Chapter 65

At this moment, Kraft’s mind flashed with a line of dialogue packed with family drama.

Translate, translate—what the hell is a surprise?

Outside the other window, the same white light flared, accompanied by layered harmonies rising like water droplets, climbing the stone wall, creating the illusion of a breathing moon rising on the other side.

His heart hammered like a drum, vibrations spreading through his entire chest, tugging at his lungs, causing his breath to stall for a moment. Gushes of blood surged into his arteries; the rising blood pressure brought a dull throb inside his skull.

The window panel was tapped—rhythmic knocks echoed in the room, its patience and strength waning; the white streaks of light entering the room moved with increasingly obvious back-and-forth motion, its taut muscles urging it to act.

Hunting was never always smooth sailing; even the most seasoned hunter occasionally miscalculated. So he hadn’t come here with just traps.

Kraft stopped hesitating, drew his sword, pried open the wooden stopper of the fish oil jar, and poured half of it directly onto the blade’s surface; the pale yellow oil, flecked with white fluff, trickled down the grooves. He rotated his wrist, tilting the blade slightly to coat both sides with an oily film.

He dumped the remaining half directly into the brazier; a wave of heat rushed at his face, and the flames leapt up, nearly licking his cheeks.

He swung the sword casually—the blade ignited the instant it cut through the flames. The most volatile, untamable substance known to man burned along the steel, releasing heat that made the weapon recall its birth, as if returning to its original form in the forge.

Even through the hilt and gloves, he felt the dangerous temperature—hot enough to instantly denature and carbonize proteins. No carbon-based life would like it; even the smith would frown at such damage to his weapon.

Lowering the sword’s tip, Kraft stepped toward the window. Burning oil dripped down, pulled by gravity into bright elliptical drops that hissed as they struck the floor.

The knocking grew more frantic—hard, skin-covered knuckles struck different spots repeatedly, multiple points tapping simultaneously, as if a crowd of varying heights, builds, and sizes were urgently calling from outside.

He raised his sword in response. The distance had closed to less than five steps; there was no need to hide his footsteps anymore—the writhing thing beyond the barrier could not possibly judge his movements by sudden noise.

After a brief charge, he exploded forward from his legs, pushing off the ground. His body leaned forward, maximizing momentum, leaving no reserve.

He held the sword level; his excellent hand-eye coordination helped him adjust the angle—his target: the crack in the center of the window.

The knocking paused—confused by the sudden proximity, it had never encountered such a situation and didn’t know whether to keep its antics or smash through the window.

That instant of hesitation sealed its last chance to react. Amid a faint, sluggish scraping sound, the superheated blade pierced the gap and burst through the window.

Its slick outer skin collapsed on contact, splitting along uneven layers; the tip plunged into the tangled, resilient muscles beneath.

It felt like stabbing into a freshly woven grass ball—cutting through bundles of cord-like and block-like muscle fibers, driving deeper.

Water-rich tissues contracted violently upon contact with the blade; heat spread outward, turning everything it touched into sticky or hardened denatured protein strands, then further charred by subsequent heating. A hundred coagulation electrocautery knives combined couldn’t match its efficiency.

Vast amounts of steam burst through existing and artificially created voids, causing secondary burns and indiscriminately steaming the fluid-filled tubes, nerve plexuses, and fragile glands.

The spasming muscles lost their grip; the toothed hooks clinging to stone crevices loosened, and the body swayed, losing balance.

The length advantage of the weapon chosen by Old Wood became evident—Kraft, still possessing residual momentum, pressed his weight down further, driving the blade diagonally downward, pushing the remaining blade through to the other side.

Small flat bones and connecting cartilage shattered beneath the pressure; the blade’s path brushed against an irregular bone—likely a vertebra—then halted against a thick, extremely hard bony plate, sinking two inches deep.

A scream of agonized fury erupted before the damage could spread further—a raw, unfiltered shriek, the most terrifying noise from the vocal organs, like every passenger on a roller coaster plunging into hell screaming their final cries, spewing curses from a bleeding trachea.

Just as the most painful fragments of his earlier memories, this scream possessed a mind-torturing power, like barbed thorns soaked in saltwater lashing his spirit.

It corrupted formed thought, disrupted human reason. Kraft summoned every ounce of strength to push the hilt downward, lifting the blade’s edge to rip through as much tissue as possible.

This action clearly caused greater agony. After a brief, feeble scraping of bone against the wall, the weight on the blade lightened—the shrieker slid downward, vanishing into a great splash of water with a muffled, booming thud.

