From intact to shattered, everything happened in no more than an instant.
The entire research facility was torn into pieces in a split second.
The ground collapsed, shattered, split apart from one another, transforming into uneven, fragmented regions of varying heights.
The Red Nut Grey Cave farther below had completely collapsed as well, torn apart into fragments of all sizes like the broken toys of a reckless child and scattered everywhere. Some pieces fell straight down and vanished into endless darkness; others barely managed to maintain their structural integrity as they floated, but judging by their condition, they already looked extremely unstable.
Crack—crack—
Amid the sounds of shattering, stones large and small kept falling, plunging downward into the darkness below, dropping into a void where nothing existed at all.
Just like the final stage of the Shirakawa Apartments, this place had already entered the countdown phase of destruction and collapse.
But it still was not enough.
Takumi raised his head and looked at the rocks of various sizes and the fragments of ruined structures floating in midair around him.
They had already stabilized again.
Even though this place was shattered beyond recognition, the fact remained that it had stabilized once more and was no longer continuing to collapse.
Takumi knew why this was the case. This place could not yet be completely destroyed and dissipated, because there were two core Obsessions supporting this instance. Merely freeing one of them was not enough to completely destroy this place; the other core Obsession also had to be freed.
Andres had already been freed.
But Hedda—this Obsession had not yet been freed.
But that did not make sense. Why had she not been freed?
At that moment just now, at the instant when Hedda, clad in a blood-soaked dress, entered the Cryogenic Area, she should have completed the final killing. That Obsession should have been freed then—yet it had not happened.
Could it be that Vernon still had some hidden move left?
Takumi stood up, standing on this shattered corridor that was now reduced to only half its original size.
The other side of the door in his hand led into endless void. At the moment when the collapse occurred here, Chika naturally could not hold the door steady the way Takumi could. As a result, the door fell from the place where the three girls were and dropped downward, now endlessly repeating an eternal fall within the infinite void.
There was no way to continue forward while carrying this door. Leaping across building fragments and rock debris of various sizes, separated from one another, was already difficult enough—Takumi simply could not manage it while carrying a wooden door with him.
With some regret, he discarded the door and watched it fall into the darkness. Then he looked upward.
Above, the sky was likewise filled with endless darkness. Yet within that darkness, the fragments of buildings and rock themselves seemed to be emitting a faint glow, allowing Takumi to continue making out the structure of this place. Moreover, at the highest point of this shattered region, Takumi saw a winding staircase leading to a relatively intact platform. Without a doubt, that was the exit of the Red Nut Grey Cave.
Reaching that place would not be easy at all. If he were to fall here and drop into the void, Takumi was certain that he would not respawn like Steve, nor simply die in the process of falling.
Moreover, even if he could make it up there and reach the exit, he could not do so right now. After all, he had to achieve a perfect clear in order to leave this hellish place. In other words, he now had to find the reason why Hedda's obsession had failed to be fulfilled, and locate Vernon—the one who should have died long ago, yet for some reason was still alive.
"Huff—"
A deep breath. A jump. A landing.
Takumi successfully crossed one platform and landed in another area.
It was also at this moment that he received a communication from Maki's side and finally understood the root of the problem.
"So he can even pull off a fused form like this? That means, if I want to deal with him, I still have to find a way to split this guy back apart from that fused state?"
After grasping the cause of the problem, Takumi was left somewhat dumbfounded and could not help but complain.
The reason Vernon survived without being killed by Hedda was actually very simple. The purely aberrant Vernon—the one who had blocked Maki and Kaguya in the prison area—had appeared in the cryogenic area, and the two Vernons had directly fused together.
The power of the aberrant, which could split a person into two separate individuals, was something Takumi had already experienced back in the Shirakawa Apartments. Vernon should have drawn inspiration from the human experiments conducted by Rex, thus dividing himself into two individuals. Among them, the purely aberrant Vernon was very likely formed using the corpse that had been killed in the research area. This aberration was little more than a near-puppet existence, completely controlled by the other Vernon.
After the two fused together, because Vernon once again obtained the identity of an "aberration," Hedda's power could no longer destroy him. It could only damage his body. Moreover, due to the collapse of the entire instance, Hedda, as a core obsession, was unable to carry out an execution in a complete state, which resulted in Vernon even having a chance to escape.
Of course, this was by no means a method with benefits and no harm. After becoming aberrant, Vernon's consciousness would also be affected by aberrant power. He would no longer be able to act according to his own cognitive capacity, instead inclining toward aberrant behavioral patterns and becoming subject to rules to a much greater extent.
At present, Hedda was entangling Vernon. The two aberrations fell together onto the shattered fragments of buildings in the base research area. Under the influence of aberration, Vernon was obsessively determined to continue his experiments, while Hedda repeatedly crushed and tore apart Vernon's body. Yet, because the other party had become completely aberrant, she was unable to kill him. For a time, the scene was incomparably bloody. Chika, seeing such a horrific sight for the first time, almost vomited on the spot. Nearby, Maki and Kaguya, who were watching this scene together with Chika, did not look well either.
After all, a mass of mangled flesh struggling to writhe while trying to conduct experiments was an image that made it extremely difficult for anyone to remain calm.
The problem at this moment was how to separate Vernon, so that the part of him that was still [human] would obediently roll out and die, rather than dragging things out here in an attempt to cling to life.
