I'm Trapped in the Block

"What in the world are the officials outside doing? Black Tower has been out of contact with the outside world for so long, yet there’s been no response?"

"A bunch of useless freeloaders."

Inside the Black Tower Monitoring Station, life went on as usual. But as language became distorted, they discovered that some of their words now possessed immense power.

"A power similar to Word Spirit," Bai Zhou said.

He had been silently observing the distortion as it unfolded, because he was merely a Fishman.

Ever since the distortion began to spread, he no longer shared a common language with those around him.

Bai Zhou had stayed in his home the entire time, watching as the situation grew progressively worse.

After they discovered that power, no one mentioned the earlier debate about the subject of the distortion anymore, as if the conversation had never happened.

That black pointer used to track Li Luo earlier was a product of that very power.

"Hieroglyphs?" Li Luo interjected upon hearing this.

"They’re very similar. Both seem to be a physical manifestation of linguistic power," Bai Zhou agreed with a nod.

"However, I didn’t see any hieroglyphic runes on them. They have to shout a word to use that power, which is why I said it was like Word Spirit."

Bai Zhou continued his explanation.

The people who gained this power started using it to find a way out of the Black Tower, but they found the pointer was directing them to the tower’s upper levels.

So they headed upward. When they came back, they were wearing these robes.

"Only a handful of people came back. After they returned, they were extremely hostile toward me. It seemed like they wanted to capture me, so I went into hiding," Bai Zhou said.

"What’s in the upper levels of the Black Tower?" Li Luo asked, confused.

"I don’t know. I haven’t been up there since the distortion started. The robed figures guard all the junctions, so I have no idea what’s happened up there."

At this, Mo Ling had a basic grasp of what had transpired within the Black Tower Monitoring Station.

’Looks like the distortion is even worse than I thought.’

’I wonder why those Hunters ended up like that.’ A bad premonition crept into Mo Ling’s heart.

’The origin of the distortion is in the upper levels, and the way out indicated by the black pointers is also up there. It looks like we have to go.’

Bai Zhou put away his electronic tablet and said to Li Luo, "We should hide somewhere farther away. It isn’t safe here."

Leading the two of them through a series of winding tunnels, Bai Zhou arrived at a small clearing. A few pieces of research equipment and some daily supplies were scattered about. The place was extremely basic.

This appeared to be where he had been living.

"Want some fish? I make excellent grilled fish." He walked over to a small, nearby pond where many peculiar-looking fish were being kept.

Li Luo politely declined his offer.

"Do you know the way to the upper levels? Or do you have a map of the tunnels?" she asked urgently.

"Get your strength back. We can go together. I was planning on heading up to take a look myself, even before you arrived," he said, looking at Li Luo intently.

’That was unexpected.’

Bai Zhou walked over to the pile of research equipment. He gazed at it nostalgically and explained, "I have to fulfill a promise."

’A promise?’

"What promise?" Li Luo blurted out.

Bai Zhou walked over to a dilapidated monitor and slapped it a few times until the static on the screen slowly faded.

He grabbed an old storage drive from nearby, plugged it in, and opened a video file.

"What you’re about to see... commit it to memory. And while you’re watching, don’t doubt any of it."

Bai Zhou gave Li Luo a sudden, grave look. Only after she nodded did he press play.

It was... a cartoon.

The animation, intermittently disrupted by flickering static, seemed utterly bizarre.

Furthermore, the production quality was atrocious, as if it had been hastily thrown together.

The editing was choppy, and the art style resembled a child’s doodles, with brushstrokes applied at random.

The animation began with a tall, black tower.

The view zoomed in, passing through innumerable tunnels, to a squad returning from the upper levels of the Black Tower. They stood before a checkpoint, undergoing an inspection.

’This was the origin story of the distortion!’

’This was that Hunter Squad.’

As expected, the events that followed unfolded exactly as Bai Zhou had described. The animation, however, focused specifically on the progression of the linguistic distortion.

Nouns, verbs, adjectives...

Grammar, pitch, tone...

The cartoon vividly depicted the sequence of the linguistic distortion, explaining the bizarre phenomenon in exhaustive detail through the characters’ exaggerated actions.

The crude animation style only made the story feel even more unsettling.

Moreover, the animation was completely silent, with no text. To represent words, it used various hieroglyphs and symbols.

The extremely rudimentary kind.

Aside from the bizarre, cult-film art style, the animation was so simple it seemed made for a toddler who couldn’t yet read.

Soon, a character possessing the power of Word Spirit appeared, and the animation provided a detailed introduction to him.

Simple symbols flew from the character’s mouth, transforming into all manner of objects.

Weapons of all kinds... wind, rain, thunder, and lightning...

The character then slit his own wrist, and blood gushed forth.

Immediately after, he spat a symbol from his mouth—a cross with a circle at its head—and the wound healed instantly.

The blood flowed bizarrely back into the wound. The cartoon even depicted a shimmering golden light around the character, indicating he was fully healed.

Not only that, but as the number of these symbols increased, the animated character’s body grew stronger and more perfect, his eyes glowing with a golden light that suggested divinity.

Even though the animation was crude, this exaggerated approach actually made the character’s transformation all the more striking.

Just as the character was reaching the peak of his perfection, the animation came to an abrupt halt.

The screen once again dissolved into chaotic static.

"Is it over?"

Li Luo looked at Bai Zhou, only to find him putting a finger to his lips and shaking his head.

"Shh."

This went on for a long time. Beneath the static, the screen was pitch-black.

After some time, something new finally appeared on the screen.

It was a man in a white lab coat.

He didn’t speak, just silently positioned the camera, then lay down on the operating table in front of the lens.

A familiar figure walked over from the side.

It was Bai Zhou, wearing his diving helmet.

Bai Zhou walked in front of the camera, straightened his own lab coat, and began to introduce himself. A voice, muffled as if speaking from underwater, emanated from the old monitor’s speakers.

It was the first sound to come from the video.

"Hello, everyone. I’m Bai Zhou, an intern at Black Tower Hospital."

"Next, I will be performing a dissection on my colleague—the creator of the animation, the discoverer of the distortion, and a doctor here at Black Tower Hospital—Dr. Li."

"This is being done at his own request, with the goal of studying this unknown distortion."

He looked at Dr. Li on the operating table. Dr. Li raised his hand and made an "OK" gesture.

"First, allow me to re-explain the content of the animation you just saw."

...

"Alright, that concludes the explanation. Now, I will begin the dissection."

"First, the hand."

A sharp blade sliced through the skin.

Blood sprayed forth.