Krafft's Anomaly Notes

Chapter 392 The Wedge in the Skull
"you can see?"

"Probably?" Yvonne rubbed her eyes, then realized it wasn't a problem with her vision, but rather that the thing itself was blurry, like an absurd dream. While experiencing it, it felt coherent and natural, but afterwards, she couldn't recall any details at all.

The priest, who had been suspended in mid-air, fell to the ground, his fate unknown; Benny, who was prepared to exchange blows, missed his target, the tip of his sword only piercing through a gust of wind.

The seemingly unrelated nightmares appear to be entering reality, collapsing into a more tangible existence.

It seemed to be aware of the change in its condition, and the frequency of its scales twitching increased, like a fish coming ashore opening its gills and flapping its fins.

Even so, its sheer size and hardened scales made it a creature that mortals could hardly contend with. It seemed to have no intention of giving up on its almost-captured prey; after a brief period of observation, it locked onto the only target that had previously injured it and launched another attack.

Naturally, a normal creature wouldn't target the smallest one present, nor would it notice her quietly picking up a handy pebble.

With its wings spread, it glided towards Coop at low altitude with a sharp, swift motion—faster, but also more intuitive. If there really were a giant bird several times the size of a human, its predatory posture would probably look like this.

Combining heaviness and lightness, its wing membrane obscured half of the night sky, filling the field of vision with blurry, unfocusable objects.

A powerful gust of air, carrying sand, gravel, and fallen leaves, formed a rolling, turbid wave, making it difficult to look directly at the swaying, mirror-like reflections within it.

Kup wisely abandoned any further thoughts, curled up as much as possible to reduce the area exposed to the attack, and hid behind the nearest rock.

Thousands of sharp, bone-scraping knives and countless shattered silver mirrors scraped out a heart-wrenching, ear-piercing noise, shaving away a layer of rock and choking the air with the stone dust.

I can't imagine what the consequences would be if I got hit; I might have to put it back in a basket, and I couldn't use a mesh that was too big.

Its influence on the material level has been significantly enhanced, or rather, this is the reasonable force that can carry at least several times the weight of an adult to high altitudes and move freely.

Anyone who has faced its power will admit that slaying a dragon is indeed a miracle that only those blessed by God can accomplish. Normally, only a team carrying at least several crossbows could pose any threat to it.

Amidst the deafening noise, a whooshing sound almost went unnoticed.

Only Benny, who was on the edge of the battlefield and had come to provide support, noticed something: a straight, gray phantom. At the starting point of the line, Yvonne had just finished throwing.

In the midst of chaos, the existence of a perfect straight line seemed so abrupt and unreal. And indeed it was; it flickered for only a fleeting moment before vanishing completely, so brief that one might wonder if it had ever existed at all, or if it was merely an illusion.

The doubt lasted only half a thought.

The winding outline formed by the mirror reflection suddenly stiffens, and the connection with the wing is unnaturally twisted, presenting an arc shape that does not match the overall dynamics.

Immediately afterwards, a terrifying cracking sound, like a ship's mast being snapped, was heard. The left wing drooped limply, and the tendons, now without skeletal support, spasmed and contracted, resisting the damage and exacerbating it, while the cloud-like wing membrane tumbled and convulsed.

Turbulent wind pressure is no longer a boost to flight, but an accomplice to destruction. With the kinetic energy it generates, it reacts to the wound, further folding the fracture and producing a muffled sound as the soft tissue inside the joint cavity is crushed.

The thing veered off course and made a hard, unimpeded impact with the ground, writhing and emitting an unprecedented hiss.

At first, it was almost inaudible, like snake scales or withered leaves rubbing against the ground, or warm liquid spurting from a torn opening. Then it rapidly accumulated and lengthened, the sound lines like dozens of reptiles writhing and intertwining, eventually merging into an inexplicable vibration. Compared to the cathartic outburst of pain and rage, it was closer to a language without boundaries, liquidally pouring into hearing and consciousness. Without the recipient's understanding, it split into hazy, fragmented words and perspectives, describing and praising a certain existence from both imaginable and unimaginable angles.

Like a grain of salt describing the ocean, or a wisp of wind describing the sky, it is merely an insignificant scale on a vast entity. Even if it is temporarily annihilated, it will be reborn sooner or later in the future.

The tip of the iceberg revealed by indirect information alone reveals a scale that consciousness cannot bear. Some lengthy concepts, beyond the limits of comprehension, crawl into the mind from the senses, meandering and squeezing reason to its most vulnerable corners.

Koop tried to cover his ears, but found that he seemed to have forgotten how to move his body, and could only slowly and gradually issue simple instructions to raise his shoulders and bend his arms.

Instead of launching an attack, the creature showed obvious signs of fatigue. Its scales closed and its body coiled and contracted, as if the roar it had just unleashed did not come from its vocal organs, but from its components, something like blood or something that sustains its life.

The manifested body also blurred again, like the smoke from a dying fire, becoming thin and illusory.

They are competing to see how quickly they recover from physical and psychological trauma.

This may be the first time in many years that this creature has suffered such a serious injury. Despite its inexplicable structure, it gradually recovered and slowly raised its upper body.

But this wasn't the first time Cooper had suffered a similar blow. He scrambled to his feet, stumbling forward and swinging his mace at the most obvious spot in his mind—the arrowhead.

The arrow, which had been squeezed out halfway, re-embedded in the wing membrane. The furious counterattack came in an instant. Before he could even notice how he was hit, his body was lifted into the air at a speed that the pain could not catch up with.

However, the objective has been achieved.

He saw Yvonne rise from her knees, the blacksmith's hammer in her hand nowhere to be seen, and a perfectly round, illusory shadow appear in the air.

The combination of metal blocks and solid wood was used to forge weapons and tools, making it far more robust and reliable than ordinary ironware.

Due to its center of gravity, its trajectory is not straight like an arrow, but driven by brute force, spinning and tumbling wildly, scattering silver lines that flicker and fade, creating an incredible sense of lightness and etherealness.

In his panic, Yvonne was clearly using all her strength. Her eyes could barely track the trajectory of the projectile, only catching a shimmering, near-circular outline, not as if it were flying, but as if it were tearing, ripping a path straight to its landing point.

The moment it hit, the scales lost their hard texture, and concentric ripples spread out like water, trembling and then shattering from the inside out.

Light fragments shot out in a rush, extinguishing like sparks in mid-air, disintegrating into a misty haze resembling butterfly scales. The mirage-like image faded and vanished before it could even take shape.

The creature itself faded from perception, just as it had when it arrived; only something fell from mid-air and rolled to his feet.

White and translucent, with a texture similar to an arrow, shaped like a butterfly with outstretched wings, and concave in the center, like an altar designed for something.

Curious, Cooper nudged it with the hammer handle, flipped it over, and realized he recognized the thing.

"Sphenoid bone?"