Pop!
Crack!
Boom—boom—boom!
Inside the Expo Hall, the ceiling suddenly burst into a cascade of indoor fireworks as bright flares exploded across the vast chamber in shimring arcs of gold and silver. The detonations echoed sharply against the polished walls and towering displays, rolling through the hall in rapid succession as sparks rained down like fragnts of shattered stars.
For a brief, heart-stopping mont, the halfling thought it had worked.
The sound had been perfect.
A sharp pop. Loud. Violent. Exactly what he had expected from their Prince, who wanted to create a spectacle that people would really rember.
It was a long ti coming, but in the end, the frustrated halfling finally managed to take his revenge! Now, all he needed to hear were their anguished cries, and he would be satisfied.
His head jerked toward the platform instinctively, breath catching in his chest as adrenaline surged through his veins.
He needed to see them break down, just as he had when his family was torn apart!
However, instead of tears and screams, what finally registered in her ears were coos and clapping.
"??!"
And then he saw her.
Princess Marin was still there.
Still walking.
Still smiling as she hurried forward with unrestrained excitent toward DG’s booth while Prince Elior followed nearby, the crowd parting respectfully to allow the royal siblings passage.
Nothing had happened.
The halfling’s stomach dropped.
"...What?"
His eyes darted down to the device in his hand.
He pressed the button again.
Click.
Nothing.
His brow twitched.
He pressed harder.
Click.
Still nothing.
Another explosion from the fireworks thundered overhead, colorful blossoms of light spreading across the ceiling as the crowd gasped and applauded at the unexpected spectacle.
Pop!
Crack!
Boom!
To everyone else, it was entertainnt.
To him, it sounded like his pulse hamring against his skull.
The halfling pressed the button again.
And again.
And again.
Click.
Click.
Click.
His breathing began to quicken, his fingers hamring the trigger repeatedly as a creeping chill settled deep into his bones.
Why wasn’t it working?
Why wasn’t it—
His comm suddenly crackled to life.
"Hey... hey! Are we picking flowers now?"
Another voice quickly followed.
"Did it bloom already?"
A third chid in with mounting urgency.
"Status? Are we moving?"
The halfling swallowed hard.
His grip tightened around the device as more voices flooded the channel.
"Hey! What’s going on over there?"
"Hey!"
"Are we picking flowers or what?!"
The questions overlapped, growing sharper, louder, increasingly distressed as more seconds ticked by.
Technically, he would have ended up distressed anyway, but a big part of that should have been due to the inevitable escape.
But now what? He couldn’t even explain what the problem was!
The halfling lowered his head slightly, his shoulders stiffening as dread seeped deeper into his chest.
Sothing must have gone terribly wrong.
He clenched his jaw and forced himself to focus because, at the very least, they hadn’t drawn attention to themselves. If they could just leave and regroup, then they’d be able to figure out just what the heck went wrong.
He exhaled slowly and turned as though preparing to lt back into the moving crowd.
Only to walk straight into soone standing directly behind him.
The halfling blinked in surprise.
A sufficiently tall human was looking down at him with a pleasant smile, the kind soone might give after accidentally bumping into a stranger.
"Going sowhere?" the man asked casually.
The halfling flinched.
And that was all it took.
Before he could even react, sothing invisible slipped into his mouth. Spiritual energy flooded his throat in a smooth, controlled surge, muffling any sound before it could escape and locking his jaw in place like a subtle gag.
His eyes widened.
"—!"
Strength drained from his limbs almost imdiately.
The world tilted.
His knees buckled.
Before he could collapse fully, a steady hand caught his shoulder and guided him downward so gently that anyone looking from afar might think the halfling had simply grown faint in the excitent.
Uno adjusted the unconscious man’s posture with quiet efficiency before straightening again.
Then a series of voices began reporting through his comm.
"Target A-3 incapacitated."
"Target B-1 incapacitated."
"Target C-2 incapacitated."
"Target D-4 incapacitated."
Uno listened calmly as the confirmations continued.
After a mont, he tapped the side of his communicator.
"Good," he said quietly.
"All targets secured."
