Early the next morning, Dr. Murin got up to dress and pack his things.
In days, this was the first time Dr. Murin had consciously taken care of his appearance. He usually had nothing to do after waking up and would just wander aimlessly around the mansion.
When Will heard the unusual rustling coming from Dr. Murin's room, he grew curious, walked over, and saw the scientist bustling about. He was instantly surprised.
"You look... like you're actually looking forward to this speech," Will said with a hint of hesitation, leaning against the doorframe of Dr. Murin's bedroom.
"I was suffocating in here," Dr. Murin replied casually, pulling a sharp tie from the closet and looping it around his collar.
Will watched the entire grooming process with rapt fascination, studying the man as if he were an entirely new species. When he saw Dr. Murin tighten the tie right over his Adam's apple, Will asked enthusiastically, "Why do you tie a strip of cloth around your neck? Isn't it dangerous to have something like that dangling there during a fight?"
Dr. Murin: "..."
He understood by now that Will was trying to observe human behavior through him. The problem with this experiment was that with a sample size of one, Will was destined to learn absolutely nothing accurate about humanity.
---
Two hours later, Dr. Murin arrived at a keynote event hosted by a major biotechnology firm. Naturally, he brought Will along at his side.
When the attendees saw Dr. Murin—who had been acting like a reclusive myth lately—show up in the flesh, they were collectively stunned. Their eyes darted back and forth between Will and the doctor. A few brave souls wanted to step forward and exchange pleasantries, but one look at Will's chilling smile sent them retreating.
The baseline survival instincts of the weak were screaming at them that it was best not to anger the apex predator in the room.
The event itself was a standard, mind-numbing corporate PR stunt. It amounted to the biotech executives standing on stage to brag about their annual yields, reassuring the public that despite the recent high-wall crisis, the company's joint efforts guaranteed a stable food supply. It was a bid to make everyone relax, participate in the reconstruction, and boost overall morale.
Because these speeches always touched on sensitive agricultural and scientific sectors, the biotech company invited Dr. Murin to speak every year. In previous years, Dr. Murin found these PR stunts utterly meaningless and rejected them outright. When they extended the invitation this year, they fully expected the usual refusal. Instead, Dr. Murin had agreed.
The Biotech Company executives were left entirely baffled.
The venue was an open-air amphitheater. The company had set up a massive stage with a sprawling audience section below. To maximize the inspirational impact, they had strategically placed the event in the C42 sector—the buffer zone directly between the slums and the wealthy district. There were no tickets required; anyone could walk up and watch.
This layout resulted in an absolute sea of people pressing against the barricades outside the VIP section, with thousands of residents from the slums arriving to join the spectacle.
"Come up with me," Dr. Murin said, adjusting his collar in the VIP seats. He glanced at Will, his words carrying a deliberate weight. "The stage is elevated. You can see much further from up there."
"Why bother with such a boring speech?" Will complained, slouching in his chair. "I don't want to go up."
Though Will loved to shadow Dr. Murin, it didn't mean he felt compelled to obey his every whim. After all, Will was the puppeteer. If the puppeteer constantly accommodated the puppet, who was really controlling whom?
Hearing Will's flat refusal, a flash of panic crossed Dr. Murin's eyes beneath his black-rimmed glasses for the first time. However, the expression vanished as quickly as it came, and the roaring noise of the surrounding crowd helped mask his slip. Will didn't notice a thing.
'How do I keep the plan on track?'
Dr. Murin bit his lower lip, his brilliant mind racing at a frantic speed.
Last night, he had finally met the white mermaid he had been obsessing over—Lansi. After a tense discussion, the two had aligned on a common goal and hastily hammered out a crude, volatile strategy.
During this public speech, Dr. Murin was supposed to act as the catalyst, tricking Will into believing Lansi was in the area. Through a calculated sequence of events, they would herd Will back toward the northern islands. The ultimate endgame was to lure Will into the specialized prison and detonate the entire facility with Will inside.
They had a clear beginning and a definitive end, but the middle of the plan lacked any detailed choreography. Since neither Dr. Murin nor Lansi entirely trusted the other, they had simply agreed to play it by ear when the curtain went up. The exact process didn't matter, as long as the final outcome was achieved.
