Sir! Don't close the net!

"Crunch—crunch—"

A cold light flowed, and a mask with a slender bird's beak and rectangular goggles silently emerged from the darkness.

She was now lying on the ground, and the other person seemed to be lying on the ground as well, so that they could make eye contact with her. After imagining the other person's position on the ground, Carly felt a chill run down her spine.

But as more and more of the Raven Mask peeked out, an unimaginable fear swept over Carly.

There were no plague doctors from the Plague Department there, only that chilling raven mask, from which insect-like limbs extended, propelling the mask toward her.

As soon as Carly raised her head, the Raven Mask, which had been swaying and moving awkwardly, suddenly sprang up from its disgusting, arthropod-like shape, aimed at Carly's face, and changed direction in mid-air.

Carly was also incredibly "lucky" to witness the inside of the Raven Mask. The inside of the segmented limbs used for movement was a network of pink fibers that crisscrossed like tree roots. In the center of the fiber network was a wriggling fleshy hole, and there seemed to be something sharp inside the hole.

"save--"

Before she could finish speaking, the Raven Mask had already covered Carly's face. Carly could even feel the pink fibers touching her face, about to burrow into it.

Carly even saw her past, but before the replay could begin, a gust of wind swept in, and the raven mask that had been covering her face flew off with a bang, crashing heavily onto the metal handguard beside her, before falling to the ground with a thud, its insect-like segments twitching and crackling.

"Ugh—it was disgusting enough, but now it's absolutely disgusting."

Standing behind Carly, Li Yili lowered her legs and leaned forward slightly.

"Hidden stuff like this in a food processing plant... It was definitely the right decision to go all in on the first day."

Chapter Seventeen: Go put on your mask. (laughs)

The creatures on the ground, resembling a combination of insects and masks, defied description as either living beings or objects, gave Li Yili a long-forgotten chill.

It wasn't that I was afraid of anything, it was just that I couldn't handle those insect-like arthropods.

Normally, Li Yili would have stood far away, but he was very curious about the mask's structure. Although he had already taken control of a plague doctor's body, he hadn't considered that the plague doctor was composed of something similar to a facehugger combined with a human because he had accidentally removed the mask the first time he took it off.

Just as Li Yili was about to take a step to see the true face of the Raven Mask, Carly reached out and grabbed the hem of the raincoat he was wearing. Her lips trembled slightly as if she wanted to say something, but she couldn't make a sound because of the pressure.

Li Yili bent her head slightly and leaned forward, her fingers emerging from her tattered yellow raincoat, which caused a glimmer of light to appear in Carly's trembling pupils.

"Snapped--"

Li Yili gently patted Carly's head with her right hand.

Carly froze for a moment. Black, viscous liquid dripped down her hair. She couldn't feel the warmth of a human palm, or even the shape of a hand. It all seemed to be a scene she had imagined to comfort herself, forced to the limit.

"Go and pick up that mask—"

Li Yili grinned broadly, pulling her right hand away from Carly's head. Carly felt something patting her face, and the patting was becoming increasingly rapid. Carly's eyes shifted slightly, reflecting...

It produced tiny black tentacles that were waving around.

Carly swallowed hard, then shakily rose to her feet, moving like a corpse being forcibly moved to the Raven Mask. Just as she bent down and reached out her hand, the Raven Mask, which looked lifeless, suddenly sprang up, turning in mid-air to cover Carly's face. This time, there was no wind to knock the mask away.

An ominous mask, so eerie it sent chills down her spine, enveloped Carly's face with perfect stillness. Segments pressed against the back of her head, the smooth surface cracking as a brown, gelatinous substance oozed out and covered the back of Carly's head. The fibers inside the mask stabbed fiercely toward Carly's face, but before they could touch her, the viscous black liquid flowing on Carly's face rapidly rose and split into countless black fibers that connected with those fibers. Tentacles extending from the fleshy hole in the center of the mask were wrapped in the interwoven black fibers like caterpillars caught in a spider web.

Carly kept her eyes tightly shut, not knowing what she was waiting for.

die?

Upon seeing this mask, she immediately realized where those terrifying plague doctors came from.

So she definitely won't die, but Carly will disappear from this world forever.

