A voice echoed in their ears.
It seemed to come from the black substance, yet at the same time it was as if the words were planted directly in their minds. Both X-Men froze in horror.
"She's going to attack us!"
Colossus recognized the substance—it came from the girl who had been experimented on. Feeling the danger closing in, his body immediately shifted into gleaming steel.
Thud—
Footsteps rang out sharply.
From the main entrance.
The bright lights overhead began to flicker wildly, as though an unseen force was interfering with the circuits.
"We're here to save you! We're not the bad guys!"
Angel shouted toward the doorway, where a small girl now stood.
Countless clusters of mold swarmed around her. She was still completely naked, her eyes fixed on the two X-Men with an unsettling kind of excitement.
"Stay... with me!"
As her voice fell, the mold surged even more violently. The basement decayed in an instant, as if decades of rot had overtaken it in seconds.
"Damn it! This stuff is toxic!"
Angel flapped his wings, shooting upward into the air. The mold spread quickly, wrapping around Colossus's legs.
His steel form kept it from corroding him immediately, but the threat was clear.
"She doesn't seem to understand us at all!"
Colossus tore at the mold clinging to his body, ripping away clumps only for more to crawl over and stick to him again.
The stench of decay made him gag.
Even if it couldn't pierce his steel body right away, dark blotches were already forming where the mold had spread.
"I'll knock her out first!"
From above, Angel dodged the swarming mold and dove straight toward the girl who looked, on the surface, like nothing more than an innocent child.
"Giggle giggle~"
The girl didn't move.
Instead, she let out a childish laugh, tilting her head to the side like a sweet little doll.
But just as Angel closed the distance—
Her pupils spun unnaturally, and a sudden gust of icy wind blasted toward him.
"What did you do to me?!"
Angel clutched his head in agony, plummeting from the air. Thick, black sludge began pouring from his mouth.
"Gurgle... gurgle..."
He tried to speak through the pain.
But no words came out.
From his nostrils, his ears, every opening in his body, foul black sludge gushed out.
"Stay here... and play with me."
Her voice rang in his mind as darkness swallowed his consciousness.
"You killed him! My god, what the hell are you?!" Colossus roared, watching Angel crash to the ground and vanish beneath the advancing mold.
Fury overtook him and he charged at the girl like a raging bull. But even his armored body couldn't withstand the next wave of cold wind.
Her pupils shifted again. Colossus dropped to his knees, wracked with the same unbearable pain Angel had endured.
Black slime spewed from his mouth, his steel skin breaking under the torment until it reverted to fragile human flesh.
"No!"
Colossus too was swallowed by the mold.
"Two more."
The girl turned and walked out of the basement.
Ten minutes later, she found Cyclops and Pyro John in the building above.
They never even saw her. A cold wind brushed past them, and both collapsed instantly, pus oozing from every orifice.
The floor was soon coated with black sludge. The last two X-Men had fallen.
The girl dragged their bodies happily back toward the basement.
Along the way, two crooked black trails stretched behind her. She clearly struggled to pull them, yet her mood was light, almost cheerful—as if she weren't hauling corpses, but two oversized teddy bears.
Her steps were slow, and she even began humming a playful nursery rhyme under her breath.
"Join my big family!"
The little girl returned to the basement.
She threw Cyclops, Pyro John, Colossus, and Angel together, then watched as all four were completely swallowed by the black mold.
Once their bodies had been consumed and turned into mold, she spread her arms wide in satisfaction, as though welcoming something. The next moment, all the mold rushed back into her body at incredible speed.
The basement was left empty.
Aside from the decayed, reeking walls, not a trace of mold remained. The girl gave a contented smile, then turned and walked away.
Behind her, only the computer—still powered on—continued to play videos, one after another.
...
"How is the test subject's condition?"
In the surveillance feed, the basement facility appeared intact, bustling with activity.
Countless staff moved about at their stations.
Trask, the sworn enemy of mutants who sought to weaponize them, entered the room with a figure draped in a black cloak.
He questioned the researchers.
"Unbelievable! To think such a perfect creation exists in this world! I believe we'll soon have complete control over her!"
The researcher's eyes burned with excitement and fanaticism.
"She should be called the perfect weapon."
Trask corrected him coldly, his gaze fixed on the containment tank. "I'll use her to hunt down those filthy, wretched mutants."
Every word dripped with his hatred for mutants.
"This is what you brought back from that town?" the cloaked man finally spoke, his voice hoarse and low.
"Yes, her... That was the luckiest day of my life. Even now, I still believe it with all my heart."
Trask's expression shifted as if recalling something unsettling. He walked up to the tank and gently placed his hand against the glass.
"I know quite a bit about what happened there. That's why I'm curious about something—though you may not want to answer."
The cloaked man stepped closer. "Is she the survivor of that disaster, or the very source of the calamity buried in that tomb?"
His tone was grave.
But—
"That doesn't matter, does it?"
Trask gave no clear answer. He simply stared at the little girl inside the containment tank, his eyes flickering with a strange, unfathomable light.
...
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