Chương 103: 102: A Shift in Perspective

The beast lunged. Its jaws, large enough to swallow her whole, yawned open. Within them burned the light of supernovas, the heat of a hundred billion stellar cores, and the hunger of something that had dreamed of annihilation since long before this fortress had been raised. She was already elsewhere. Ten metres to the left, she hovered exactly as before, her head gently inclined, blindfold turned toward the creature now tearing through the space where she had stood. Custard's claws carved across the floor.

Stone erupted. The reinforced steel beneath it peeled apart like damp paper, while a single lash of its prehensile tail reduced the far wall to a collapsing crater. It wasn't attacking her. It scarcely acknowledged she existed. Its thoughts were almost absent, the silent simplicity of a star, the wordless certainty of a galaxy. Consciousness had been compressed beneath such impossible density that thought itself had collapsed into instinct. One imperative remained. Destroy. She watched without alarm.

Monitoring equipment disappeared beneath its claws. Containment pylons folded apart. The chamber itself came undone around the creature as though architecture had forgotten it was allowed to resist. Every movement carried impossible grace, immense power flowing with effortless precision. It resembled neither hunter nor animal. It was physics given appetite. Her task was complete. She had awakened it. Released it. The fortress would fall. The Syndicate would answer.

Custard would kill until something, someday, found a way to kill Custard in return. That had been the plan. She should leave. Return to Butter. Return to Clock. A quiet pressure settled against her thoughts. The same presence she had felt when the Nonagon first awakened, when cobalt geometry had replaced bone, memory and flesh. It wasn't asking. It was guiding her attention toward a question she had quietly refused to consider. Why destroy the Syndicate? The first answer came immediately.

Because they had stolen her. Placed her inside a pod. Harvested her dreams. Taken Butter's head. Turned Korhess into something that survived only through violence. That alone justified their destruction. Another answer surfaced beneath it. Survival. This fortress was only one branch. Countless Syndicate divisions remained elsewhere. They would hunt the Nonagon without rest. Talons. Operatives. Abominations. Entire organisations spanning nations, dimensions and dreams. Destroying this place merely delayed them.

Her gaze drifted across the collapsing chamber. Why stop at soldiers? Why spare the engineers who built the prisons, the scientists who refined the serum, or the technicians who maintained the pods? Leave them alive, and another fortress would eventually rise. Butter would never agree. She would insist on saving everyone. Especially those still sleeping inside the pods. That had always been Butter's dream. Never Katherine's. Even now...... she searched herself for compassion. She found only silence.

Perhaps two of her friends still slept somewhere within those chambers. The thought registered. It simply failed to matter. What, then...... did she want? Katherine realised she did not know. The thought surfaced. The Nonagon pulsed. A question waiting in the dark finally took shape. Was that not humanity's defining trait? Greed. The instinct to destroy whatever threatened you. The willingness to burn down a house because a spider might one day bite.

If this faction deserved annihilation, if those who built it, sustained it and died for it deserved to vanish...... didn't humanity deserve the same? She remembered promising to remake the world after Amalgation had devoured Butter. Back then, it had been anger. Now it was reason. Good people like Butter deserved a world that never demanded atrocities from them. Compared to the crimes committed beyond these walls, rape, trafficking, paedophilia, embezzlement, the Syndicate seemed almost restrained.

Villains, certainly. Villains with standards. Butter had never understood revenge. Katherine had grieved Butter's death more fiercely than Butter herself ever could have. The answer seemed obvious now. Butter wasn't human. Neither was Clock. That wasn't a flaw. Humans were flawed. Butter loved without cruelty. Clock carried pride without hatred, arrogance without oppression. Their feelings lacked the contradictions that made humanity what it was. Were Butter's emotions more genuine because they lacked cruelty?

Or were they simply incomplete? She couldn't tell anymore. This novel is published on a different platform. Support the original author by finding the official source. A human subjected to their suffering would have burned this fortress to the ground at the first opportunity. History had proven people slaughtered innocents for far less. Some fragment of Katherine still loved Butter. She understood why now. It had never been her smile, her kindness, her pretty face or the scent of sugar biscuits.

It was her innocence. She wanted to preserve it. She wouldn't allow a world like this to consume people like Butter. She would become their retribution. Perhaps that was why Butter loved the world despite everything. A good world gave people a reason to remain good. A corrupt one rewarded becoming monsters. Morality no longer interested Katherine. Power did. Butter had once told her, Do your best. Know your place. What if...... her place had changed? The question wasn't hers. It was too vast, too cold, too clear.

