Chapter 54: The Inertia of the Script

They’d been robbed!

The clatter and crash shattered the silence of the night, echoing far into the darkness. It must have been that bumbling thief—having succeeded, the fool knocked over an easel during his retreat, causing a thunderous racket. Realizing he’d been exposed, he no longer bothered to conceal his footsteps and simply fled at full speed.

Taking in the scene inside, Uncle Tian nearly choked in shock when he discovered that the egg of their little King Black had been stolen.

Yuxing forcibly held back the urge to ask Uncle Tian why he’d left something so important out in the studio in plain sight, instead of locking it away in a safe—never flaunt your wealth! But of course, you can’t blame the victim for not locking things up properly. The real fault lay with the thief—if someone dares to reach out with thieving hands, then those hands should be cut off.

Yuxing had only just learned that this “egg” was actually King Black’s self-imposed sealed form, not a real monster egg. In this state, King Black was in low-power mode, needing almost no food, and his adaptability to the environment was greatly enhanced. The shell, too, was even more resilient than his true body.

Moreover, though sealed as an egg, King Black retained a degree of consciousness. Uncle Tian had said that hiding him away in darkness would be too cruel for the child; it was King Black himself who had suggested staying in the studio, so he could pass the time admiring Uncle Tian's paintings.

And that was exactly how the thieves had set their sights on him!

Yuxing immediately closed his eyes and focused. Enhanced by his physical training, his senses sharpened until he could pick up even the faintest of footsteps. Judging by the sounds, there were at least three intruders—more than one. They’d escaped through a window on the southeast side of the warehouse, knocking over several freshly varnished paintings as they went. The canvases were ruined; the paint had smeared, likely on the thieves themselves, as they crashed through. Weeks of Uncle Tian’s hard work destroyed in an instant.

“They’re heading northwest, at three o’clock!” Yuxing snapped his eyes open, glancing at the pried-open window, then sprinted toward it. Using the momentum, he vaulted off a chair by the wall, grabbed the window ledge, and with a push of his arms and a kick against the wall, he flipped himself outside.

“Wait—!” Uncle Tian hardly had time to call after him before Yuxing disappeared, his actions fluid as water. Clicking his tongue, Uncle Tian could only hurry after him.

……

As Yuxing ran, he accomplished two things at once.

First, he activated the Taiga Light Key’s interface, reallocating one of the two core bond points to boost his speed. The effect was immediate—his detection range shrank, but his running speed increased, keeping him hot on the heels of the thieves.

Second, he notified Aegis—or, more precisely, Senior Ayu, who was on duty tonight. This was simple: a press of the emergency button was all it took. No conversation necessary; the device would transmit Yuxing’s location to Aegis headquarters every five seconds.

Within moments, Yuxing completed both tasks and realized someone was following close behind—Uncle Tian. But his breathing was heavy; clearly, he hadn’t exercised like this in a long time. They’d covered less than a kilometer before he was already winded.

Yuxing couldn’t send him back now. He considered the options and, at the next fork, veered to the right. Listening, he heard Uncle Tian’s footsteps continue straight ahead. The old man’s stamina may have faded, but his mind was sharp—seeing Yuxing turn, he knew it was a maneuver to force the thieves onto a straight path so they could attempt a pincer movement.

They were in a half-abandoned industrial zone, once a factory district for mechanical parts. But as the city grew, residential areas swallowed the factories. Noise and pollution became a nuisance, so the government had the factories relocated outside the city. Some buildings had been sold off, others left empty. Over time, the decay of this area stood in stark contrast to the modern neighborhoods around it.

The roads here—once shaped for convenience, with new routes cut as needed for shipping—were a tangled maze. The thieves, however, seemed to know the area intimately, having clearly scouted it and memorized their escape routes. If not for Yuxing’s ability to lock onto their footsteps, he’d have been lost in the labyrinth himself.

After winding through the maze for a while, Yuxing leaped onto a rooftop, choosing the direct route. Sure enough—atop the roof, he immediately spotted the three fleeing figures in a narrow lane below.

King Black’s egg still glowed, unmistakable even from a distance.

Yuxing remembered Uncle Tian’s words from earlier, and his heart sank. King Black was conscious—he had taken on this form purely to live peacefully with Uncle Tian on this planet, posing as a raw gemstone in the studio.

He knew he’d been kidnapped.

If he wished, he could revert to his true form—a colossal beast sixty-five meters tall, weighing sixty thousand tons.

Yet, for now, he was holding back.

Lately, Uncle Tian had found it harder and harder to suppress his combative impulses—a physiological reaction, the result of Nakelian hormones. Even painting soothing landscapes was barely enough to calm him anymore. King Black, affected in turn, had grown restless as well, letting out a low, uncontrollable rumble that had drawn the attention of neighbors.

Uncle Tian said that King Black’s intelligence was comparable to a human teenager. Agitated though he was, he understood that reverting to his true form and rampaging would only doom himself and Uncle Tian.

Thus, as Uncle Tian suppressed his urges, so too did King Black.

But that didn’t mean he would continue to endure after being torn from Uncle Tian’s side by thieves.

Any moment now, he might revert, crush those three robbers beneath his feet, and show them the power of a sixty-thousand-ton giant.

And then… the story would follow the original Taiga plotline once again.

A giant monster appears in the city. The city’s defense forces attack King Black. King Black is killed. Uncle Tian grows to gigantic size and battles the defense forces, and is killed in turn.

One Nakelian and one King Black—such a force could never destroy the Earth, so the only ones destroyed would be themselves.

In every possible future Yuxing could imagine, the ending converged on a single point:

King Black and Uncle Tian, both dead.

…

Would he have to fight against the inertia of the script yet again?