Chapter 397: The Extra Floor

After stepping out of the room where Betty had been, Pandora handed the girl in her arms over to the support squad.

The three members of the support squad were all startled by the sight of Betty’s terrible state.

The short, stocky one even sucked in a sharp breath, his feet instinctively retreating half a step.

Betty looked utterly wretched.

There was hardly a patch of intact skin anywhere on her body. Pale yellow gel covered those horrific wounds, making her look like a broken doll crudely pieced together.

Only on her face did a few areas of unbroken skin remain, along with a single dried tear stain.

Then, complicated but relieved expressions surfaced on their faces.

Betty might look terrible, and she was certainly unfortunate, but at least she hadn’t ended up like the two squad leaders.

She had survived.

That was the greatest stroke of fortune.

Jack reached out and carefully took Betty into his arms.

His movements were gentler than usual.

The moment Betty’s body settled into his arms, he felt its weight.

It was far too light—not the weight a normal person should have.

It made his heart ache for this girl who had always been so obedient.

“You all head down first,” Pandora said lightly.

“The lower floors are basically cleared out. You shouldn’t run into any more trouble on your way down.”

She paused, then lifted her gaze toward the ceiling.

Her eyes pierced through the ceiling, through layers upon layers of floors and walls, as if she could see straight through to the entity lurking at the very top of the building...

“As for me, I’ll come down once I’ve dealt with the remaining Anomalies inside.”

At that moment, Jack hesitated, then spoke up:

“Wait, Ma’am... with those termites around, can we actually make it down?”

Those Building-Borer Ants could shift rooms, alter corridors, and rearrange the entire building’s internal layout.

That was exactly why they had been trapped in the endless loop earlier.

If Lady Pandora left, the insects might pull the same trick again...

“There won’t be any problem.”

Pandora waved a hand.

Shadows surged up from the darkness at her feet, condensing before her into a pitch-black war hammer half as tall as a person.

The hammer had no physical substance, yet it radiated a heart-palpitating pressure.

The shadow hammer came crashing down.

“Boom—! Boom—!”

Two deep, muffled thuds rang out in succession.

The first: the inner wall collapsed. The second: the outer wall was breached.

The room she was currently in stood one room’s depth away from the building’s exterior wall, meaning two walls needed to be smashed through.

But even two walls posed little problem for Pandora.

In roughly the span of a single breath, a passage leading directly outside had been torn open.

Debris flew, dust churned, and dim gray light streamed in through the breach.

Though weak, that light was far more real than the gray-white mist.

The wind poured in as well, carrying the scent of the outside world.

“Leave straight through here.”

The squad members swallowed, once again shaken by Lady Pandora’s power.

Those two walls had been pierced before her as easily as two sheets of paper, without even the slightest pause.

Then, bearing Betty with them, they carefully made their way out of the building.

Pandora did not watch them go for long.

The moment they set off, her gaze had already returned to the top.

She had now seen to the support squad properly enough.

She had saved everyone she could.

Next came the root of this entire problem.

………………

In a space somewhere on the top floor, the dense fog of the Susurrus Mist still shrouded the area.

The gray-white haze churned ceaselessly, obscuring everything in a dim blur, making it difficult to see clearly.

But at a certain moment, the thick, surging mist suddenly dispersed.

As if an invisible hand had slowly drawn back a curtain from one side.

The fog receded, dissolved, and finally revealed the entire floor.

It was a remarkably open floor.

Almost unnaturally open.

Apart from the necessary structural supports—several thick columns and a few load-bearing walls—there were almost no partitions to be seen, nor any accumulated construction debris.

No inner walls, no rooms, no corridors.

Only an empty expanse.

The reason was simple—

This floor was supposed to be “nonexistent.”

That’s right.

Given Pandora’s cautious nature, even though there was probably little danger, she had still reviewed the support squad’s earlier investigation reports before entering the building.

Those reports included the building’s blueprints.

It was an exceptionally detailed blueprint, marking the structure, purpose, and load-bearing layout of every floor—even the piping routes were drawn out clearly.

And in that blueprint, this floor simply did not exist.

This current floor was entirely an “extra floor.”

As for the reason... it was clear enough now.

Pandora stood at the stairwell entrance, sweeping her gaze forward.

The Susurrus Mist drew back like a curtain at that moment, fully revealing everything before her.

It was an enormously massive ant queen.

Its colossal body occupied nearly a third of the floor’s space.

Layer upon layer of chitinous shell, alternating dark red and deep brown, stretched across the center of the floor like a mountain of flesh.

Its body was so huge that the originally thick support columns looked slender by comparison, like toothpicks stuck beside a mountain of meat.

Most of that enormous bulk was taken up by its bloated abdomen.

The abdomen was like a giant inflated air sac, its surface glistening with an oily sheen. It bulged segment by segment, and each breath-like undulation sent a faint tremor through the entire mountain of flesh.

Through portions of the semi-translucent shell, she could clearly see the writhing yellowish-white fatty tissue, layered and folded like sausage casing stuffed with far too much—ready to burst at any moment.

Every so often, eggs could be seen churning slowly within, pushed out one by one from deeper passages.

The contrast was striking: despite the queen’s immense size, most of the eggs she laid were tiny, no bigger than a thumb.

They were piled densely to one side, forming a small hill of milky-white eggs.

The mound stood a full two people tall, its surface writhing constantly—a living hill.

Its surface was crawling with countless Building-Borer Ants, methodically transporting eggs, arranging the newly laid ones in neat rows, and clearing the hatched shell remnants to a distance.

Carrying, arranging, clearing...

Everything appeared orderly—a thriving, vibrant ant nest...

If one ignored the fact that those damned Building-Borer Ants had very nearly trapped and killed the entire squad not long ago.