"Boom boom boom——"

A crisp knocking sound rang out, and Carly hesitated for a moment before opening her eyes. A nightmarish yellow figure occupied a third of her field of vision, and Carly's eyes widened in disbelief.

She is still alive, or rather, she is still conscious.

Could it be that the masked attack was just an illusion?

Carly instinctively let out a heavy breath, and the hot air that hit her face and the misty view made her pause.

"how do you feel?"

Li Yili's voice brought Carly back to her senses. She raised her hands to touch it, and the slender beak she touched struck her like lightning, leaving her frozen in place.

It wasn't a hallucination; the raven mask was pressed against her face, but for some reason, she was still conscious.

"How are you feeling?" Li Yili asked again, patiently reminding her once more.

"I...I feel fine..."

“Then you can wear it,” Li Yili nodded, turning around to continue walking deeper into the food processing plant where no one knew what kind of food it was processing.

Rebecca, carrying Aditi, walked by and looked Carly up and down before nodding. "You look good in it, exactly like this guy."

As she spoke, Rebecca nodded toward the plague doctor controlled by Li Yili beside her.

"No, no, no, I don't want to wear this horrible mask!" Carly only realized what was happening when she saw the Plague Doctor, and she jumped up and shook her head violently. "Please, please, take this mask off for me."

"Are you sure?"

Li Yili paused, tilting her head slightly to the side.

"It was no accident that the mask appeared in front of you. Who knows how many more masks like that are hidden in this factory? As long as you are still wearing this mask, you will not be attacked by such masks again. After all, it is impossible for a person to wear two such masks at the same time."

Li Yili paused, then raised her finger and shook it from side to side.

"Just like a dead person can't die again."

Carly was startled, her hands tucked into her chest, and she looked around nervously, afraid that another Raven Mask would emerge from some unknown corner to attack her, but all she was surrounded by was silent darkness.

“If I understand, then continue leading the way,” Li Yili raised her hand and tapped her face. “Once this is all over, I’ll help you take off this mask, and you’ll probably never see me again.”

Upon hearing that she would never have to see Li Yili again, Carly immediately nodded vigorously like a chicken pecking at rice, but hesitated after nodding.

“I’ve only done odd jobs here… and stolen a few loaves of bread. I don’t know… where the offices of those senior employees are.”

"Ah~ Just take me to the places you've been, the production line, the food warehouse, anything is fine, but hurry up, okay? Right now you're just not being targeted, it doesn't mean you have a near-immortal body like the other plague doctors."

Li Yili raised her finger and pointed to the top of her head.

"They're probably getting it soon."

Carly nodded vigorously and strode out as if her life depended on it.

This is the largest food processing plant in San Die Quan. In order to sneak in and steal bread, she had already memorized the routes to the production line and warehouse.

Watching Carly's departing figure, Li Yili nodded to Rebecca, signaling her to follow first, while she herself, chin in hand, circled around the plague doctor she controlled.

The ring he possesses, produced by the Temple of Gowwitton, now grants him the ability to control living beings by interfering with their minds. The more mentally exhausted the target is, the better the effect. Once the target loses consciousness, he can completely dominate their body.

The Plague Doctor is undoubtedly a living being, but he was merely a vessel. After the controller behind the scenes withdrew, he stole the "machine." That's how he obtained Nakya's body, although she is currently wandering among the sea of ​​the dead as the ruler of the awakened dead.

Judging from the way the Plague Doctor mask captured Carly just now, the Plague Doctor wasn't like this from the beginning. Instead, it was created by the Raven Mask capturing humans. The Plague Doctor in front of him was most likely some unlucky guy who was captured by the Raven Mask.

That makes things a bit tricky.

Ordinary people don't have the ability to keep their bodies moving even if their heads are removed.

Chapter Eighteen: The Last Piece of Sky

Thunder and fire intertwined, with strange black shadows occasionally darting through them. Tents were pitched under the thunder and fire, and under the onslaught of the gale, the tents trembled wildly like dandelions, as if they might turn into a sky full of stars at any moment.

Inside one of the tents, Valkyrie was writing a letter with a serious expression, muttering to herself as she wrote.

