Eros reached out and stroked the girl’s hair, his voice gentle. "Can you tell me specifically what happened?"
The girl sniffled, stopping her crying. Just as she was about to speak, she couldn't help but fall into a fit of violent coughing. With a wet gagging sound, she spat a large mouthful of eyeballs onto Eros.
Simultaneously, more eyes began to sprout one after another from her exposed skin. In the blink of an eye, half of her visible flesh was covered in these iron-gray, indifferent orbs.
Seeing this, Joanie couldn't help but let out a small gasp. "The contamination is intensifying!"
As if hearing her cry, all the iron-gray eyes on the girl’s body turned in unison, locking their gaze onto Joanie. Joanie’s body froze; her thoughts became sluggish and heavy. Beside her, Undine immediately realized something was wrong. She lunged forward, dragging Joanie away from the line of sight, her words coming out in a rapid-fire warning:
"Don't look at those eyes! They can spread the contamination through sight!"
Having escaped the gaze and regained her mobility, Joanie gasped for air, her chest heaving. That had been a close call. If Undine hadn't dragged her away in time, she suspected she would have been completely dominated by the power of those eyes.
The girl, noticing the accelerating mutation on her body, broke down into wails again. "I'm going to turn into a monster! I'm going to die! Waaaaah..."
"I don't want to be a monster..."
Eros’s mouth twitched as he watched the girl wailing before him. It was truly hard to imagine that the hyper-calm, hyper-rational warrior from moments ago and this sobbing mess were the same person. Suddenly, Eros caught a glimpse of the scalpel she had discarded.
Is it because of that Sealed Artifact?
A suspicion flickered in his mind. He reached out, picked up the scalpel, and pressed it into her palm. In the next second, the wailing girl went silent. Her eyes turned cold and merciless once more.
Looking at the now-calm girl, Eros spoke softly to comfort her. "Don't worry. With me here, you won't turn into a monster."
Turning to Undine and the others, he said, "Stay back. I'm going to start purifying the contamination in her body. Actually... stay close. Don't go too far. I'll make a vine hut; you stay just outside it."
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With that, Eros produced a seed to create the hut. The girl looked at him, her voice chillingly calm. "The contamination on me is the price for using the Grade 2 Sealed Artifact, The Eye of Petrification, multiple times. It isn't a normal contamination. Are you sure you can clear it? If you aren't certain, you should leave immediately to avoid being caught in the fallout."
Eros picked her up in a bridal carry, his expression nonchalant. "Coincidentally, I have a Grade 2 Sealed Artifact specifically for purifying contamination."
The girl reached out with her iron-gray, eye-covered arm and hooked it around Eros’s neck to help him carry her. He laid her down on the bed woven from vines, shut the door, and established a Spiritual Wall to block out all sound. Only then did he turn his attention to the girl on the bed.
At this point, there wasn't a patch of normal skin left on her; she was covered in eyes of all sizes. But because she still held the scalpel, her expression remained inhumanly calm.
"You don't seem affected by these eyes," she observed. "Perhaps it's a specialty of the Elven bloodline," Eros lied casually.
The girl nodded, not dwelling on the matter. "How do you plan to clear this? I can feel my consciousness fading. I’ll likely fully transform into a monster in about two minutes." Her tone was as flat as if she were discussing someone else’s life.
Two minutes left. Eros didn't hesitate; he pulled out The Brilliant Sun.
As the orange glow flooded the room, the eyes on the girl’s skin emitted ear-piercing shrieks. Accompanied by a popping sound like cold water hitting hot oil, the iron-gray eyes vanished one by one into wisps of green smoke.
"Take your clothes off," Eros said. Since the surface eyes were cleared, it was time to root out the deeper contamination.
"My current state won't allow me to undress myself. You do it. This shouldn't be unfamiliar to you."
Eros didn't hesitate and proceeded to undress her. Below her clothes, he saw clusters of iron-gray eyes crammed into every available space. He really wanted to complain—it seemed the contamination in this world had a particular obsession with growing clusters of identical things, which was truly unfriendly to anyone with trypophobia.
Shrieks and pops continued as the number of eyes decreased rapidly. Suddenly, the girl groaned, her now-normal face twisting in pain.
"Does it hurt?" "Yes." Despite the affirmative answer, her calm tone made the claim lack conviction.
After another minute or two, the eyes were almost entirely gone, save for one last eye on the left side of her chest. This eye was different from the others; even when the purification light of The Brilliant Sun hit it directly, it remained stubbornly in place.
Eros frowned and increased the power of the artifact. Finally, green smoke began to rise from the eye. But at that moment, the girl spoke up:
"The Spirit within my body is also being purified."
Eros was startled and immediately deactivated The Brilliant Sun. Looking at that eye perched upon the slight mound of her chest, he felt conflicted.
If he pushed The Brilliant Sun to maximum power, he could definitely purge this eye. But at that intensity, the girl would likely be stripped of all her powers and turned into an ordinary human before the eye was even gone.