Flesh wailed; the entire subterranean space warped in a bizarre twist preceding its collapse.
The colossal entity pieced together from tens of thousands of individual organs was violently shredded by 【Edge】's wild blade light. Yet, before the collapsing chunks of flesh could even hit the ground, they liquefied into viscous plasma upon the floor and walls, frantically converging toward the center.
The massive heart suspended deep within the dome of the sanctuary throbbed at a rapidly escalating frequency that threatened to rupture eardrums.
Thump! Thump! Thump!
An immensely massive 【Grail】 gravitational pull descended once more. This pull no longer attempted to drag Ryan from the outside; instead, it acted directly upon his bone marrow and nerves.
Kneeling on one knee, Ryan tightly gripped the 【Echoing Lantern】 with one hand. The cold white daylight surrounding him emitted a grating friction under the powerful compression of the 【Grail】.
Just as he used the absolute rationality of the 【Lantern】 to temporarily seal the rampant 【Grail】 origin within his body, the black stone floor beneath his feet erupted with a deafening boom!
Hundreds of pitch-black flesh tentacles as thick as tree trunks—covered in suckers and sharp flesh-hooks—surged from the depths of the earth like giant pythons breaking through the soil, rushing straight for Ryan.
The entire sanctuary had gone mad. Abandoning the complex rewrite program, it prepared to use the most primitive consumption to drag Ryan by force into the depths of the flesh.
Standing at the rear, the Gentleman of Knock finally made his move. This London gentleman, who was always elegant and fastidious about his appearance, unbuttoned the very top button of his three-piece suit for the first time.
He did not swing his cane to attack the oncoming flesh tentacles. Instead, he slowly raised his right palm.
Within his palm, an ancient rune radiating a pure golden-bronze glow suddenly lit up.
This was an application of the supreme authority of the 【Knock】 pathway—not to unlock a door, nor to seal a passage, but an absolute shearing of space itself!
Screech—!
The sound of space being violently torn apart was excruciatingly sharp.
The void in front of Ryan suddenly collapsed downward. Then, a pitch-black, deep rift radiating a violent void-pulling force was forcibly extracted from nothingness!
Ryan's dark eyes contracted violently.
He recognized at a glance that something was wrong. This was no ordinary spatial portal, nor was it a warp passage commonly used by high-rank extraordinary beings.
The Gentleman of Knock was using the power of 【Knock】 to forcibly tear apart the fundamental physical architecture of this world, violently carving out a microscopic tunnel to the outside world through the rule-based sealing net of the flesh sanctuary!
“We cannot stay here any longer!”
The Gentleman of Knock's voice carried an irrepressible gasp, blue veins bulging on his forehead.
Ryan did not hesitate for a second. Clenching his teeth, he slung the fallen Lucia over his shoulder. The 【Lantern】 spirituality within his body burned frantically, boosting his speed to the absolute limit as he dashed straight toward that pitch-black rift!
The figure of 【Edge】 was like a bolt of dark lightning, guarding Ryan's side with absolute resolve.
The double-edged longsword in his hand transformed into an uninterrupted wheel of dark red light, slicing every flesh tentacle that stabbed out of the void into dust!
“Go!”
【Edge】 growled, his blade light expanding by three zhang, tearing through the blocking wall of flesh ahead with a single strike!
Stamping his foot heavily onto the floor, Ryan used the recoil to plunge headlong into the pitch-black void rift while carrying Lucia!
At the exact instant his ankle crossed into the rift—
The colossal heart deep within the flesh sanctuary erupted with a despairing and furious roar!
A giant, pitch-black tentacle embedded with hundreds of cloudy eyeballs bypassed the spatial barrier like a bolt of black lightning, stabbing straight toward Ryan's back!
“Close!”
A cold gleam flashed in the Gentleman of Knock's eyes, and his raised right palm clenched hard against the empty air!
【Edge】's blade light spun and hacked down at the exact same moment!
Boom!
The tip of the giant tentacle was severed at the edge of the rift. In that split second, the pitch-black spatial rift closed with a bang, completely isolating all the violent flesh, roars, and tremors in another world.
As the black rift that tore through the void slammed shut behind them, all the violent roars and writhing sounds of flesh from the subterranean sanctuary were instantly severed.
Ryan crashed from midair onto the damp grass, the momentum rolling him through the tall weeds several times before he came to a heavy stop. Even during this undignified fall, his arms remained locked like iron pincers around Lucia, shielding her from any secondary harm.
A warm South American evening breeze blew from the edge of the grassland, carrying the scent of damp earth, green grass, and the fishy tang of a distant river. This primitive breath of nature stood in near-absurd contrast to the viscous, foul-smelling oppression of the flesh sanctuary from moments ago.