Kraft shook his head, struggling to shake off dizziness and an inexplicable sensation of falling—he’d felt himself detach from the fall during mental fuzziness, but had exhausted his strength just before a critical threshold, unable to plunge into something deeper.

There was no time to dwell. From the opposite window came the sound of wood creaking and warping; his recovering rationality urged him to yank the sword free.

The withdrawal was difficult—the grainy blade scraped and bumped inside the crack, shedding black-and-white charred fragments; sticky, glue-like substances stretched into threads, just like an electrocautery probe left uncleaned after half a surgery, so encrusted it was unrecognizable.

The window shattered under pressure; brilliant white light flooded the room, drowning out the brazier’s glow, casting long, slender shadows of objects.

The endless, overlapping chorus echoed again through the space, bouncing off the walls—the wet, fleshy tentacles that sang loudest stretched first into the room.

The spreading agitation in his mind was suppressed; after repeated exposure to their sounds, resistance had inevitably formed.

Perhaps this annoying noise required sensory organs to process—and after repeated stimulation, the receptors finally adapted, selectively reducing their response.

Logical thought regained dominance. Kraft did not turn to face it; instead, he bent down and picked up another fish oil jar.

The trap had finally worked—accompanied by the thick, viscous sound of internal organs spilling onto the floor came the sharp click of a triggered mechanism.

Kraft waited for this moment—his mind prepared, bracing for another wave of shrieks.

This was undoubtedly a test of willpower; for the first time, his still-clear mind endured its baptism while fully conscious.

If he could choose, Kraft would rather have temporarily lost consciousness again—that physiological escape from awareness was the mechanism to avoid overwhelming stimuli.

His skeletal muscles trembled involuntarily, his breathing grew rapid, his ventricles contracted at frantic frequencies, stomach acid refluxed, burning upward—but his consciousness deliberately remained awake, forcing his trembling body to hurl the jar.

Toward the remembered location of the window—it must be fixed in place now—the jar struck it squarely. The cheap container shattered with a clang; oil spread across its slick skin.

It still didn’t grasp the severity, continuing its shrieking—until Kraft regained control of his body, spun around, and used his sword to lift the brazier, scattering blazing embers and a storm of sparks toward it.

The flickering light of flying embers revealed the full form of the writhing creature.

The tentacle structures that had fascinated Kalman were adorned with luminous growths and waving fine branches; hollow cavities groaned and shrieked, while mouthparts and sharp teeth chewed and devoured nearby Tonglei .

Past fragmented memories of it left little useful information—except the memory of rows of serrated teeth.

Now, with understanding, he saw it clearly: a jaw swollen with excessive teeth, forming a single, only-suitable-for-tearing structure, placed where it could most easily reach prey—and also where other branches emerged—controlled by some unknown central nervous system that bit randomly.

Its furrowed skin was lifted by bent joints; its movement came entirely from chains of long bones flexing and extending, forcing tentacles that could never have evolved for climbing to perform support and pulling motions.

The tangled tentacles defied counting; the body from which these twisted things grew was an abomination beyond Kraft’s ability to describe.

It was a chaotic amalgamation of excess flesh, broken bones, useless growths—all the “unnecessary” parts—decorated with eyes, hair, and every other thing discarded from the “perfect” tentacle structure, crammed into this mass.

They haphazardly fused together, like a grotesquely enlarged teratoma. Skin struggled to cover parts of its surface, while granulation tissue filled the gaps.

But uncontrolled growth often exceeded need—scars protruded, new blood vessels rooted within. Without a protective keratin layer, the skin repeatedly tore and regrew, spawning fleshy polyps like clustered horns.

Elongated ears seemed the result of swelling; on its sides, toothless, tongueless mouths gaped open in silent roars. Yellow-white eyes without pupils spun uselessly, clustered in pairs or threes within crowded, winged pterygium-filled sockets.

Smaller tentacles sprouted from its surface; some had grown to near maturity, while most hung limply from the roots of larger tentacles, as if starved of nutrients.

Embers rained down, igniting the fish oil; flames engulfed several of its large and small tentacles. The shrieking chorus reached its peak, like a knife scraping both mind and flesh—a dual pain, real and illusory, torturing consciousness.

The writhing thing thrashed wildly, tugging at the tentacle caught in the trap, ignoring how the interlocked teeth tore its muscles, using immense force to rip the trap, chain, and anchor nail clean from the floor; a deep, bone-exposing wound oozed murky, glowing white fluid.

Dragging its nearly severed limb, it finally broke free. Its vicious fine branches opened their mouthparts; its malformed, burdensome, lump-like body, propelled by its burning tentacles, shrieked straight toward Kraft.