"I..." Dr. Murin gritted his teeth, his hand clenching into a tight fist at his side. He scrambled for a plausible excuse that would force Will to accompany him onto the stage, where they could "accidentally" spot Lansi.
"Oh?"
Will suddenly sat bolt upright in his VIP seat. He tilted his head back, staring intently into the distance. "He's here?"
Dr. Murin blinked, startled. "Who?"
"Oh, just a coward." Will snapped his gaze back and smiled sharply at Dr. Murin. Then, he asked, "Didn't you want me to go on stage with you?"
"...Yes."
"Alright then. Fine, I'll humor you." Will sighed dramatically, playing the part of a fiercely indulgent companion.
Seeing Will's smug face, Dr. Murin looked away into the distance, silently hammering the periodic table of elements through his own mind to lock his thoughts down. If it weren't for the fact that he was physically powerless against Will, he would have smashed a fist into that smiling face by now.
After a tense ten-minute wait, the announcer finally called Dr. Murin and Will to the stage.
Walking out into the blinding lights, Dr. Murin forced himself to project an aura of absolute calm. He scanned the stage, the VIP sections, and the pressing crowds below, desperately searching for Lansi's silhouette.
He saw nothing.
'Did something go wrong?'
At that exact moment, Dr. Murin's heart skipped a violent beat, a cold wave of dread washing over him.
While Dr. Murin was lost in thought, Will, standing just behind him, sensed a shift. He cast a doubtful glance at the scientist's back.
But the arrow was already on the string. Dr. Murin knew that if he just stood on stage in silence, more than one person would realize something was deeply wrong with him today. Compelled to improvise, he bit the bullet. Without a script prepared, he dragged up fragments of past speeches from memory, piecing together the same old overused vocabulary.
Will initially served as a background prop for Dr. Murin, his expression perfectly normal. However, as the speech dragged on, Will's gaze began patrolling the crowd and the surrounding spectators.
Suddenly, Will's eyes lit up. Completely ignoring Dr. Murin, who was still speaking, he abruptly vaulted off the stage, dropping directly into the audience.
The spectators were terrified by the sudden movement. A faint commotion rippled through the crowd as people began pushing to get out.
On stage, Dr. Murin was forced to a halt. He went quiet, standing on the elevated platform and looking down at the frantically searching Will with a complicated gaze.
"Lansi?"
Will shoved his way through the crowd, calling Lansi's name. He tried desperately to move in a specific direction, but there were far too many humans. He was practically trapped by the mass of people, forced in directions he didn't want to go.
The rising noise and screams of the crowd drowned out Will's voice. Separated by countless bodies, he could only watch as the figure he was tracking loomed faintly in the distance, drifting further and further away.
"Lansi!!!" Will roared, but the human wall still blocked his path.
Because his current vessel wasn't considered physically strong by human standards, Will exerted himself several times but couldn't close the distance to the figure in his sight.
This made him furious. Truly furious.
Will stopped moving abruptly, his expression turning dark and stormy. Standing dead in his tracks, he suddenly whipped his head around and glared up at Dr. Murin on the stage.
Dr. Murin froze on the platform, his face draining of all color. Forgetting everything else, he rushed to the edge of the stage and screamed down at Will, "You promised me!"
However, such a roar was entirely useless.
Will sneered. The clothes on his body began to rip with a sharp, tearing sound. Then, the skin across his torso began to warp in irregular, sickening undulations. In a matter of barely three seconds, accompanied by the wet sound of tearing flesh and shifting bone, a massive monstrosity erupted on the spot.
The monster stood five meters tall, supporting itself on four clawed limbs, boasting rows of jagged teeth, and letting out a roar like a mutated beast.
The civilians present had never witnessed such a horror. The crowd erupted into frantic shrieks, and the onlookers fled in a blind panic, scattering in every direction. The keynote event had instantly transformed into a monster's slaughterhouse.
Will shook his massive head, directly swatting aside the humans pressed in front of him with his razor-sharp claws. He raised his snout, sniffing the air.
