Dragon (Thanks to Buqi Shixian, the Alliance Leader)

The first thing to crawl out was a battered electric scooter. Beneath its shattered plastic shell, the wheels twisted as if shedding bloody tears, sparks splattering everywhere.

Twitching and trembling, two fingers formed from wheel spokes poked out from the distorted steel. Two arms, one long and one short, lifted up and began to crawl across the ground like a dog!

Half a face, composed of a warped LCD screen, was filled with scarlet madness.

It opened its mouth, spat out thick smoke, and roared.

It lunged!

Close behind came the second, then the third. One electric scooter after another, amidst the trembling and thick smoke, turned into bizarre creatures with twisted limbs. They crawled forward recklessly, pouncing onto Lawrence, opening their mouths to bite, pulling with their arms, and discharging electricity!

Then came the roar of automobiles. As their shattered shells were cast aside, bodies like those of wild oxen or elephants charged forward, slamming into the wriggling monsters, crushing them, engines roaring, spewing thick smoke!

They were like giant spiders, or perhaps eerie, gargantuan birds.

Those furious, steel-clad forms composed of gears and machinery screamed, converging into a tide, trampling and squeezing one another. One after another, they climbed up, nearly burying the mutated Lawrence entirely.

"Damn it, what are these things!"

The deformed monster roared, its two limbs sweeping out, tearing apart the machines climbing on it with ease. That eerie Heavenly Craft Long Blade - Evening Darkness slashed out, cutting through them like a hot knife through butter, unstoppable.

Mere trifles!

Yet beneath the Giant Tree, Ji Jue simply raised his hands, slowly closing them, and issued the first command to his creations:

[Aggregate]!

In an instant, countless sounds of grinding steel erupted once more. Hundreds upon hundreds of complex machines gathered in one place. Whether they were fragments or intact frames, they now connected, interlocked, and riveted together like living things, forming a massive, unprecedented aggregate.

Ji Jue's vision blackened.

He reached out his hand again and clenched it!

Instantly, from the torn machinery, brand-new structures grew. Limbs composed of embedded electric scooters, motorcycles, computers, telephones, and lawnmowers wriggled, suddenly contracting and binding. Then came the second, then the third.

On the constantly changing mechanical structure, venomous and pained faces emerged, roaring at the top of their lungs, thick smoke billowing.

In an instant, they actually suppressed Lawrence beneath them.

They opened their mouths and bit down!

Blood splattered.

Devouring flesh, tasting viscera, chewing bone—this hearty, unrestrained gluttony made them seem even more like monsters than the monster himself. Lawrence roared and struggled, but for some reason, he felt an unprecedented, intense sensation from the gaze of that face.

A sensation called... fear!

"Get off!"

Evening Darkness swept out, only to come to an abrupt halt.

It had been caught?!

It was Minerva!

She let the blade slice into her palm, her five fingers slowly contracting. Amidst the crisp sound of crystal proliferation, the blade wailed and shook violently, then... snapped right down the middle!

The Heavenly Craft was shattered!

And then, came the trampling!

"Is this what you call a dragon?"

Wen Wen stepped on his head, shaking it with disdain: "It's just... too weak!"

"Pah..."

Lawrence, deeply bitten while in the mud, struggled to open his mouth and spat at her, roaring: "You're too hypocritical, Minerva, too ridiculous.

The Wasteland Ruins Path you follow is inherently the trail left behind by dragons! Aren't your pursuits the same as mine? Why the pretense!"

"You are obsessed with phantoms, pinning all your hopes on something you have never seen, not realizing..."

Wen Wen remained silent, not speaking, only staring. Her expressionless face held only deepening frost, "--that thing, which doesn't even count as human, will never answer your prayers!"

From the deathly silence, a high-pitched, sharp sound rang out.

It was right behind her.

Crystals ground, proliferated, and grew, turning into a stone wing reaching toward the sky, blotting out the sun, covering everything, and shrouding the earth in a dreamlike, indifferent light.

Lawrence was struck as if by lightning.

Eyeballs opened in terror from within the shredded flesh, blinking constantly, trying to discern if this was yet another vicious illusion or a hallucination of his own, but no matter what, he found it hard to believe.

"You, you... you!"

The voice grew increasingly shrill and sharp, as if he were being swallowed by a nightmare.

He witnessed with his own eyes everything happening to Wen Wen—it was not just blood, nor was it just flesh, nor was it just a body; even her soul was completely revealing its true form.

Cold, solemn, brutal, and vast...

That was a Dragonification even more thorough than his own!!!

"What's wrong? Isn't this what you've been chasing, Lawrence?"

Wen Wen spoke, her indifferent voice turning into thunder that resonated across the heavens, echoing within the Realm of Encirclement: "Consider this my final mercy... let you die at the hands of the thing you have been chasing!"

"Consider it a death well-deserved!"

BOOM!!!

As she reached out her hand once more toward the sky, what descended was a ten-thousand-foot bolt of thunder. The radiance of the entire world converged between her five fingers, turning into a crystalline long spear so dazzling it was impossible to gaze upon.

This was Dragon's Breath!

[Destruction] manifested in material form!

In that final moment, Lawrence opened his mouth as if to shout something—a curse or perhaps a plea—but it no longer mattered. No one cared.

Parasites, blood, fungal strains, monsters, the remnants of bitterness and despair, and even the unrealistic dream of becoming a dragon.

Everything was submerged in the dragon's breath.

Silence.

Only the Blazing Light that seared all eyes flashed and vanished.

