'Is it related to resurrection?
Is the Foundation trying to control resurrection technology?'
Such doubts flashed through his mind.
The woman's questioning voice rang out again.
"After your resurrection and a thirty-day isolation observation, the Foundation found that your temperament had drastically changed. However, considering the special and rare nature of O5, you were ultimately allowed to return to your post.
After that, you began to pay excessive attention to immortality. You even attempted to preside over several resurrection rituals again, but without exception, they all failed. You seemed very frustrated.
Then, in less than a week, you caused a very serious protocol breach.
—Illegally contacting a contained APE individual!
A pinnacle-type multi-functional experimental subject, an APE individual is almost god-like to humans!"
Upon hearing the word "APE," Hayashi first showed a puzzled expression, but he quickly realized that they were talking about Supreme Divinity.
"Although you cleverly covered your tracks, you've been dead for fourteen years after all. Those outdated techniques you used exposed you. So, now you can state your reasons for doing this."
The lady's voice stopped here. After a long silence, a middle-aged man's voice rang out, and he uttered one word.
"Death..."
"Hmm?" the lady questioned.
Then came the man's terrified narration:
"I remember everything after death...
There is no heaven or hell, no celestial court or underworld, and certainly no so-called pure land.
That was... a cruel experience! I remember at first it was a sweet oblivion, like falling asleep.
I thought that was the end, that there was nothing after death!
But I was wrong! Soon, I returned to my body with consciousness!"
His voice trembled violently at this point. He took a deep breath to overcome some pain before continuing.
"At first, I was senseless, blind, deaf, mute, and numb. But then, it was as if all my nerves reconnected.
Death was supposed to be a peaceful sleep, but I was pulled back by an unknown monster!
My senses returned! But my body was dead! I was trapped in a dead body; do you understand that feeling?"
Without waiting for the lady to speak, the man's voice continued.
"What's more terrifying is that my perception became clearer and clearer: the decay of my skin, the solidification of my flesh. I was like a dead person with normal five senses!
I lay there, feeling my own death bit by bit, every inch of my skin, every inch of my flesh, feeling insects burrow into my coffin, devouring my flesh! Laying eggs, feeling maggots crawl on me, forming cocoons... And becoming more and more sensitive, gradually I could feel my flesh entering the bodies of those insects, being digested and decomposed.
I could feel the pain of cells being decomposed, and then the perception of all microscopic particles at the moment of my death...
Getting clearer, more painful, and more desperate!
I felt suffocated, but my soul was still clear, as if something could gain energy from my pain.
It needed my pain. Gradually, my five senses began to expand, and the microscopic particles of my body began to diffuse.
In the larvae crawling in the soil, in the decomposing cells of plants... But I couldn't feel the joy of those animals and plants; for me, there was only pain, the pain of being decomposed, the pain of being preyed upon... Even though my brain had long ceased to function!
My consciousness was still extending..."
As his voice spoke, Hayashi also felt that pain.
It was completely different from Hayashi's own feeling of transforming into all things!
He himself transformed into all things by devouring other existences with himself as the main body.
However, this unfortunate fellow suffered eternal torment after death.
In the stomachs of birds, in the teeth of fire ants, every fingernail, every strand of hair... returning to all things! It should have been peaceful!
But the O5's feeling was an indescribable torture, like being cut into a thousand pieces... increasingly complex perceptions, yet all of it was pain; it was eternal torture for the soul!
Pain, too painful!
"Gah—!!"
Unable to help himself, Hayashi cried out in pain.
"Hayashi!"
Yukino, who was ten meters away, noticed something was wrong and was about to step forward to turn off the video.
And just as she lifted her foot!
She was horrified to find that Hayashi's blood vessels and muscles were making terrifying sounds!
Killing intent!
Anger!
Not on his face, but within his flesh and skin, Yukino saw these emotions.
And before her foot could even land.
Hayashi's flesh, as if sensing some danger, had blood vessels extending like roots, both on his body and from the ground.
"Yukino, be careful!
My Lord is here!"
Jeanne's voice rang out. Before Yukino could react, the Iris Flag was planted in front of them, and Jeanne knelt on the ground, praying.
Bang bang!!
The sound of the flesh whips hitting the barrier constructed by the flag was as fierce as a bomb.
Soon, to Yukino's frantic eye-twitching, the barrier formed by Jeanne's Flag was completely enveloped by flesh tentacles, and some sounds even came directly from underground.
Yukino instinctively looked down and found that the ground beneath them was now empty, devoured by Hayashi's flesh. The place they stood was entirely the domain constructed by Jeanne; they were already standing in midair.
Moreover, in just this short time, sweat had already seeped from Jeanne's forehead. Although the Saintess's flag was an A-rank Noble Phantasm.
It was the materialization of her legend, waving the flag on the battlefield and achieving victory with almost no injury.
But this didn't mean she could withstand any damage. As an A-rank Noble Phantasm, she could at most withstand city-level attacks.
And Hayashi's high-frequency, powerful attacks were what Jeanne feared the most.
Because Jeanne's Noble Phantasm accumulates damage until it reaches the limit she can endure.
"Hayashi!!"
Seeing Jeanne in this state, Elysia also grew anxious about Hayashi's condition. She raised her hand, her clothing transforming into a fairytale gown, and with a long bow in hand, she prayed.
"May this arrow soothe your soul!"
With that, the arrow left her hand, soaring past the dense flesh tentacles and striking Hayashi directly between the eyebrows.
"Hoo!"
With Hayashi's comfortable sigh, the blood-stained tentacles that had been lashing at the Saint stopped waving.
The flesh riot ceased.
Hayashi turned off the video and looked back at the worried expressions of the girls. With an apologetic look on his still pained face, he said:
"Sorry!"
"Are you alright?"
Shaking her head, Jeanne stood up from the ground and asked Hayashi with concern, not even wiping the fragrant sweat from her forehead.
"It wasn't a trap; it just made me feel what he felt and allowed me to understand some things."
Hayashi shook his head. Although it was just a short interrogation video, he probably already knew what the Foundation had encountered.
As for the riot of his flesh, that was his spiritual consciousness. After falling into extreme pain, his body cells instinctively regarded all living things around him as enemies.
And Jeanne's situation was still alright... As for the entire Itomori Town being watched by crows... that was not good.
Fortunately, it was not an irreversible situation for Hayashi.