Axiang swallowed. He knew that if he rashly asked about the scene he had just witnessed, Xiya might silence him.
But Axiang was still curious, so he asked.
"Is there something wrong with your body?"
The moment he asked, he regretted it, because it was clearly far worse than merely "something wrong." It was like asking a dying person how much longer they could live—utterly foolish.
"Sorry, what I meant was—"
Axiang wanted to explain, but Xiya merely pursed her lips and smiled. She directly removed her gauntlet.
Beneath the silver-white armor was not the slender, fair hand of a young woman, but a mass of flesh on the verge of rotting.
The lump of flesh trembled faintly with each beat of her heart. Soft tentacles crawled across it. Xiya spread her five fingers, and her bones twisted in a bizarre manner. Compared to a human limb, it looked more like the body of some kind of monster.
Within that arm, some kind of pure flame seemed to be burning, rendering the skin transparent and turning the entire palm into a dazzling array of colors.
The marks spread all the way to her upper arm before finally disappearing beneath the armor.
Axiang did not know how much of Xiya's body was still the same as an ordinary person's, but the current situation clearly could not be considered "normal."
Just looking at it made Axiang's scalp go numb. Hallucinations appeared in his vision, and he felt a dizzy spell he had not experienced in many years.
Seeing this, Xiya put her gauntlet back on and patted Axiang on the shoulder.
"Pull yourself together."
Her words helped Axiang calm down somewhat.
"Is that... a wound?"
Axiang hesitated for a moment before asking anyway.
"It's the price."
Xiya answered.
"In this world, the