Chapter 182: The Truth Of Mensus

Maki stood beside the damaged console, comparing the Black Moon Heart’s readings with the records recovered from the facility.

The sphere remained suspended above the platform, its countless strands extending into the walls and beneath the floor, carrying Mana through a network whose full reach remained unknown.

"Emily, look at this," Maki said, bringing several records together. "The researchers weren’t only measuring Mana fluctuations. They recorded emotional responses alongside them, and the readings repeatedly changed whenever those responses intensified."

Emily approached the console and examined the records. Fear, pain, resentment, grief, hatred, desperation, and the will to survive appeared throughout the experiments.

Seeing those measurements together brought back her earlier investigation, particularly the experiments involving one hundred people whose suffering had been deliberately prolonged.

"They weren’t just studying how much pain those people could endure," Emily said, her expression darkening. "They were measuring what happened to them emotionally when they were pushed toward despair. The hatred, the desperation, and their determination to survive were all part of the experiment."

Maki brought up another set of records, comparing the emotional measurements with the fluctuations recorded around the time of each experiment. Several patterns repeated, and the same emotional responses appeared alongside similar changes in Mana.

"You were right to connect the experiments to the Black Moon," Maki said. "They kept recording these reactions because they were looking for a relationship between them and the phenomenon. I can’t tell whether they wanted to summon it, strengthen an existing connection, or accomplish something else, but suffering was clearly part of what they needed."

Emily stared at the records, finally understanding why her earlier investigation had led her toward Mensus. She had known that the researchers were experimenting on people for the sake of the Black Moon, but she hadn’t understood why their emotional states mattered so much.

Now, the details fit together in a way that made the purpose of the experiments even more disturbing.

"The one hundred people weren’t simply test subjects," Emily said. "Their suffering was part of an attempt to reproduce the conditions associated with the Black Moon. They were trying to make something happen, and they needed those emotional responses to do it."

Reinhard had been watching the strands extending from the Heart.

If the researchers had spent so much time trying to reproduce those conditions, then the disaster spreading across Marvello presented a disturbing possibility.

"The city is producing those conditions on its own now," he said. "People are terrified, families are being separated, and anyone who thinks they might die is going to fight desperately to survive. If the Heart responds to those emotions, then the disaster could be making itself worse."

Emily looked toward the sphere, remembering the suffering she had uncovered during her investigation. "The longer this continues, the more people will suffer, and the more the phenomenon might respond to it. We can’t say that their emotions created the Black Moon, but Marvello may have become part of whatever process is bringing it here."

Maki checked the readings once more. The Heart’s activity continued changing alongside conditions beyond the chamber, although the records couldn’t establish exactly how the two were connected.

"If the network reaches across the city, the Heart may be responding to what’s happening outside this facility," she explained. "We don’t know whether it’s creating the connection, maintaining it, or controlling something that would become worse without it. Destroying the sphere before we understand its function could trigger a reaction we can’t predict."

"Then we need to find out whether we can remove it without destroying the network," Reinhard replied, approaching the platform. "We don’t have time to stand here and study records while the situation gets worse."

He reached toward the Black Moon Heart, but an invisible force pushed against his hand before he could touch it. Reinhard applied more strength, only for the resistance to intensify and force him back. He tried again from another angle, confirming that the obstruction wasn’t simply a barrier occupying the space between him and the sphere.

"The space around it is rejecting my attempt to make contact," Reinhard observed. "Let’s see whether I can get around that."

He gathered his power and directed an ability toward the Heart. The moment it reached the sphere’s position, the surrounding space bent, and time seemed to distort with it. His power passed through the Heart without leaving a mark, striking the platform beyond it as though the sphere occupied a different state of existence.

Reinhard adjusted his approach and tried once more, but the same distortion prevented his ability from making contact. Whatever protected the Heart, it wasn’t something he could overcome by simply increasing his power.

He shifted his attention to one of the strands extending into the nearby wall and attacked it instead. The connection twisted out of alignment just before his strike could land, causing his attack to pass through empty space. The strand remained intact, continuing to carry Mana toward the Heart.

"Moving it won’t work, and neither will cutting the connections," Reinhard concluded. "At least, not with the methods I’ve tried so far."

