“About fifty meters ahead, turn left and keep going until the end.”

“That thing seems to have hidden inside the mirror.”

In Merka’s field of vision, a robot made entirely of machinery seemed to have noticed Merka’s line of sight.

It hurriedly burrowed into the mirrored surface of the wall, which immediately rippled and swallowed the robot whole.

“Got it.”

The chimera Merka was clinging to immediately let out a roar that shook the heavens and earth.

Dozens of savage tentacles grew from Turing’s body. Like tracking missiles, they shot toward the location Merka had indicated, blasting a huge tunnel through everything in their path.

Turing’s massive body charged wildly through the tunnel. Every muscle rippled across her body like waves of grass rolling over a prairie. As she ran, she possessed the might of ten thousand horses galloping at once.

Turing soon found the place Merka had seen. She aimed at the wall and bit down hard.

The corridor wall shattered on the spot, but the ruins they had expected to find behind it did not appear.

Once the illusion vanished, what stood before them instead was a gigantic room.

The entrance gate had already been crushed into an iron pancake between Turing’s four- to five-meter-long jaws. Turing shook her lion’s head, set Merka down, transformed back into human form, and entered the ominous-looking giant room before them together with him.

The enormous room had walls that curved like the surface of a sphere. It was as if they were inside a colossal beehive, whose walls were everywhere inset with oppressive gray hexagonal frames.

Looking closely, they could even see something writhing inside those hexagonal nests—small lumps of flesh that looked like fetuses.

This is disgusting beyond words, Merka couldn’t help thinking.

The scene looked almost exactly like one of those science-fiction horror movies about aliens from the outside world.

“These are… Ice Bees. There are really this many of them?”

Turing seemed very familiar with the scene. As she looked at the bizarre surroundings, her expression clearly began to show panic.

“What…?”

Merka turned toward Turing in confusion.

“Ice Bees are tools used to monitor whether the angels in the park have escaped containment.”

“That girl who looked like Mother before had memories concerning them.”

“Ice Bees are usually used together with Killer Bees.”

“The Ice Bees locate the angels. The Killer Bees carry out the targeted kills.”

Turing’s expression darkened. As she searched through the memories of that girl in her mind, she spoke slowly to Merka.

“Damn laboratory. Were they implanted with false memories too, and then used as enslaved angels?”

“They really know how to take this trick and make it their own, don’t they?”

Merka’s breathing began to grow heavy. He clenched his teeth slightly as he stared at the magnificent yet bizarre scene before him, one hand unconsciously clutching his chest.

His heart suddenly began to race. These horrifying sights filled him with a terrible sense of foreboding.

“No. They aren’t angels. They’re half-angels.”

“…Every one of them has human organs implanted inside its body—pieces of a brain, limbs, or other organs.”

“Compared to angels, half-angels can unleash the greatest power of an angel. Just like Eve in ancient times, half-angels are born in the optimal form for battle.”

【And besides… their memories aren’t false.】

【Every one of their memories is genuine… events that truly appeared in recorded history.】

【This seems to involve some secret from the history of the ancient era. Could it be that even Altria’s legitimate daughter is forbidden from knowing the details?】

Turing brushed aside the bangs at her temple and took a deep breath.

“I was wondering earlier why there wasn’t a single angel on this level.”

“But now that I think about it, the angels on this level may already have been killed by them…”

Suddenly, an unfamiliar mechanical voice caught Turing and Merka’s attention.

“You’ve finally arrived.”

A horrifying creature suddenly appeared at the far end of the room. It had thirteen eyes, thirteen mouths, thirteen ears, thirteen claws, thirteen tails, and a full thirteen wings.

Its entire body was tightly encased in machinery. With its bloated, irregular, grotesque appearance, it looked just like a LEGO model slapped together at random by a toddler.

“It wasn’t easy luring you in here…”

“If you’d gone to the next level… I honestly wouldn’t have been able to think of any way to subdue you for quite some time.”