"Right hemisphere personality suppressed. Left hemisphere connected to full-body apparatus successfully. Nerve impulse device stimulating right hemisphere installed successfully."
The grandeur of the Louvre could not fully dispel the irritation in Nightbloom's heart. Freak Mystical, like a bird ignited by the sacred flame of art, gears on her skirt jingling, plunged straight into the stream of people heading towards the Mona Lisa exhibition hall (Denon Wing, Room 711). She kept glancing back, eyes sparkling with excitement, gesturing urgently: "This way! Hurry up, hurry up, hurry up..." Her voice echoed slightly in the quiet, empty corridor.
Nightbloom's gaze swept over the cold stone sculptures lining the walls, finding the place suffocatingly vast, like a gaudy prison. The old wound deep in her shoulder blade, torn by Left Cerebral Hermesfield's energy cone, throbbed dully, the pain spiking with every heartbeat, a nauseating mix of sulfur and metallic sweetness rising in her throat. The cheap perfume fumes from the crowd were like poison gas, fraying her already irritable nerves. Her tail thumped the ground irritably, the fur scratching against the polished marble with a soft, brushing sound. "So annoying. Let's just get this over with." she muttered under her breath, her tone filled with suppressed aggression.
Crimsonlyn Thier walked quietly beside Nightbloom, her long hair swaying slightly with each step. Her amber eyes calmly observed their surroundings, a nearly transparent silver thread silently hanging from her fingertip, extending like the most sensitive feelers, capturing the subtle information flowing in the air—the murmur of the crowd, the echoes of footsteps, the trajectory of the air conditioning drafts, and… an indescribable sense of tension lurking beneath the gorgeous surface, tension as sharp as a guitar string wound too tight, about to snap. The moment she stepped into the Mona Lisa exhibition hall, her fingertips trembled almost imperceptibly several times.
Inside the hall, it was crowded, the air somewhat stuffy. The Mona Lisa was protected behind thick bulletproof glass, hung on a dark wall in a more central position within the hall. Harsh white spotlights shone precisely on the painting, making that enigmatic smile appear exceptionally clear, yet also carrying a cold, scrutinizing distance. The crowd was mostly concentrated near the barriers in front of the painting, forming a dense semi-circle. Hanging on the side wall near the entrance was a large classical oil painting depicting a fierce battle scene—The Intervention of the Sabine Women—it was some distance from the crowded core area around the Mona Lisa, the space in front of it relatively open.
Relying on her flexible figure, Freak Mystical squeezed through to the barrier. Leaning forward slightly, hands resting on the metal rail, she stared unblinkingly at the small painting, undisguised obsession on her face. "Look…" she murmured, her voice much softer, as if speaking to the figure in the painting. "The lines… the light and shadow… so perfectly contradictory…" Her slender fingers unconsciously tapped lightly on the metal railing.
Nightbloom sneered at these "antiques" locked behind glass. Her pale crimson eyes were sharp as knives, impatiently scanning the crowd, her gaze particularly alert towards the relatively empty area by the entrance and the large war painting. Amidst the mixed smells of cosmetics and perfume, a faint trace of cold, machine oil odor touched her like a viper's tongue, arousing her demon instincts. Her muscles tensed slightly, like a cornered beast pacing at the edge of a trap, a low, almost inaudible threatening hiss rising from her throat. "Something's off… smells like a rat," she murmured to Crimsonlyn beside her, her voice laced with vigilance. Crimsonlyn stood slightly behind her, brow furrowed, the tension carried back by the silver thread at her fingertip seemed to be tightening. That thread of abnormal tension grew clearer, its source unmistakably pointing to the large painting near the entrance, The Intervention of the Sabine Women, putting her instinctively on alert.
"Da Vinci's light and shadow technique…" Freak continued to murmur, trying to share her fervor, but Nightbloom and Crimsonlyn's attention was clearly not fully here.
Just then—
"Heh… hehe…" A suppressed laugh, abrupt and involuntary, escaped the throat of an elegantly dressed elderly woman nearby. She immediately covered her mouth, but her shoulders shook uncontrollably.
It was like a signal.
"HA… HAHAHAHAHA——!!!"
"HEHEHEHEHE——!!!"
"GAH GAH GAH GAH——!!!"
