“Ci-mei'er...”
Sang Lan called out again, taking a half-step forward on instinct. His gaze locked onto Bai Ci, filled with a paranoid, clumsy possessiveness.
Yet this calculated display of familiarity and gentleness only struck the onlookers as absurdly laughable.
Standing to the side, Shen Tan’s delicate, pale features curved into a mocking smile. “What? You wear his skin, and now you actually think you’re him?”
“Why are you calling her so intimately? Are you even Sang Lan?”
Having his identity exposed by Shen Tan, Sang Lan froze mid-step, the panic in his eyes growing more pronounced.
Ignoring Shen Tan, he kept his eyes on Bai Ci. “Ci-mei'er, I...”
But the words died in his throat. What could he say? What should he say?
Could he tell her, “I killed your boyfriend and devoured everything about him, but I genuinely love you now, so can you stay with me?”
Such words were both absurd and malicious. If he said them aloud, they would only stoke Bai Ci’s hatred to a roaring blaze.
There would be absolutely no room for salvage.
From the very beginning, all the gentleness, closeness, and favoritism he had received were nothing but a bloody theft.
Seeing Sang Lan rendered speechless and frozen, Shen Tan’s smile deepened. Her cold voice rang out, each word sharp and cutting right to the quick.
Though this version of Sang Lan likely lacked the anatomy to actually have a heart.
“What? Cat got your tongue?”
“Have you played your stolen life for so long that you’ve forgotten what kind of creature you actually are? You shameless thief.”
The cold, violent nature of an alien species surged within Sang Lan, and his aura turned razor-sharp.
He snapped his head toward Shen Tan, radiating a thick, murderous intent. If he hadn't been so wary of Bai Ci's presence, he would have torn the woman who exposed his secret to shreds.
Shen Tan, however, remained entirely unfazed. She stood her ground calmly, wearing a faint, cool smile.
She had no idea what was wrong with this creature’s head, but as long as Bai Ci was around, he wouldn't dare kill anyone. She was more than happy to exploit that weakness.
Just as she was about to speak again, she froze.
Tilting her head slightly, she sniffed the air deeply. The playfulness and mockery instantly drained from her face, replaced by a heavy, solemn silence.
“It’s here,”
Shen Tan whispered.
The moment the words left her mouth, Sang Lan, whose aura had been seething with hostility, felt it too. His expression warped in sheer terror.
As a member of the same Yilan Star species, his perception was far deeper than Shen Tan's merely sharp sense of smell.
The absolute suppression of a mature organism over a sub-adult, the instinctual dread of a higher-tier breeder over a lower-tier symbiote—he was utterly powerless to resist that crushing pressure.
No longer caring about his confrontation with Shen Tan or hiding his own monstrous nature, he whipped his head back to Bai Ci, his eyes wide with desperate panic.
“Ci-mei'er, run! Get out of here right now!”
He spoke at a breakneck speed, his tone filled with an unprecedented urgency, bordering on a plea.
Bai Ci remained tight-lipped and expressionless.
In truth, she simply lacked experience with these kinds of melodramatic scenes and couldn't think of anything to say, so she figured silence was her best option.
Seeing her standing there like a statue, noting the cold detachment in her eyes, Sang Lan felt as if an invisible hand were squeezing his heart. Bitterness, panic, and despair piled on top of one another.
He knew. Bai Ci knew everything.
She knew he wasn't the real Sang Lan. She knew he was a monster who had stolen another's life, a creature whose hands were stained with blood.
After a long silence, as if finally resolving to burn his bridges, he spoke. His voice was hoarse with suppressed emotion as he finally faced his sins head-on.
“You're right, Bai Ci. I am the monster who killed Sang Lan.”
“It is only natural for you to hate and resent me.”
“But if you want to hate me, Bai Ci, you have to survive first. Only by staying alive will you ever have the chance to take your revenge...”
He wanted to say more, to urge her again. It didn't matter if she hated him, as long as she lived...
But it was already too late.
A dense swarm of Boston ivy vines swept toward them, dozens of thick tendrils writhing and twisting. A chilling wind carried the ominous rustling of the approaching foliage.
The final Boss had arrived.
Pain and reluctance flickered across Sang Lan's face. He couldn't bear to leave this human skin, to leave Bai Ci, or to let go of the warmth he had stolen during this brief time.
But in the face of absolute racial suppression, he had no choice.
In the next instant, his body shuddered violently, and his flesh began to ripple and dissolve like liquid.
The gentle, lifelike human face rapidly lost its color, shriveled, and peeled away. As his flesh disintegrated, it revealed the dried, tough vines coiled in dense layers beneath.
The silent shedding and assimilation had begun.
Coils of pitch-black vines burst from the empty husk of human skin. Swimming against the incoming tide of flora, they merged back into the mass, returning entirely to the breeder's main body.
In the most absolute manner possible, he had integrated back into the Boss.
As the figure before her vanished, Bai Ci’s immediate reaction was to activate her Shears skill.
Seeing that the "cocoon" belonging to Sang Lan II had not vanished even after his reabsorption, she let out a quiet sigh of relief.
This gave her a slightly better grasp on how to bring down the final Boss.
As the vines burst through the doors and shattered the windows, the three women wasted no more time. They turned and bolted deeper into the church.
The vines pursued them relentlessly. The core of the organism dragged itself into the Red Church, its sharp thorns scraping against the stone floor and leaving deep gouges in its wake.
The sounds of pursuit grew louder, the rustling of the slithering vines snapping at their heels like a persistent shadow.
A single misstep or moment of hesitation would result in them being caught and devoured.
None of them dared to slow down or look back. Weaving through the church's complex network of stone pillars, they managed to keep their pursuers just a step behind.
Before long, they reached the deepest recesses of the church. There was nowhere left to run.
Beneath the towering vaulted ceiling, the center of the empty hall was packed with the explosives Shen Tan had hidden. Fuses were discreetly woven between the stone pillars—enough to reduce the entire Red Church to rubble.
Just as they came to a halt and the tide of vines threatened to encircle them, Bai Ci’s phone vibrated. It was a message from Shen Jiayi.
[Every last one of those old geezers from the village has entered the church.]
It was a short, blunt warning, entirely in character for Shen Jiayi.
The timing was absolutely perfect.
“They’re in position,” Bai Ci murmured.
All three of them produced their lighters. Upon hearing Bai Ci's signal, they ignited the hidden fuses. Sparks immediately flared, racing along the cords toward the various explosive caches.
The entity might have sensed that something was wrong, but it was already too late.
One, two, three, four, five. The red-handled Shears pierced the “cocoon” visible only through her skill's vision, draining every last drop of Sang Lan II’s fortune.
The probability of a catastrophic accident was cranked up to the absolute limit, stacking entirely onto the final Boss.
Rate on N.U.
