Chapter 418: Perspective
The brain had no pain receptors, so Charles couldn't feel what Anna's tongue was doing to his brain.
Blood poured out of Charles' head as if it were a broken dam, drenching him. But it was the least of his concerns now as he caught a glimpse of a small white sticky lump that Anna's tongue had peeled off from his head and had stuffed into her mouth.
It was his brain! Anna was eating his brain!
"Hehehe, delicious. Charles, you really are delicious" Anna muttered in a trembling voice, and her cross-shaped pupils reflected greed as she sent more and more black, writhing tentacles toward Charles' head.
"Sparkle" Charles turned his eyeballs with great difficulty and looked at his daughter hovering not too far away from him. The tentacles riddled with eyeballs, however, merely hovered quietly in mid-air. Clearly, Sparkle had no intention of helping her father and simply watched as her mother consumed her father slowly.
Everyone had betrayed Charles, and despair filled his heart.
How is this possible? Just what on earth did we encounter that it even managed to manipulate Anna's mind? What is going on? Why is this happening to me?! Charles roared inwardly, unwilling to die just like this. He had to escape his plight.
Buzz!
Charles' prosthetic hand transformed into a chainsaw, and he hacked away at the animated ropes that had bound him. Before he could cut the animated ropes, Anna and Sparkle's tentacles reached out and immobilized him.
Charles had thought that summoning Sparkle was the key to success, but it turned out that he had just allowed his enemy to gain an ally.
"You're so annoying. I wanted to take my time savoring your flavor, but you've left me with no choice but to consume you in one bite!"
Charles immediately felt a powerful tugging force, and he saw Anna's tentacle extracting what looked like a pinkish lump of something from his head. Then, Anna immediately stuffed it into her mouth.
Charles' eyes involuntarily rolled back as he stiffened, and his throat let out gurgling noises before his consciousness sank into darkness. Charles felt groggy, and he could feel himself drifting eastward.
I'm dead? Anna killed me? I.
"Charles" A soft voice echoed, and Charles snapped awake.
A handsome silver-haired young man wearing a crisp suit and with clear, bright eyes resembling a newborn baby's eyes was shouting at Charles down below with his hands put together to resemble a trumpet.
Charles looked around and found himself floating in mid-air. Anna was below him, and she was in the middle of devouring his corpse. Charles looked down at himself and saw nothing; he couldn't feel his own body as well.
Am I dead? Am I in my soul form?
Charles floated downward to take a closer look at his corpse. His corpse's mouth was wide agape, and there was a massive hole in its torso, but there were no organs or flesh inside it.
Anna seemed like she hadn't eaten her fill yet as she was peeling off Charles' lower half with her sharp fangs. Charles' crimson blood drenched the floor, and the nearby crew looked on with bloodthirsty eyes, licking their lips in excitement.
Charles observed the horrifying, gory scene for a long time before he turned to the silver-haired young man next to him and asked, "What's going on with them? How come they became like this? What's up with that intense rage they have toward me?"
"This isn't strange at all. Those coming here for the first time will always think that the entire world is out to harm them. They have no idea that they're just looking at the same scene but from a different and distorted perspective," the silver-haired young man explained calmly.
"What?" Charles asked, staring at the silver-haired young man in bewilderment.
"I'm as lucid as just about anyone out there, so how come you still don't get it? You're still alive, but there's a tiny issue. If I were to put it simply, I'd say that we're on the same frequency now."
"Who are you?"
"I'm Tobba."
Charles was stupefied. Then, he swept his gaze across the fierce-looking crew and Anna, who was still busy devouring him.
"You're Tobba? Does that mean I've gone mad just like you? Are you saying that the scene before me is nothing but a mere delusion on my end?" Charles asked.
"It depends on your perspective. From our current perspective, they're the lunatics, but from their perspective, we are the lunatics.
"You can perceive the world from many different perspectives, and every single perspective will lead to a markedly different conclusion. Understanding these perspectives means you'll have a deeper understanding of the world, allowing you to grasp more truths," the silver-haired young man explained.
Charles was confused. He shook his non-existent head and stared at the reformed Tobba before him.
"Where is my real self? What's happening out there right now?"
"You're lying on the deck, and everyone is trying to treat you. Anna is helping, but it's not exactly effective, so you have to rely on yourself if you want to return to that perspective," Tobba replied confidently as he stared calmly at Charles.
Charles glanced at his mutilated corpse before turning back to Tobba and asked, "Can you communicate with them?"
"I know what you want. You want to get out, right? I don't recommend doing that right now. If you were to get out right now, everyone else would get dragged into this perspective. I really don't want to explain things to them from square one.
"A tiny issue is the reason behind your current predicament, and you have to resolve that issue from this perspective first before getting out of here. If you refuse to resolve that issue, everyone will get stuck here," Tobba explained.
"Who or what drove me mad? Is it those sea otters? The toads?" Charles asked and made a few guesses.
Tobba shook his head and walked up next to Anna. He then pointed at Charles' mutilated corpse and said, "Get back into your body before anything else. Just lay down on top of your body, and you'll get back into it. We leave once you're done."
Charles appeared hesitant, but he eventually did as he was told. He "swam" to float above his corpse and gently lay down on top of it. Moments later, Charles could feel his own body once more, and he staggered up to his feet.
Charles touched his head and found his brain missing. He looked down at his torso and saw Tobba through the hole in his ribs. Charles couldn't possibly be alive with such injuries, but Charles defied logic and was still alive.
"Great. Now that you've recovered your body, let's go and resolve that issue together," Tobba walked over to the railings and rummaged through his pockets. In the end, he took out a crumpled paper rabbit and hurled it toward the water.
As soon as the lightweight paper rabbit struck the water, it transformed into a giant rabbit with a loud noise.
"Get on, let's go and look for them," Tobba said.
The final vestiges of hesitation in Charles' eyes vanished as soon as he saw the huge rabbit before him. It turned out that there wasn't anything strange going on with his crew, the mice, and Anna.
He was the odd one out; he had really gone mad.
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