The Raven's POV-Chapter 36: Phase 2 it is.

(A/N ~ if you have any feedbacks for the fight scenes, please let me know on how i can improve)

"But."

The figure clapped his hands again.

"you are in luck, I am also not a fan of pulling out big guns from the start. A boss should have defined phases, no?; nobody is fan of an unpredictable boss"

"I think I have given you enough time"

It smiled revealing multiple rows of sharp teeths

"time for phase 2."

The tentacles underwent drastic transformation as it said that, They changed completely, no more a fleshy excuse of an appendage.Some tentacles grew suction cups and became thicker on the other side, like those of an octopus.But that was where similarity ended, as those tentacles grew gigantic several meters in length

Other grew smaller, pointed like needles

And some remained the same, but grew thorns.

"Survive"

Yep, Rowayne immediately retracted his previous statement, only a miracle could save from the tentacle horror before him

And the only thing he could do was experiment, and hope that his experiment would bring a miracle.

He crouched down and touched the dark waters, hoping for something, anything.

And there was a change, as his finger touched the liquid, there was a ripple and he felt a connection.

Back in the lab

Elder Norman finished setting everything up.All the screens in the lab were now connected to the chamber, along with other measurement equipment.

The screens displayed a myriad of thingsElder Norman would alternatively look at several screens and say

"Interesting, hmm interesting, very interesting."

"Are ya gonna explain something or just gonna go interesting interesting interesting?"Elder Mike said, expressing his annoyance at Elder Norman’s antiques.

"this is fascinating, the sheer ingenuity of it, from bypassing our scanners, to simply being itself, everything is so fascinating"

"Are you high or deaf?, That. Does. Not. Explain. ANYTHING!"

Elder Mike wasn’t known for being patient and hearing ’interesting’ for the last 10 minutes Elder Norman took to set everything up, was wearing on his nerves.

One could see a vein or two protruding from his head.

"Even if I do, would you be able to understand it?", Elder Norman fired back, annoyed that someone disrupted his flow

"The fuck ya say?"

"Shut up, both of you, Elder Norman explain properly", Elder Wong interjected.

"Fine, fine."

Clicked a few buttons and a projector screen dropped from the ceiling.

"Now, see that, that and that? Make sure to remember them and those three too"

He said pointing to the 6 different screens

"Now which do you want me to start from?"

"..."

"..."

Screens had no labels, even if they did, the Elder wouldn’t be able to interpret what was shown into any meaningful information on their own, none of them belonged to the research department.

And Elder Norman had ordered the staff to code in a custom user interface so that also reduced their understanding.Like the heartbeat monitor showed pink instead of red lines.

"Well, I will just pick at random then"He pointed to one monitor at the far end "See that, guess what it means"

"..."

"Stop being annoying and do ya thing."

"Stop interrupting my fun"

"Stop wasting time Elder Norman"

"You guys are no fun, especially you and Mike, stop being grumpy and enjoy a little"

"Only thing I will enjoy is beating ya ass if ya keep it up"

"Norman focus."

Then unexpectedly Elder Hinobi came to their rescue, in her own way

"Norman stop wasting time, I have decoded all Rune encryptions in the roomAnother random word and I will change them all, and you will have to waste your precious little research time decrypting all the data manually"

"You wouldn’t dare"

"Try me", she pulled out a pen, a rune engraving pen to be precise.

"Well, the thing you are seeing on the screen, is the brain signals of the patient"

A dramatic pause.

"It shows the person is in vegetative state. How’s that possible? Well I have a theory but before that, you might want to know if the accident in the chamber caused it?"

"Well worry not, because I had already acquired data from the entrance pods.As you know, entrance pods and Chamber have monitoring systems have many things in common"

"mostly so we can accurately guess how someone died in them."

"..."

"That was a joke, but yeah I think that is the reason they monitor brain waves, heat beat and soul signature among other things, Elder Hinobi please put down the pen"

"Anyway, the acquired data also says the person was in a vegetative state, but how can this be? We all saw the footage the patient walked in just fine"

They haven’t seen any footage, but it was common sense. How can someone like that pass the entrance, and sit among the students like nothing is wrong?

"Second thing look at this"

He showed another screen, it showed a blob, grayish in color, surrounded by purple patches

"a Rough image of soul, pardon the poor quality we are still working on it, well the technology department is, we just test run it"

"anyway what you are looking at is two different souls being mashed together"

"this is the real time image, We don’t have any previous data on the patient regarding this. But we can make guesses, but before that. Quiz time."

"What makes up a living creature"

"Mind, soul and body", Elder Mike replied in a deadpan voice He was so done with Elder Norman’s theatrics, he swore to lodge a formal complaint against the guy

"Correct, Body is a vessel that lets us interact with material world; Mind allows us to have rationality, and memory and Lastly the Soul is the source of desire and instinct"

"It has been long since proven that these three share a faint connection to one another"

"body, the vessel keeps the mind, the mind protects the soul and the soul breathes life to the body" 𝚏𝗿𝗲𝐞𝚠𝕖𝐛𝗻𝗼𝐯𝕖𝚕.𝚌𝗼𝗺

"If even one is missing, the person can not be called a sentient being"