1,500 of the 5,000 Impuritas who were forcefully relocated appeared in a world dominated by stacked landmasses. Kilometers of land were attached to an enormous pale pillar like the branches of a tree. Grass, flowers, trees and most importantly – purple and green clusters of crystals were cultivated on these lands as far as the eye could see.

Far beneath was a sea of clouds, and further beyond was an ocean that ceased abruptly at the horizon. Stars shone in the distant backdrop. Even though this place was located somewhere within the Nexus, one would be none the wiser to believe otherwise.

Still, the stars in the night sky of this place felt closer than in the outside world. The stars were boundless, and a string of cosmic dust and herculean cosmic structures could be seen as though one was looking through a telescope.

The world captivated the 1,500 Impuritas who had found themselves here. Devouring Clumps – which were functionally equivalent to white blood cells – were level 90 monstrosities. They were transparent blobs of white slime that consumed their victims via phagocytosis.

Among them were strands of Creeping Ivy that began to fester. But it was impossible for them to spread any further without additional biomass. Additional Crimson Hunger creatures such as the Yearning Flesh (bipedal monsters that crawled on all limbs), and the Mucosa Crab (a giant, shell-less crab smothered in slime) were far more numerous than the Macro Clumps (big meatballs) and the ravenous Angered Clumps (toxic meatballs).

It seemed that none of the Handless Bers were sent here. The Crimson Hunger was by far the most numerous Impuritas Group present, with only a few Virtuosos and zombified remains wandering this place.

The wave of confusion soon died, and at once, they began move in every direction. The giant clumps of flesh ploughed through the earth to allow the Creeping Ivy to take root as they laid themselves down like nets. Tendrils infected the bark of trees they touched, and every blade of grass they covered were dyed red.

But this was not sustainable. Without any biological matter, the Crimson Hunger could not feed. Before the infection could spread – their hunger must first be sated. As autonomous beings, they functioned primarily on pure instinct. Food came first. Reproduction came next, especially when they had no Heart for the Macro Clumps to answer to.

Their role was to capture threats and return them into the Heart, which would manufacture countermeasures like how the human body would adapt to foreign threats. And yet there was a Memory Bistro within the Nexus, however, it seemed that the spaces between the Lower Sanctums and the Middle Sanctums had completely severed them, reducing them to an uncoordinated mass.

Their hunger was ceaseless, and the Virtuosos had to deal with nibbles and the threat of being killed by one of their own. One bent over to inspect an inconspicuously flattened patch of grass. It was too small for any of them to have created, and it was located next to what looked like human footprints.

“Look at this. There must be someone close by. The Brightest Star said that they grew the crystals internally. Not even the Branches were safe enough to hold them. This must belong to the Sacral Appraisers. The blind harvests the fruits of paradise.”

The Virtuoso cleaved the tendrils of a Creeping Ivy that latched onto their arm. Had they not done so, then they would have been dragged into a pit of flesh, destined to become fused with them. With no food in sight, the Virtuosos became a tempting target, but they made it clear just who was in control.

“How many thousands of crystals do they have in production? They didn’t lose this many Hyperlink Sites. Are they trying to establish links further than just their controlled regions?”

These Virtuosos in particular were at least level 100, and they wore all purple-black apparel with a white symbol of a musical note on their chest and back. A frilly, red jabot hung from their necks, spilling onto their chests like tongues.

It was perhaps because of this appearance that the Crimson Hunger were somewhat tamed, as they resembled the tongues that hung from the gaping throats of a Memory Bistro like a necktie.

“Destroy them.” One ordered after smearing their hands along its perfect surface. “Don’t let a single one remain. In the meantime, start searching for the Sacral Appraisers. This place appears undefended. I doubt the gardeners of this paradise are easily replaceable.”

“Would it be wise to bargain with the Nexus?”

“No. But we don’t experience death when we die. Therefore, it doesn’t matter what they throw at us. We’ve learned quite a bit already. Maximizing damage is our priority. Still, it would be a waste to not see what kind of notes they can sing. The Maestros will be most interested.”

They kept a hand on an Etched Coin.

“We’ll be able to take a few as a parting gift. If we’re lucky, then the Healers suspected to reside in the bosom of the Amalgam can be taken too.”

The Etched Coins would allow them to teleport out of the Nexus at will. That way they could return with valuables from the Nexus. This came in the form of their personnel, such as the Healers, the Sacral Appraisers, Blessed to keep as high-quality materials, Receptionists, Aspiring Moons, etc.

The thought of the sounds they would make entertained them.

The scythe of one of the Virtuosos picked into the side of the crystal. Cracks ran through it as a plume of fine, crystal powder exploded from the site. Each pick only caused more of these fine crystals to eject, and they happily inhaled it.

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It settled into their lungs, latching onto them like a layer of shaved glass.

Yet they didn’t feel a thing.

“Should we call the teleportation a blessing?” A Virtuoso smirked. “They stacked a pair of Moons and a Beholder of all people at the entrance of the Nexus. You know how towers work. You can only go up or down. It makes the most sense to place your strongest forces at the entrance. But now that we’re through, we have free reign until they start looking for us.”

“It seems a little too good to be true.” One said, clasping their chest suddenly at a strange sensation. “Odd… it feels like my body’s stiffening. Like there’s a giant rock inside of me. Ahem… Urh. Urgh-hem!”

They coughed. Their inhale sounded metallic, and they could feel crackles deep within their lungs with every drawn breath. But they paid no heed to it.

