The northern island.
The relentless waves bashed against the jagged rocks layer by layer, churning up a thick blanket of white sea foam.
With a wet, heavy splash, two figures finally broke through the surface near the shoreline.
"You are completely out of shape," Lansi grumbled. He marched out of the surf, using one arm to drag Dr. Murin out of the water by his collar.
Compared to Lansi, who possessed enough raw mermaid strength to haul a fully grown man through crashing waves without breaking a sweat, Dr. Murin was a pathetic, bedraggled mess. The scientist had completely given up on trying to walk. He hung limp and motionless like a dead fish, letting Lansi drag him across the shallows. He didn't even bother to wipe the seawater dripping from his eyes, though he still managed to muster enough spite to snap back:
"Didn't you say you're a merman? Where exactly is your fishtail?"
"I've only got one pair of pants left," Lansi retorted. He dragged Dr. Murin all the way up onto the dry sand, flopped down beside him, and looked out over the ocean. Shrugging, he added, "If I transform into a merman, my last pair of pants will be completely ruined."
Dr. Murin: "..."
'Well... logically speaking, I suppose that is a valid concern.'
Dr. Murin managed to prop himself up on his elbows, turning his gaze back toward the open sea. Thick columns of black smoke were billowing from the water not far from the shoreline, a glaring monument to their disastrous arrival.
The cause of the shipwreck was incredibly simple: Lansi had sailed far too wildly. Because he had absolutely no idea how to actually brake or steer a yacht to a stop, the bottom of the hull had smashed violently into a hidden reef, immediately catching fire. Lansi and Dr. Murin had no choice but to abandon ship and plunge into the ocean.
Furthermore, because Dr. Murin was nothing more than a physically fragile academic, he had suffered a severe leg cramp shortly after hitting the freezing water. He had almost drowned right then and there before Lansi dove down and saved his life.
"Are you absolutely sure he will follow us here?" Dr. Murin asked, his voice shaking slightly.
The "he" in question was Will. Lansi had pushed the yacht's motor to its absolute limit, fleeing at a terrifying speed. This left Dr. Murin deeply concerned that Will might simply give up the chase if he couldn't keep up, turning back instead to slaughter the helpless citizens of the Alliance.
Lansi turned his head to glance at Dr. Murin but remained silent.
In truth, his anxiety ran in the exact opposite direction. He wasn't worried about whether Will would follow; he was terrified of what might happen while Winsor and Will were locked in combat during the pursuit. After all, Will was essentially a sentient mass of toxic sludge. If you engage with sludge, you are bound to get contaminated by it sooner or later.
Lansi feared that Winsor might succumb to Will's mental manipulation during the struggle. A similar nightmare had already played out once within a dreamscape. If Winsor and Will actually joined forces, it would be all over—not just for humanity, but for the entire planet.
"Let's go take a look at this prison you built," Lansi said, pushing himself to his feet and pulling Dr. Murin up along with him. His tone turned heavy and complex. "The last time Winsor and I broke into this place, we accidentally trashed about seventy to eighty percent of it. I don't know what state it's in now."
"You two were the ones who destroyed it last time?!" Dr. Murin gasped, taking a sharp breath as he stumbled along. He followed Lansi toward the concrete entrance of the lighthouse looming a short distance away, questioning him as they walked. "Why on earth did you ruin this facility?"
"We didn't mean to destroy it... we just stumbled in here by accident," Lansi clarified. He reached out to steady Dr. Murin, who had almost tripped over a slippery reef, before asking curiously, "Is this prison of yours really capable of trapping Will?"
"Of course it is," Dr. Murin let out a sharp, slightly unhinged laugh. "Because I rigged the entire island with explosives. The moment construction was completed, I ensured that if the detonate command is triggered, absolutely no living creature will be able to escape this place alive."
When it came to sheer, calculated madness, Dr. Murin was a perfect match for Will.
Lansi fell silent for a long moment. Then, he asked, "What about the damage from before?"
He was genuinely curious. If the entire island was effectively a giant powder keg as Dr. Murin claimed, why hadn't the whole place vaporized when Will's assistant triggered those explosions during their last visit? Conventionally speaking, shouldn't it have caused a domino effect, detonating the rest of the reserves in a chain reaction?
"You aren't a demolition professional, you wouldn't understand," Dr. Murin dismissed with a wave of his hand. "I managed the layout personally. The sectors that were blown up previously have already been thoroughly repaired and isolated. If you want to vaporize the entire island, you have to initiate a specific, hardcoded sequence."
The two quickly bypassed the security scanners at the entrance. Stepping into the hollow interior of the lighthouse, Lansi scanned the corridors and noticed that the personnel count was drastically lower than before.
Suddenly, a troubling thought crossed Lansi's mind. "If you detonate the entire island... what about the staff working here? None of them will survive."
"You don't need to burden your conscience with that. Every single one of them is a volunteer," Dr. Murin replied coldly.
