Calm Like The Water

[Do know that this file's content is severely massive. Because of that, I've also already split the data into ten parts.]

"Aight, sure. Bring it on."

Jack continued to walk as he only opened his left eye until the pain on his right eye subsided.

[Rue Mokaka 3#_

[The Soul Teratoma, Part One_

[After the event of 'Immaculate Light', the Wings have been increasing their expandable resources to be further allocated on replicating the 'Transcendence'. In the middle of the Team A's research upon the vague theorem of Soul Enlightenment_

[Dr. Naat clarified that to push the progress further of this project into its fruition, Team A and Team B have been allocated to a new subject of branch research that focused to uncover the nature of the Soul_

[While the Soul itself is bonded within electromagnetic spectrum, hiding beneath a private dimension anchored to its consciousness vessel—it has been a pitch black secret on how it was able to achieve the 'Transcendence'_

[To uncover more information about the Soul of a living being in itself, Team A and Team B had acquired a total of 3,856 test subjects from the 'Backstreets', spanning at the age of 6 into 70. At first, both of the leaders of the team were reluctant to perform such a horrifying inquiry, but the Wings were the higher being. Mortals like them couldn't disobey the offer to be in the journey of the Great Truth_

[Test Number 1: Team A was conducting a mild analysis about the soul by using Singularity-16 to see any kind of reaction that the private dimension would show. 40 test subjects were used. 15 were terminally injured and the rest 25 were killed. One of the scientists, Dr. Drias had been showing a high sign of disposition to the test, resulting in a lower speed of progress because of the preference to act as humanly as possible. Apparently, the Wings ordered his disposal to the 'Grinder' and immediately adding a replacement into the team_

[Test Number 1 bore a great result, one step by the human, one step for the humankind. The Soul had been verified to be malignant to an outside stimulus. With great enough emotional implications, the Soul was able to manifest a high rate of reality-bending subconscious energy although it was too minuscule for the Wings to utilize_

[Approximately, it would take more than 10.000 subjects with the same rate of subconscious energy to be able to alter something within reality. By the very least, its influence would be at the size of a small cup.]

The rest of the data were mostly about the detailed stimulus that was given to the test subjects for Test Number 1. Each of them were handled with all kinds of torture and inhumane treatment.

One of them was a mere 13 years old kid being forced to watch everyone he knew being killed in front of him. The kid was then repeatedly asked numerous uncomfortable questions by the personnel until he plunged into eternal insanity.

And then there was someone at the age of 17 being told to tell everything that she was experiencing while her head was being slowly ripped apart from her body.

The rest of the details for the unspoken subjects were much crueler and some of the reports made by the Team's personnel had been showing a huge amount of unconfidence and discomfort. Most likely, they were forced to perform a more drastic measure in an instant to acquire better data in a short period of time.

All of them looked to be desperate, chased by the haunting horror of time.

"Urgh, now I know why it was called the 'Forbidden'." Jack immediately swiped the screen off from his face the moment he finished his read. "Looking at it again, it seems like all of those tarnished souls and the gooey creatures were the failed results of this devil experiment."

[Oh, you really don't want to read the rest of the nine files if you wanted to puke this early.]

"Let's continue reading it another time. At least not right after I got out of that chamber. Hahaha." A melancholic smile could be seen slowly spreading on his face. "It just reminded me a little bit of my past a little."

[Jack, this might be an out-of-context question for you, but I've been wondering for a while_

[Is there any reason why you named the Basic Tentacle as Petra Tentacle?]

"Huh, that is definitely an out-of-context question that I didn't expect in this kind of atmosphere." Jack forced a better smile one more time as she shrugged. "There is nothing special about it. Although, if you want me to explain it. Well, how do I say this?

"It's just that, this extra octopus limb of mine, something that will probably be accompanying my life for a while—it has a mind of its own, somewhat. It also has its potential to grow. So...

"As a selfish hope of mine, or what people usually call a 'prayer'—I want it to grow big and strong, haahah... Like an undaunting mountain that may or may not tower over me. Dunno, kinda like an instinct or something. An instinct of wanting to be proud of something in the long term."

[No other reason?]

"Nope."

[I suspected something, how much memory of your past life that you could comprehend?]

"Is it something important? Well, I think I could remember most of them clearly."

[Do you remember the names of your family members? I did notice that for the entirety of our partnership, even when we're still in that isolated dimension—you have never mentioned their exact names.]

"Now that you mentioned it." Jack stopped in his tracks. He still don the forced smile of his as he looked down to the glimmering golden path. "I couldn't remember any of their names…"

Jack suddenly felt more tired than he ever was despite his body still standing, supported by the glaive that he used as a walking staff. He immediately gulped his saliva and forced himself to walk again normally like usual.

He tread and tread towards the end of the glowing path. Slowly, an illumination of bright white could be seen getting bigger and bigger as he progressed.