__
Now, unbeknownst to the disgruntled halfling, the button hadn’t really been faulty.
In fact, it worked so well that when Cece, who now held the very sa device, pressed the damned thing, she couldn’t help but mutter an expletive under her breath.
"Oh, that fucking bastard!" the dwarf growled as she stared at the horrifying scene unfolding before them.
They were currently inside a heavily fortified observation room, one that had been hurriedly assembled the mont Luca’s strange discovery had been confird. Through reinforced glass and layered holographic projections, Cece, Doctor Phillip, Gisella, and several others were watching the results of the experint they had been dreading to confirm.
At first, nothing happened.
Then the lone tooth they had recovered suddenly ruptured with a soft but sickening crack. The structure split apart from within, as though so hidden compartnt had finally been triggered. From the fractured surface, a viscous substance began to seep out slowly, pooling across the sterile containnt tray.
Doctor Phillip imdiately leaned forward, his eyes narrowing as he magnified the image several tis over.
"Wait," he murmured, adjusting the display with rapid hand movents despite his age. "Look closer."
What they were seeing was no simple reaction.
If anything, to Cece, the whole thing looked like a clusterfuck waiting to happen.
Inside a nearby open containnt capsule—positioned to mirror the earlier distance between the Elven Prince and his sister—the microscopic creature Luca had discovered inside Prince Elior’s body suddenly reacted.
What had once appeared to be nothing more than a barely visible mote began to convulse violently, its shape distorting as though it were being pulled apart in several directions at once.
For a mont, it looked as though the thing had exploded.
But that wasn’t quite right.
It moved more like an octopus releasing ink into water, its form bursting outward in a chaotic surge as it rushed toward the leaking substance, only to hit glass. Thin, desperate tendrils stretched through the containnt capsule as the organism practically lunged for the material.
The thing was desperate to get out, and it sure proved successful, finally getting to the substance it had been itching for.
Several observers stiffened.
"Is it feeding?" soone asked quietly.
But what followed was far worse.
Just eating would have been the better option. Unfortunately for everyone and their ancestors, it didn’t stop at that. Because within a few seconds, the glutton just decided it would be a great idea to push for fragntation.
Yeah. That kind of fragntation.
One
Three.
Nine.
With each cycle occurring in rapid, grotesque bursts as the organism kept splitting into parts that simply regenerated into full motes.
Holy frigging hell.
The disgusted dwarf felt her stomach twist as she continued watching this entire ordeal.
"Gis, I swear," she snarled through clenched teeth as her fist slamd against the reinforced glass, "killing that little fucker three tis wouldn’t be enough! Heck, I’m not even sure a dozen tis would do the job!"
She looked up at her friend, expecting a similar outburst.
Instead, Gisella remained completely silent.
The woman hadn’t moved, but the tension in her posture said enough. Her jaw was tight, her eyes fixed on the replication process with a fury that needed no words.
Then again, if those two were already grinding their teeth, no one in that room was more livid than the Imperial monarchs themselves.
Emperor Xavian and the Empress stood behind them, watching the experint with expressions that had long since lost any trace of restraint.
Because if all the events that led to the early discovery of this plan hadn’t happened, then just how many people would have been affected?
How many civilians would have been exposed to sothing like this from one press of a button?
Worst of all, to drag a child, and by extension, other children into such a sche... just how wicked was that Elven Prince?
"Your Majesty," Uno’s voice ca through the secure channel, steady despite the circumstances. "We have them incarcerated in Young Lord Luca’s underwater pocket dinsion. Their trackers and embedded controllers have been removed."
"Good," Emperor Xavian replied without hesitation. "Bleed them for information."
To be honest, he very much wanted to do it himself but was deathly aware he’d end up killing them in anger.
He heard from Uno that those terrorists had just learned they’d been deceived by Prince Eren and were currently going nuts because of guilt and anger.
But that didn’t matter anymore. Even if they thought they had noble intentions, they still knowingly participated in sothing so vile.
And unfortunately for them, involving children was the Emperor’s hard line.
Therefore, they could simply save their grievances for their next life.
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