I tweaked my evolution to better match sonar. I combed the terrain around the Origin Dragon Palace until every wrinkle felt like grain under my fingers.

This isn’t as simple as blowing Hokkaido into the sea. The rock seafloor here has deep, carved threads. It drops lower than the surroundings. It was gouged down by Spiral Force.

Yekase lay on Ivaris’s shoulder like a dead fish. Her words kept lifting at the ends, and strange little whimpers slipped through.

Her limbs had melted. Her headlights were pushed to an E-cup. Only her tail could flick twice. In Ivaris’s arms, her belly buzzed nonstop. Her interface was primed, ready to be used at any time.

Ivaris felt the strain first, then forced herself steady. It was her own doing, so she had to hold it together.

Two non-Newtonian mounds slapped rhythmically against her back shoulder. They bore a competition mermaid number and the brand name Blossom Doll. The soft thudding felt embarrassingly good. Plainly a little addictive.

The whale shark’s belly was vast, like a drowned cathedral. Junk filled it to the vaults. Fermented fumes spun the head. Some piles stood taller than a person, layer on layer, forming a three-dimensional maze.

Infinite Force Perception failed in that chaos. They could only search slowly. They weren’t even sure what to search for.

Survivors? Heavy machinery the development team dumped?

“I think I’ve found a trait of Spiral Force,” Yekase panted.

“What trait?”

“In the Emerald Pool underground mall, my evolution got amped by an unknown field effect. You remember, right? The deeper we went, the stronger it got.”

“The Double Towers run, yeah. That wasn’t just Emerald Pool’s… wait, why was it?”

“There wasn’t a ‘why.’ We never solved it then.”

Huh? Was that so? Ivaris’s mind snagged on the slime-lord leader of that arc. Then the huge underground space. Then the tunnel-boring machine that dug it.

…

“A drill?!”

“The TBM’s face is flat, but it’s still a drill. Mm—this is Spiral Force’s trait. The will to go forward. The will to surpass.”

“Used alone, it’s a permanent spiral that clashes with other Infinite Power. But coupled the way I did just now… ngh… it grants a pull toward the planet’s heart… mmm!”

Yekase bit her lip under the mask. A small peak trembled through her voice.

“In practice, it made your evolution evolve again?”

“Hah… yeah. Exactly.”

Respect flickered first in Ivaris, then a crooked smile. Yekase could be a geyser and still run analysis. Honing the blade never slows the cut. A genius girl inventor isn’t built like other people. No wonder Sandryon called her born strong. With will like that, she’d storm even an adult dating sim and remake the world.

Yekase’s baseline power was strong, but caged. She couldn’t conjure traits from thin air. She needed the right environmental factors to layer on slowly. If the factor didn’t map cleanly to the trait—like “sky” to “wings”—she got nothing.

Yet just now she evolved gastric juice tailored to digest latex, and a worm’s auditory-sensing nerves.

Normally, foreign stuff in her stomach only trained her stomach wall. And if you sealed hearing, her body couldn’t tell “no sound” from “can’t hear,” so no factor, no change. This jump in usability was huge. A passive perk became an active tool.

“I’m naming this new phase the Singularity of Evolution.”

“Same ability, Stage Two, and you still need a new name?”

“Of course—wait.”

Ivaris stopped. They hushed. Only a suspicious hum filled the air around them.

“There’s something moving past that corner. It hasn’t noticed us yet—ohhh!”

Yekase suddenly went taut and let out a helpless, soft cry.

…Well. Now it had noticed.

Belatedly, Ivaris opened her cloaca and yanked the gadget free like a plug. A waterfall of Flash Energy streamed into the air.

The flood didn’t scare it off. It sped up instead, rounded the corner, and came into view—

An old man on a bicycle.

His hair was a tangled nest, but his eyes shone sharp. He wore a vampire-style black high-collar cape, corroded into rags. A beige suit and white shirt showed beneath.

He sang with a bellyful of breath.

“The sky stands high, the waves lie tame—find a treasure and win the game—lu-lu-lu, la-la-la—”

Ivaris sensed no Infinite Power in him. Just a normal old man. But what normal old man wanders into a whale shark’s stomach?

