One hour, two hours, three hours...
As time ticked by, Kaleman's laboratory grew stranger and stranger. His prying into the Curse had already awakened it from its slumber.
The laboratory was coated in frost. The instruments used to observe the ashes were completely encased in ice and had long since stopped working. The other instruments and defensive Formations had also ceased to function.
The Fluorescent Stones above the laboratory, which had once shone with a white light, had turned bloodred under the Curse's influence.
Ice crystals reflected the bloodred light, casting an eerie glow throughout the laboratory. A cold, cruel, and bloody atmosphere filled the room.
Before the workbench, a layer of frost covered Kaleman's body. One of his eyeballs had burst from the extreme cold, while the other, still intact, bore the mark of the Red Moon.
"Heh heh, it's almost done. I'll know the secret any moment now!" Kaleman's frozen lips curled into a faint smile, his completely frozen face twisting madly.
Crack!!
The sound of breaking ice rang out. Cracks spread across the skin around Kaleman's mouth like fractures in porcelain.
A shattering sound came from Kaleman's frozen hands as well. His right hand snapped off at the wrist, hit the floor, and shattered into ice shards.
Crack! Crack!!
One shattering sound followed another. Kaleman, who had been prying into an even higher power, broke apart completely, leaving nothing but shards of ice on the floor.
The bloodred light gradually faded from the laboratory, but one thing continued to operate.
On the notebook Kaleman had used to record the runes he observed, the many incomplete rune structures had begun to combine on their own.
The incomplete runes complemented one another. Though their overall integrity had diminished, they had become increasingly uncanny.
The dangers these reassembled runes might