Pov: Vik
I reached into my spatial ring and pulled out a pair of sleek white gloves, slipping them on.
"...the victim is the one trapped with me."
I stepped out onto the boarding ramp of the Great White, the sea breeze whipping against my white robes. Beneath my boots, the ocean water didn't even ripple; a faint layer of localized gravity and Void energy formed an invisible platform over the rolling azure waves.
Pushpa shifted slightly against the nape of my neck, letting out a soft, warm breath before resting her chin comfortably over my right collarbone. Her black tail lazily flicked in the wind. To anyone else, she was just an unusually placid pet cat, but the ambient dimensional distortion around the island didn't dare press within three inches of her fur.
"System, lock down the Great White," I commanded as I stepped off the ramp, casually strolling across the surface of the sea toward the island's coastline. "Engage full cloaking and dive to five hundred meters. If anything approaches the hull, fire the secondary kinetic torpedoes first and ask questions never."
System: "Ship systems locked and submerged, Host! Sonar scans indicate the island's outer reef is surrounded by a dense spatial boundary. Breaking it from the outside without triggering an ocean-floor collapse is mathematically impossible. You truly have to disable the core from within the volcano!"
"Then let's go turn off the breaker," I said.
Within three strides, my silhouette blurred. Slicing through the air at high subsonic speed, I crossed the remaining nautical miles in seconds and landed weightlessly on the island's black volcanic sand.
The moment my boots touched the shore, the full extent of the disaster became obvious.
What had appeared from a distance to be a vibrant, tropical paradise was decaying at a terrifying rate. The towering palm-like trees and thick emerald ferns were visibly withering before my eyes, their bright green chlorophyll fading into a sickly, brittle grey. The leaves curled, dried, and crumbled into dust, drifting away on an unnatural, upward wind.
Faint, ghostly ribbons of pale grey luminescence—pure, unrefined life force—were being ripped straight out of the soil and flora. The stolen vitality gathered into thick, ethereal rivers in the sky, all flowing in a spiraling vortex toward the jagged caldera of the central volcano.
'Fascinating... and thoroughly repulsive,' I thought, raising two gloved fingers to catch a drifting ribbon of stolen vitality.
The moment the energy brushed against my skin, my Prana perception dissected its structure. It wasn't a natural predatory absorption, like a beast eating meat to gain sustenance. It was an artificial, forced extraction—a crude, violent siphon designed to strip biological matter down to its raw caloric and spiritual essence.
System: "Scans confirm anomalous life-drain frequency, Host! The entire island's ecosystem is operating on a biological countdown. At this rate of consumption, every plant, insect, and animal on this landmass will be reduced to dead mineral ash within four hours!"
"A synthetic devouring array," I murmured, my yellow eyes narrowing as the ribbon of energy in my fingers dissolved into nothingness. "Whoever built that research bunker tried to recreate an apex predator's digestion without understanding the fundamental balance of life. Amateurs playing with forces they can't control."
Without wasting another second, I kicked off the ground.
I shot straight up the volcanic slope, weaving through the dying, ash-choked jungle like a phantom. The closer I got to the volcano's peak, the thicker the grey mist became. The ground trembled beneath my feet with rhythmic, deep-seated pulses—like the subterranean heartbeat of an enormous, waking abomination.
Near the midway ridge of the volcanic mountain, half-hidden beneath a collapsed shelf of obsidian rock and overgrown vines, a colossal blast door came into view.
The entrance was made of three-foot-thick reinforced astral steel, clearly designed to withstand the breath attacks of Lord-level beasts. But right now, the heavy metal doors looked like they had been peeled open from the inside by a pair of giant, acidic claws. The edges of the torn steel were melted and bubbling, hissing with a foul-smelling, neon-purple secretion that dissolved the surrounding stone.
Above the shattered entrance, a scorched bronze plaque read:
[Northern Sky Alchemical Institute – Deep Sea Research Facility Alpha][Sector 3: Restricted Bio-Containment]
"Well, the front door is wide open," I said, stepping past the mangled steel and walking into the pitch-black subterranean tunnel. "No need to knock."
