Shrouded Seascape

"Shhhh. Quiet. It'll stop hurting soon," Alice spoke in the midst of flames, her voice laced with evident impatience.

Charles' skin was starting to blacken, crack, and curl from the intense heat, yet Alice's skin was completely unaffected.

Endurance against high temperatures, no soul, immense strength, telekinesis, flame control—that many abilities; just what in the world is she? A superhero?

Charles had never felt so helpless. With such an arsenal of powers, this woman might even rival the Pope in might.

"Strange... Why are you not dead yet? You can really take this heat, huh? Let's go deeper then," Alice said as she gripped Charles by the arms to move him further into the depths of the incinerator.

Charles' vision started to blur; his eyes were the first to give in.

Memories of Alice's numerous anomalies flashed through Charles' mind. Suddenly, his pupils constricted as realization dawned on him; he figured out what was so special about her.

Despite how normal she appeared, she gave off an uncanny, non-human vibe.

A robot? At this thought, Charles quickly clasped his hands around her arms. The next moment, white arcs of electricity danced across Alice's body.

Alice began to tremble involuntarily, and her grip on Charles loosened. His guess was spot-on; his electric attacks were effective.

Enduring the excruciating pain searing through his body, Charles mustered all his available strength and shoved Alice out of the incinerator.

The two of them tumbled out from the mouth of the incinerator and crashed heavily to the ground. Ignoring the flames on his own body, Charles channeled all the electricity he could muster into Alice's.

Only when Alice trembled uncontrollably and began to emit white smoke did Charles finally turn his focus to attending to his own injuries.

"Captain, don't move. Let me apply some burn ointment," Linda's voice rang in Charles' ears. The next moment, he felt a cool relief that replaced the scorching pain engulfing his body.

Poking a finger into his right eye socket, Charles dug out the curled-up spider. The heat had killed his spider-eye. His right eye was gone, and his left eye wasn't anywhere better. He shook his head vigorously in an attempt to clear his vision, but the scene in front of him remained a blur. He could vaguely discern shadows but not the finer details.

Disregarding his damaged vision, Charles turned to the blurry figure next to him and instructed, "Never mind me for now. Hold Alice down and dismantle all her limbs. Hurry."

"I'm... on it.... But she's... very... tough..." Bandages' voice sounded from next to Charles.

"Use the relic, the long needles that killed Conor," Charles reminded. After that, he allowed Linda to continue applying the ointment to his wounds.

After a chaotic flurry of activity, Charles had the ointment applied to every inch of his skin and was wrapped in layers of bandages. Though he was a hideous sight to see, at least he felt less pain.

Pushing away Linda who was intent on further treatment, he turned and walked toward the gathered crowd beside them.

Due to his compromised vision, he could hardly see Alice's expression, but he could still see other things clearly enough for him to discern what was going on.

His crew had effectively restrained Alice and impaled several sharp black needles into her joints. She was now completely immobilized. Her entire body had darkened, and she would twitch sporadically; it seemed like she got electrocuted really badly.

"Do you know why I didn't kill you?" Charles asked as he stared down at Alice.

"Why?" Alice asked with a hint of playfulness in her voice, seemingly unfazed by her perilous situation.

"Because of the valuable memories in your head. In fact, even you yourself are quite valuable."

With that, Charles then turned his prosthetic arm into a chainsaw and swiftly cut into Alice's lower leg. Sparks flew as her tough skin gradually gave in to the relentless whirring of the chainsaw and revealed a small incision.

"Did the Foundation create you?"

"Dad created me. Or rather, strictly speaking, he modified me," Alice answered.

The incision continued to grow wider and deeper, yet no blood flowed from it.

"What caused the surface to become like this?" Charles pressed further.

"What happened? I don't know. I've never been outside; they didn't allow it."

The two continued their back-and-forth exchange. Despite Alice's cooperation, Charles was unable to extract any useful information from her.

Alice had been designed for killing; she knew nothing about other matters of the Foundation. However, Charles wasn't certain if she genuinely didn't know or was feigning ignorance.

In addition, Alice's cognition was clearly unlike that of a normal person. Even when Charles had sawed off her leg, she still continued to respond calmly to his questions.

What a peculiar creation... How did the Foundation come up with her? Charles marveled as he held up the severed right leg and inspected the cross-section.

Muscles, bones, tendons, and ligaments—they were all present; she was anatomically a human. However, she had other additional components within the bone: wires and electrodes.

On top of that, the clothes on her body and the toe-exposing sandals on her feet appeared to be part of her body, complete with blood vessels running through them. They couldn't really be considered garments but more of an extension of her very being.

"Have a look and see what made her different from a normal human," Charles instructed and tossed the leg to Linda. He then turned back to Alice.

"A year ago, did you sense anything unusual from the outside?" Charles asked. That was the time when the Light God had just ascended to the surface. Perhaps she might know something.

Alice's brows furrowed. She tilted her side to the side and pondered for a brief moment before answering, "Hmm... I do remember some disturbance. A year ago, it was suddenly very noisy outside. But that's all I know."

Noisy? Charles was clearly dissatisfied with this vague response. However, Linda had approached him and her discovery interrupted his line of questioning.

Holding a crystal-clear die in her hand, Linda reported, "Captain, this was inside her leg."

"A die?" Charles received it in astonishment. "Are you sure this was inside her?"

"Yes. It was in her right ankle, coiled with several wires," Linda answered.

Fumbling with the die, Charles thought for a brief moment before approaching Alice and asked, "What is this?"

"Project 1319. It allows for short-distance teleportation. Just think of where you want to go in your mind."

Upon hearing Alice's response, a spark of curiosity set off in Charles' mind. The next moment, he vanished and appeared thirty meters away. He had teleported.

"No wonder Alice was so fast earlier; she can tele—" Before he could finish his sentence, Charles' face turned a shade paler as a wave of nausea overwhelmed him. He doubled over and started vomiting.

All the food he had eaten that day was forcefully ejected from his stomach. However, the nauseating sensation clung stubbornly, driving him to continue retching up the little gastric fluid left within him.

"That thing has severe side effects; it will scramble your brain into mush. I'm not exaggerating; your brain will literally turn to mush," Alice warned with a hint of concern in her tone.

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