The scent was still there, roughly thirty meters away. If it weren't for these wretched humans blocking him, he would never have let Lansi slip away.
Will anxiously gouged the ground with his claws. Then, his spine began to bulge. A pair of black, skeletal ridges tore through his back, and rapidly multiplying flesh and blood coated the bones, generating a pair of functional wings in just ten seconds.
Once the wings took shape, Will beat them violently, launching himself into the air. The direction he took was obviously the exact path "Lansi" had taken to escape—a route leading directly toward the Alliance's high wall.
Watching Will take flight, Dr. Murin looked down at the bloody chaos beneath the stage. His knees went weak, and he collapsed right onto the platform.
Will's outburst had caused massive casualties, but the only thing to be thankful for was that this "ancestor" had finally been sent away. Although an immense amount of damage control lay ahead—including calming the public, explaining what "Will" actually was, and dealing with the citizens Will had psychologically controlled—it was still infinitely better than keeping a ticking time bomb buried at his side.
Recalling the sheer terror of the past weeks, if it weren't for the wails of the wounded echoing from the crowd, Dr. Murin would have thrown his head back and laughed at the sky.
"Dr. Murin?"
As Dr. Murin sat slumped on the stage in a daze, processing the nightmare of the last few days, a horribly familiar voice sounded from behind him. Someone reached down, grabbed his arm, and hoisted him to his feet.
Dr. Murin's mind went entirely blank. He turned his head to look at the person gripping his arm, and his jaw dropped in absolute shock. "Lansi?!"
The person standing there was indeed Lansi.
"Didn't you go to lure Will away? How are you back so fast?" Dr. Murin was utterly baffled. He figured that even if Lansi managed to return, it shouldn't have been this quick.
"That wasn't me."
At the mention of this, Lansi's face turned completely green.
Evidently, Lansi's execution of the plan had completely diverged from Dr. Murin's expectations. This was the problem with inadequate communication; if two people wanted to pull off a conspiracy, they needed to meticulously map out every single step and consequence to avoid talking past each other completely. Right now, the disconnect between Lansi and Dr. Murin could only be described as a total mess.
The previous night, Lansi had coordinated with Dr. Murin and reached a temporary agreement. When Lansi returned to their safe house, he had happily relayed the strategy to Winsor.
As a result, Winsor flatly stated he did not agree to Lansi using himself as bait.
Lansi hadn't paid much attention to Winsor's opposition at first. After all, Winsor had opposed him plenty of times before, and it rarely ever stopped Lansi from doing what he wanted.
...Except, the very next morning, Winsor used his own actions to prove that he could enforce his opposition quite successfully.
Lansi had been tied up like a festive dumpling by Winsor and stuffed unceremoniously onto the bed.
All Lansi could do was watch in sheer disbelief as Winsor, standing right in front of him, physically shifted his features to match Lansi's appearance perfectly, and then calmly walked out the door.
In that moment, Lansi didn't know whether he should complain that Winsor had gotten entirely too clever, or lament the fact that he was dealing with an ancient entity capable of literally "becoming" him on a whim.
Because this side of the strategy belonged entirely to Winsor and Lansi, Carl and Rose had no idea. They were still planning to lead a faction of people to storm the laboratory to execute an "uprising" according to their original timeline.
So that morning, while Lansi and Winsor were launching their respective gambits, Carl and Rose were busy setting their own gears in motion.
Shortly after Winsor departed, Carl and Rose rolled up to the safe house early in the morning with a cart packed to the brim with weapons. They had fully prepared to equip their team and witness the great uprising alongside Lansi and Winsor. Instead, upon bursting into the safe house, they were greeted by the sight of Lansi trussed up on the bed, desperately shouting for help.
The group hurriedly rushed forward to untie him.
The moment Lansi was liberated, he wasted no time being polite. He lunged forward, relying on his mermaid physiology—which possessed a crushing level of strength compared to ordinary humans—and promptly tied Carl and Rose right back up, tossing them onto the bed.
As for Lao Tang... he was even easier to handle. Lansi simply had a quick word with the little seagull, and the bird immediately barked an order to its "little brother," pressing Lao Tang flat against the floor.
