Chapter 393: The Solution to the Loop

Jack let out a bitter smile.

It suddenly hit him that the gap between ranks was far greater than he had ever imagined.

Against the same Anomaly, they might have to give everything—pay with their lives—just to barely bring it down.

But to a Rank-3, that same Anomaly was probably nothing more than an ant to be crushed at will.

It wasn’t only a gap in power. It was a gap in vision, a gap in perception.

They were trapped inside a maze with no way out, while Pandora stood above the maze, able to see the whole picture at a glance.

That kind of gap left a bitter taste in the mouth.

“We’re still too weak…”

Jack couldn’t help sighing. His voice was low, almost as if he were talking to himself.

Hearing this, Pandora shook her head. Her tone was calm.

“I wouldn’t say that.”

“As far as this particular incident goes, you did well. The main issue was that you weren’t in good condition. You had just finished a major battle, exhausted in body and mind, and it caught you off guard.”

“If you had been at full strength, even with one member suddenly going missing, you wouldn’t have faced one problem after another, made misjudgments, and ended up with both of your leaders dead.”

She paused, her gaze sweeping over them, then continued.

“Of course, there was still one very important thing you forgot to do.”

“That was to report your situation to me as soon as possible.”

“It’s understandable that you couldn’t reach the others, but I was reachable. Elsa as well…”

Pandora didn’t finish the sentence.

But by now, everyone present understood.

Jack’s face showed regret.

With Lady Pandora as a calm third party, even if she wasn’t directly on the scene, the situation could clearly have been handled much better.

If only…

Betty, as the main contact, had been the first to go missing, which meant the others hadn’t thought of this in time.

And of the two leaders who could have thought of it afterward, one had been mentally broken, while the other had been frantically searching for Betty. Both had their own problems.

As a result, not one of them had realized they needed to report the situation to a Rank-3.

In a six-person squad, the three people who should have known what to do had all run into trouble. That could only be called… terribly bad luck.

“However…”

Pandora’s tone shifted. Her eyes narrowed slightly.

A hint of scrutiny surfaced in those indifferent eyes.

“That said, the whole thing is also a little strange.”

“Why did it happen at that exact moment—right after you finished fighting, when you were at your most vulnerable?”

It was all a little too coincidental.

That was a question worth thinking about.

But the thought only turned over once in Pandora’s mind before she set it aside.

There was a reason.

Although she hadn’t made any visible move, her mental energy had long since spread outward in secret, like invisible tendrils passing through walls and brickwork, searching the surrounding area.

And now, that mental energy had detected a humanoid lifeform.

Its condition was strange. Its aura was faint and intermittent, like an oil lamp about to burn out, ready to be extinguished at any moment.

But judging from certain features—

That round face, that short, small frame, that familiar power fluctuation…

It should be Betty.

“Let’s go,” Pandora suddenly said.

“We’ll need to pick up the pace. Stay close to me.”

The hint of scrutiny in those indifferent eyes had already quietly faded, replaced by something more practical.

“If we’re fast enough, Betty… might still be saved.”

The support squad members exchanged glances, surprise in their eyes.

Betty… was actually still alive?

Who knew how long it had been since she disappeared. From what they knew of the Building-Borer Ants, an unguarded, weakened person caught by those vermin should have almost no chance of survival.

But no matter what, this was undoubtedly good news.

The next second, Pandora’s speed exploded.

She vanished on the spot, her body becoming a blur. The gray-white mist tore apart around her as she moved, churning to both sides.

Then—

Boom!

A thunderous crash!

The three squad members looked at once. A huge hole had been smashed straight through the ceiling.

Debris sprayed and dust billowed. Gray-white powder and broken chunks of concrete rained down, smashing into the floor and leaving a web of fine cracks.

A few larger pieces of rubble rolled to their feet, still faintly trembling.

The sight made their eyelids twitch as they stared up at the hole, whose edges were still shedding dust.

Through the opening, they could see that the floor above had been pierced as well, and beyond that, only deeper darkness.

Although they already knew the root cause of their inability to escape was the Borer Ants—that the walls and floors were alive—they hadn’t expected Lady Pandora to solve the problem in such a simple, brute-force way.

She had simply torn the walls apart.

But then again…

As violent as the method was, it was undeniably effective.

No matter how the inescapable maze shifted, it couldn’t withstand demolition.

The Borer Ants could move rooms, alter corridors, and rearrange the entire internal layout of the building, but the speed at which they moved those rooms would never surpass the speed at which Pandora tore through walls.

The three of them no longer hesitated. They immediately moved to follow.

They couldn’t break through walls as easily as Pandora, but jumping up to the next floor wasn’t much of a problem for them.

The short, stocky squad member took a deep breath, tensed his legs, and leaped. His hands caught the edge of the hole, and he hauled himself up.

The second member followed right behind.

Jack was the last.

Before he jumped, he instinctively glanced back.

Behind him lay the gray-white mist and the assistant squad leader’s remains, still curled inside the blood-red bone armor.

He clutched the white-cloth-wrapped head against his chest and leaped.

………………

Who am I?

I… I am…

…I am Betty.

Her consciousness surfaced with difficulty from the murky darkness, like someone sinking into the deep sea finally clutching a piece of driftwood.

Then pain came surging up right behind it.

Betty felt that her current state was bad—truly terrible.

Every inch of her flesh, every nerve, felt as though it were being gnawed by countless tiny teeth and tongues.

The pain wasn’t concentrated in one place. It spread through her entire body.

Endless. From her fingertips to her shoulders, from her calves to her thighs, from her back to her chest, every part of her hurt.

It was as if someone were dragging the finest sandpaper across her nerve endings, again and again.

The sensation was agonizing and unceasing.

No pauses, no relief, only endless grinding.

She tried to struggle, but her body felt as heavy as if it were filled with lead, and she couldn’t muster even a sliver of strength.

Her fingers wouldn’t move. Even her eyelids felt as though they were glued shut by something, impossible to open.