Chapter 478: Dark Impurities

For ordinary humans, such corruption was a more agonizing pain than physical death. But for beastmen or those who dealt with full moon transformations, dark impurities were far more deadly.

A beastman’s transformation essentially gave them "another soul." It was a delicate, sacred duality: the human mind and the primal beast, coexisting in a fragile equilibrium.

Right now, Lilianna’s very soul was being eaten alive by these dark impurities.

The corruption crept through her spiritual pathways, heavy and suffocating. As time passed, it surrounded her until she couldn’t see anything but pitch-black nothingness.

There was no sky, no floor, no light, no nothing in Lilianna’s spiritual realm. The only thing that existed in this absolute void. The floor was made of thin water that seemed to glow a little when disturbed but otherwise reflected the endless darkness.

One of those things that glowed was the single water pool that seemed to be the direct reflection of what Salia was currently seeing through her stolen eyes.

It was a cruel, twisted window.

Because it made Lilianna realize that she was a prisoner in her own body, forced to watch the monstrous insectoid move her flesh like a puppet.

It made Lilianna even more depressed the more she watched. It made her realize she couldn’t do anything about this situation.

Not only could she not move her limbs, but she also couldn’t even look away from it. She couldn’t look at anything anymore aside from this horrifying reality.

This is it, she thought. This is my punishment.

A mandatory sentence to face the consequences of her actions.

No matter how much she sobbed, no matter how the tears trickled down her spiritual face, no matter how much she curled, hugging herself to a ball, no one would comfort her here.

No one here would reach into the dark to hold her hand. No matter how much she screamed and cried, no one would hear her. She didn’t even have a way to kill herself aside from succumbing to the dark impurities.

But if she really did, that would be her biggest sin.

The silence of the void was deafening, a thick, heavy blanket that smothered her every sound.

Help me... someone, please, just kill me... make it stop...

But as usual, her whispers faded into the void.

Just as Lilianna was about to close her eyes, to give up the last resistance and completely resign to her fate to be swallowed and disappear into the darkness, a violent jolt shook the reflection.

Salia let out a harsh, grating shriek through Lilianna’s stolen mouthparts.

"MAXWELL!" Salia shouted, the surname spat out utter hatred that vibrated through Lilianna’s soul.

The raw fury in Salia’s voice forced Lilianna’s eyes open. She forced herself to look through the window one last time.

Sure enough, not too far away was Grayson. He was coldly aiming his plasma pistol directly at her—at Salia. If Grayson fired another one, it would be a surefire shot that would turn her chest into a smoking crater.

"GRAYSON!" Lilianna shrieked, a high, piercing.

She lunged forward, her phantom hands clawing frantically at the reflection in the water.

Scratch! Scratch!

Her nails tore at the edges of the image, desperate to break through the glass. As if her actions would make him look at her, to make him realize she was still inside.

But all her frantic scratching did was blur the feed, the impurities rippling across the screen like oil on water, distorting Grayson’s face into a shifting, mocking mirth.

"My mom—! Grayson, get my mom—please! Save her, save my mom, I—!"

The words poured out of her in a broken, desperate. She poured every single fragment of her remaining consciousness into that plea, hoping that some miracle would happen.

But as the words left her, she also knew, albeit with a bitter, soul-crushing certainty, how utterly pathetic she was acting.

She should have been screaming for Grayson to kill Salia. She should have acted like a proud soldier. She should’ve asked Grayson to put her body down for the good of everyone and eliminate the threat of the zerg that was using her body.

But instead, she still shamelessly begged Grayson to go save her mother. Even at the brink of her own dissipating existence, she remained selfish.

She clung to the hope of saving the only person who had ever truly loved her without a contract or an expectation.

Please... she has nothing to do with this... don’t let them take her life too...

Then the feed created another ripple. Grayson was about to pull the trigger a second time.

Lilianna’s hands fell away from the feed. She had no more strength to hand on. Her spiritual body felt heavier as the dark impurities rose to her chin, cold and viscous.

It didn’t matter either way.

Nothing mattered anymore.

No one would be able to hear her.

No one.

The world seemed to have quieted as Lilianna closed her eyes.

.

.

.

Or so Lilianna thought.

Because of some miracle, Ciel, who had been meekly biding his time, answered her pleas.

His senses had narrowed to a focus as he controlled his whole rabbit semi-transformed body to its finest. Every twitching muscle fiber was tuned to perfect, absolute precision.

His elongated ears, soft but hyper-sensitive, were trying to feel the movements around him. His eyes, turned a deep, gleaming ruby against the filtered moonlight, locked onto the target.

Thump-thump. Thump-thump.

His internal rhythm was incredibly fast, but outwardly, he was like a statue. No one, not even Grayson, who had already divided his attention among three things, noticed that Ciel had already gone from his original standing point to another.

Ciel didn’t just move; he practically dissolved into the shadows. Every movement of his was too fast, skipping across the ground like there wasn’t debris falling all over the place.

The noise of his movements matched the timing of the noise around, making it seem like he didn’t make a single bit of noise.

From his new vantage point, Ciel carefully watched Keres’s every movement.