Almost at the same time Ye Lan stepped into the corridor, the blue-clad man, dressed as if he had stepped out of a classic Italian gangster film, suddenly disappeared into his briefcase and vanished from Ye Lan's sight.
"A, one of the test derivatives has disappeared!"
"I see it, I'm looking for it. Don't worry about that guy, I'll have someone else handle him. Just focus on the one in front of you."
Supervisor A's voice immediately rang out from the speakers in the corner. As he spoke, Ye Lan had already engaged in combat with the black-clad finisher who was holding a hammer with a surface identical to the eyes of a large bird.
Bo Ming's weapon, the serrated greatsword with countless dim yellow pupils, was as light as a feather in Ye Lan's hands, but when it struck the finisher's iron hammer, it was as heavy as a mountain.
The ornamental wing on his right back, named Dawn, shielded Ye Lan from every attack launched by the black-clad tailman using the iron hook at the end of his hammer handle. The shimmering light, capable of inflicting damage in four colors with a single strike, caused countless wounds on the black-clad tailman.
However, the one who had the upper hand at this moment was the black-clad finisher who was struggling to defend against Ye Lan's attacks, simply because the weapon in his hand had the ability to instantly clear the containment chambers with a reverse Kabbalah counter, releasing all the abnormalities in the containment chambers along the corridor.
At this moment, he was in the same corridor as the Hall of Dissolving Love. Once the Black Reaper released the Hall of Dissolving Love, Ye Lan, who was wearing the slime ball on his head, would be dissolved into a slime and become a derivative of the Hall of Dissolving Love.
"We must not give him the opportunity to unleash the weapon's special abilities; we must keep him preoccupied with nothing else."
Ye Lan calculated his advantages, and the greatsword in his hand trembled in front of him. Every eye on the sword shone with a dim yellow light, and the entire sword emitted the sharp cry of the End Bird. Ye Lan's body swung with the greatsword, and a spinning slash left four dim yellow wounds on the black-clad finisher.
The light from the wounds erupted as Ye Lan withdrew from her stance, causing the black-clad finisher, who had just raised his iron hammer to smash the ground, to fall to the ground.
"Looks like you've missed your chance."
Ye Lan's Dawn Wings spread wide on his right back, and countless dim yellow eyes stared intently at the black-clad finisher. He raised his right hand, holding the greatsword, and then swung it down, severing the black-clad finisher's head from his body.
The headless corpse released the hammer in its hand, and the hook at the end of the hammer's handle, which fell to the ground, pierced the corpse of the black-clad finisher. A sucking sound rang out, and a halo of light suddenly appeared around the pupil of the hammer's surface, with a dim yellow inner circle and a pitch-black outer circle.
Knowing that the attack automatically released by the weapon when the finisher dies cannot be stopped, Ye Lan did not step forward. Instead, she picked up the tools for observation work at the door of the containment chamber of the Dissolving Love.
Thump—
The halo suddenly spread, and the containment chambers for the abnormal entities in the two corridors of the Construction Department simultaneously melted down. Ye Lan, who was already prepared, stepped into the containment chamber and saw the strawberry-flavored slime again.
Upon seeing Ye Lan enter, the slime's slime face broke into a happy smile. The heart-shaped slime ball on its head seemed to be guided by something and plunged into the body of the Dissolving Love in front of it.
It seemed as if this slime ball had been watching Ye Lan's every move from outside the containment room in place of the original body of Dissolving Love. After retracting the slime ball, Dissolving Love gave Ye Lan a worried look.
The adorable slime stretched out its hands towards Ye Lan, as if yearning for his love or seeking comfort in his embrace. Influenced by the sweet strawberry scent emanating from it, Ye Lan unconsciously reached out his hands to it.
However, just as he was about to touch her slimy body, Ye Lan regained consciousness.
Should I accept her invitation, or refuse?
A deep intuition told him that if he made the wrong choice in this final cycle, he would forever lose the chance to observe the dissolving love in its final moments.
So, what's the point of refusing?