He spotted Ivaris standing frozen.

“Flower girl!”

“That’s your first reaction?!”

Close call. The floating cannons almost fired. Ivaris smacked Yekase’s butt to keep her quiet and tried talking. “Hello. Are you a survivor here?”

The old man parked and stood ramrod straight. He flung his arms wide and declaimed like an aria:

“Whale, seek your freedom! Seagull, seek your fries! All the lights in the sky are stars!”

“I don’t understand you…”

His eyes bulged. He bellowed, raw with hate, “You bastard, give me back my life!”

“?!”

“He’s probably been shut in here too long,” Yekase whispered. “A bit unwell.”

Not just a bit. Ivaris felt that first, then the doubt. Could a mad old man survive such a harsh place? Did he still know what to eat, what not to touch?

“And observe Spiral Force with reverse staining.”

“Right. A tiny gotcha.”

Yekase bled a thin aerosol of Flash Energy that veiled all three. A faint red washed over the world. The unseen bared its hidden shape.

A dish-sized vortex slowly turned in the center of his chest.

…!

Was that his own power? Or something planted in him? Spiral Force doesn’t stop until it burns out. Had he carried phantom tearing in his chest all this time, pacing the lightless gut?

“Any distinctive features?” Yekase whispered.

“No. Just a very normal old man. Lose him in a crowd.”

“Clothes?”

“Black long coat. Beige suit inside.”

“…Doctor Reaper?”

“Who’s that?”

“An elder of Shadow Curtain International. One of the Development Division’s twin giants with Konstantin! How did he end up here—”

Wait.

Shadow Curtain International. The HQ that rose against the capital blockade, then became the dragon it fought. Theoretically lording over human civilization. When was their last trace?

If they swam in wine and pleasure, how did they keep millions of bastards in the branches under control? If they were still doing terror, how did decades pass without a peep? No one who climbs high in a Sinister Organization is soft. Even Gu Xiangshi, all heiress airs, kills without blinking. You don’t suppress true plagues from five seas with meetings. You show force. And if force that big marched on Earth, every intel net would cough it up.

At least as urban-legend whispers.

This reeks of a Reverse Meme.

When forward and backward logic both click yet won’t close the loop, suspect a Reverse Meme first. Not PTSD. No.

Yekase’s ties run wide among mechanics. This year she etched her name in Alchemy, befriended several Longlifers, even took a Grand Magus seat. But the vital inside of the Sinister Organization stays blank. With starvation-level intel, inference can only go so far.

“Grandpa, how long have you lived here?” Ivaris tried again.

Doctor Reaper flushed beet red. He grabbed the busted bike’s bar and saddle. He hoisted it overhead in a threat pose.

“I was caged for thirty years, then cast out of my homeland! Now you dare touch my domain—”

“Eh—eh?!”

“You’ve chosen death!”

He tore the bicycle in two. A wheel in each fist. He closed on Ivaris with predatory speed.

So he’d hidden his strength. Talking with fists suits me just fine. Relief first, then focus. Ivaris dropped Yekase onto the trash, drew the Polaris Staff, and clashed with him.

Clang-clang-clang-clang!

Wheel met iron staff, and he didn’t yield an inch.

So this is the strength Spiral Force grants.

Unlike Magical Girl MAYA, who favors energy flares, Doctor Reaper’s chest-born Spiral Force stayed inside his flesh. It buffed like Mind Energy, but moved another way.

Like the spiral itself—unseen, everywhere—his form wasn’t the brute dominance of a Mind Energy fighter. He almost never struck first. Yet he arrived at the exact place, at the exact breath, and his counters hit harder than Mind Energy.

Jujitsu? Aikido?

No. He was borrowing Spiral Force to “surpass” Ivaris’s attacks.

Each counter came stronger and truer than the last. Only a shade, but always a step forward—like a drill biting deeper.

Ivaris laughed, bright and fierce.

So it’s the same kind of power. Then let’s see. Your Transcendence, or my Evolution—which goes farther forward, all the way beyond the horizon?