The girl who laughed over popcorn, held Clock's hand and believed in good and evil would never have asked it. That girl was gone. She remembered Butter. Only hours earlier. The pod chamber. The popcorn. The dress conjured from a sketchbook. They had spoken about God. Why He allowed evil. Why prayers so often met only silence. Katherine hadn't understood it then. She did now. They mutilated. Tortured. Killed. Every day. In every language. Every country.

They asked why God didn't stop the evil humans did to one another. They never asked why He didn't stop the evil they did to animals. The thought arrived unbidden. Perhaps it was hers. Perhaps it belonged to the Nonagon. She no longer knew whether there was a difference. They slaughtered them. Boiled them alive. Skinned them. Caged them. For flavour. Convenience. Pleasure. And afterward, they wondered why Heaven remained silent. It sounded absurd. Until perspective changed.

Had she been born a pig inside a slaughterhouse, surrounded by others bred only to die...... it would have sounded perfectly reasonable. Perspective was a terrifying thing. Custard continued dismantling the chamber. Its claws severed conduits. Its tail crushed support pillars. It wasn't angry. It was simply doing what it existed to do, as stars burned and galaxies turned. Were animals not God's creations as well? If a cow cursed humanity while walking toward slaughter, was its cry worth less?

If a crab screamed inside boiling water, should no justice answer? Animals killed to survive. Humans called it civilisation. Why? Was intelligence the measure? A chicken scarcely compared with a human. Yet some humans possessed less understanding than a monkey. Did that lessen their right to live? Where was the threshold? Who decided which lives deserved protection? Children died. Monsters grew old. The quiet unfairness of it stirred something inside her. Custard stopped. Its orange eyes met hers.

For one crystalline instant, hunger gave way to something else. A question. The very same one forming within her. If God was just, why answer human suffering while ignoring animal suffering? Who decided one pain mattered more than another? A single bee preserved more life than most people ever would. It pollinated. Created. Took only what it required. Humanity consumed. Expanded. Destroyed. Only afterward did it pray for mercy. Did that make a bee more valuable than a person? She no longer knew.

The question lingered between them. The Nonagon pulsed. Custard's impossible core answered. Two impossible geometries quietly recognising one another. She had no answer. The girl she had once been would have cried. The being she was becoming simply waited. At last, Custard lowered its head. Its hunger remained. Yet something in its posture softened, if only by the slightest degree. Almost...... acceptance. It still smelled of hot milk. Katherine found herself utterly uncertain why that saddened her.

— Dozens of Steppers and Operatives flooded every corridor they could reach. Butter had already neutralised many, overwhelming their Apis predictions beneath the sheer absurdity of her Gloom. Dozens more replaced them. Without Clap, Jump and Sway holding the flanks, she would've been buried beneath bodies, blades and relentless coordination. She refused to let that happen.

"Clap, left!" The emerald, crimson and gold raptor lunged into the western corridor, its spectral beak punching through souls no armour could protect. Predictions warned the Steppers in advance, forcing them to scatter as Apis-charged counterattacks flashed through its weaving form. Butter kept moving. Floor after floor. Hall after hall. She dismantled every squad with exhausting restraint, relying on throws, disarms and bruised egos instead of broken necks. Only a handful ever reached striking distance.

A blade slipped past Clap. A rifle threaded between Sway's wings. She answered each one before the next heartbeat. The battle erupted through an exterior wall. Concrete exploded. Butter and three Steppers burst into daylight, tumbling across the sky before crashing into the residential district surrounding the fortress. She landed first. The Steppers landed harder. Their rifles barked immediately.

Butter twisted, both hands snapping outward to bat entire streams of bullets harmlessly into empty streets, rooftops and garden fences.

"Be careful, there are people here!" She pointed accusingly at the soldiers.

"You almost hit somebody!" Her eyes wandered across the neighbourhood.

"…Oh my." Neat houses lined both sides of the street, each with tidy gardens, flowering hedges and little balconies decorated with potted plants. Children's drawings hung inside sunlit windows. Sleek flying cars rested inside open garages beside bicycles, toolboxes and half-finished weekend projects.

"This place is adorable…" Executive housing. Architects. Accountants. Administrators. Ordinary employees who kept the Syndicate running without ever touching an experiment. A football rolled across the pavement. Several children froze mid-game. One was a freckled boy with messy auburn curls, oversized glasses and scraped knees. Beside him stood a dark-skinned girl with long braids tied in bright yellow ribbons, still clutching the hem of her football jersey.