"You damn bitch, oh wait, my dear sister, if you don't reply soon, I'll storm into Teresa Prison with a dozen Gungnirs and strangle you with your underwear over your head, cough—your loving and kind sister is preparing your favorite tea and cake, oh wait, you like smoking... If you don't want to smoke with your ass, switch jobs with me!!!"

Valkyrie finally couldn't hold back and snapped the pen in half, smashing the table with her fist.

"Damn it—who can tolerate this?! And why am I even here?!"

"Have you complained enough? This is the twentieth table already," Valkyr Iris, who was sitting not far away reading a book, rolled her eyes, got up and walked to the tent flap, pulled it open, and pointed to the distant sky.

In the center of the ever-present starry sky lies an incredibly strange place.

There wasn't a single star there, just a vast expanse of blue, with white clouds drifting by, and the sun's rays were brighter than anywhere else.

"The last piece of sky is about to collapse."

Valkyrie lowered the tent flap, her gaze deep and intense. Even Valkyrie instinctively looked away, not daring to meet Valkyrie's eyes.

"[Zeus] is about to appear. This time, we must capture [Zeus] before the Cult of Steam and Steel and obtain the real lightning. This is our last chance to obtain lightning."

“Lei, you know I can tolerate your willfulness countless times and the missed opportunities countless times, but this is the last chance.”

Valkyrie narrowed her eyes slightly, her pupils turning black.

"You are not allowed to have any opinions."

"Gulp—" Valkyrie swallowed hard, leaning back slightly. "If I work hard enough... can I do whatever I want afterwards?"

“That’s right. If you seize this last chance, you can do whatever you want. Even if you ask the higher-ups to tie Li Yili to your bed, they’ll just say that’s it.” Valqiu Yuan spread her hands. “Of course, it depends on your merits. If other sisters have more merits than you and make such a request to the higher-ups, then I can only offer you a bottle of wine.”

"Huh? What are you talking about? You think they're all bitches who get horny at the sight of a man? They may all be bitches, but they're definitely not like that..."

"Sh-sh-sh-"

Valkyrie paused, her calm expression gradually freezing as she watched Valkyrie Iris, who was whistling a rather terrible tune, in front of her.

"They're all bitches!!!"

Valkyrie cursed loudly, but she quickly calmed down because, upon reflection, it wasn't surprising at all that things had turned out this way.

"So? The only competitors are the Wasteland? Shouldn't we be wary of the Black Gate, the Celestials, and Bishop Azavet?"

“No, they’re busy with other things right now, and they’re not very interested in real lightning,” Valkyr Iris said, tapping her arm with her finger.

"is it?"

"You're not relieved, are you?"

“Of course,” Valkyrie spread her hands and raised the corners of her mouth confidently. “In a wasteland that looks like it’s been blown up, how many followers and how much legacy could the Cult of Steam and Steel possibly have? It’s a sure thing.”

“But in the past, the one who captured [Zeus] after the collapse of the heavens and obtained the vast amount of real lightning has always been the Cult of Steam and Steel,” Valkyrie narrowed her eyes, “without exception. The Cult of Steam and Steel, which obtained so many times the amount of real lightning large enough to change the world order, is still ridiculed as a matter of course. How many of their chosen ones do they have, how much legacy do they possess…”

Valkyrie's expression froze, and her bright golden pupils contracted sharply.

"Aren't you curious about where the real lightning, massive enough to change the world's格局 (geju, a concept encompassing the overall structure and overall situation), is used?"

"They wouldn't actually use it for...lighting, would they?"

Sigrún has taught at the Iceland University of the Arts as a part-time lecturer since and was Dean of the Department of Fine Art from -. In – she held a research position at Reykjavík Art Museum focusing on the role of women in Icelandic art. She studied fine art at the Icelandic College of Arts and Crafts and at Pratt Institute, New York, and holds BA and MA degrees in art history and philosophy from the University of Iceland. Sigrún lives and works in Iceland.

Led by Carly, Li Yili soon arrived at the food production line of the San Die Quan Food Processing Plant. Perhaps because it had changed to an enviable nine-to-five system, the production line was cleaned up before the workers left.

Li Yili bent down, ran her index finger across the workbench, and then rubbed her thumb and index finger together.

"There's not a speck of dust; it's really clean."