-32- The Lord

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“Teacher, is this... is this a war?” Rosalind asked in shock.

“It appears so.” Yvette nodded gravely.

From the Abyss Base to the vast expanse of Ish Island, her observations had made one thing clear: the aberrants were a collection of solitary, non-social creatures, each fighting for itself. Only upon reaching the second stage did they possess a mind roughly comparable to that of a human infant. In such a scattered and disorganized state, they could never threaten the peaceful life she and Rosalind led on Ish Island—so long as Yvette did not court death herself.

But if a war had broken out, the situation would be entirely different.

For one thing, the aberrants must have acquired a common will. Whether it was the individual will of a higher aberrant or a networked hive mind, either possibility would radically transform their social structure, binding them together and driving them toward outward expansion. Sooner or later, they would threaten the two of them, who had settled in Ish City.

And then there was the Twin-Blade Demon. It seemed to have reached the third stage, with an intelligence comparable to that of a human. What role, exactly, was it playing in this war among the aberrants...?

As the battlefront advanced, the Gray Harbor faction retreated step by step.

After Yvette piloted the skycar through an unnoticed blind spot, the two of them reached the deepest part of the battlefield almost without resistance.

Standing atop a high-rise, they saw a gigantic mass of flesh in the central plaza. Most of its body was hidden beneath the collapsed earth, while the portion exposed aboveground resembled a chrysanthemum-petaled orifice. Beneath its translucent crimson skin, crisscrossed with thick veins, something enormous and grotesque seemed to be taking shape—a monstrous embryo.

“It should be something like a hive,” Yvette said, frowning. “The aberrants outside are either attacking it or guarding it. That means this thing is the ‘leader’ of both sides.”

It had been many years since Yvette’s last visit to Gray Harbor City. To her, those years—or even decades—might have passed in the blink of an eye, yet they had given the aberrants enough time to evolve a hive. Perhaps the passage of such long years had warped her own sense of time.

“Then should we do something?”

“No. It’s too dangerous.” Yvette shook her head and looked toward a corner of the street below.

There crouched a giant scorpion the size of a small truck. What made one’s scalp prickle was the dozens of vaguely humanoid eyeballs embedded in the heavy black carapace along its back. Hidden beneath the gaps in its armor, they occasionally emerged to survey the surroundings, taking in everything within a full three-hundred-and-sixty-degree radius.

Its bizarre yet complete form, along with the way it lay motionless in the shadows, utterly unmoved by the fighting at the front, led Yvette to suspect that it too was a third-stage aberrant. Like the Twin-Blade Demon, it possessed considerable intelligence, which was likely why it had been assigned to guard the hive.

“Teacher, over there... the Twin-Blade Demon!” Rosalind suddenly tugged at Yvette’s sleeve.

Yvette turned and saw a black figure with four wings rising from its back inside a nearby building. It too was looking down at the scene below.

Then, as though sensing the gaze from the opposite side, it slowly—and unnervingly—turned its head. The muscles at the corners of its mouth began to twitch unnaturally, pulling upward inch by inch.

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But before it could reveal the almost human smile that had given Rosalind nightmares for an entire night, four blue-white rune circles lit up beside Yvette and fired several bolts of Thunder’s Wrath at it.

The speed of the attack was beyond that of any ordinary spell. In an instant, blue-white lightning struck before the Twin-Blade Demon.

Sensing the terrifying power concealed within it, the demon’s smile abruptly froze. It immediately turned and fled, tracing arc after arc through the air like a mosquito desperately escaping a swatter, its movements utterly ragged and pathetic.

After dodging for some time, it was struck by an electric discharge regardless. One of its wings was burned through, leaving a gaping hole. At last, the Twin-Blade Demon no longer dared to remain. It gave Yvette a deep look, then turned and vanished into the narrow gaps between the ruined buildings.

...

By evening, after the war among the aberrants had temporarily ceased, Yvette and Rosalind finally stopped spectating and drove the skycar back to Ish City.

The outcome of the battle was somewhat unexpected. In the end, the embryo within the hive still emerged.

It was an obese giant as tall as a four- or five-story building. A huge mouth stretched across its bloated abdomen, filled with countless thick tongues that could sweep more than a dozen aberrant tide vermin into its belly at once, where they were rapidly digested.

With the aid of this war giant, the Gray Harbor faction barely managed to reverse its declining fortunes, forcing the tide-vermin army to retreat.

Counting the giant scorpion that had lurked beside the hive like a guardian, two new third-stage aberrants had now entered Rosalind’s notebook. They were named the Gluttonous Troll and the Hundred-Eyed Scorpion Fiend.

“The speed at which these aberrant creatures evolve is terrifying...” Rosalind sat down uneasily at the table.

“If hives exist, then the Ish Mountains and Luya City in the far north may have had them for some time already. But the hive in Gray Harbor City probably appeared only within the last few years.” Yvette lowered her eyes and began considering their current predicament.

“What should we do, Teacher? Should we take action?”

“Tomorrow, we’ll investigate the Ish Mountains and the area around Luya City to determine the situation,” Yvette said. “If there’s a significant imbalance in strength, we can consider intervening from the margins—supporting the weaker side and maintaining a balance of power between them.”

It was the best solution she could think of for the moment. Judging their current combat strength by the standards of third-stage elite aberrants, Rosalind was probably comparable to one elite, while Yvette herself might be able to fight three or four at once. That sounded impressive, but it also carried a genuine risk to their lives. Rather than taking such a grave gamble, it was better to choose a lower-risk strategy of maintaining equilibrium.

Yet just as they were about to finalize this conclusion concerning their future survival strategy—

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Yvette abruptly turned her head. Her cold gaze shot like an arrow toward the manor outside the French doors, which lay bathed in amber light.

Rosalind followed her gaze, and her heart seemed to stop.

A tall, black figure with four ragged wings rising from its back slowly emerged from the shadows. Without making a sound, it stopped at the boundary between light and darkness.

The Twin-Blade Demon!

Why had it appeared here?

Almost instantly, Rosalind reached for the alloy battle blade resting beside the door. Yvette narrowed her eyes as well, walking toward the main entrance while preparing to unleash a barrage of spells.

But to their surprise, the Twin-Blade Demon showed no sign of preparing to fight. It simply stood where it was, waiting in silence.

Then, when the two of them drew near, it slowly opened its mouth. One by one, halting and awkward words in the Black Tide tongue—words that sounded as though it had only just learned them—spilled brokenly from its lips.

“Humans... mages...”

“The lord... is about to be born...”

“If we do not hurry... we...”

“We will all die...!”

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