Mad, utterly unprovoked laughter exploded violently! Like a plague, it instantly swept through the entire exhibition hall! Tourists who had been silent moments before no longer wore Mona Lisa smiles; their faces were instantly contorted by a twisted, inhuman laugh, pupils dilated to the extreme, mouths stretched to their ears, revealing stark white teeth. The laughter was piercing, shrill, filled with hollow hysteria. Some began frantically scratching their own skin, leaving red marks; others rolled on the ground clutching their stomachs, tears and snot flowing freely while laughing even louder; several uniformed security guards, eyes vacant, moved stiffly, drawing their service pistols, the muzzles slowly, inexorably moving towards their own temples!
Click… click…
A few dull, misfiring clicks sounded, the gun muzzles emitting only faint wisps of smoke. Freak's finger had just moved away from an inconspicuous gear on her skirt hem. The obsession on her face was instantly replaced by shock and a sharp awareness of discovering new material. "Mass hysteria? No… a more sophisticated emotional manipulation… deliberately twisted!"
"It's that abacus bitch!" Nightbloom's roar, like the guttural cry of a wounded beast, instantly drowned out the chaotic laughter! Her eyes blazed with terrifying ferocity. Almost before Freak's words had died, she had already moved! Without a moment's hesitation, her arms swept back with brute, unreasonable force, yanking Crimsonlyn behind her and pulling Freak to the side, dragging them protectively against her solid back! Simultaneously—
CRACK—!!! It wasn't "extending" wings; it was the instantaneous disintegration, boiling, and reorganization of flesh and bone driven by the 'Flexible Malice' gear! Amidst ear-piercing, teeth-grinding screeches of metal and the sound of bones dislocating, two massive, thick shields, covered in pitch-black dense scales with edges sharp as blades, burst open like the gates of hell! Shielding them tightly behind! The unhealed tear at the wing root was ripped open again by this violent transformation, spurting great gouts of searing, sulfurous, metallic-tasting crimson blood onto the inside of the shields and the floor, hissing with corrosion! "You bastards… always lurking in the shadows!" she panted, her voice distorted by agony, yet even more ferocious.
"The space is locked! The energy field… the source is over there!" Crimsonlyn's voice came sharp and calm from behind the wings, her finger suddenly pointing towards the large painting near the entrance, The Intervention of the Sabine Women! The silver thread at her fingertips trembled wildly, as if strongly attracted, shooting straight towards the painting, clearly outlining a cold, invisible energy net centered on it, enveloping the entire exhibition hall, sealing inside from out! She felt that familiar, precise yet icy fluctuation, but stronger, more absolute than last time on the street.
"Cognitive interference protocols lifted. Elimination success rate: 100%." Left Cerebral Hermesfield's cold eyes mocked the group, her voice utterly flat and emotionless, piercing through the mad laughter: "Did you think I was stalling? Or did you think I'd leave you few bastards alive?" It sounded like a final judgment.
The source of the voice was precisely the large painting Crimsonlyn had locked onto—The Intervention of the Sabine Women.
Under the gaze of countless maddened or vacant eyes, the familiar face emerged around the corner of the wall.
Left Cerebral Hermesfield.
Her posture was rigid, possessing an inhuman sense of balance. The most striking feature was her left eye—the once-dull white jade orb was gone, replaced by a complex, mechanical eye structure, its pupil contracting, rotating with sniper-like precision, instantly locking onto the two shielded by the scale shield and the one in front, especially those pale crimson eyes burning with violence. Her left hand rose, palm up, as countless crystalline, miniature abacus-bead-like energy particles precipitated, collided, and combined in the void, emitting dense, piercing crackling sounds.
Even more chilling was her raised right hand—the skin of her entire arm had taken on a strange, translucent stained-glass texture, as if merging with some ancient stained-glass window in the Louvre! As she suddenly spread the fingers of her right hand, the huge stained-glass skylight in the exhibition hall ceiling shattered with a bang! Thousands of sharp, colorful glass shards refracting the harsh light did not fall; instead, they were precisely captured and suspended in mid-air by an invisible force field, like billions of poison-coated stars, each sharp edge and corner precisely aimed at the vital points of Nightbloom, Crimsonlyn, and Freak!
