Shade's right hand traced a brilliant streak through the air. The Silver Moon blade tore through the curtain of blood mist and slashed at the woman kissing the ring. But aside from leaving another wound on her forehead, it had no effect at all.
The woman was laughing madly, laughing at the very end of her life. She recited the incantation Shade had failed to hear clearly last time:
"Transformation between positive and negative is the beginning of a new life!"
She put on the ring, and thick smoke immediately rose from her ruined body. Lassoya slowly closed her eyes as her life came to an end.
At that moment, black smoke wrapped around the woman's body. As Shade tried to stop it, he heard the whispers again—the chewing within the black smoke, the curses of countless voices.
He reached out to plunge his hand into the black smoke, wanting to do something, anything. But a boot extended from within the smoke and kicked Shade back down beside the wall.
The black smoke vanished. A young man wearing a white Pebble Ring stood amid the blood mist in the corridor. He rolled his neck, then snapped his fingers behind him.
As steam mist emerged and the sound of a whistle arrived, the Destiny Ring of a Sixth Ring Arcanist flickered behind the man, reflected in Shade's eyes as he sat crookedly against the wall:
"A gender transformation... it can actually do that."
Even the Doctor's desperate final strike had failed to kill the enemy. It was not because they were too weak. At that moment, Shade unexpectedly understood how the man in burgundy formal wear had felt before dying not long ago.
"Yes, the Keeper of Secrets Level relic, the Metamorphosis Ring. While changing one's sex, it replaces the body