He led Lansi straight into the central command terminal. Moving efficiently in front of a massive control panel, Dr. Murin began typing a complex series of overrides into an instrument. Once the console chimed in confirmation, he pulled out a specialized syringe and calmly injected a strange fluid directly into his own arm.
This island facility had been Dr. Murin's private, black-budget project, constructed entirely outside the laboratory's jurisdiction using his personal network and influence. He had been completely transparent with his innermost circle regarding the true, catastrophic purpose of this island. For those who chose to stay, Dr. Murin had guaranteed that their families back in the Alliance would receive top-tier resources and lifelong protection. Whether driven by personal gain or a grim sense of martyrdom, the remaining staff had consciously chosen to stay behind.
"What are you doing?" Lansi asked, pointing with a frown at the empty syringe in Dr. Murin's hand.
"Injecting myself with a dead-man's switch," Dr. Murin explained, keeping his terms as layman as possible. "The moment my vital signs drop to zero, the automated artificial intelligence governing this facility will bypass all safety protocols and immediately detonate every explosive on the island."
Hearing this, a sudden pang of guilt struck Lansi. Based on Dr. Murin's words, the scientist was quite literally planning to trade his own life to seal the monster.
Lansi looked at him and offered, "Maybe it doesn't have to come to that... Once Winsor gets here, I can have him extract the parasitic tissue Will used to infect and control you."
"Don't waste your breath," Dr. Murin sneered, his smile bitter. "Do you truly think Will is that careless?"
The reason Winsor had been able to successfully purge the parasitic flesh from Will's former assistant was simple: to Will, that assistant was nothing more than an expendable tool. He wasn't worth a second thought, so the tissue Will had implanted in him was incredibly superficial and perfunctory.
But Dr. Murin was a completely different story. Will had invested true, meticulous effort into securing him. The terrifying consequence of that "special attention" was that while Dr. Murin knew exactly what kind of horror Will had burrowed into his anatomy, he couldn't detect a single anomaly no matter how many medical scans he ran on himself.
Dr. Murin was entirely convinced that if anyone attempted to forcibly extract the parasite, the mechanism would trigger and kill him instantly.
Since death was an absolute inevitability either way, he preferred to drag his tormentor down to hell with him.
"The only problem we face now," Dr. Murin muttered, staring at the monitors, "is figuring out how to lure him down into the black abyss beneath this lighthouse."
Dr. Murin looked at Lansi, his implication self-evident.
Lansi froze for a moment, then let out a heavy sigh. Sure enough, was it finally his turn to be the sacrificial lamb in this mess?
However, time waited for no one. Before Lansi and Dr. Murin could devise a proper strategy, the external perimeter broadcast began blaring an automated warning.
As the alarm bells rang and the facility was bathed in a blood-red emergency light, Lansi and Dr. Murin quickly lunged toward a nearby window, looking out to see what had breached the perimeter.
Because the central control room was positioned at the very apex of the lighthouse, they had a perfect bird's-eye view. The moment they looked down, they saw a massive, terrifyingly large mass of black viscous fluid slowly crawling over the lighthouse's outer security wall.
The armed guards stationed below had never witnessed anything so grotesque. Panic rippled through their ranks, and several men opened fire immediately. But as the gunshots echoed, the bullets plunged into the black fluid like pebbles thrown into plasticine; the entity didn't even flinch, and the onlookers could see the bullets visibly suspending and solidifying within its translucent mass.
To make matters worse, the massive entity leaped over the perimeter wall almost effortlessly. A bizarre, mesmerizing black brilliance circulated across its surface, carrying a weird and magnificent psychic enchantment.
Upon seeing the shifting fluid, several guards fell into an instant catatonic state. They stood completely paralyzed as the creature surged forward, offering no resistance as they were swallowed whole into its body.
"Well... it's huge. Why does it look like they've merged?" Lansi's face turned incredibly grim as he watched the horror unfold from the tower.
Because Lansi was entirely immune to the mental pollution radiating from Winsor and Will, he had carefully noted the subtle differences between the two masses when they were fighting on the high wall: one was a void of pure black, while the other was lighter in tone with silver light pulsing through its core.
But now, the gargantuan fluid crawling below had completely absorbed that distinction, presenting a deeply ambiguous form. It was a void of pure black, yet silver brilliance rippled rhythmically through its depths.
This forced Lansi to confront the absolute worst-case scenario—Will and Winsor had merged.
The only silver lining was that, judging by the aimless, erratic way the fluid was swallowing guards, the fusion wasn't stable. At the very least, it seemed the two consciousnesses hadn't reached a coherent agreement on who was in control.
Staring at the carnage below, Dr. Murin spat out a vicious swear word. He whipped around to a comms panel and roared to his remaining subordinates, "Deploy the biological cleanup team! Handle it now!"
Lansi turned his head to look at him, anxiety biting at his chest.
