Chapter 65: A Second Personality

Deep within the forest, the instant those crimson eyes fully opened, the gray silver mist filling the surroundings seemed to be pulled by some invisible force and began surging wildly in a single direction.

Leaves and broken branches were swept into the air by an unseen current, and immediately afterward, an enormous figure almost completely fused with the shadows slowly emerged from behind the collapsed trees.

Victor finally saw it clearly. Its pitch black body was nearly four meters long and crouched extremely low, while its silhouette resembled a panther but was far more elongated than that of any ordinary feline.

A row of gray black bone spikes curved backward along its spine, while silver markings resembling scattered stars continuously appeared around its chest.

However, those markings possessed none of the pure brilliance of Leah’s astral mana. They looked like starlight soaked in ink, and every flicker released an extremely uncomfortable mental fluctuation into the surroundings.

[Star Devouring Shadow Beast.]

[Level: 34.]

[Life Tier: Second Life Tier.]

[Species: Abyssal Subspecies.]

[Current Status: Enhanced by Abyssal and Contaminated Astral Energy, Extremely Hungry.]

The truly troublesome aspect of the beast before him had never been its physical power alone, but its almost specialized ability to corrode astral, mental, and soul based powers.

More importantly, this entire area had been deliberately turned into a contamination zone, so the danger it could currently pose absolutely could not be judged by the number thirty four alone, especially with abyssal and contaminated astral energy enhancing it.

And it was not looking at Victor or Albert. From the moment it appeared, those crimson eyes had remained locked on "Elena," who stood in front of them.

More accurately...

[Zero Astral Vessel.]

"Grrr..."

An extremely low growl rumbled from deep within the Star Devouring Shadow Beast’s throat as the silver gray markings across the woman’s face became even more pronounced.

"It didn’t come for you," she spoke between breaths. Although that body did not truly need to breathe, the influence of memories and habits still made her maintain the actions a normal human should have. "It’s consuming the astral remnants here. And I..."

She lowered her head and looked at her own body.

"Should be the largest piece here."

Victor gripped the Crimson Flame Fang without answering and quickly stored the silver chip the woman had given him inside his storage ring. He did not know what was inside it, and now was not the time to check.

At that moment, the Star Devouring Shadow Beast moved.

The instant its front paw touched the ground, its enormous body directly merged into the shadow beneath it as though it had vanished from reality itself, leaving only a black trail racing across the ground!

"Careful!"

Albert slammed his staff into the ground.

Boom!

Dozens of golden lines spread outward from him, and an almost transparent mana barrier appeared in front of the three of them at nearly the same instant.

The next second, the shadow appeared.

BANG!!!

The entire forest seemed to have been struck by a massive hammer. The mana barrier shook violently, and countless cracks rapidly spread outward from its center, but even after the Star Devouring Shadow Beast was blasted backward by the recoil, the barrier still did not completely shatter.

This was the most direct difference between a truly high ranking powerhouse and a student, and worst of all, Albert did not even appear to be struggling!

"I’ll hold it back," the vice dean said without turning around. "Take that woman and get out."

"We can’t," the woman quickly spoke up.

Albert frowned. "What do you mean?"

"The Second Isolation Zone has already been sealed."

"By whom?"

"I don’t know." The woman shook her head, then pressed a hand against her temple as though enduring intense pain. "When I woke up, I was underground. After that, someone kept issuing orders through something inside my mind, telling me to find Leah and bring her to Experimental Zone Twelve."

Victor’s gaze sharpened when he caught the word ’Twelve’ because it perfectly matched the keyword they had previously extracted from the residual soul information left behind by the fake Ron.

"Did you obey?"

"At first..." Pain appeared on the woman’s face. "I did. I was the one calling her."

From everything Victor had seen so far, she had clearly begun resisting the commands on her own, and moreover, the memories left behind by the real Elena seemed to be conflicting with the instructions implanted by her creators.

"Why did you stop?"

The woman fell silent for a moment.

"Because she answered."

Victor frowned slightly. "Leah?"

"Yes." The woman looked down at her hands. "Through the astral resonance, she called me..."

Her voice suddenly became very soft.

"Mom."

Just one word, yet her entire body began trembling.

"At that moment, I suddenly didn’t know what I was doing anymore. The command told me to keep luring her here, but my memories told me..."

The woman raised her head, and for the first time, obvious fear appeared in those eyes that looked so much like Leah’s.

"Elena would never do this."

Victor silently stared at her.

At this moment, the situation had become much clearer. This artificial life form was not the real Elena, but whoever had created her had clearly implanted a vast amount of Elena’s memories, and perhaps even fragments of her emotions, into her soul structure.

Those things had originally been included merely to make her resemble "Elena" more closely, yet after she truly came into contact with Leah, they had instead caused her to resist the commands originally implanted within her.

Someone had tried to create the perfect bait, but in the end, the bait itself refused to devour the prey.

Boom!

Another explosion came from the distance. The Star Devouring Shadow Beast gave them no more time to talk.

The silver black markings surrounding its body lit up simultaneously, and the contaminated energy in the air rapidly began gathering toward its mouth.

Albert’s expression darkened.

"Get back!"

He raised his staff, and three magic arrays of different structures instantly unfolded, but just before the attack erupted, the woman’s expression suddenly changed.

"No! It’s not attacking!"

Victor felt it too. The contaminated energy that Mana Devour had been slowly absorbing and breaking down suddenly began flowing faster, but it was not rushing toward Albert.

Instead, it was flowing into the woman!

Buzz!

Her chest suddenly lit up, and a silver gray pattern erupted from the position of her heart before spreading across her entire upper body in an instant. The System’s warning appeared almost simultaneously.

[Warning!]

[Secondary personality within Zero Astral Vessel is activating.]

Upon seeing the grim message, Victor felt a sense of danger rise within him.

The most dangerous thing mentioned in that earlier notification had finally appeared.