Desert Medical Station
The sandstorm over Aaru Village reeked of blood. Thirty-odd pack beasts rammed against the fences, their bulging amber eyes oozing black blood that corroded the sand into honeycomb pits. Tighnari knelt beside a scorched desert fox carcass, his scalpel slicing through fur to reveal *Resident Evil*-esque clusters of tumorous viscera.
"Seventh mutation case," Collei's pen trembled on her clipboard. "Just ordinary gum bleeding yesterday..."
Kazuha yanked open the makeshift clinic's canvas flap, nearly gagging on the rot. Over twenty patients lay on straw mats, their skin embossed with Scarlet King tomb-like relief patterns. A child's arm had morphed into *Prototype*-style tentacles.
"Candace said the first outbreaks were among pack teams that touched the probes." He shook a shattered crystal vial dug from the sand, its violet liquid sizzling through the canvas. "Found in an Akademiya abandoned lab. Labels dissolved."
Tighnari's ears twitched. Distant beastly wails sent him sprinting outside with his *Monster Hunter* Recovery Flute—five mutated pack beasts were goring the fences with bone-spike tusks. A Eremite flew through the air, his blood splattering like *Gantz* particle effects.
Jade-green *Final Fantasy* healing aura pulsed from the flute. As Tighnari played the first note, sand coalesced into emerald rain, visibly mending the beasts' wounds. Collei fired tranquilizer arrows, only to freeze—something squirmed beneath the healed flesh.
"Wrong!" Tighnari's melody sharpened. "This isn't natural mutation!" His scalpel slashed a beast's neck, releasing *Alien*-style facehugger parasites in dark purple bursts.
Kazuha torched the swarm with a *Dead Space* plasma cutter. "The Akademiya spiced their relics well." He kicked a metal probe from the beast's back—its residue matched the vial's liquid.
Cyno's Electro spear slammed into the sand. "Two months ago, a 'desert ecology survey' was approved, but the real permit..." The Akasha Terminal projected encrypted documents. Beneath academic jargon glowed a footnote: *Scarlet King Genetic Reassembly - Phase IV*.
In the Akademiya lab's vents, Tighnari pressed enhanced Moonlotus seeds into Collei's palm. "Toss these southeast—ventilation hub." Behind them, twenty purified beasts stamped—nature's wrecking crew.
"These viruses carry Scarlet King gene fragments," a scholar cackled behind glass. "Soon those peasants will become perfect specimens—"
Cyno's lightning shattered blast doors as Lumine's Geo pillars sealed exits. Tighnari's flute screeched, bursting parasite eggs in their petri dishes. Collei's seeds bloomed through vents, encasing the lab in *The Last of Us*-style botanical armor.
"You disguised plague as artifacts?!" Kazuha kicked over a "Desert Revitalization Gift Box," spilling hundreds of vials. Scarlet King seals had been replaced with Akademiya emblems.
The lead scholar crushed a spatial scroll—only to find Nahida's vines already coiled around his ankles. "Impossible! Our anti-Dendro barrier—!"
Tighnari picked up the lab log, smirking. "Because the Scarlet King stabilizers you stole..." He pointed to ceiling crystals cracked by Moonlotus. "...are Forest Rangers' upgraded models."
Seven days later, children chased healed foxes around Aaru's new clinic. Tighnari tuned his third-gen Recovery Flute, its *Monster Hunter* runes interlaced with Aranara carvings. Collei taught patients to grow purifying Moonlotuses in Dihydro mist, their petals shimmering with *Final Fantasy* cure magic at sunset.
"So the Akademiya wanted to resurrect the Scarlet King?" Lumine stirred Moonlotus-powdered date honey.
"No," Kazuha buried the last vial deep. "They needed scapegoats—if the plague spread, blame the Scarlet King's curse." He waved confiscated permits stamped with half a Kshahrewar-like seal.
Cyno materialized behind the tent. "Academic crimes involving ten or more typically leave—"
"Stop!" The group shoved date candies into his mouth. Night winds carried fox chirps as moonlight dissolved the final vial into glitter among Moonlotus roots.