; they struck something that was not a building, something distinct from inanimate objects, and judging by the feel, it was clearly a living thing.

However, every single thread struck the enemy.

Each and every one.

To confirm the feedback she received, Larkspur increased her magical output, causing all the magical threads to unleash even greater power. The powerful destructive force further damaged the targets it struck, and the magical light finally illuminated some of the previously indistinct darkness.

The Larkspur looked up at the top of the hall and felt her breath catch in her throat.

She could hardly believe her eyes.

If we really had to give a metaphor to what she was seeing now, we would have to go back to a long time ago, when Lin Yun was searching everywhere for the origin of clothes moths because her house was infested with them.

He searched through many dark, usually closed corners, just to find where these ubiquitous little insects were gathering. The place he finally found was in a completely overlooked corner of the storage room, under an abandoned mattress.

There, he saw swarms of insects so dense they might make someone afraid of insects scream.

This is roughly what the Larkspur sees now.

However, what she saw was not insects, but Aberrant Beast. The ceiling of the Anomaly Countermeasures Bureau was densely packed with countless writhing and hissing mangled Aberrant Beast.

Most of these Aberrant Beasts were only the size of an average person, almost like toddlers compared to ordinary Aberrant Beast, but their sheer number was chilling.

The noise in the darkness was none other than the collective howls of these Aberrant Beast gathered together in the darkness.

At this moment, the Aberrant Beast cut by the silk threads became visibly restless, the pain making them uneasy. Unwilling to remain huddled in place, many of Aberrant Beast began to move, trying to escape from the crowded ceiling.

As these Aberrant Beast surged, something else fell from the ceiling and crashed to the ground.

Larkspur silently stepped forward and, with the help of the magical light, looked at the object on the ground—a small, square object, like a card.

Using a silk thread to poke the object, once picked up, it revealed its true nature: an identity tag belonging to an employee of the Anomaly Countermeasures Bureau.

The ID card was in excellent condition; the plastic casing was completely undamaged, so Larkspur could clearly see the photo and personal information on it.

However, the owner of this identity card is probably already in grave danger.

Larkspur stared silently at the identity card for two seconds. When she looked up again, her cold face was devoid of any emotion.

She raised her hand, and the silk threads in the air hummed in response, ready to unleash a massacre on the monsters on the ceiling in the next moment.

Kill these monsters and make them pay for the sins of killing humans.

It was as if a voice inside her was saying this.

That's right, killing these monsters is what they deserve—

The Larkspur suddenly released its grip.

No, that wasn't my true feeling just now.

She clutched her chest and said.

It was a voice that suddenly appeared in her mind, and its first words were to tell her to kill the Aberrant Beast on the ceiling.

Something's not right, Larkspur told herself.

It's perfectly natural for magical girls to kill Aberrant Beast, so why would it encourage itself to do it?

The dream I had this afternoon seemed to have a certain guiding power, causing my mindset to become unbalanced. Why?

Thinking of this, the Larkspur suddenly looked up again, finally realizing that these Aberrant Beasts were also strange.

Ordinary Aberrant Beast act on instinct and have no rationality whatsoever. Aberrant Beast instincts are destruction and feeding, and if a target brimming with magical power, such as a magical girl, enters their field of vision, they will surely attack.

In other words, if these Aberrant Beasts on the ceiling had no other abnormalities, then from the very first second that the Larkspur entered the Anomaly Countermeasures Bureau, she should have been subjected to endless attacks.

But they didn't.

Even after being injured by the Larkspur's Magic Armament, they still showed no intention of attacking; they merely shifted their bodies, trying to leave the location where they had been attacked.

These Aberrant Beast simply huddled on the ceiling, hissing, screaming, and threatening, as if they had no urge to destroy or feed, but rather were consumed by... fear?

Why are they afraid? What are they afraid of?

At that moment, Larkspur felt closer to the truth than ever before.

She lowered her head again, looking at the ID card on the ground covered in slime. After a moment of contemplation, she suddenly remembered something.

Something that happened not long ago.

She went to Bai'an City and fell into the Nest the Aberrant Beast. In the Nest, which resembled the Bai'an City Anomaly Countermeasures Bureau, she found an office with the corpses of the Anomaly Countermeasures Bureau employees and an Aberrant Beast inside.

This is not particularly unusual; it's quite normal for employees of the Anomaly Countermeasures Bureau who accidentally wandered into the Nest to be killed by the Aberrant Beast.

However, some details are quite strange.

First of all, the office door was ajar.

Only Aberrant Beast driven by savage instincts would have no reason to leave the door intact, much less to politely close it after entering the office; similarly, if an employee of the Anomaly Countermeasures Bureau discovered Aberrant Beast inside, there would be no reason for them to go in or even close the door.