Shortly after Dr. Murin made the call, a squad of personnel clad in heavy white hazmat suits rushed out from the base of the lighthouse. Each of them carried specialized equipment, unleashing roaring flamethrowers against the perimeter of the fluid. The blazing fire was meant to scorch the creature and force its massive bulk back.
Simultaneously, several massive hydraulic robotic arms erupted from the ground, plunging directly into the heart of the writhing fluid with a deafening, rumbling roar. While the flames corralled the mass, the mechanized vacuum arms began aggressively siphoning the fluid down into the dark prison beneath the lighthouse.
"I tried to study Will back then," Dr. Murin muttered, forcing his eyes away from the courtyard. Normal humans couldn't stare at that thing for more than a few seconds without losing their minds, so he could only rely on Lansi to describe the ongoing battle while he explained his strategy.
This countermeasure was something Dr. Murin had secretly developed after managing to snip off a small lock of Will's hair during his captivity. It turned out that no matter how perfectly Will mimicked a human being, he couldn't completely simulate human biology on a cellular level.
One day, while Will was out, Dr. Murin had analyzed the hair sample. Under the microscope, the cells eventually broke down, shrinking into a harmless puddle of liquid. The experiment proved that Will's cells, while alien, were still living matter: they were highly vulnerable to extreme heat, and they couldn't survive long if separated from the main mass.
Initially, the cleanup team's tactics seemed remarkably effective.
The blistering heat of the flamethrowers forced the fluid to contract its boundaries. At the same time, because the hydraulic arms were continuously vacuuming up its mass, the creature's body grew significantly smaller and more dense. It had originally been semi-translucent, but as it solidified, a vague, dark silhouette began to take shape in the center of the mass.
Lansi watched the silhouette form, a sudden wave of dread washing over him. "You can't do this!"
If this massive entity was being sucked into the abyss, it meant both Winsor and Will were being dragged down together. Whether Will could survive the containment, Lansi didn't know—but with Winsor trapped inside that mass, Lansi knew one thing for certain: This entity was not as helpless as it appeared, and it was absolutely not something humans could kill with simple fire and machinery.
"Please." Lansi thought bitterly, 'Winsor is the literal creator of this world. How could he possibly be defeated by such rudimentary human technology?'
"I don't have the luxury of worrying about that," Dr. Murin sneered, his voice tight. "If it weren't for the fact that they have to be thoroughly trapped in the abyss for the dead-man's switch to be foolproof, I'd willingly kill myself right now to detonate the entire island."
"No, something is wrong," Lansi warned, his eyes tracking the sudden, violent stabilization of the shadow inside the fluid. He suddenly screamed into the comms, "Tell them to fall back! Get them out of there, quickly!"
The words had barely left his mouth when the shrinking black mass completely abandoned its defensive posture. In a split second, countless razor-sharp black tentacles erupted from its boundaries like spears, instantly piercing straight through the chests of the biological cleanup team.
The scene below dissolved into a cacophony of wet, tearing sounds and the desperate wails of the dying.
Lansi watched from the lighthouse, his face as pale as paper. He realized with a sinking heart that the fire and the mechanical siphons hadn't actually weakened the entity, they had merely refined it. By draining the "excess" mass, the humans had inadvertently helped the creature condense and "wake up," triggering a true massacre.
"We can't go on like this," Lansi hissed through gritted teeth. He shoved the window wide and climbed onto the ledge, staring down at the writhing horror.
"What are you doing?" Dr. Murin shouted, lunging toward him, his face contorted in shock.
"Only Winsor has the power to stop Will. I have to find a way to separate them," Lansi replied, pointing down at the dark, solid silhouettes visible within the fluid. "Look at the core... there are two of them. They're merging, and I have to break them apart."
"Do you have a death wish?" Dr. Murin grabbed Lansi's arm, trying to yank him back into the safety of the control room. "Didn't you see those guards get swallowed? It takes less than a minute for that thing to digest a human being!"
It was a gruesome truth. When the fluid had been more translucent, they had witnessed the process with horrific clarity. The entity operated like a gargantuan amoeba; it wrapped around a human, forming a "food bubble" that dissolved the body into countless tiny, shimmering vacuoles in a matter of seconds.
"I am not a human!" Lansi roared, shaking off the doctor's grip. "If anyone in this world can wake Winsor, it has to be me. For him—and for this entire planet—I have to try!"
The boundary between the two cores inside the mass was blurring rapidly. Lansi knew that every second he spent arguing was a second closer to a total, irreversible fusion.
He carried Winsor's cells within him. His body was stronger, faster, and more resilient than any ordinary human's. More importantly, he had his voice. He could emit the infrasound waves that Will seemed to fear and loathe.
Lansi took one last look at the spreading black tide below, gritted his teeth, and plummeted from the window.
"Whatever happens" he thought as the air rushed past him, "I was supposed to have died fifty years ago. Returning this borrowed life now doesn't seem like such a bad deal."
With a sickening, muffled 'THUD', Lansi plunged directly into the heart of the black fluid.