Ryan did not stand up immediately.
Remaining on one knee, he closed his eyes and used the rationality of the 【Lantern】 to perform a comprehensive scan of his physical condition in the blink of an eye.
Bones normal, no fractures.
Blood vessels and muscles normal, no mutation.
Spiritual circulation normal, uninterrupted by external forces.
The heart in his chest throbbed steadily.
However, the bizarre pulling force from the flesh sanctuary had not entirely vanished with the spatial isolation.
The power of the 【Grail】 still vibrated slowly in the deepest depths of his body, as if some distant echo from an ancient maternal womb lingered in his flesh, skin, and marrow.
Ryan's brow furrowed tightly.
“Is it not over yet?”
“It is over for now.”
The Gentleman of Knock's voice came from a few paces away.
The London gentleman, usually so elegant in demeanor, was rising to his feet by leaning against a protruding dark brown rock. He had unbuttoned the top button of his suit, his face far paler than it had been in the sanctuary, cold sweat beaded on his forehead.
Not far away, 【Edge】 also climbed out of the grass. Several savage gashes had been torn into his pitch-black leather armor by the flesh tentacles, seeping dark red blood, yet the twin blades in his hands remained cold and intact, gripped tightly in his palms.
Ryan pushed himself up from the ground and cast a cold glance at the two.
“What about the sanctuary?”
“Still there.”
The Gentleman of Knock's reply was extremely direct, without any attempt at concealment.
“That set of rules is too vast; it remains deep underground. Just now... we merely shook it off temporarily by tearing through space.”
Ryan fell into deep thought.
He knew the Gentleman of Knock was not lying. At the absolute moment of entering the rift, the last scene he had glimpsed through 【Glimpse】 was that colossal heart throbbing madly deep within the dome.
That thing was not dead; it could not even be considered heavily injured.
The full-strength efforts of the three of them just now had been nothing more than forcibly snatching someone from its throat.
“Teacher...”
A very soft murmur came from his arms.
Ryan looked down. Lucia stirred slightly in his arms and slowly opened her eyes. The girl's face remained as pale as paper, dried bloodstains lingering at the corners of her eyes. Though her black feather patterns had faded, her eyes were filled with the hollow emptiness of exhaustion.
“Did we... make it out?”
“We did,” Ryan's voice softened considerably.
Lucia let out a long breath, but in the next moment, as if struck by an electric current, her entire body tensed and her pupils contracted violently.
“That door... that door of flesh...”
“It's already closed,” Ryan interrupted her highly unstable thoughts in a firm voice. “It won't open again for now.”
Only then did Lucia seem to shed a monumental burden, her tense body slowly relaxing.
She stood up, leaning on Ryan's arm, and looked around.
The deep blue sky.
The lush grass.
Trees swaying in the gentle breeze.
In the distance, a few startled, stray wild birds even flapped their wings and took flight from the bushes.
These scenes of life, which would usually seem completely ordinary, evoked a powerful, absurd sense of survival in the eyes of the two who had just escaped from a flesh-and-blood hell.
【Edge】 stepped forward slowly, sheathing his twin blades into the leather scabbard on his back. His cold voice broke the silence:
“We are already very far from the original ruins.”
Ryan turned to look at him. “You know the coordinates?”
“Of course.” 【Edge】 gestured with his chin toward the Gentleman of Knock, who was leaning against the rock. “When he forcibly opened the door just now, he had already chosen the drop point.”
The Gentleman of Knock did not explain further, merely pulling an ancient brass pocket watch from his coat.
The pocket watch, which should have been ticking precisely, now had shattered glass over its face. Several internal gears and hands were spinning counterclockwise at a frantic frequency, emitting a grating screech.
Ryan stared at it for a few seconds. “Have the spatial coordinates spun out of control?”
“No.”
The Gentleman of Knock shook his head, his expression grave. “It's that place... It is still tracking our location.”
Just as his words fell—
A tiny, highly unnatural warp suddenly rippled through the calm air several kilometers away!
Ryan's pupils contracted frantically at the exact same moment!
【Glimpse】 activated of its own accord!
In his extraordinary vision, a very thin, extremely black line was slowly spreading across the distant horizon's air like ink seeping into clear water, as if an invisible rule-based crack were attempting to tear open reality once more!
The Gentleman of Knock's face changed dramatically. “Go!”
Without any nonsense, the three instantly displayed the decisiveness of top extraordinary beings.
Ryan hoisted the weak Lucia onto his back, infusing his legs with the spirituality of the 【Lantern】. 【Edge】 drew a short blade to cover their retreat, while the Gentleman of Knock constantly adjusted their route ahead, avoiding the spreading rules.
