Eyeballs. Endless, squirming, sticky, crazily spinning eyeballs.
Kallen's brain wasn't swallowed by despair after the initial shock and physiological nausea.
Fear? Yes.
Disgust? Especially strong.
But... despair?
This word had never truly taken root in the Kaslana dictionary.
She only felt cold anger and extreme powerlessness—powerlessness towards her current situation, anger towards what this weird scene represented, and deep self-blame for dragging Yae Rin into such a desperate situation.
She tried to prop up her body, but her arm sank into that slippery carpet of eyeball fungus, unable to exert force, instead causing a sticky sound of eyeballs being squeezed that made one's scalp numb.
The overwhelming pain inside her body and weakness from extreme overdraft nailed her firmly to the ground like chains.
Every attempt to gather strength only resulted in uncontrollable muscle tremors and deeper dizziness.
"Wuu... Wuuwa——!" Beside her, Yae Rin, who finally found her voice from extreme horror, burst into a collapsed cry. She dared not look around anymore, only tightly closing her eyes, shrinking her small body into a ball, tears and snot flowing.
This crying cut Kallen's heart like a knife, more painful than the wounds on her body.
Strength... I need strength... Kallen gritted her teeth, gums almost bleeding.
She hated this feeling of powerlessness, hated that she could only lie here, unable to even protect a child or wipe away her tears.
Kaslana blood was boiling, shouting for battle, shouting for protection, but her body was like a rusty old armor on the verge of falling apart, heavy and disobedient.
Just then, that calm-to-creepy voice sounded again, accompanied by the unique "squelch" sound of stepping unhurriedly on the eyeball fungus carpet.
The figure of the Herrscher of Evolution turned out from behind a "wall" composed of huge, slowly blinking eyeballs.
He still wore that white coat, hands in pockets, with no expression on his face, as if this crazy and terrifying scene around was just the most ordinary petri dish in a laboratory.
His gaze passed directly over the collapsing and crying Yae Rin, landing on Kallen who was gasping heavily and trying to confront him with her eyes.
No inquiry, no declaration, not even a trace of superfluous investigative interest.
For him, Kallen was just an abnormal variable associate needing to be "cleared" or "controlled," while Yae Rin was the carrier of that "special hope," needing to be "recovered" and "studied."
Communication was inefficient, a bad habit remaining from Vakh. He only wanted to achieve his goal in the most efficient way now.
He walked straight towards the two, steps steady, indifferent to the eyeballs being stepped on and bursting out turbid liquid under his feet.
When only three steps remained from Kallen, he casually pulled out his right hand from his pocket and extended it forward—target, Kallen's neck, or rather the source of Honkai resistance and Kaslana bloodline different from ordinary people inside her body.
He wanted to "dispose" of this unstable factor first, and then from the other's corpse...
"No... not allowed to hurt Sister Kallen!!"
A crying but unusually sharp shout rang out.
Unknown where the courage came from, Yae Rin suddenly opened her tear-blurred eyes.
Although still trembling all over with fear from the surrounding scene, she scrambled up from the ground, opened her thin arms, and used her small body to block firmly in front of Kallen!
Closing her eyes tightly, daring not look at the approaching "Vakh," she just shouted with all her strength: "Go away! Bad guy! Not allowed to come over!"
The Herrscher of Evolution's movement didn't pause even for a sliver.
Yae Rin's obstruction, in his eyes, was no different from an ant trying to block a wheel.
He didn't even change the trajectory of his hand, just adjusted his fingertips slightly, planning to "brush aside" this obstructive little girl along with it—of course, paying attention not to damage this precious "sample."
His hand was only a stone's throw away from Yae Rin's trembling shoulder.
Bang——!!!
A crisp and violent gunshot, incongruous with the surrounding sticky dead silence, tore the air without warning!
Not from any modern Gauss rifle or energy sniper rifle, but the roar of an extremely classic, gunpowder-propelled, large-caliber sniper rifle!
The source of the sound was hard to determine instantly, as if twisted and reflected from all directions by the eyeball walls.
However, for the Herrscher of Evolution, this sniper bullet itself was insignificant.
When the warhead entered a certain range around him, it seemed to hit an invisible, highly "evolved" air wall. Speed decreased sharply, and the structure began to spontaneously "deconstruct" and "soften" at the microscopic level. Finally, before touching the corner of his white coat, it turned into a small pinch of harmless, deformed metal powder and scattered.
What truly made his movement freeze abruptly, and even cracked his eternally indifferent expression, was not the power of the bullet, but...
That feeling.
The unique whistling sound when the bullet broke the air.
The insufficiently pure vibration frequency of gunpowder exploding in an old gun chamber.
Even the familiarity of the warhead material rubbing in the air, somehow long engraved into the marrow...
This feeling was exactly the same as a certain late night, a certain dark alley, a certain "accustomed" assassination in his memory...!
That cheap, crude, yet malicious sniper rifle that tried to drag him and Natasha into the abyss!
How is it possible?! Those guys should have long been...
No, this isn't the point!
The point is... why here?
At this time?
In this way?!!
His pupils contracted sharply, his left hand in the pocket clenched suddenly. The originally steadily permeating Honkai energy around him fluctuated violently. The surrounding squirming eyeball fungus carpet seemed frightened, trembling crazily, proliferating, even devouring each other!
He turned his head slowly and extremely stiffly, no longer looking at Kallen and Yae Rin close at hand, but casting those eyes now surging with terrifying storms firmly towards a certain shadow in the direction of the incoming bullet—there, only blinking eyeballs and twisted walls, empty of people.
But he "felt" it. That cold, familiar "gaze" carrying the smell of rust and death.
"Who... is it...?" The Herrscher of Evolution's voice lost all calmness for the first time, becoming low, hoarse, filled with pure rage about to overflow and a deep-hidden palpitating fear he himself didn't even notice.
Why the world was abnormal? Who these two in front were? Natasha's secret? Everything became irrelevant at this moment.
All his attention, all the anger burning due to Vakh's memory, was locked on that existence hiding in the dark, daring to "provoke" him in this way again.