Takumi leapt from platform to platform while thinking over this issue. As a result, without warning, a rescue worker whose entire body was swollen and continuously dripping with water suddenly emerged on one of the platforms, nearly grabbing Takumi and pinning him to the ground, forcing him to flee immediately. Only by jumping to another platform did he manage to avoid the other party.
He almost forgot that the destruction of the core obsession would not cause the subsidiary obsessions to be eliminated along with it. The fuel absorbed by his watch was, in fact, precisely these subsidiary obsessions as well as the remnants of the instance itself. The only unknown was why this absorption had to be established during the process in which the instance core disappeared and the instance itself gradually collapsed. At present, Takumi had only freed one of the two obsessions and had not yet met the conditions for the instance to collapse, so this function could not be activated.
{Maki, you must be extremely careful over there. The other aberrations are still continuing to be active, and because collapse has occurred in this place, the aberrations in every area have now become mixed together. When moving, be sure to pay attention to your surroundings.}
{Mm, I understand. We'll be careful. You too, Takumi-kun—make sure you protect yourself.}
After the brief exchange, Takumi came to a halt once again.
In front of a half-collapsed guard post, Shelby, Ed, and Sato Takao were surveying the surrounding situation. When they saw Takumi appear, Shelby stepped to the front of the group.
"Mr. Takumi, it's really good to see that you're all right. Do you know what exactly is going on right now?"
It was obvious that this player had probably never witnessed an instance collapse before. Although her expression was still fairly composed, the slight tremor in her voice betrayed the fear in her heart.
"Someone has resolved the core obsession, causing this instance to collapse. For now, this place seems to have stabilized temporarily, but before long it will probably fall completely into destruction. Look up—do you see that platform at the highest point? That's the exit. The rules within the instance have already begun to fall into disorder and fail. As long as you can stay alive and reach that place, you should be able to safely leave the instance. Hurry up. I'll be going first."
After giving a rough explanation of the situation, Takumi turned around and prepared to leave.
"An instance collapse—can I really run into something like this? What kind of expert could possibly pull this off? The instance has only just become fixed, and there was clearly no way to obtain intelligence on many things in advance… Wait—no, Mr. Takumi, aren't you leaving with us? Continuing to stay here should be very dangerous, shouldn't it?"
Although Shelby had never personally seen an instance collapse, she had clearly heard of such situations before. As soon as she heard what Takumi said, she immediately understood and revealed an expression of extreme astonishment.
However, when she then saw Takumi turn to leave, she realized how dangerous this place had become and spoke up to stop him, not quite understanding why Takumi still did not intend to leave under these circumstances. Even those hunters who pursued Obsession Items should not continue to stay in a situation like this. After all, once an instance collapses, the Obsession Items associated with it will all become invalid. An instance in the collapse phase should have no value whatsoever for any player to remain in.
"I still have teammates who haven't arrived. I need to leave together with them. You should hurry up and go. This place is very unsafe—those ghostly things have all become active."
At this moment, Takumi had already reached the edge of this chunk of shattered rock and was looking around, searching for a suitable foothold. To be honest, he did not find a single suitable place to land, because almost every fragment had the presence of aberrant activity on it. Tourists, Explorers, Rescue Team members, security personnel, staff… This cave had swallowed far too many lives. As a result, even though it had already been shattered beyond recognition, a considerable number of aberrant entities were still filling the map.
However, these aberrations no longer seemed to possess any special killing abilities. Avoiding them was probably no different from avoiding zombies—so long as one was not touched, there would not be any major problem.
Therefore, the current priority was still to hurry over to Maki and the others, and then find a way to separate Vernon's human side from his aberrant side.
Speaking of which, for the three players behind him to return to the surface would probably not be easy either, but that was not something I could help with. Moreover, under the present circumstances, it was impossible for me to spare any effort to help these people. All I could do was wish them the best of luck.
[As long as you carefully avoid these aberrant creatures that have lost their sense of self, there won't be too much of a problem. I can help you find a way out.]
At this moment, a calm male voice suddenly sounded.
Takumi raised his head and saw a bearded middle-aged man wearing firefighter clothing, standing on a higher rock fragment above.
That face seemed somewhat familiar.
[Leave these three players to me—I'll get them out safely. That's also part of my duty.]
[But their problem is a minor one. Mr. Takumi, the problem you need to face is the real one. You don't know how to kill that bastard, do you?]
As he spoke, the man jumped down from above and landed beside Takumi.
A sensation of blessing… not human? It seemed to be an aberration, yet it also seemed to differ somewhat from a completely aberrant existence. Just what exactly was this…?
Takumi did not speak. He first took a cautious step back, then, because of that familiar sensation deep in his heart, he recalled exactly where he had seen the man before him. He could not help but freeze in place, unsure of what to say.
[Come to think of it, I haven't introduced myself yet—my apologies.]
[But there's no need to be nervous. After all, ever since your people escaped from the Quarantine Zone, I've been observing from the shadows. It hasn't been difficult to know what you're trying to do.]
[As for my name, you can call me Howard. Perhaps you already know who I am. If so, that would be even better—it would save a lot of time. I'm not certain how much longer I can remain clear-headed enough to help you.]
As he spoke, the man revealed a somewhat stiff smile to Takumi. The firefighter's shoulder insignia on his body seemed to glimmer with a faint light.
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