Shrouded Seascape

"If left unchecked, perhaps she might lead other 1193-1-3 entities to occupy the entire Subterranean Sea. Fortunately, Plan Three is about to be initialized. It doesn't matter how many of her kind are among the humans out there; they will all be taken down in one fell swoop.

"Charles, a huge chunk of your memories are fake; they were created by that 1193-1-3, and they're not worth cherishing at all.

"We can find a way to remove those tentacles through surgery, and perhaps the memetic infection in your memories will disappear once those tentacles are removed.

"Humanity above all else. Join the Foundation and do your best for mankind's sake!!" K9 urged.

At this point, Charles was breathing in ragged pants. He gnashed his teeth and grabbed his head with both hands before exerting enough force to seemingly crush his skull.

Charles' expression distorted fiercely as he growled, "My memories are fake?! All of my memories are fake?!"

Charles then put his hands down and stared at K9 with fury in his eyes.

"I accept your invitation! I'll join the Foundation!" Charles exclaimed.

The raven-headed K9 stared into Charles' eyes for a few seconds before shaking his head in disappointment. "Although we can't peek into your memories, we still have other ways to know whether you're telling the truth or not.

With that, K9 turned and left Charles' room.

Left all alone, Charles' fierce expression vanished, becoming exceptionally indifferent. The raven-headed K9 was right; he was lying. He was just pretending to join the Foundation, as he wanted to shatter them from the inside.

Unfortunately, it seemed that they were wary of him from the very beginning.

Charles didn't know how much of K9's words were true and how much of them were false, but one thing was certain—all of his memories weren't fake.

Anna could only modify memories; she couldn't modify reality itself. They had been together for so many years, so if all of Charles' memories were truly altered and fake, loopholes were bound to appear.

Moreover, Anna had never really been a fan of Charles' exploration work out at sea, so if Anna had truly altered all of his memories, replacing them with fake ones, he would have obediently stayed on an island long ago.

Boom!

A deafening noise echoed just then as the tightly shut door was kicked open. A small team of people clad in black combat uniforms poured in from the outside with electronic handcuffs and shackles in their hands.

"Number Three! Get down on the ground and hands behind your head!" Renault roared, trying to intimidate Charles. However, the truth was that he was incredibly nervous. From the files that he had read, Charles wasn't that easy to handle.

"That's fast. And 'Number Three'? So you guys have decided to immediately treat me as an experimental subject after your efforts to persuade me have failed?" Charles pointed out.

However, Renault couldn't care less about Charles' words. His hands, which resembled machinery, parted quickly, revealing a spiral-shaped black-and-white painting.

Renault reached into the painting, and a colossal hand the size of a house burst out of the wall next to him, making a beeline for Charles.

Charles remained unmoving, and the sight made Renault think that the former had decided to surrender.

Just as he was about to relax, however, the abstract lines on the ground suddenly writhed, and the scattered drawings on the floor pieced together to create what looked like a human silhouette made out of tadpole-like runes in a variety of sizes.

It turned out that Charles wasn't bored enough to create multiple artworks while he was in hostile territory. He knew that he was being monitored at all times, but Charles also knew that he had to make some preparations for his escape.

In the end, Charles decided to break down the human-shaped array into what looked like tiny, inscrutable doodles to avoid suspicion.

Renault's heart tightened as the human-shaped silhouette moved to merge with Charles' shadow. It was then that he remembered that the experimental subject before him was a god's Chosen One. And the subject was about to invoke the power of a god!

"Lights off!" Renault roared, and the room was instantly plunged into darkness.

Without light, there wouldn't be any shadows, and the subject wouldn't be able to call on the power of his god—or so he thought.

Unfortunately, the absence of light was no obstacle to Charles.

Crackle!

Two radiant white lightning arcs manifested and collided in midair, creating a bright explosion. The bright explosion allowed Charles' shadow to align perfectly with the human-shaped silhouette.

The room was plunged into darkness once again, and a deafening silence descended upon it. There weren't any noises, but Renault could hear his breathing becoming louder and louder.

His team members were in a similar state as him.

Renault gulped hard, swallowing a mouthful of his own saliva. Just as he was about to turn on thermal vision, his temples throbbed. His brain had instinctively stopped him from highlighting the heat signature of the subject before him.

Renault gnashed his teeth and took a moment to steel his heart before turning on thermal vision. Almost immediately, his determined face distorted in extreme panic.

"Control room, reinforcements! We need reinforcements—" Renault's words abruptly came to a halt.

A swollen and grotesque-looking Charles covered in a variety of deformed appendages rushed out of the room and pervaded the corridor. The next moment, his figure became intangible, seemingly trying to teleport away.

When his figure became tangible once again, he discovered that he had only moved about ten meters from his original location. Clearly, something was suppressing his power here.

However, Charles had no time to ponder over what was suppressing his power; he had to get moving, and he moved quickly; his figure flickered as he approached the distant elevator.

Along the way, he saw utter chaos—the clones were running for their lives, and the members of the special task force were running toward him with a variety of weapons in hand. An alarm was blaring throughout the site as well.

Before Charles could teleport his way into the elevator shaft, K9 and O5 appeared at the end of the distant corridor.

Charles ignored them and teleported into the elevator shaft before teleporting his way up.

Despite being suppressed, Charles was still moving at breakneck speed, and he soon found himself on the sea's surface.

Charles didn't even glance at the corpse in midair as he frantically jumped into the ink-black seawater. Then, he frantically swam in a northerly direction.

He had just covered roughly ten kilometers when the temperature around him dropped abruptly. The ink-black seawater quickly condensed into ice, rapidly sealing Charles into a block of ice.

Realizing that something was wrong, Charles' swollen figure teleported to the sea's surface, but as soon as he appeared outside, a brown spiral translucent spear descended, piercing him.

Charles' figure exploded, and his flesh scattered everywhere. However, he wasn't dead. Instead, the lumps of flesh that made up Charles teleported frantically in all directions in an effort to escape.

Unfortunately, it was too late. The towering Pede landed on the frozen sea surface, and more than a dozen clones of GK Council members jumped off him to chase after the scattered lumps of flesh.

And just like that, it was all over…

O5 spat silver silk as thin as osier twigs, and they wrapped tightly around Charles' lumps of flesh.

"Did you really think that you can escape us? Since we were willing to let you out, of course, we have the confidence to capture you and bring you back with us. You're a Chosen One, but we're far more proficient at using the power of the gods than you," K9 said to Charles.

Charles had returned to his original form at some point, and he appeared extremely weak. He didn't even respond and simply closed his eyes, allowing them to carry him away.

Charles was soon locked up in the maximum security prison of Site 6 and was even deprived of control over his own body.

Meanwhile, a deformed monster that appeared to be a cross between a fish and a frog was fleeing rapidly in the deep sea. It seemed to have been terrified by something.

There was a gash on it, and the wound was constantly oozing black blood.

After about thirty minutes into its frantic escape, it suddenly came to a halt. Sparkle had inexplicably appeared in front of it, and she reached into the gash to dig out a folded piece of paper.