Chapter 796: The Quill's Affliction

Use the things she wrote herself against her.

And besides.

Aside from that note about her love of cats, she had also written a written vow to be his girlfriend.

Since whatever was written would come true, then as long as he transformed back into the form of that tabby cat, then under the effect of her authority, he would become her beloved cat boyfriend. As absurd and ridiculous as this description sounded, that was simply how it was.

With these two guarantees, Lynn felt that he most likely wouldn't be expelled by her again.

Slowly.

In the pitch-black corridor, accompanied by the faint clicking sound of the lock being picked, a glint of light flashed with a soft ding from the cat's paw.

Lynn narrowed his vertical pupils, extended his claws, and carefully pushed open the door to 002's room that he had picked open.

Then cautiously poked his head inside.

He was in!

Sure enough!

Exactly as he had deduced, the quill truly had not made any attempt to control or expel him in his cat form.

"Quill, are you there meow?"

Lynn asked cautiously, testing the waters.

But the room was shrouded in complete darkness. Even with his cat vision, he couldn't see the situation inside clearly at all. And although this room clearly wasn't that large, Lynn had the feeling that he was standing inside a vast, oppressive underground space.

Moreover, for some unknown reason, a thick trace of bloodiness drifted faintly from within the dark room.

He held his breath and focused.

His sharp cat claws scraped across the wall, sending out sparks that landed on the fire starter he held in his mouth.

Sizzle—

A faint light flickered to life, illuminating a small patch of darkness before him.

And almost at the very instant the light flared, his pupils abruptly contracted. Because he immediately saw that on the damp, cold floor, it was as if densely packed muscular meridians covered the ground, growing thicker and denser the deeper they went, and as if possessing a life of their own, faintly writhing and pulsing.

And in the darkness, he also heard the even denser, more frantic sound of writing.

Sure enough.

Some mutation had indeed occurred.

The backlash of the authority had taken effect on her after all.

Lynn's expression turned serious. His gaze landed on the candle holder hanging on the wall. He then crept over stealthily, leaped up, and used the fire starter in his mouth to light the half-burned candle on the holder.

Instantly.

As the candle's glow bloomed to life.

Lynn abruptly heard from deep within the room behind him a series of rustling, distorted sounds.

And when he turned around, his entire body trembled violently.

Because if things were as they had been before, 002's room wasn't actually very large. The light of a single candle should have been enough to illuminate the entire room. But when he looked, what he saw was an immensely vast, endlessly stretching black space revealed by the candle's glow.

Except for the direction of the door, all around were walls of oppressive darkness.

And the fleshy meridians on the ground, like diseased tissue, extended from deep within this space all the way to where he stood.

"Has reality been... twisted?"

Lynn held his breath, his tail curling around the candle from its holder.

He finally made up his mind.

Carefully, he ventured deeper into the dark space.

And the deeper he went, the stronger the stench of blood became. At the same time, a powerful, foul odor seemed to accompany it, making it hard to breathe.

The situation seemed more severe than he had imagined.

"Quill, can you hear me?"

Lynn asked again, seriously probing.

His voice carried through the dark space, producing layered, overlapping echoes.

His heart climbed into his throat.

And it was at that moment that he vaguely felt himself step on something, producing a crisp, faint sound. He instinctively looked down and saw...

What appeared to be a tattered piece of parchment covered in blood-red writing.

Was it...

Left behind by the quill?

He pondered, seriously bringing the candle closer, then looked at the writing on it.

[The backlash came far more severely than I anticipated, far exceeding my estimates. Although writing the fate of a Root does indeed come at a great cost, this time feels different from before. I seem to have inadvertently touched some taboo I should never have touched...]

It was only a single sentence, but it immediately made Lynn's gaze turn grave.

He carefully tucked the paper away.

Then immediately quickened his pace, heading deeper into the darkness.

Before he had gone much further, he discovered another fragment of parchment amid a patch of sticky, nauseating flesh tissue. On it was still written fine blood-colored script, but this time the writing seemed more frantic than what he had seen before, as if carved with a knife.

[It's becoming more intense. I've already begun writing things beyond my control. When I regained clarity, it seemed I had already extended my authority beyond the room... Many Night Doctors seem to have been drawn here by me. I'm trying to torment them...]

[I cannot let my power spiral out of control. If possible, it's best to rewrite the spatial structure here, make it larger, preferably deeper underground. That way, even if I lose control again, as long as it's outside the range my power can affect, the impact on the outside world should be minimized...]