System: "Host, caution! Scans indicate massive bio-toxicity inside the corridor! The atmospheric composition contains neurotoxins, flesh-rotting spores, and concentrated spatial radiation!"
"System, I am a Poison Overlord Naaga," I replied flatly, taking a deep breath of the poisoned air as if it were fresh mountain pine. "To me, this toxic sludge smells like cheap room freshener. Keep scanning for life signs."
System: "...Right. I forgot Host is literally made of venom."
The interior of the research bunker was a scene of absolute devastation.
Flickering emergency red lights cast long, erratic shadows across the blood-spattered metallic corridors. Shattered glass containment cylinders lined the walls, their green preservation fluids pooling on the grated floor alongside half-dissolved corpses wearing white alchemical coats. Claw marks gouged deep into the reinforced bulkheads, and thick, pulsating veins of dark purple biomass crawled along the ceiling, pumping stolen vitality deeper into the facility.
I walked casually down the descending corridor, my footsteps echoing softly against the steel grates. Pushpa rested comfortably on my neck, her eyes half-closed, completely unimpressed by the gory ambiance.
Suddenly, a loud, metallic screech tore through the silence ahead, followed by frantic shouting and the crackle of defensive magic.
"Hold the barrier! Don't let it touch the seal!" a woman's voice screamed, her tone ragged and desperate. "Reinforce the tertiary mana conduit! Brother Lin, watch the vent!"
"I can't! My mana core is running dry! The mist is eating through my barrier!" a young man choked out in terror.
I turned the corner into a wide, subterranean observation dome.
At the far end of the dome, a reinforced vault door was glowing with a faint, flickering blue 4-circle magic barrier. Trapped inside the defensive circle were three young cultivators wearing ragged alchemical robes—two young men clutching broken spirit swords, and a disheveled young woman with soot-stained cheeks desperately funneling her remaining mana into a cracked defensive artifact.
Surrounding their failing barrier were dozens of horrific, dog-sized chimeric abominations.
The creatures possessed pale, translucent skin that exposed their pulsing internal organs, elongated razor-sharp mandibles, and multiple twitching, insectoid limbs. They didn't have eyes; instead, glowing purple sensory stalks protruded from their skulls, dripping the same caustic acid that had melted the front blast doors.
They were frantically clawing at the blue barrier, screeching with unholy hunger as they siphoned the cultivators' mana straight into their own bodies.
Snap!
A web of bright fractures spiderwebbed across the blue barrier.
"It's over..." the young woman gasped, her knees buckling as blood trickled from the corner of her lips. Her artifact shattered into useless fragments. "May the Heavens forgive us for what we created..."
The chimeric beasts shrieked in triumph, lunging forward with open jaws to tear the helpless alchemists to shreds.
Tsk.
"Such terrible dining manners," a calm, clear voice echoed through the ruined dome.
Before the monsters' claws could reach the terrified researchers, an invisible, crushing gravitational field slammed down from above.
SPLAT! SPLAT! SPLAT!
In less than a millisecond, every single chimeric beast inside the sixty-meter chamber was instantly flattened against the steel floor plates. Their bones snapped, their acidic organs burst, and their bodies were compressed into paper-thin disks of purple paste before they could even let out a dying cry.
The three young researchers froze, their eyes widening in utter, paralyzed shock as the lethal swarm was annihilated in a single, effortless breath.
Through the settling dust and crimson emergency strobes, I casually walked forward, hands clasped loosely behind my back, stepping cleanly over the pools of dissolved steel.
The young woman looked up, trembling from head to toe. Her gaze traveled from my spotless white robes, up past the sleek black cat resting lazily around my neck, and locked onto my glowing, vertical yellow pupils.
"A-Are you... an immortal from the Central Plains...?" she stammered, her voice shaking violently.
"I am just a passing scholar," I smiled gently, adjusting my white gloves. "Now, where is the manager of this establishment? We need to have a very serious conversation about property damage."