“Ugh…”

Merka spat out a mouthful of blood and struggled to crawl out from the gap in the wall.

He dropped to his knees, bracing himself against the floor with one clenched fist.

Merka gritted his teeth and endured the agonizing pain as he softly recited the incantation for Descent of the Holy Son. White flames erupted around him, and his body quickly began to recover.

His brows were drawn together in a stern frown, and the corners of his eyes twitched. In his blurred vision, he saw Turing’s figure, bound in countless iron chains like a captive claimed as someone’s own.

“Turing… Turing! Are you all right?”

“Answer me!”

Seeing Turing remain silent, Merka completely lost his composure.

The baby-soft flesh on his face seemed to tremble with some indescribable pain.

He scrambled over to Turing and clutched her body tightly, calling to her again and again in a low voice.

“H-How could this happen?”

Merka lowered his head to look at Turing. When she didn’t respond, his pupils suddenly contracted.

Turing’s eyes were unfocused. She looked just like a porcelain doll whose soul had left her body.

“Could Turing have already fallen deep into a nightmare?”

“No way… For every ten or so seconds in reality, Turing has to spend an entire day alone in that nightmare?”

“That kind of suffering… How could any ordinary person endure it?”

“How do I get Turing out? Think, Merka! Aren’t you supposed to be clever?”

Merka demanded answers from himself, but his mind gave him nothing.

The hunched killer bee staggered forward with faltering steps, dragging a massive mace that seemed to weigh a thousand tons as it slowly approached Merka.

Countless flails lurked beneath its feet, like orcas rising and falling on a storm-tossed sea.

“Wait… I need to stay calm… Calm down.”

Merka’s face twisted until it was almost savage. He stared down the killer bee, which loomed like a gigantic monster, while countless plans flashed through his mind.

The black and white clues connected, then broke apart again. In Merka’s mind, the complicated clues formed neural pathways that linked together in some abstract, elusive way.

Suddenly, a spark of inspiration flashed through Merka’s mind, and a theory took shape.

“Wait, I found some lozenges in Prometheus’s files before. They can break through illusions.”

“Something as important as signing documents… They wouldn’t want illusions interfering with that.”

“So they’d keep those lozenges with the files.”

“I don’t know what they are… But if they can even stop me from entering the world of illusions, they should be able to help Turing break free of one!”

“In a room as huge as this one in Prometheus, there might be other files with those things in them!”

Merka’s reasoning made sense, but the killer bee in front of him clearly didn’t agree.

A burst of insect-like buzzing erupted from within the killer bee. Dozens of tentacles extended from its back, each sprouting a spike like a poisonous needle.

The spikes shot from the tentacles at incredible speed, sealing off every possible escape route for Merka in an instant.

“That’s… the power of a half-angel? Is that Retribution!?”

Merka’s cry was drowned out by a deafening explosion before he could finish shouting.

Countless spikes, each like a missile the size of a streetlamp, exploded around Merka with a thunderous roar. They leveled a huge stretch of the smoke-free zone, kicking up smoke as rich and dense as Italian espresso.

At last, the smoke cleared.

Merka emerged from the haze, covering his mouth as he coughed.

The Power Angel roared with all its might and stood in front of Merka.

Its body was riddled with holes of all sizes. Not a single part of it was unscathed.

It had clearly taken that hit for Merka.