Within the Temple

Inside the enormous temple.

Amid towering stone pillars stood an exquisite statue of the Goddess.

The Goddess's garments resembled melting liquid, shifting and twisting until, with a sudden flourish, their ends became carvings of all kinds of plants.

Below her waist was a curled snake tail, above which grew bizarre limbs from countless different animals.

This Goddess, seemingly stitched together from every kind of creature, had the strikingly beautiful face of a woman, gazing lovingly into the distance.

Her hands, covered in all manner of plants, were extended forward. A vine wound upward, supporting a strange spine slanted across her palms.

The statue's tall, square pedestal was carved with dense circular grids, each containing a tiny dot, like tightly packed cells.

The spine stretched far beyond the pedestal, coiling down to the ground before eventually burrowing deep underground.

This lifelike sculpture drew everyone's attention, and Mo Ling found himself immersed in its bizarre beauty.

He suddenly realized that the spine in the Goddess's hands looked very much like one inside his Cube.

Mo Ling hurriedly checked. They really were extremely similar.

But the spine was not what mattered most right now. It was the figure standing on the ground before the Goddess.

It stood with its back to the crowd, facing the Goddess in complete stillness.

It was the Ram-Headed Man.

What stood before it kept everyone from acting rashly, including the two races that had arrived ahead of them.

It was a massive wooden frame, made from several intersecting logs in the shape of the character "rice."

The frame was planted upright in the ground, and someone on it was barely clinging to life.

He was a Flesh Race member, red from head to toe.

His arms and legs had been split vertically, divided from tip to root into two halves, each bound by vines to the upper points of the rice-shaped frame and suspended in midair.

The Ram-Headed Man had forcibly turned this Flesh Race member into a Vitruvian Man!

The chainsaw on its arm had not even been retracted. It was still spinning at high speed.

Yet the surrounding Flesh Race members did not step in to stop it.

Because transparent liquid was dripping from the wounds of the Flesh Race member hanging from the frame!

The Flesh Race members looked at one another in disbelief, staring at the frame and carefully sniffing the scent drifting toward them.

Meanwhile, the Transparent Race leader's expression shifted wildly, looking utterly strange.

The Ram-Headed Man had not finished what it was doing. It continued fiddling with the hanging Flesh Race member.

It tightened the vines to keep the Flesh Race member from moving. Though the man still wailed in agony, the Ram-Headed Man acted as if it heard nothing.

It also kept moving the frame until it stood at the center of the temple, directly before the statue.

This act of desecrating the statue finally became unbearable to the Transparent Race members.

"What are you doing? Get that thing out of here!" Several Transparent Race members who had never encountered the Ram-Headed Man cursed as they approached.

The Ram-Headed Man turned around, its two rectangular pupils staring blankly at the approaching Transparent Race members.

One of them went around the Ram-Headed Man and reached for the frame, but the moment he raised his hand, it left his body.

The Ram-Headed Man swung its chainsaw upward from below, and an arm dripping with Transparent Liquid fell straight to the floor.

Everything happened too quickly. The Transparent Race member had not even reacted before he stared wide-eyed at his now-empty arm.

Only when the pain spread through his body did he clutch the smooth cut at the base of his arm and scream in agony.

"Aaaah!"

The terrified wail echoed through the temple.

The Ram-Headed Man did not continue its attack. Instead, it curiously watched the Transparent Race member with the severed arm and imitated him with a few "Baa, baa, baa" sounds.

Then it extended its own right hand and chopped down with the chainsaw.

A sheep's hoof fell to the ground.

"Baa, baa, baa! Baa, baa, baa!" The Ram-Headed Man screamed in pain as well, their voices echoing against one another.

Seeing such a horrifying sight, the injured Transparent Race member no longer cared about the desecration of the statue. He scrambled toward his companions.

The Ram-Headed Man copied him, stumbling after the Transparent Race member while shouting "Baa, baa, baa!"

But after only chasing him a short distance, the Ram-Headed Man's arm completely recovered.

So it stopped imitating him. It abruptly came to a halt, turned around, and walked back toward the frame as if nothing had happened.

As though its earlier actions had nothing to do with it, the Ram-Headed Man began carefully trimming the vines on the frame with its chainsaw again.

The leader could no longer hold back. He questioned the Flesh Race members beside him, "You found the culprit. Aren't you going to hold it accountable?"

The Flesh Race members spread their hands and said nonchalantly, "It isn't the culprit. It helped us uncover your spy. It should be considered a hero."

The Flesh Race members did not question why their companion had leaked Transparent Liquid. They simply branded him a "spy."

"I rather admire what it did. If you want to catch it, do it yourselves." The Flesh Race members all looked quite pleased.

Just then, the "spy" on the frame finally lost his breath after enduring countless torments. His body began turning transparent, liquid continuously flowing downward.

The Ram-Headed Man became frantic, repeatedly tightening the vines in an attempt to secure the body of the "spy" above.

But the body liquefied too quickly. The Ram-Headed Man's efforts were ultimately futile, and it realized this, finally stopping its attempts to salvage the situation.

It stood before the frame, watching helplessly as its artwork reached its final moment.

After everything ended, the Ram-Headed Man lifted the now-empty frame and headed out of the temple.

Within the group, a soldier quietly asked Captain Su, "Captain, should we attack it?"

"If you want to attack it, go ahead. Can you beat it now?"

The soldier was left speechless.

Everyone moved aside. No one tried to stop the bizarre Ram-Headed Man.

When the Ram-Headed Man approached, it seemed to recognize the Cube in midair. It stopped where it was and raised its frame, giving it a shake.

"Baa!"

After calling out a few times, it slung the frame over its shoulder and continued walking outside.

When it spotted the soldier who had attacked it earlier, it raised the frame again and waved it the same way.

"What is it doing?" a soldier asked in confusion.

"Greeting us?"

"Aren't we its enemies? Why is it greeting us?"

The soldiers whispered among themselves, guessing at the Ram-Headed Man's behavior, but no one knew what it wanted.

When the Ram-Headed Man reached the Flesh Race members, one of them stepped directly in front of it and patted it on the shoulder.

"Thank you for helping us eliminate the spy," the Flesh Race member praised it.

This startled everyone.

Just as everyone thought the Ram-Headed Man would attack, it merely let out two "Baa" sounds, then walked around the Flesh Race member and headed outside.

Mo Ling was stunned.

Why didn't it attack?

Thinking back on the Ram-Headed Man's earlier actions, Mo Ling suddenly formed a guess.

Would it not actively attack creatures with normal cells?