The killing intent, cold as solid ice, instantly froze the chaotic laughter in the air. The madly laughing tourists fell silent like ducks choked, leaving only heavy, fear-filled breathing and suppressed whimpers in their throats. The entire exhibition hall fell into absolute silence, punctuated only by the faint whirring of Left's mechanical eye and the subtle, teeth-grating hum of the countless glass shards vibrating in the air.
Left's cold mechanical eye, its red light locked tightly on Nightbloom's huge black shields trembling slightly from pain and rage, her mechanical voice utterly flat: "Threat level confirmed. Elimination order: Execute."
Nightbloom quickly enveloped herself and the others within her wings. A rain of glass shards shot towards the three! "Come on!" Nightbloom roared, thrusting her massive scale shield wings forward. Ding ding dang dang!!! A dense, piercing explosion of impacts like hail on metal rang out! Sparks cascaded like a waterfall from the shield surface! The immense force made her feet plow two deep grooves into the floor! She could feel the precise force of each shard's impact, trying to pierce the scales, tear open her flesh! The tearing pain at the wing roots felt like molten lava pouring into her marrow, the thick sulfurous-metallic smell almost choking her, yet it also more fiercely ignited the savagery in her bones! "Hold it together… for me!" she roared, eyes blood-red, a guttural growl rolling in her throat, as she recklessly decomposed, reorganized, and fused more body material into her shield wings! The shields visibly grew thicker, the edges more ferocious, even faintly showing dark red demonic patterns on the rim, but the overall "density" of the shields was also decreasing, the edges showing signs of slight transparency and fading—her "molecular reserves" were being consumed wildly!
Crimsonlyn's silver threads shot out like vipers, precisely piercing the ground and marble pillars around them! The threads instantly hardened and tightened, weaving into a high-speed vibrating, almost invisible, sharp mesh around them—a "string net defense"! Her face instantly turned pale as paper. Freak seemed to be pinching something in her hand.
The light in Left's mechanical eye suddenly stalled. For a moment, the dense collision sound of the abacus beads became chaotic, and the trajectory of the glass shards flying towards this area shifted subtly—sunlight had reflected into Left's eyes.
Thump thump thump thump—!!! A large number of shards narrowly grazed the shield edges and the silver net, embedding themselves into the ground and walls behind them. Only a few shards, whistling sharply, stuck into the shields and the silver net, burying themselves inches deep!
"Calculation error… forced correction!" Left's synthesized voice was utterly flat, but the red light in her mechanical eye suddenly became blinding. "Elimination failed to meet expectations. Upgrade protocol: Annihilation Matrix activate." The collision sound of her left hand's abacus beads abruptly shifted from dense crackling to a low, resonating hum! The suspended glass shards stopped aiming and instead collided, shattered, and reorganized at high speed! In mid-air, three death vortices instantly formed from billions of even finer glass particles, their edges as sharp as molecules, constantly rotating and contracting! A terrifying suction force came from the vortex cores, pulling at the air, even slightly distorting the light! These three miniature storms, one bearing down with the force to crush everything towards Nightbloom's huge shields, one sweeping with the sharpness to shred everything towards Crimsonlyn's silver net, and the last, the smallest but fastest rotating, like a poisonous wasp locking onto its prey, diving straight for Freak! "Redundant variables, priority eliminate." Left's voice was cold as iron, pronouncing the final kill.
Nightbloom's pupils suddenly contracted to pinpricks! The oppressive force of the approaching death vortex far surpassed the earlier shards! She could feel the scales covering her shields groaning under the terrifying suction, as if they would be stripped and shattered in the next second! Blood seeped from her clenched teeth, dripping down her chin, burning small white marks on the shields. But fear? No! It only ignited the demon's fury! "You want to crush me?! Dream on!" She let out a deafening roar, like the furious bellow of a wounded dragon!
At that moment, Nightbloom made an incredibly rage decision! She forcibly decomposed and reorganized the left wing shield that was bearing the brunt of the impact! Thick, black, viscous matter, like living asphalt, wildly spread and molded along her right arm! Amidst piercing metal warp sounds, a massive scythe, taller than her, hideously shaped, its blade dripping with dark red energy, as if forged from hellish lava, instantly took shape in her hand! Even a few sharp bone spikes extended from the end of the handle! She panted heavily. Simultaneously, her right foot stomped the ground, shattering it, while her left foot elongated like a spring compressed by a powerful hydraulic press, coiling into a spiral. "Shatter it all!" She slammed the scythe into the ground, using it for leverage!