A tiny blonde boy wearing a dinosaur backpack stared with his mouth hanging open, while an older girl with short black hair and a missing front tooth shielded her younger brother out of instinct.

"So cool…"

"Is she an elf?"

"No, she's a fairy!"

"Acrobat fairy!" The freckled boy squinted.

"She looks really strong. Big muscles like a track star." The braided girl frowned.

"…Is she hurt?" She pointed.

"Maybe her boobie hurts." Butter looked down at the black bandages wrapped across her chest.

"…I'm not hurt, guys." The little blonde boy suddenly gasped.

"She looks like the handsome man that crashed over there earlier!"

"The one with the shiny teeth and painted nails!"

"Maybe that's her brother!" Butter blinked.

"…Handsome?" She nodded thoughtfully.

"Yeah… alright. I'll allow it." The children erupted into cheers.

"Go, fairy!"

"They're so fast!"

"I can't even see them!" Loudspeakers thundered across the district.

"CIVILIANS, REMAIN INDOORS IMMEDIATELY. THIS IS A STEPPER SECURITY DIRECTIVE." A cannon fired. The shell struck Butter squarely between the shoulders. BOOM. Smoke swallowed her. She burst through the cloud untouched. Her feet landed against the wall of an apartment building instead of the street. She sprinted straight up the vertical surface before launching back into open air. Melody's bandages coiled around a parked flying car. Butter pulled. The vehicle ripped free from its garage. With one hand.

"Oh my!" Her grin widened.

"I've always wanted to do this!" Gloom flooded the chassis. CRAAASH! The flying car folded around a Stepper's helmet, flattening him into the pavement. Inside the ruined garage, a tired-looking father in grease-stained overalls stared through the shattered doorway. Oil still marked his hands from whatever he'd been repairing. He looked at the wrecked car. Closed his eyes. Released the most exhausted sigh of his life.

"Is this a training exercise? I just paid that off…" Butter froze.

"…Sorry!" She gave an apologetic wave, reached into one of Melody's fluttering bandages and gasped.

"Oh!"

"…For emotional damages!" With a cheerful flick of her wrist, dozens of colourful packets of biscuits, chocolates, gummies and hard candies burst into the air, scattering across the street like confetti.

"Catch!" She rocketed after another squad.

"CANDY!" The children shrieked as one. They sprinted in every direction, leaping after the falling sweets.

"I got cookies!"

"Chocolate!"

"She threw gummies!"

"There's caramel too!" The little blonde boy caught a packet against his chest and raised it triumphantly.

"She's a magic candy fairy!"

"Magic candy fairy!" the others chanted. A woman hurried onto the front porch behind her husband, still wearing an office blouse beneath an untied cardigan, her ID badge hanging from her neck. She wrapped one arm around the blonde boy before eyeing the sweets suspiciously.

"…Honey?" Without taking his eyes off the flattened vehicle, he answered,"I'm processing." The children had already begun tearing open wrappers.

"Hold on!" one mother called.

"Don't eat anything until we know what it is!" Butter's voice drifted faintly from somewhere above the rooftops.

"It's safe!" The children burst into laughter. Their father pinched the bridge of his nose.

"… That somehow doesn't satisfy me." Behind them, a colourful ring-tailed lemur wandered into the demolished garage. Its fur was soft white with golden-yellow patches and deep cobalt stripes along its tail. A bright yellow hard hat sat proudly between its ears, while an oversized brown utility belt overflowed with comically large wrenches, screwdrivers, tape measures and tiny paint rollers. Screw. One of Butter's summons. It scratched beneath his chin.

A neighbour, an elderly man watering his roses from the opposite garden, lowered his watering can and rested both hands on his hips.

"Well…"

"…would you look at that." He whistled. Every wrench, screwdriver and measuring tape floated into the air. Screw got to work. Bent metal unfolded. Cracked glass flowed backward into perfect panes. Paint smoothed itself across every scratch. Within moments, the flying car looked factory new, despite having recently been used as a bludgeon. The father blinked twice.

"…Amazing." He tilted his head.

"Can you fix my fridge too?" Several children pointed excitedly, mouths already full of biscuits.

"The monkey fixed it!"

"Lemur," the father corrected with quiet dignity. Screw puffed out its chest with obvious satisfaction. A moment later, it tipped its hard hat politely...... and disappeared in a cheerful puff of glittering Gloom.