Lynn's brow furrowed deeply.

He turned to look at this vast dark space.

He seemed to understand why he had felt so oppressed and suffocated here.

And judging by the looks of things, these had been written earlier. So what was her situation now?

Lynn's heart clenched. His gaze was serious, and without any hesitation, he snatched up the paper and sped off even faster toward the deeper reaches of this space.

And the further he went.

The more sticky, diseased flesh tissue covered the ground.

Eventually, Lynn could only tread upon the viscous flesh, as if he were standing inside the body of some biological aberration. The stench of blood and decay grew ever more intense, enough to make one retch and go mad.

Then suddenly.

He heard a series of heavy footsteps from deep within the dark space.

His eyes flickered, and he immediately concealed himself within the sticky flesh tissue, leaving only his eyes exposed to watch the direction the sound was coming from.

"Mommy— I'm so cold— take me home— where are you— I'm so hungry—"

A childish, infantile voice rang out.

Then the next moment, he saw with shock.

From the depths of the darkness, a colossal cloth doll, stitched together with burrs, slowly wandered over. Its size was enormous, so huge it was comparable to Little One. It resembled a real person closely, but in the place of its eyes were two large buttons sewn on. And precisely because it looked so human, it produced an eerie sense of uncanny valley terror.

It wandered as if unconscious, its button eyes hollow and sinister, yet its voice was incredibly delicate and childish.

Then it sat down before a clump of sticky flesh tissue.

Lowered its head, mechanically grabbed handfuls of flesh, and chewed away at it, thick blood oozing from the corners of its mouth.

Lynn's heart pounded wildly.

He dared not disturb it. Holding his breath and concentrating, he carefully slipped out, avoided that giant baby doll, and continued forward, groping his way ahead.

He didn't know what that thing was.

But without a doubt.

The quill's backlash had completely twisted the reality of this place as well.

Before he had gone much further, a massive dragon's roar suddenly came from the deepest part of the darkness. This made Lynn jolt violently. He instinctively ducked beneath a long, intestine-like strand of flesh tissue.

"As long as I defeat you— I can rescue Her Majesty the Princess—"

A flash crossed his vision.

He saw a knight clad in ancient medieval armor standing there, wielding a blade. But eerily, his gaze was completely hollow, and his body was covered all over with tumors and extra limbs.

And across from him, a twisted dragon coiled menacingly.

But strangely.

That dragon had two heads. One head was the head of a king wearing a crown, frozen in a stiff smile. The other head was the head of a princess with golden hair and blue eyes, smiling as well.

Bizarre and absurd.

Twisted and theatrical.

Lynn drew in a sharp breath of cold air. He dared not linger, immediately sped up, and bypassed this domain.

And as he went deeper, he saw even stranger, more absurd things.

A man-eating Little Red Riding Hood. Human-shaped maggots endlessly copulating. A woman in red assembled from stitched-together heads.

Everything here seemed twisted.

It was as if things that only existed in illusory stories had been maliciously stitched together in a frenzied, chaotic manner, continuing to play out their hair-raising tales here.

And Lynn vaguely remembered that previously, on the bookshelf in 002's room, he had seen some interesting story collections placed there.

"The Child Searching for Mommy," "The Brave Knight vs. the Dragon," "Little Red Riding Hood and the Big Bad Wolf," and so on.

He had never read the specific contents.

But without a doubt.

Because of the quill's affliction, the characters from those stories had all been twisted into reality in the most grotesque of ways.

"What the hell happened? How could this backlash be so terrifying?"

Lynn's doubts grew deeper and deeper.

Because it was only a Root after all!

Given the quill's authority, changing the fate of a Root was by no means a difficult task. The backlash she suffered shouldn't have been this violent at all!

What had she touched?!

Lynn's brow furrowed tightly as he quickened his pace.

And it was at that moment that his gaze was suddenly drawn to a scattered, blood-soaked piece of paper crushed beneath the flesh tissue. He immediately stopped, because he could feel from that paper a monstrous malice and madness completely unlike anything before.

He walked over, picked up the torn paper, and squinted at its contents.

[I tried to run a series of deductions on this backlash. Though difficult, I did manage to glimpse some of the reasons why this backlash has been so severe...]

[So that's how it is. It seems I truly outsmarted myself, and I deserve this tribulation. Because even though I had already warily made myself forget, I should have reminded myself not to come into contact with that young man again in any form.]

[I shouldn't have used his blood to share the burden of the backlash for me, because the act itself is a provocation to hell.]