Not So Good

She choked out, "High Priest, I... I can't do it."

The High Priest looked at him calmly. Nothing of joy or sorrow could be discerned in those eyes behind the silver mask. "If I do it, he'll only suffer more."

In the end, the white stone knife still sliced through the skin, and the blood gradually spread through the mercury pool like a red river.

Vermilion Bird would never forget how it felt that day.

The boiling blood, the warm flesh, Black Tortoise's suppressed agony, and the bloodied, mangled human face.

The mycelia inside Black Tortoise's head mask grew even more active, scrambling to burrow into the blurred flesh.

From that moment on, the Xu Bin of the past vanished completely, never again able to remove his mask.

From then on, there was no Xu Bin in Dawn Tower—only Black Tortoise.

She saw Black Tortoise clutching his head and howling in agony on the ground, madly smashing his head against the floor and walls.

The pain made him destroy everything he could touch.

The High Priest continued watching from the side, carrying the lofty compassion and indifference of one above all others.

"It hurts! Aahhhhh! My head hurts!!!"

"Something's stabbing my face!!"

"It hurts!!!"

"Aaah, kill me! Vermilion Bird, kill me! Kill me!"

"I can't take it anymore! It hurts, it hurts, kill me!!!"

"Kill me!!!!"

Clearly, when Vermilion Bird had cut him, he had still been able to endure the agony of being skinned. Yet once he put on the Black Tortoise mask and the mycelia began invading him, the pain drove him insane.

Vermilion Bird had once witnessed the agony of two other people merging, and she had thought she would never be afraid again.

Yet as she watched Black Tortoise repeatedly smash his head against the ground