With a maniacal smile that even Supervisor A could see through the cognitive filter, Ye Lan inserted her hand into the body of Dissolving Love.
The sweet strawberry scent emanating from its body kept filling Ye Lan's nostrils, and the sensation of the mucus sliding across his palm was indescribably pleasant. Dissolving Love wriggled towards Ye Lan, and soon his entire arm was submerged within its body.
An unforgettable sense of relief, accompanied by a sense of crisis, surged into my heart. Should I follow this sense of relief and let my whole body be swept away by the dissolving love, or should I follow that sense of crisis and pull my hand away?
That inexplicable feeling once again forced Ye Lan to make a choice, a choice that would lead him to either death or success.
"Excuse me, I need to remove my hand."
His fingers, which were submerged in the mucus of dissolving love, moved slightly inside her body before Ye Lan slowly and carefully withdrew them.
A faint strawberry scent lingered on his sticky hands, and a pink heart, no longer melting, floated above Ye Lan's head. For the time being, she no longer craved the love of others...
"Are you alright? I saw your mental energy bar drop drastically in an instant, but your energy counter is showing only positive energy."
As he left the containment room, Supervisor A's voice rang out again, conveying his concern and inquiry.
Supervisor A, Supervisor Ayin.
He might not even realize it himself, but he's becoming more and more like his complete self. Ye Lan, who remembers everything, knows that when he finds himself again, it will be the end of the Seed of Light Project, that is, the moment Ayin dies.
But he wouldn't tell A, just as Angela wouldn't tell others everything she had experienced, he wouldn't tell others everything he knew.
The script is still the most important thing.
"I'm fine. The meltdown of D-03-109 has been resolved. Did you unlock any useful management guidelines?" Ye Lan changed the subject to the management guidelines, interrupting A's continued questioning of his situation. He ran towards the containment room in another corridor while waiting for A's response.
"This anomaly is called Dissolving Love. To be honest, you were right to refuse all my attempts to get other employees to come and help. Sometimes I even wonder if you can predict the future."
"Let's not talk about that. How long until O-01-64 melts down?"
To prevent her outrageous behavior from causing Ayin's script to go astray, Ye Lan interrupted him again, making A focus back on his work. Once work was finished, Angela would naturally make sure he didn't have time to think about whether he knew anything he shouldn't know.
Although this is a bit of bullying Angela, that silly kid, he is, after all, just an employee struggling in the company and can't change things outside his department.
"If you run a little faster, you can probably get into the containment chamber in the last five seconds."
"Enough!"
The Ego accessory named Dawn granted Ye Lan a comprehensive enhancement. With a single flap of its wing, Ye Lan practically flew into the Greed Queen's containment chamber.
Sitting in front of the screen, A looked at Ye Lan on the screen and asked Angela with a blank expression, "Angela, did he take the appropriate tools when he went in?"
"Yes, you're just having trouble concentrating. Please don't get distracted."
Angela on the screen was as sharp-tongued as ever, leaving A speechless.
...
...
"Get out of here, I hate you."
As soon as Ye Lan entered the containment chamber, the girl inside the egg-shaped container in front of him angrily demanded that he leave. However, for Ye Lan, who had already dealt with her countless times, such words were nothing more than fleeting smoke.
"You understand, this is your past. You once fought to protect happiness, and you always believed that the world's happiness was your happiness."
As if a switch had been flipped, when Ye Lan began to recount her past again, the greedy queen in front of her fell into a trance of talking to herself.
"I've been trying to keep myself happy."
"So what if this is what made me who I am now...? I don't care."
Have you met my sister?
"We'll always be of one mind."
The oval container trembled, and Ye Lan could never be sure whether the words came from the container or from the girl inside.
"We plan together and share common goals."
"By the way..."
Are you happy now?
"I'm very happy."
The oval container trembled violently; this was the only sentence he could identify as coming from the oval container.
Don't lie to me.
"If you were truly happy, would we have ended up like this?"
"And why did you choose to end your life this way?"