What followed after that was a foregone conclusion.
Lansi dragged the cart of weapons straight to the lecture venue in the C42 sector, arriving just in time to intercept the now-isolated Dr. Murin.
"Sorry, but it's better for us to have double insurance," Lansi muttered.
Without waiting for a response, he dragged Dr. Murin over to the microphone and roared into the speakers, "Your doctor has been kidnapped by me!"
Dr. Murin: "..."
However, the venue was still a chaotic mess of screaming and wailing as the terrified crowd scrambled to escape. Absolutely no one paid attention to Lansi. It seemed nobody actually believed this was a real kidnapping.
"Hey, if I were naturally a bit more intimidating, no one would dare ignore me like this right to my face," Lansi sighed. He pulled out a gun and fired a few sharp rounds directly into the sky.
"Be quiet!"
Following the gunshots, the entire scene suddenly fell dead silent. No one dared to move an inch, their eyes locked onto Lansi on the stage for fear that he might lose his temper in the next second and open fire indiscriminately.
"I want your motorcycle!" Lansi stood aggressively in front of the microphone, anchoring Dr. Murin with one hand while pointing fiercely at a civilian on the sidelines.
The man froze in shock, then rapidly backpedaled away from his beloved vehicle, terrified that Lansi would get upset and scrap both him and his bike on the spot.
Seeing how cooperative the man was, Lansi felt highly satisfied with his compliance. He then turned to the trembling staff of the biotechnology company, intentionally adopting the persona of a fierce, melodramatic villain:
"I'm telling you, don't even think about resisting! The laboratory is completely overrun by my people now, wahahaha... cough, cough, cough!"
He choked on his own laughter.
The biotech company employees were shaking. One of them hastily yanked off his communication device, holding it up to show he had no intention of calling for backup.
Lansi: "..."
'Maybe I'm acting a little too well.'
"Listen up! I possess a highly advanced strain of biotechnology that allows me to directly control the personnel inside the lab. They are completely under my manipulation!" Lansi continued to strike a menacing pose. "So, you'd better cooperate, or I'll eliminate the hostage!"
The "hostage," of course, referred to Dr. Murin.
Dr. Murin rolled his eyes on a side of his face where the crowd couldn't see. This kidnapping was truly too fake for words.
Shortly after, Lansi dragged Dr. Murin down from the stage, and the two walked briskly over to the "requisitioned" motorcycle. Lansi swung his leg over the seat first, then motioned for Dr. Murin to get on behind him.
Dr. Murin hesitated for a fraction of a second before climbing onto the back quite cooperatively.
"Hold on tight," Lansi called out. Then, under the stunned gaze of the entire crowd, he hit the throttle and tore away, leaving a cloud of dust in their wake.
The streets of the slums were incredibly narrow, which was exactly why Lansi had insisted on a motorcycle. In this labyrinth of alleys, a bike could move vastly faster than a standard car.
"Why did you feel the need to stage a 'kidnapping' in front of so many people?" Dr. Murin asked, his arms wrapped around Lansi's waist. Recalling Lansi's theatrical speech, his tone was deeply complicated.
"If I didn't, how else would I get the authorities inside the lab to pay attention?" Lansi explained over the roar of the engine. "Before this, Winsor and I were on the northern island, and we captured people who were controlled by Will to provide you guys with samples. Now, I'm forcing the issue into the spotlight. Once we draw Will away, the scientists inside the lab will be forced to launch a thorough internal investigation to purge Will's influence once and for all."
After listening to Lansi's explanation, Dr. Murin fell silent for a full ten seconds.
Finally, he said softly, "I am sorry."
Perhaps he had been wrong from the very beginning. Every life was inherently worthy of respect. Was there truly such a massive, irreconcilable gulf between humans and non-humans?
"Ah? What did you say?" Lansi had the motorcycle's engine revved to its absolute limit, flying down the road. The deafening noise completely drowned out Dr. Murin's quiet admission.
"...It's nothing," Dr. Murin coughed lightly. He buried his face against Lansi's back, feeling a sudden, burning heat flush across his cheeks.