It wasn’t anything worth worrying about.

* * *

Crystals this young were quite useless. They were brittle in chunks larger than a hand and could not be infused with magic unlike other crystals. Take the Magic Actuation Crystals for instance. They were a special kind of crystal that came from the Crystal Isles just north of Dwarhelven. These could cast stored magic at one’s convenience.

One could say that they were the same as the Etched Coins, but this was far from the case. They could only hold magic, not Skills or technologies for that matter.

This was the most important distinction.

Magic as the world knew boiled down to a series of chants, arranged symbols or the understanding of a determined principle. This meant that a crystal that could fulfil one of these three criteria could in practice replicate magic. Of course, a crystal could not understand. It was not a living thing, aside from the Crystalids and notably the Blue Chorus who utilized magical notes on each side of his angular being.

Indeed, what made Magic Actuation Crystals so special was that each side of those crystals could hold a symbol or grapheme to hold a certain magic, like a cypher scroll. The more sides there were, the more complex the magic could be stored.

As a result, the infant Hyperlink crystals were seen as inferior in their current state.

While the Virtuosos destroyed fields of crystals, the Crimson Hunger and Memento Mori had still yet to find a single soul. It reached a point where the Memento Mori were devoured just to sate the hunger of their allies.

But because their bodies were decayed, it was hardly a meal. It would be like eating the charcoaled leftovers of an overcooked meat skewer. Eating it would only do more harm than good. They accelerated their search, moving through the fields of grass towards the pale trunk of the Nexus that held it all together.

Then, they saw something.

“Hm. Hmhm… Hmm~” A young, blindfolded girl sang to herself.

She pranced along the crystal meadows. They sparkled with a faint light like fireflies were trapped inside as she came by, singing them a midnight song as if it would help them grow.

Prey had arrived. The grey-haired girl – who was highly valued as a Sacral Appraiser – was but mere food for the Crimson Hunger. If she were a Healer, then they would have considered alternative means. For one, it was not uncommon for Healers who were taken by the Crimson Hunger to emerge as Scarlet Healers or have their minds utterly broken.

Healers were an infinite food source. As beings driven by instinct rather than reason and without an intelligent mind to guide them, they saw the blindfolded girl as a Healer due to the color of her hair.

A horde of fifty rolled and scrambled wildly towards her, abandoning reason. The danger was unbeknownst to her, and still she dutifully tended to the crystals. She took out a small loaf of bread from a pocket and nibbled on it, occasionally apologizing when the crumbs fell beside her bare feet.

She was only Sacral Appraiser on this landmass. Most had already fallen asleep or finished up their duties on the other layers. Normally, there was no need to tend to them at night. But the girl’s heart bled beneath the warm light of the moon, and the hems of her robes fluttered, revealing unhealed scars, whip lashes, and burn marks.

Sacral Appraiser were ousted by their own and were often called abnormal for conditions they couldn’t help but be born with.

For instance, this girl had an unusual compulsion to check on objects day in and day out to the point where it wouldn’t be a surprise if she neglected her own health. It was an illness that couldn’t be healed as it was not a physical issue, but a mental one. She was a prisoner to her compulsive behavior, but here in the Nexus, it wasn’t seen as a bad thing.

Besides, even if she couldn’t help herself, then there’d be people here to help her.

Stars of the Nexus. One should have been stationed nearby to defend her, but that didn’t seem to be the case.

“Hello?” She called out into the wind, sensing the vibrations of the approaching monsters beneath her feet. “Vampyria? Stella? The Child?”

She called out the names of people she was familiar with. Who else would be out here at this time? The Impuritas drew close. They were only seconds away from reaching her. But before they could approach any further, a pack of Puff Puffs rolled past her.

One stayed behind and brushed her ankles before hopping up to her shoulder.

“Ah! It was you guys! Hm. Were you hungry?”

She asked softly, holding out the bread to the Puff Puff who happily took a bite, precisely as the balls of flesh opened their maws, revealing rows of teeth and exposed nerves as they tried to chomp down on the Puff Puffs.

However, in the split second that the Impuritas belived that they would be sating their long-endured hunger – entire chunks of their being were taken off like someone had bitten into a rotting apple. Purulent puss colored yellow and carrying the stench of sewerage spilled from their wounds.

The Puff Puffs, in a microsecond, had elongated their bodies to over 10 times their size and chomped down on the Crimson Hunger. The few dozen Puff Puffs that were present quickly became a hundred as they rolled past the girl’s ankles, their fury causing her to giggle as the Puff Puff on her shoulder happily ate from the bread.

“You’re really hungry today. Aw. I don’t have enough bread for you all.” She thought that the countless Puff Puffs were waiting around her as she crumbled her share and sprinkled them around. “I’m sorry. Maybe you can eat the berries that grow around here.”

Similarly, the blood of the Crimson Hunger sprayed along the grass. They were incapable of screaming. Not even a gurgled cry came from their torn mouths. The grass was just tall enough to hide them. To an onlooker, it would have appeared as though an invisible beast was devouring them.

The same scene could be seen across the Middle Sanctums.

The Puff Puffs were like an evolved version of the Devouring Clumps – the superior white-blood cells of the Nexus, and they tore down the Crimson Hunger until all that remained was a sea of red.

Suit-wearing Stars of the Nexus could be seen overlooking the carnage. CogitO’s CognitO Filters could allow one to isolate sound. This was why the girl was not able to hear a thing.

She was immersed in her own warm world, unaware of how close she had brushed with death.