The heavy, incoherent muttering continued. Ye Lan watched all this in silence as countless tearing wounds appeared out of thin air on his body, and large chunks of flesh disappeared from his body as if being chewed and swallowed.
"...Even if this is your answer, my appetite will never stop..."
"...But if your answer is not a statement about the current situation, but a determination about the future..."
"Everything may slowly begin to change..."
As if the container and the girl inside had reached some kind of consensus, the containment chamber suddenly fell silent again, and the biting of Ye Lan also stopped. The girl, whose mind had calmed down, smiled at Ye Lan and asked him, "Are you willing to bear the consequences of my changes?"
A glimmer of hope seemed to rekindle in her lake-green eyes. Ye Lan, covered in blood, looked directly at her and said, "It is my greatest honor."
Bang!
A report was ejected from the nearby machine, a huge "Excellent" occupying the entire page. After bidding farewell to the Greed Queen, Ye Lan turned and left the containment chamber.
[The "Closer," the precursor to the book hunter, will ultimately perish in the "library" under the rule of the "pale-faced administrator."]
After dispelling the Black Closing Man's "Death Words," Ye Lan also saw the words spoken at the end of the pale twilight. These two sentences, appearing at the beginning and the end, together announced a possibility for the future: the tragic ending that Angela would achieve in Ending A of "The Library of Ruins."
However, before Ye Lan could even marvel at this, the new handwriting blurred everything before his eyes:
[The supreme privilege of "leaders," "informants," and "lackeys" lies in manipulating the mysteries of the world.]
The pale white midnight hour began abruptly.
"Ye Lan, the byproduct of the midnight test is right behind you. Don't turn around, quickly return to the lounge."
A gave the order, and the fake "lackey" retrieved from the well was right behind him. Covered in blood, Ye Lan knew without A needing to say it that he was no match for him, and immediately ran towards the main lounge.
The henchman wearing the strange metal mask didn't chase after Ye Lan. Instead, he raised his arm, which was covered by mechanical claws, and injected the orange serum that was fixed to his arm into his body. The henchman lowered his head, and after a brief moment of charging, he charged like a rhinoceros, his steel claws raised in front of him, heading straight for Ye Lan.
"Grass!"
Knowing that the charge of the henchmen injected with R Company's serum was completely unstoppable, Ye Lan could only turn around and use the shimmering light to protect herself. She was then knocked out of the corridor by the henchmen's charge and slammed hard onto the old sofa in the lounge, smashing it into a pile of broken planks.
The regenerative reactor started working smoothly and began to stably treat Ye Lan's wounds.
But the henchmen were determined not to give Ye Lan any time to rest. In less than a minute, the henchmen who had charged all the way to the other end of the corridor injected the second dose of medicine.
The blue potion entered his body, and a map of the entire Lobotomy Corporation headquarters popped up in front of the henchman. As if mocking Ye Lan, who was huddled in the lounge, the henchman slowly and randomly selected eight unsuspecting employees and marked them one by one in front of Ye Lan.
Ye Lan took a deep breath and slowly exhaled. He walked out of the lounge with his wounds and stood facing the henchmen at the end of the corridor.
"Since you're going to use the lives of my colleagues to force me out, are you prepared to face my wrath?"
"hehe..."
The fake henchman let out a sinister laugh, mocking Ye Lan, who was covered in wounds and utterly powerless to fight him.
"EGO is showing..."
A deep, then sharp voice emanated from Ye Lan's mouth. Simultaneously, his armor and weapons emitted a large amount of almost tangible dark matter, which engulfed his body. Bloodstained bandages gushed from within, covering his entire body layer by layer. A gigantic maw cleaved Ye Lan's body apart, and the single wing with its dim yellow pupils transformed into a complete pair.
Snap!
All the lights in the entire company went out...
Snap!
Those dim, yellowish pupils lit up with a dazzling light that could pierce through the darkness...
Snap!
The sound of the medicine bottle shattering rang out...
Snap!
The sound of flesh falling to the ground rang out...
When the company lights came on again, Ms. Angela announced to each employee that the day's work was over.