BOOM!!!!
The expensive marble beneath her feet instantly disintegrated! Her whole body transformed into a black afterimage tearing through the air, carrying unstoppable destructive momentum, like a spear of vengeance shot from hell, charging straight at Left with speed and power far exceeding before. The huge scythe dragged along the ground, leaving a trail of blinding sparks for several meters and a deep, smoking gully! This strike embodies all her strength, pain, and ferocity!
Left's expression didn't change, her left hand's abacus beads wildly calculating, instantly computing the optimal evasion path and counterattack point. Her body leaned back with inhuman flexibility, the burning dark red energy of the scythe's blade, carrying a wave of scorching heat, passing mere millimeters from her nose! At the same time, the fingers of her right hand, possessing that translucent glass texture, pressed together like a most rage, stabbing precisely and coldly towards Nightbloom's completely exposed, defenseless ribs under her armpit, left open by her charge! The timing was exquisitely perfect!
"No way!" Crimsonlyn's shout was sharp, cracking with strain! Several nearly completely transparent silver threads, arriving after the fact but faster, wrapped precisely around Nightbloom's waist and calf like living things! The threads instantly hardened, tightened to the limit,outbursting all of Crimsonlyn's mental strength and yanking! In the nick of time, they forcibly pulled Nightbloom's fury charge trajectory sideways by a critical half meter!
SCREECH——!!!!
A piercing cutting sound rang out! Left'shand-blade coloured glaze failed to hit the vital spot, but like the sharpest diamond cutter,it scraped viciously along the pitch-black scales under Nightbloom's left ribs! It trailed a long shower of blinding sparks! And on the hard demon scales, it left a terrifying cut mark, deep to the bone, smooth as a mirror, its edges even showing signs of melting from the high temperature! Great gouts of searing, thickly sulfurous demon blood gushed out like a fountain! "Ugh-ah—!" Nightbloom let out a roar mixed with agony and fury, her body lurching from the severe wound and impact!
And that huge scythe,embodies all her power, also missed cutting Left's body due to the trajectory shift, but with irresistible destructive force, it slammed heavily, solidly into the wall behind where Left had just been standing, creating a huge hole. The background visible through the hole revealed a huge Hermes wall relief.
"You…" Left's mechanical eye locked onto the three, looking minuscule against the backdrop of the terrifying spatial fluctuations, her synthesized voice tolling like a death knell, "…saw something you shouldn't have."
Nightbloom sensed something was wrong. Her body instantly disintegration into a thick, black fluid, like living asphalt,with a bounce enveloping and engulfing Crimsonlyn and Freak! Inside the substance, it churned violently. She extracted every ounce of demon cunning and brainpower—how would Left's damned mechanical eye scan? Infrared? Thermal imaging? Or pure spectral analysis? She frantically simulated the cold computational logic: the angle of sunlight entering through the hole in the dome, the dark red and gold foil reflections from the The Intervention of the Sabine Women painting behind her, the grey-white of the marble texture underfoot, the refraction of the glass dust still hanging in the air… The surface of the sticky black mass包裹ing her companions, like the most advanced natural camouflage in living organisms, began to minutely adjust its color and texture based on the "enemy perspective" data she was piecing together. Dark red, grey-white, cold metallic luster, faint reflections from dust particles… Countless color patches writhed, mixed, and subside on her surface,ultimately, at the moment Left's mechanical eye refocused and scanned, perfectly "disappeared" into the background formed by the shattered dome, the war painting, and the messy floor, leaving behind only a visual chaotic nothingness.
"…Target lost?" Left's cold voice showed a minute, almost hesitant pause for the first time. Left was again caught in turbulent currents, spatial ripples distorting as her figure turned and vanished. That patch of "background" suddenly contracted, silently sliding through a gap in the floor torn open by the glass shards, descending into the lower levels of the exhibition hall.
The spatial lock was broken. The Louvre's alarm system wailed belatedly, leaving behind a scene of utter chaos and a missing crowd of people.