But just now, when Caroline saw how upset Tyler looked, she acted on impulse too. After all, how many people in this world would see her fall into a pit of darkness and jump after her without a second of hesitation? Honestly, her heart had been warmed, bit by bit, by everything Tyler had done all this time. Maybe in this life, she could give love one more chance. Down below, Denton had watched the entire scene, though he hadn't heard a word of their conversation. He hadn't rushed to climb up because he'd been busy gathering his mutant rat army. Now that the whole swarm he'd brought down was finally assembled, he looked at them and scratched the back of his head. "So uh ... what do you guys think they're doing up there? Sightseeing? Why the hell are they hugging?" Pinky blinked her two big innocent eyes, stared for a long while, and in the end didn't even produce a single squeak—the two-leggers' world was way too complicated. All she wanted was to go home. Caroline and Tyler soon made it back to the surface. The moment her feet touched solid ground, Caroline felt lighter, almost relieved. Those hours underground felt like three whole days had passed. Caroline pulled out a few lamps and instantly lit up the entire area. But when she saw the scene spread out across the ground, she froze in shock—what on earth happened here? Why were all the breathing ones knocked out? And the way they'd collapsed ... each pose had its own "style," some of them practically artistic. Biscuit had fallen headfirst into a massive ditch, his butt sticking straight up. If he hadn't gotten chubbier recently and with that round belly sticking out like a cushion, he probably would've tumbled straight into that bottomless pit and needed someone to rescue him. Then there was Tartrate. People always said cats were made of water, and Tartrate proved it right then. He had fallen right into a jar in the yard. The jar looked way too small, barely half his size, but somehow almost his entire body had squeezed inside. Only his head and butt were sticking out, making him look like he had snapped himself in half inside the jar. In reality, he was perfectly fine, snoring away, whiskers twitching with every breath. The most artistic ones of all were Handsy and Medusa.Those two giant trees were huge when standing, almost tall enough to peek over the wall. Now that they had fallen, they still couldn't lie flat in the yard. Instead, they leaned against each other, forming a giant triangle, an equilateral triangle at that, surprisingly neat and pretty. Handsy's leaf-fingers stretched forward while Medusa's willow-like strands drifted in the breeze, creating a dynamic scene framed inside the triangle. To top it off, the house behind them perfectly completed the background, as if the whole thing were a carefully composed landscape painting. If she wasn't busy, Caroline could've grabbed a little stool and stared at it for half an hour. Just then, a mutant ant crawled out from inside the jar under Tartrate! The ant was enormous, longer than a forearm. Its movements were slow and wobbly, like it was drunk. Its head drooped, its whole body looked limp and exhausted. But the massive mandibles at the front still gleamed with something sinister. Caroline tensed instantly—ants always came in swarms. If there was one here, there could easily be a second, a third... And these things didn't have much of a brain. They didn't back off, and they were vicious. If more showed up, this little base of theirs was going to be overrun by ants! Just as she stayed alert and prepared to attack ... she suddenly saw something red, something like a tongue, shoot out and wrap tightly around the massive ant. The ant already looked unsteady, like half its body wasn't working right, but once it was snared, it still struggled desperately. Then something astonishing happened. That red "tongue," curled around the ant, suddenly whipped upward like it had gone berserk and slammed the ant against the ground three or four times in a row. The impatience in the movements, how annoyed and fed up it looked, was obvious from the way it swung it. Bang, bang, bang. The ant's shell was incredibly tough; it didn't crack or die outright, but it was clearly on its last legs. Its long legs twitched violently, foam dribbled from its mandibles, and one antenna had snapped clean off.It looked practically dead already. Only then did the red tongue seem satisfied. It dragged the mutant ant forward again. Soon, the ant was pulled all the way to the wall, yet the tongue didn't stop there. It dragged the ant straight into the wall itself, as if the surface absorbed it entirely, leaving nothing behind—not even residue. "What in the..." Caroline hurried over to the wall, running her hands across it in shock, but she couldn't find a trace of any other mutant creature.