It felt as though red-hot needles drilled into Orien's skull, stirring his mind into pulp. Visions overlapped—roses blooming and rotting, twisted vessels thrashing in tanks. Whispers of madness tangled with researchers' screams, a cacophony to shred reason itself.
His body trembled, drained from overdrawn power. Around him, Fatui elites advanced with weapons drawn, eyes glinting cruelly, elemental force flaring. High above, the Doctor's segment watched, calm, clinical, fascinated—as though Orien were an insect squirming in a glass jar.
A dead end. Certain death.
Orien's breath rasped, veins bulging at his temples, yet his gaze sharpened with manic resolve.
I can't die here. I won't.
Run? Cyno's net awaited beyond.
Beg? The Doctor would dissect him.
Fight head-on? Suicide.
Only one way left—gamble everything.
As the lead musketeer raised his rifle, flame building at the muzzle, Orien moved.
Not to flee, nor to shield.
But to lift the canister in his hand—the Sumeru Rose Cultivation Knowledge he had bought in disguise—and smash it against his own forehead.
"What—suicide?!" one soldier froze.
Even the Doctor's brows rose a fraction, faint surprise breaking his mask of detachment.
Then the world detonated.
The canister didn't crack but dissolved into blazing glyphs, streams of viridian and text unfurling.
[System directive received! Reverse operation! I am the vessel. No absorption—output amplification! Target: factory core vortex! All Fracture Value consumed!]
[Fracture Value -10,000! -10,000! -10,000!]
Thirty thousand points burned in an instant.
The knowledge burst forth like a sun, exploding into a torrent of fractured information fused with raw energy.
A beam roared outward, meters wide, blazing with kaleidoscopic light, not aimed at foes but at the factory's unstable god-knowledge vortex.
Time froze.
"Roses… grafting… soil acidity… the heiress hates sweets…"
"King Deshret's tomb is false… the stars are lies…"
"Knowledge… its price…"
Screams layered into a tide.
"STOP!" the Doctor's voice cracked with fury.
But too late.
The vortex convulsed as though boiling alive. Machines screeched. Gauges shattered. Then—
BOOM.
A cataclysm tore through the Orchard.
Seven-colored shockwaves shredded tanks. Mutants burst apart or writhed into worse abominations. Researchers clutched their heads, some babbling nonsense, others dropping lifeless. Fatui soldiers disintegrated where they stood.
Hell swallowed the lab.
Orien hurled every last scrap of power into escape—
Mirror of Blossoms and Water (Kyouka Suigetsu) to leave a decoy,
Thunder Shadow Flash (Raikage Sen) to blink back,
Prison of Painted Flame (Gajou Enjin) to blast recoil and propel him further,
Stealth and Concealment to smother his presence.
Even so, the backlash slammed into him.
Crack—
Ribs splintered. Blood spattered. His body cartwheeled into twisted wreckage, vision blackening.
[Warning! Vital signs failing! Multiple fractures, organ damage, psychic trauma!]
[Emergency stabilization initiated… insufficient Fracture Value for repair!]
Through agony, Orien laughed—a wet, bloody grin.
He had survived. And he had wrecked the Doctor's nest.
He raised his head. The vortex flared wild, the crystalline "Poison Apple" canister trembling, cracks spidering its surface.
Above, the Doctor's segment stood amid ruin, mask splintered, eyes alight with murderous rage.
"You… vermin…" His voice iced over, hand rising, frost coiling to strike.
But then—
WEE-WOO—WEE-WOO—WEE-WOO!
An alarm shrieked through the cavern.
From outside thundered battle and an iron voice:
"Matra Grand Inspector Cyno! By mandate, this site is under purge! All resistors—executed on the spot!"
The Doctor froze. Fury tangled with calculation. To fight Cyno now would mean obliteration.
"Fortunate insect…" he hissed, before dissolving into icy light, vanishing down an escape corridor, abandoning even the cracked Poison Apple.
Chaos broke loose. Fatui fled. Researchers scrambled to burn evidence.
Orien lay shattered, listening to Cyno's voice cut nearer. Saved—ironically—by the one hunting him.
But there was no time to dwell. His gaze locked on the Poison Apple's container.
Proof. Weapon. Prize.
Through blood and pain he crawled, climbed, clutched the fractured vessel. The moment he touched it, knowledge poured in—
[…Forbidden… Wisdom…]
[…Cycle…]
[…Oblivion…]
[…Nahida…]
His mind reeled.
"No—!" He fumbled, drawing the False Star Fragment from his system cache, pressing it to his brow.
Starlight bloomed, a tiny cosmos that swallowed fragments of the leaking god-knowledge, stabilizing him.
Breath ragged, Orien staggered upright, Poison Apple in his arms, and staggered toward the emergency exit.
Behind, the Orchard burned. Cyno stormed in with his troops. The Doctor was gone.
And Orien—bloodied, grinning through pain—slipped into the dark.
The game had changed.
(End of Chapter)
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