"Those distortions appeared whenever you approached either the Heart or its connections," Maki said, studying the readings. "It could be a defensive response, but I can’t tell whether the network itself is causing it. If you keep attacking, we might trigger another reaction without learning anything useful."

Reinhard lowered his hand and considered the problem. He couldn’t physically move the sphere, his abilities couldn’t establish contact with it, and the connections resisted being severed. However, he didn’t need to destroy the Heart if he could remove it from the chamber by other means.

He reached into his storage and brought out the Gunga Gourd, a Legendary relic containing a massive pocket dimension capable of holding an area roughly the size of an entire building.

"If I can’t move the Heart myself, I’ll see whether the gourd can absorb it directly," Reinhard said, positioning the relic toward the sphere. "I don’t need to break it or cut its connections if I can contain it instead."

Maki’s expression tightened as she looked at the relic. "We don’t know how its absorption will interact with the network. If the Heart responds to the gourd the same way it responded to your other abilities, we might make the situation worse."

"That’s why I’ll stop if anything begins to go wrong."

Reinhard activated the Gunga Gourd and focused its absorption on the Heart. For several seconds, nothing happened. The sphere remained suspended above the platform, and the strands continued carrying Mana through the chamber.

Reinhard adjusted the gourd’s position and maintained the effect, searching for a way to draw the Heart in without disturbing the surrounding network.

Then the sphere trembled.

A faint light appeared beneath its black surface, and the Heart began moving toward the gourd. The surrounding strands pulled taut as Mana surged toward the center.

Reinhard maintained the absorption, watching with growing satisfaction as the sphere moved faster, apparently unable to resist the relic in the same way it had repelled his other attempts.

"It works!" Reinhard said, keeping the gourd trained on the Heart. "The relic can interact with it even when my other abilities can’t. If I absorb the sphere, we might be able to separate it from the network without destroying the structure around it."

The Heart accelerated toward the gourd, and the strands stretched tighter as the distance between them narrowed. For the first time since entering the chamber, they had found something that could affect the sphere directly.

Before the Heart could reach the relic, its surface erupted with brilliant white light.

Darkness spread throughout the chamber as the surrounding space began to twist. The floor and walls shifted out of alignment, and the distance between the platform and the surrounding structure changed so violently that the entire room seemed to be coming apart.

Emily staggered and clutched her head. The sensation was familiar, and she immediately recognized the danger.

"Oh no! It’s trying to transfer this entire building away!" she screamed.

Maki grimaced as the readings surged across the console. "Is this a response to the—"

"Yes!" Emily interrupted, struggling to remain upright. "The gourd! It’s reacting to the gourd!"

Reinhard immediately understood that his attempt to absorb the Heart had triggered something far more dangerous than a defensive reaction. The relic was interacting with the network, and the Heart was responding by distorting the space occupied by the entire facility. If he continued, he might succeed in absorbing the sphere only to drag the building into the process with it.

He stopped the Gunga Gourd.

The Heart crashed downward, but the darkness didn’t disappear. Instead, the distortion froze across the chamber, leaving the blackness suspended in the air and the strands stretched between the walls and the sphere. Even the white light seemed trapped in place, and the room remained caught between two different states.

The Ashcrofts held their positions, waiting to see whether the distortion would resume. They had no clear target to attack and no way to know whether another attempt to interfere would make things worse.

Reinhard looked toward Emily, who was still clutching her head, then turned toward the nearest wall. They couldn’t afford to remain trapped inside the facility while the phenomenon continued spreading. He struck the wall with enough force to shatter it, opening a view beyond the ruins.

What he saw made him stop.

The Black Moon was descending toward Marvello.

It hung above the city, slowly approaching as fractures spread across the sky around it. The cracks widened through the darkness, distorting the world beyond them.

The Black Moon was no longer merely a phenomenon connected to the Heart or a mystery hidden in the researchers’ records. It was approaching the city itself.

Reinhard looked back toward the Heart and its countless connections.

They finally understood why the researchers had experimented on those one hundred people and how Marvello’s suffering might be affecting the phenomenon, but none of that had revealed how to stop it.

Worse, their attempt to remove the Heart had triggered a reaction that could have transferred the entire facility somewhere else.

He tightened his grip on the Gunga Gourd and turned toward his family. "We need to find a way to stop this now!"