A storm erupted, ash rose to the firmament, and countless wriggling scarlet Aberrant Spirit Essences evaporated and disappeared. The Giant Tree fell apart, collapsed, and turned into a phantom.

Except for the Big Pit where not even charred remains existed, no trace remained.

One could not even find fragments of the explosion or shredded remains.

A portion of matter had vanished from the mortal world forever; not even a single particle was left behind.

This was the power of the dragon.

In the long, deathly silence, Wen Wen stood before the deep pit, the giant wings behind her having vanished without a trace.

"Phew, this is why I didn't want them to come and help."

She whispered, Sighed, tilted her head to look behind her, and grinned: "Hey, Ji Jue, remember to keep my sec..."

Her words came to an abrupt halt, her smile freezing on her face.

Perhaps she didn't need to worry about anyone leaking this secret anymore.

Amidst the ruins and the blood-stained Mud Pit, Ji Jue sat slumped on the ground, gasping for air with great difficulty, looking utterly wretched.

And right there on his body, the residual Dragon Blood was still slowly spreading, corrupting his flesh, twisting his physique, and growing a layer of eerie scales, gradually stealing the human luster from his eyes.

Sin Corruption.

The mutation that made the Chosen One turn pale at the mere mention was spreading, and he was on the verge of death.

Yet, he seemed completely indifferent, even though he had long since reached his limit.

"What's wrong, Wen Jie?"

Ji Jue raised his head, a difficult smile appearing on his dust-and-mud-covered face: "Did I... accomplish something today?"

"..."

The shock was sudden. Wen Wen remained silent, but she suddenly recalled the words they had exchanged when they said goodbye yesterday. She remembered the boy's smile then, and how it was just as resolute and calm as it was now.

"Yes, that's right."

She reached out, solemnly wiped the dust from Ji Jue's face, and told him: "Knowing you has been my honor."

"Huh?"

Ji Jue froze, his face blank, terrified that Wen Wen's next sentence would be, 'I see you still have some charm left in you.'

But immediately after, he saw Wen Wen stand up sternly, take a step back, and raise her hand once more, gripping the crystalline Spear of Thunder that had fallen from the sky, aiming it at her own face.

"Don't worry, I won't let you feel any pain."

Her eyes seemed slightly red as she asked softly: "Do you have any last wishes?"

"Damn it, don't!"

Ji Jue's face turned white with fright, and he screamed in terror: "I think I can still be saved!"

Big Sister, what are you doing? I thought you were just after my body, I didn't expect you to go straight for my life!

"There is no need to lie to me anymore, Ji Jue. Once Sin Corruption begins, both soul and body will collapse in agony." Wen Wen took a deep breath, her trembling palm regaining its stability: "Rest assured, I will preserve your dignity as a human being."

"I can have dignity while I'm alive too, Big Sister! I've just lost too much blood, don't scare me like this!"

Ji Jue could no longer afford to play dead. He frantically clicked on the prompt box that popped up on his Wristwatch: [Internal active Aberrant Spirit Essence detected. Extract?]

Yes! Yes! Yes!!!

Hurry the hell up and extract it for me!!!!

And so, a crisp cracking sound rang out. From Ji Jue's body, all the spreading corruption and the scales that had grown out shattered completely, turning into dust and dissipating without a trace.

The irreversible mutation vanished in an instant.

"..."

In the silence, Wen Wen stood frozen in place, staring blankly at everything that had just happened. For a long time, she almost forgot she was still clutching the Dragon's Breath in her hand.

Only the awkwardness grew exponentially with every passing second.

"Huh?"

After a long while, she spoke in a voice like a sleepwalker, dazed as a cat that had lost its way.

Who am I? Where am I? What just happened?

Did I just see someone's signs of Sin Corruption recede and vanish? This is the kind of thing that would shatter the worldview of those lunatics at the hospital if it ever got out, and I have absolutely no fucking clue about it!

So, what was I doing just now?

She suddenly felt a strong urge to look in a mirror to see if there was a little red ball on her nose.

You bastard, give me back the tears I was about to shed!

And...

Is it still too late to silence you?

With that, her gaze grew increasingly dangerous.

"Wen Jie, don't be like this, I still have family!" Ji Jue's tears were practically falling. "Spare my pathetic life. I'm good at my work and I'm not clingy; my service is top-notch. It would be such a waste to let me go cold now!"

Bang!

The exasperated Dragon Breath Spear grazed Ji Jue's neck and slammed into the masonry beside him, leaving behind a shocking crack.

"..."

Wen Wen grabbed him by the collar and warned him, enunciating every word: "If you want to see tomorrow's sun, bury everything about what happened to me and your ability to reverse Sin Corruption deep in your gut. Don't tell a soul, not even in your sleep, understand?!"

"Huh? Ah?! You aren't plotting against my bo... cough cough, alright, no problem." Ji Jue nodded frantically, wishing he could shake his brains out. "I bumped into something and passed out, I don't know anything!"

"Very good."

Wen Wen nodded, her smile turning gentle. She straightened his collar and patted it twice. "So you bumped into something by accident, did you? Is your head alright?"

"Huh?"

Ji Jue was dumbfounded. He instinctively wanted to say something, but the last thing he saw was Wen Wen's raised fist—small, delicate, and cute, showing no hint of how many people's lives it had claimed.

And then...

Bang!

After experiencing the Vortex Implantation Technique, Spiritual Substance erosion, a desperate nightmare, the Chosen Ceremony, a life-or-death counter-kill, and surviving a great disaster, Ji Jue's vision blackened, and he completely checked out.

'Cause of death': Friendly fire.

They didn't even turn off friendly fire; reality really is a shitty game.