Absolute darkness enveloped the freezer zone.
This shouldn't be happening—facility power remained active elsewhere. Unless... someone in the electrical hub had deliberately cut this sector's supply.
"Dr. Folnern," Maki called into the void, her voice devoid of inflection. "Do you truly believe hiding here solves anything?"
Silence.
Maki knew the truth: the man called Folnern was already dead in every biological sense. The answer lay in the [Nutty Putty Cave Research Base Life Signal Log] Takakai now reviewed:
A001: Shegaila Wilson
Signal lost: Living Quarters, Office 1 (13,552 days ago)
A002: Folnern Cavendish
Signal lost: Laboratory Sector (13,552 days ago... 2 minutes after Shegaila)
C1-005: Howard Smith
Signal lost: Prison Block Cell D2 (ERROR 443 - No timestamp)
The logs painted a clear picture:
Folnern never reached the freezer zone alive. Hedaar killed him en route. Yet his obsession was so powerful that his will persisted, parasitizing this location as a grudge entity. This very incompleteness trapped Hedaar's grudge in endless recursion—unable to fully destroy what no longer technically existed.
In a twisted way, Folnern succeeded: he attained supernatural existence. Yet he also failed utterly—bound forever to this hellscape like all scenario-bound grudges. The would-be god remained eternally stalled at his ambition's final step.
No fate could be crueler for such a man.
But did the grudge that was Folnern even comprehend this?
"You're dead. Your godhood is impossible," Maki's voice dripped venomous mockery. "Or do you still think your brilliant mind can overcome this? How pathetic—a grudge's sole purpose is its own unfulfillment. Didn't your vaunted intellect grasp something so basic?"
Kaguya raised an eyebrow at Maki's scathing tone—it mirrored her own signature sarcasm with uncanny precision.
The darkness remained unchanged... until Kaguya spun around to discover their entry door had vanished, replaced by solid wall.
"He's taken the bait," Kaguya tightened her grip on the surgical scalpel grudge item. "We won't be leaving alive unless we break his rules."
Temperature plummeted as the unseen Folnern's influence intensified.
Maki played her final card:
"Oh, Dr. Folnern... did you know it's the 21st century outside now? Thanks to Lixue's reports, you must realize the truth."
Her lips curled in cruel amusement.
"In our era, aberration phenomena became cognitively inaccessible to ordinary people. But in your time, they could be openly studied. I wonder... what caused this change?"
A theatrical pause.
"More importantly—even if you escaped, no one would remember you. Not as a god, not as a monster. You'd be... nothing. An unacknowledged shadow. How does that feel, you pitiful worm?"
The darkness convulsed.
Arctic fury slammed into them—Maki's joints locked in agony despite her rescue suit; Kaguya nearly collapsed.
Then—
CLICK.
Lights flooded the freezer zone, revealing:
Rows of frozen human experiment specimens
Blood-crusted surgical tools
And at the center...
A thing wearing Folnern's butchered remains—his body resembling a grotesque jigsaw of crushed flesh reassembled wrong.
[WHY?]
The abomination's eyes bulged in disbelief. His plan was flawless:
Kill Shegaila
Cut main/backup power
Let Hedaar slaughter the trapped staff
Reach the freezer zone's emergency battery-powered ascension device
Yet now...
"Shouldn't you be asking yourself that?" Maki sighed, as if addressing a dull child.
The truth was simple: While Folnern sabotaged primary systems, he lacked the expertise to fully destroy Nutty Putty Cave's labyrinthine power grid. His modifications were limited—monitored too closely by suspicious colleagues.
Thus, the switch in [The Remnant's Domain]—originally designed to cut facility power—still functioned when repurposed.
"To think this place could be useful through reverse logic," Fujiwara Chika mused nearby as Takakai reattached the lever to the tripped switch. "As expected of Kai-kun, no?"
With a sharp clack, power returned to the freezer zone.
Through the doll's auditory senses, Maki momentarily froze upon hearing Chika's address, but the immediate danger forced her to refocus, leaving no mental bandwidth to ponder whether "Chika-chan's" choice of words carried deeper meaning.
Folnern's appearance was rapidly transforming—from the mangled state left by Hedaar's execution into something resembling a normal human form.
It seemed only during the freezer zone's blackout could Folnern wield aberration powers while retaining human will. Once power returned, the rules forcibly reverted him toward humanity. Even an aspiring god like Folnern couldn't escape the constraints governing all aberrations.
BOOM—
A muffled explosion echoed from somewhere in the facility.
The terrifying female aberration named Hedaar had breached the research base. The scientists and soldiers Takakai had compelled to intercept her were being crushed one after another—just as they'd experienced in life, just as Takakai had endured when dragged into the Great Fissure—reduced to pulped meat.
To these aberrations, this wasn't true death. Like the rescue team members summoned by badges who reformed after being torn apart, they'd eventually reconstitute. But because Hedaar had originally slaughtered them when they were human, her executions temporarily nullified their aberration properties, turning them into mere corpses until the next fifteen-day cycle reset their torment.
The quarantine zone had plunged into total darkness—the state marking each cycle's endpoint.
Power in the observation zone was failing too. Private monitors in Folnern and Shegaila's living quarter offices showed a ghastly white figure advancing through flooded corridors toward the laboratory sector.
It came to kill the last target—the architect of its suffering, the linchpin of its grudge: Folnern. Without intervention, history would repeat: Hedaar would shatter Folnern's body yet again, unable to destroy his will, condemning them both to this endless hell.
THUD!
The sound marked Takakai's arrival in the observation corridor, wooden door tucked under one arm, as he planted himself before the approaching figure in its bloodstained white dress.
"Hey beautiful, wanna share a... fantastic encounter?"
With that absurd line, Takakai raised his free hand, flashing the silver ring on his thumb toward the monstrosity.