[{"data":1,"prerenderedAt":-1},["ShallowReactive",2],{"origin-notes-on-kraft-anomalous-studies":3,"chapter-notes-on-kraft-anomalous-studies-notes-on-kraft-anomalous-studies-chapter-320":6},{"origin":4,"title":5},"chinese","Notes on Kraft Anomalous Studies",{"chapter":7,"nextChapterSlug":19,"prevChapterSlug":20,"totalChapters":21,"novelImage":22},{"id":8,"novel_id":9,"title":10,"slug":11,"index":12,"content":13,"wordcount":14,"created_at":15,"updated_at":15,"volume":16,"translator":17,"content_hash":18},2283798,4467,"Chapter 320: The Point of Impact","notes-on-kraft-anomalous-studies-chapter-320",320,"\u003Cp>In earlier years, before Old Wood grew tired of reminiscing about his youth, he often spoke of how brutal the battles were, how at night he would sleep with the dead beside him, only to wake the next morning to a pale, stiff face.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Survivors vividly described such scenes in eerie tones, sometimes even boasting about the valuable experience of sleeping without neck pain, utterly unaware whether such content was appropriate for children’s bedtime stories.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Grandfather’s collection of tales once became a childhood nightmare for Kraft and his cousin Lane, forcing them to throw their pillows off the bed every night after lights out just to fall asleep.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>But in the long run, this desensitization proved beneficial—it at least lessened Kraft’s heart strain when he woke to find several twisted, pupil-less faces staring back.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>“Father in Heaven, why don’t you move this thing farther away?”\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>“Actually, we planned to burn it,” Father Green leaned back against the stone wall, a small flame from a dry patch illuminating their recent work and the monks huddled nearby for warmth. “Given our fuel reserves, I thought it better to save it for somewhere more important.”\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>“How much is left?”\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>“Wading kept four jars; I discarded all my personal supplies.” Father Green’s gaze swept over the other two monks, who still looked shaken and lowered their heads in shame. “They still have some, but not much.”\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Objectively, Kraft felt they had no reason to feel ashamed—maintaining even partial supplies under those conditions proved admirable courage and discipline.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>He envied Green. A group of individuals with adequate physical conditioning, relative psychological stability, willingness to obey orders, and educational backgrounds was the very foundation any institution dreamed of.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>“What about the others?”\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>“Scattered. I wasn’t far away—I came when I heard the noise.” Monk Wading tossed half a broken torch into the fire. “To be honest, I’d already imagined who’d attend my funeral. I never expected you to… resolve it so quickly?”\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>It was clear everything had happened fast. He glanced at the horrifying perfect creature, searching for the smooth, clean cuts characteristic of magical strikes—but saw only deep puncture wounds.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>It didn’t seem to have been killed by the methods they’d witnessed before, yet Wading couldn’t fathom how one could possibly get close enough to kill this thing.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Even if it were willing to descend and fight hand-to-hand, its size made it impossible to defeat easily with a sword.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>The priest’s deputy was intensely curious, but his understanding of Green made him read something in his longtime partner’s silence—he wisely chose not to press further.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>“So what is this? A Dunsin sewer specialty giant spider?” He improvised with the last of his wit.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>The effect was clearly poor—no one laughed. In the nested, fused faces on the creature’s chest and abdomen, they glimpsed a disturbing answer.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Even Kraft, just awakened, stared at the strange mosaic of mixed facial features and saw something within it.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Wading wondered why the professor also recognized an old acquaintance of the Inquisition, but then he understood: “You find it familiar too? Of course—you’ve seen his portrait.”\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>“You mean Morrison?” Kraft did recognize elements—not only from the latest portrait in Dunsin Medical Academy’s gallery, but also from memories of a remote medical college in the northern ice port, though the details were now faint.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>He confirmed his suspicion about the creature’s identity: “Yes, I think this is him—but not just him.”\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>“I hope he repents in the fires of hell, but I doubt even devils down there would accept something like this.” Wading turned away in disgust; staring too long at it created a nauseating pull, like staring into a vortex and being drawn in to become part of its distortion.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>The priest’s peripheral gaze kept returning to Kraft, as if trying to discern the young professor’s attitude toward this, or confirming whether the man who had awakened was still the one he knew.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>“A pitiful man,” he said, without bitterness, without much emotion at all—as if all feeling had been drained away in the long, terrible darkness. “He’d have been better off dying in that fire—a thousand times better.”\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>“Indeed. A pitiful man,” Kraft unexpectedly agreed. “He could have done so much meaningful work. Saved so many lives.”\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>“He betrayed his vocation, his oaths, his principles—he betrayed the pursuit that defined his first half-life, hollowed out by a blind obsession that rose above morality and ethics.”\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Deep whispers seeped through the gaps in his soul, killing from within a professor who had devoted his life to medical research, reshaping him into something else through obsession and craving—just as the Moon Corpse had shaped this monster from human flesh.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>It was tragic. Professor Morrison was truly dead. A complete death.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>“But there is one thing I envy him for.”\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>“What?” Across the fire, the priest sat up subtly, adjusting his position.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>“He had an outstanding disciple,” Kraft stood, swaying slightly, gripping the rock wall for balance. “I don’t mean academically—though his disciple’s scholarly achievements were certainly impressive.”\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>“His disciple had the capacity to make the right choice—even when authority was wrong—and tried to correct it. Without that, our progress would have been slowed a thousandfold.”\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>“Having a disciple like that is a stroke of luck. I hope mine will one day do the same.”\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>“You think you’ll make a mistake someday?” Green confirmed the man before him was lucid, but the possibility in those words left him uneasy.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>It was like hearing a thin shell crack in absolute silence—new fissures weaving with old cracks into a net, held together only by an egg membrane, trembling with the movements within.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>“Who knows? Everyone makes mistakes—even saints err. This isn’t a possibility—it’s inevitable. Only the scale differs.”\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Kraft hesitated, then took from his best-protected bundle a long pair of tweezers and two small vials. He pried open the puncture wounds with his sword, probed deep, tore off several tissue samples, and sealed them inside the vials.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>The act made Green’s eye twitch; he opened his mouth, then closed it again.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>“Let’s go. These faces make me uneasy.” He had seen too many faces twisted by the depths—some stranger, more aberrant—but seeing one shaped by human relationships was a different experience.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>It felt like waking in the dead of night and seeing your own reflection in a full-length mirror, sudden, unexplained dread rising in your chest.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Some say people see themselves in others—perhaps this is why.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Kraft reached down and pulled Green to his feet, ending the brief rest—he’d had enough of this place.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>The group left the burning fire behind and pressed deeper.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Beyond a certain boundary, the layered stone walls began to grow lower, the gravel beneath their feet thinner, until the things buried beneath were exposed.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>It was an endless expanse of pale, gloomy hue, stretching beneath their feet, threaded with dark, melted blackness that seeped and fused into it, like a writhing, interlocked, indistinguishable mass of snakes.\u003C\u002Fp>",1157,"2026-06-20T02:15:56.940Z",1,"Qwen3-Next 80B","affde753ed3e881116392cffb8c9d49a3950d086df0eb3012ea8547bcc25aef0","notes-on-kraft-anomalous-studies-chapter-321","notes-on-kraft-anomalous-studies-chapter-319",406,"https:\u002F\u002Fnovelzhen.com\u002Fimages\u002Fcovers\u002Fnotes-on-kraft-anomalous-studies-cover.jpg"]