Suddenly, she heard a very close voice: "Get on."
Mabel turned her head and saw Vid riding on a broomstick, reaching out his hand to her.
The broom was actually floating in the air!
Mabel was extremely surprised, but she didn't hesitate and grabbed Vid's hand, jumping onto the broom and sitting in front of him.
"You guide the direction," Vid said.
"Alright." Mabel steadied herself, pointing with her hand, "Fly to the right!"
Vid kicked the ground with his feet, and they flew out.
This time, he was carrying a Firebolt capable of speeds up to 150 mph.
But inside the building, Vid naturally couldn't fly too fast. Even so, it was much quicker than Mabel running at full speed.
A flash of fire passed outside the window, and the sound of shattering glass echoed around.
After leaving the dungeon, Mabel found that the situation outside had undergone tremendous changes. Most of the base had fallen into a sea of fire, and many soldiers in black lay on the ground, uncertain if they were alive or dead.
"Did you really come with only two people?"
Facing the wind, she couldn't help but shout loudly.
"Of course."
Vid said, steering the broom in the direction Mabel pointed. After turning, they were met head-on by several people in lab coats clutching computers and fleeing.
Those people were also shocked to see Vid, fumbling to draw their guns.
Vid waved his magic wand, and the people fell down in unison.
Mabel saw those people still groaning and struggling on the ground and hurriedly shouted, "Don't let them go, these guys are demons! They all deserve to die!"
"Don't worry, they won't get away!"
Vid said, yet the broom didn't stop.
Mabel heard a clattering sound and turned her head forcefully, seeing some small black beads the size of beans bouncing on the ground.
— Bombs?
She subconsciously thought, her heart anticipating the image of those people being blown to pieces.
Suddenly, the black beads rapidly grew larger —
Transforming into mantises, centipedes, spiders, and scorpionflies taller than people.
Mabel opened her mouth wide.
Horrible screams came from behind.
The broom turned a corner, and the scene was out of sight. Mabel's head spun limply, her heart pounding rapidly, sweat gushing out from every pore of her body, but her hands could only stiffly grip the broom.
"Mabel, which way should we go ahead? Mabel?"
"Oh, oh...to the left, two consecutive left turns, then upstairs, right turn..."
Mabel stammered, panting rapidly.
"Frightened?" Vid consoled, "Don't be afraid, those are just insects enchanted with an Enlargement Spell. They'll revert soon."
"In-insects?"
Mabel thought: Aren't they some sort of prehistoric beasts?
"Yes." Vid thought she was puzzled as to why insects were used and explained, "Dumbledore didn't allow me to kill them—I promised him."
"Oh..."
Mabel replied with full of doubts, wanting to say something, but not knowing where to start.
Using insects doesn't count as killing?
The wizard's logic...isn't it a bit odd...
Come to think of it, everything that happened today was so strange...it felt like a vivid dream mingling her deepest fears and desires...
Was the base really destroyed? Could they really be saved?
Was the person behind her real?
She looked at the empty corridor, the papers and debris scattered on the ground that people tossed away while fleeing, glass shattered, lights extinguished, and even bloodstains on the walls and floor.
A man shot dead lay slumped in the corner, glasses slipping off, with an expression of disbelief still on his face.
Mabel remembered that man — how many times she watched him stand behind the glass wall, speaking to the researchers in a consulting tone:
"The experiment's effect is not very obvious, why not increase the dosage?"
"The blood doesn't seem special, can we extract the bone marrow again?"
"We hope to do a few more comparison experiments, it doesn't matter if it fails, since they're all consumables, we have new ones arriving next month."
Mabel pinched herself hard, tears welled up from the pain.
It seemed not to be a dream.
She reached out again, seemingly trying to verify if Vid was real.
Though Vid was riding the broom with her, he remained vigilant, without taking off the metal-threaded cloak.
At this moment, seeing Mabel with a dazed expression, reaching out her fingers at him, seemingly wanting to pinch him, Vid immediately warned:
"If you lay a hand on me, I'll throw you off—have you forgotten we are on the way to rescue Hayley?"
"Hayley!"
Mabel snapped out of her daze, finally regaining her focus.
"The door here requires an eye scan from internal personnel to open. We need to find one of those guys in green surgical gowns..."
Before Mabel finished speaking, she saw the previously locked metal door ahead had a crack open, a trail of blood-colored footprints disorderly extending outward.
Mabel immediately felt an ominous premonition rise within her, she jumped directly off the broom, rolled on the ground, then scrambled up to rush into the doorway.
Vid glanced at the blood-colored footprints on the ground, seeing they were all adult-sized, then tossed out a black marble.
A dozen insects rapidly enlarged, as Vid pointed with the magic wand, these creatures clicked along the direction of the footprints in pursuit.
Entering the room, he heard Mabel let out a scream unable to discern if it was from pain or fear.
Vid briskly walked in, first seeing several conveyor belts like those in assembly line factories. Upon clearly seeing the items on them, he realized it was a "factory" utilizing humans as raw materials.
He recalled the administrator's confession earlier—
"Blood, organs, bone marrow, skin... anything is possible... as long as someone is willing to pay, we can provide... there's even someone specialized in collecting bones and eyes... especially sphenoid bone..."
On the conveyor belt rested a head with the sphenoid bone removed, perhaps it was about to be "processed," only paused due to a sudden power outage.
On the brink of collapse, Mabel saw the hair on it, sharply inhaled, clutched her chest, breathing with difficulty, she said:
"No... that isn't Hayley... Hayley, Hayley might still be alive... I must find her..."
She ran a few steps, suddenly fell, her body convulsed violently, clutching her neck like a dehydrated fish making a dying wheeze.
Vid hurriedly approached, poured a bottle of healing potion down her throat, used Immobulu to stop the girl's convulsions, then pulled her hands away for a look.
Mabel wore a black collar on her neck, nearly embedded in the flesh, humming slightly, even emitting a faint smell of scorched skin and meat.
Her neck bore almost entirely fresh red burns, at first glance appearing like blood flowing from a beheaded corpse, extremely terrifying.
Vid frowned, pointed with his magic wand, and the collar made a "crack," yet didn't break, only gaining a few more fractures.
But the humming halted, Mabel forcefully inhaled, then began coughing violently.
Vid was about to continue freeing the collar, the girl pushed him away forcefully.
"Don't, don't mind me... go find Hayley..."
"...Fine, take care of yourself."
Vid knew time couldn't be wasted, thus placed two little demonic puppets beside her, then quickly ran towards the room's end.
—If one end of the conveyor belt connected to a place for processing corpses, then naturally, the other end linked to the area for surgeries.
He pushed the door open with a "bang," passed through a place filled with picture books and old toys, then through an empty operating room, finally seeing a figure in the third room.
On the blood-stained hospital bed lay a girl with her belly opened, so pale she seemed like a paper doll.
She looked so small, so weak, as if her soul had departed to another world, leaving only a porcelain-made shell behind.
Vid was stunned.
Though he held little expectation initially, the scene before him still struck him intensely.
He hesitated for a moment, suddenly noticed... the girl's eyelids weakly trembled.
...
"Cough cough cough cough..."
Mabel lay on the ground, coughing vigorously, striving to stand but failing.
She couldn't understand why she had become so weak—her heart pounding as though it would burst from her chest, lacking strength everywhere in her body, her mouth dry, her head dizzy, breathing unbelievably difficult.
Suddenly, the struggling Mabel halted, turning her head to one side.
"Ding-a-ling-ling..."
She heard a familiar ringing.