The three traversed rapidly across the tall South American grassland. Only after two full hours, when the bizarrely spreading black line in the distance completely faded into nothingness, did they stop by a dry riverbed.
This time, the sanctuary ultimately failed to pursue them across the vast distance of space.
Setting Lucia down, Ryan stood by the riverbed, breathing heavily as he suppressed the roiling spirituality within his body.
He glanced back in the direction they had come from.
There was only the boundless grassland and the silhouettes of distant mountains; everything appeared perfectly calm.
Yet Ryan knew better than anyone.
That colossal flesh sanctuary had completely memorized him.
It had not memorized the name “Ryan,” nor his appearance or soul. Instead, it had firmly locked onto the most fundamental rhythm of this body.
The Gentleman of Knock walked slowly to his side, adjusting his disheveled sleeves.
“You felt it, didn't you, Ryan?”
“Yes.” Ryan lowered his head, raising his right hand to watch his fingers slowly clench into a fist. “It left something behind inside my body... some sort of aftershock from being pried open.”
“It wasn't left by the sanctuary.”
The Gentleman of Knock corrected him with extreme composure. “It is something you were already missing, which the sanctuary forcibly exposed.”
Ryan snapped his head up, his dark eyes locking onto the Gentleman of Knock.
The Gentleman of Knock met his gaze, his words heavy:
“This is the very thing we truly need to tell you clearly now that we have rescued you.”
Night fell.
The three set up a temporary camp to rest inside a ruined stone farmhouse that had been abandoned for years at the edge of the grassland.
Dry wood burned brightly in the center of the room, the dancing firelight casting long shadows of the four.
Exhausted mentally, Lucia slept soundly on a blanket.
【Edge】 sat alone on the broken threshold, slowly and silently wiping his longsword with a whetstone under the moonlight, acting as a cold sentinel.
Inside, only Ryan and the Gentleman of Knock sat opposite each other, the firelight casting flickering shadows across their faces.
Ryan did not speak up in a hurry to press him.
Nor did the Gentleman of Knock indulge in the riddles and metaphors London gentlemen excelled at; he got straight to the point:
“Your body is incomplete.”
His first sentence was extremely direct, cold enough to offer no cushion whatsoever.
Ryan raised his eyes, his gaze deep. “Where?”
“I don't mean your organs.”
The Gentleman of Knock extended a slender finger, pointing across the empty space toward Ryan's left chest.
“It is here, in terms of your extraordinary essence.”
“【Heart】.”
The air inside the room seemed to solidify slightly with the utterance of this word, broken only by the occasional crackle of the firewood.
Ryan remained silent for a moment, then raised his hand to press his chest. “I have a heart. Its beat is perfectly normal.”
“In a normal physiological sense, of course you have a heart,” the Gentleman of Knock said. “But what you lack is a core spirituality that truly belongs to the 【Heart】 pathway.”
Ryan's gaze shifted slightly as the rationality of the 【Lantern】 rapidly dissected this information in his mind.
The Gentleman of Knock continued to explain, his voice low and restrained:
“Back then, when we manufactured this body in the underground laboratory in London, the 【Grail】 was responsible for shaping the physical form. That was the starting point of all foundations—the bones, flesh, nerves, internal organs, and even the framework of the entire body to bear spirituality were entirely completed relying on the authority of the 【Grail】.”
“Meanwhile, the 【Lantern】 was responsible for another equally important matter—consciousness. Like a bright lamp, it illuminated this body, granting you thought, judgment, memory, and an independent self.”
“Thus, for all these years, you have been able to live normally like an ordinary person. You could cultivate, use extraordinary abilities, become a qualified killer and botanist, and even establish a thinking logic entirely your own.”
At this point, the Gentleman of Knock sighed.
“But the problem lies precisely in this very spot.”
“Your body possesses a perfect 【Grail】, and your consciousness possesses a pure 【Lantern】. Yet at the absolute core where physical form and consciousness intersect, you lack the most critical link—the 【Heart】.”
Ryan lowered his head, his mind rapidly flashing back to that terrifying scene in the flesh sanctuary.
That feeling of his bones being violently warped and blood vessels mutating on their own...
“So... that is why the sanctuary was able to forcibly rewrite me just now?”
“Yes.”
The Gentleman of Knock nodded heavily. “The 【Grail】 can shape a body, but it cannot single-handedly determine the final form and stable anchor of a complete life. Without the 【Heart】 serving as the stable core of vital activity, your body—on the level of extraordinary laws—will always remain in a semi-finished state that is 'ready to be redefined at any moment by a high-rank 【Grail】 power.'"
Rate on N.U.
