Chapter 469: The Only Thing She Could Do

Sarah stood frozen at the edge of the living area with Iris’s hand on her shoulder. A lot of terrible things were happening in front of her at the same time.

The first was Julius.

Sarah knew that it was necessary because this was an emergency. However, the fact that it just took him mere seconds to come up with that decision. Just seconds to decide to fire at the monster wearing his friend’s face, horrified her.

But glancing at the people around her, Sarah realized something. Even if Julius didn’t fire, another person in this living room, aside from Iris and Sarah, would fire at Lilianna, who was in the middle of transforming into a zerg.

Still, seeing their reaction horrified her. At the end of the day, no matter what she transformed into, Lilianna was still Sarah’s sister, their friend.

These reactions made Sarah think that there was something else that she and Iris still didn’t know. Or maybe, they already knew but bided their time.

Thinking like this, Sarah thought that the latter was more plausible.

Sarah looked at the zerg wearing her sister’s face. It was looking at them with bloody red eyes and a stranger’s smile.

Sarah’s eyes couldn’t help but fill with another flood of tears overflowing down her face. Through the blur, she forced herself to look—really look—at the creature in the ballroom. It was to convince herself that that thing wasn’t her sister anymore, but a vile monster.

It was her sister’s face, but it had feathered white wings. Lilianna’s hair that would never be gold again. Her body moved with fluid, boneless, and wrong movements.

Sarah understood, then, all at once, like suddenly getting poured a bucket of ice-cold water.

That this wasn’t her sister anymore.

It wasn’t and wouldn’t be her sister. She refused to acknowledge that thing as her lovely sister.

That ridge of regenerating wing-bone, the bloody red eyes, the voice that wasn’t hers—Lilianna wasn’t going to come back to her human form alive.

And if by some impossible mercy she could come back, if there was a single thread of Lilianna left tangled inside that thing, then Lilianna would have to live forever knowing what her own hands had done.

Knowing that this happened right while their mother was still in danger.

Sarah wasn’t sure which fate was the crueler one.

On the screen, their mother safely got out of the rubble, semi-transformed, but she was still not safe, not by any means.

Then, Sarah looked at Salia, and her expression changed.

She decisively raised her plasma gun.

Even if nobody had told her to.

Even if nobody had given her the order.

Sarah didn’t wait.

BANG!

She mercilessly fired at Salia.

The bolt took Salia high in the chest, a clean burn through the green flesh just under the collarbone.

Salia staggered back a step, more from surprise than damage.

"Ow. What—?"

Salia looked down at the smoking hole, and her expression curdled into piqued interest and anger.

"Do you have any idea how long I waited for a host? Do you know how many bodies I went through just to have this kind of full control?"

Salia’s anger intensified as she said her piece.

"And you just had to put a hole in it the second I move in. Insolent bastard!"

Salia’s head cocked to one side, and her chest hitched, as she spat something.

What came out wasn’t saliva by any means. It was a viscous, yellow-green stream that hissed where it struck the marble. It ate a smoking crater into the floor, and they all scattered.

Sarah, Iris, and Bryan quickly dove behind the heavy oval table as the acid spattered across where they had stood. Iris quickly came up beside Sarah with her eyes blown wide.

Of everyone in the room, Iris would have bet her whole fortune that Sarah would be the very last person to put a bolt through her own sister.

Since knowing that everyone already knew, Iris had braced herself to have a long, convincing talk with Sarah.

She had been rehearsing for a while how she would say it to prevent Sarah from getting in the way of the others and holding her back.

Instead, against all expectations, Sarah had fired first.

"Sarah," Iris started, and didn’t know how to finish.

Sarah loaded the next charge. Her face was dry of expression even as the tears kept coming.

"Iris."

She said in a tone devoid of any emotion, stopping Iris from stepping on eggshells around her.

"Everyone knew just how slim the possibility was for the original owner of the body to get back her own body once a zerg was fully transformed with it."

Her hands trembled while holding the plasma gun on her hand.

"I don’t want my parents to lose another daughter at the same time,"

Sarah’s eyes looked without blinking, directly at Salia. It was the flattest thing Iris had ever heard come out of her.

"If Lily’s gone, fine. Then she’s gone. But Mom’s down there and Dad’s at home. I refuse to let them bury both of us together, leaving them all alone. Not while I can still stop it."

Iris looked at her and felt something tighten in her chest. She had known Sarah for years. And she knew, looking at her now, that she was never going to see that exact smile again.

Iris pursed her lips. She brought up her own weapon, sighted down it at the white-winged thing crouched in the ruined ballroom, and fired alongside her.

It was, somehow, the only thing left she could help Sarah with.

The room ignited in a blur of plasma bolts being fired one after another.

Bryan, who was next to them, came up over the table with a tight, humorless grin and added his fire to theirs.

Across the way, Julius advanced, calm and methodical, supporting the others’ shots to be effective. He walked his bolts up the creature’s flank to keep Salia pinned and almost stuck in the same place.