In that situation, neither the Aberrant Beast nor the human had any reason to close the door.

Secondly, in the Nest in Bai'an City, Lantern had told her that she had protected those employees of the Anomaly Countermeasures Bureau and told them to find a room to hide in.

In other words, those employees of the Anomaly Countermeasures Bureau must have actively sought out that office and ended up hiding inside together.

Therefore, the Aberrant Beast must have appeared later. It must have appeared in front of the victims after they had hidden themselves, so that it would have had the opportunity to wipe them all out.

These two facts are contradictory.

If an employee of the Anomaly Countermeasures Bureau found the vacant office first and hid inside, how did the later-appearing Aberrant Beast manage to enter the office without damaging the door?

Could she speculate that the slightly ajar door wasn't actually ajar, but rather opened from the inside by the innocent victims trying to escape the office before they died?

So, what does this mean?

Did that Aberrant Beast suddenly appear in the office because of some unforeseen event?

Suddenly appeared?

The word sent a chill down the spine of the Larkspur.

Even an Aberrant Beast at the Pupa Stage cannot freely perform leaping spatial teleportation, so an Aberrant Beast certainly couldn't appear suddenly. If it truly "appeared suddenly," then what form would that appearance take?

Looking up at the ceiling and at the Aberrant Beast scrambling in place, the Larkspur slowly opened its arms once more.

However, this time she didn't use the Magic Armament to kill the monsters. Instead, she let the magic threads flow and swirl among the monsters, as if searching for something.

As expected, her actions elicited a response. As the silk threads stirred among the Aberrant Beast, more and more unidentified objects began to fall from the sky, landing on the ground with crisp sounds.

Larkspur stepped forward and checked each item, discovering that they were all various human personal items: ID tags, glasses, watches, cell phones, ballpoint pens, and so on.

What's even more surprising is that, apart from the damage caused by falling from a great height, these items were all remarkably well-preserved.

The Larkspur stared at the objects on the ground, speechless for a long time.

"Why don't you take action?"

A voice came from behind her.

"I cannot kill them," the Larkspur replied.

"But they are Aberrant Beast," the voice continued.

This question carries a certain candid doubt, as if it were genuinely directed at the Larkspur, and along with this question, the Larkspur notices a shadow at its feet.

A shadow much longer than his own completely covered his own.

"They are Aberrant Beast, but they are not Aberrant Beast."

Larkspur didn't turn around, but continued looking at the personal belongings on the ground, his voice low:

"They were originally supposed to be... humans."

Her answer silenced the person behind her who had asked the question.

This is the conclusion Larkspur ultimately reached: the Aberrant Beast on the ceiling are human beings. In fact, a considerable number of them were former employees of the Fangting City Anomaly Countermeasures Bureau.

The same applies to the Anomaly Countermeasures Bureau in Bai'an City. The tragedy in that office was not caused by an external enemy, but because... some of them had turned into Aberrant Beast.

Among the employees who were hiding together in the office, one of them turned into Aberrant Beast and attacked his unsuspecting companions, which led to the tragedy.

She should have thought of that sooner.

The Black Ash Dawn has mastered a technology called "Beast Viscera," which allows humans to gain the power of Aberrant Beast and even control Aberrant Beast. Therefore, this technology must have other applications.

For example... turning ordinary people into Aberrant Beast.

However, this technology is probably not as perfect as their "Beast Viscera," and it is impossible for it to retain the user's will and be able to turn back into a human after use, just like the Beast Viscera.

Larkspur could sense that the monsters above him were actually just a simple stitched-together creation.

They stitched humans and Aberrant Beast together, creating a living corpse, devoid of consciousness and fighting ability.

Even calling them Aberrant Beast is a stretch, because their weak bodies and magic power simply cannot support them to fight like Aberrant Beast; they are not even as good as the lowest-ranking Egg Rank.

At this moment, these things on the ceiling are nothing more than a pathetic bunch of "monsters".

"But they are already Aberrant Beast."

The voice behind the Larkspur said, "If we don't kill them, they will one day take the first step in hunting out of hunger. As they begin to devour living creatures and gain more magic power, they will also begin to grow stronger and become a real threat."

"But they are human beings," Larkspur murmured, "Innocent human beings."

"They are monsters, monsters that must be destroyed."

The voice behind the Larkspur stated, "We no longer have the ability to turn them back to their original form. Their human parts have been completely sewn together with the Aberrant Beast, and these parts will later become their own nourishment, turning them into true Aberrant Beast."

"I know."

Larkspur's tone was calm, but her hands gradually clenched into fists. "I... know."

"You promised me, 'No matter what kind of Aberrant Beast it is, you can destroy it.'"

The voice continued, drawing ever closer to the Larkspur: "Now is the time to fulfill this promise. These things are no longer human; they are monsters."

--"senior".