"All right. I'll bring the things over later."
Lin An nodded, his tone as casual as if he were commenting on the cafeteria food.
Tang Wulin jerked his head up, disbelief filling his eyes.
"You don't have to pay me back, either."
Lin An waved a hand, then suddenly grew serious. He fixed his gaze on Tang Wulin. "But I have one condition."
"These two things have opposing effects. They might harm your body. If you're going to take them, I have to stay beside you and watch."
Tang Wulin froze.
He looked into Lin An's clear eyes, at the rare solemnity on that delicate face.
Warmth surged up from his heart and lodged in his throat, leaving him unable to speak.
"Why... why are you so good to me?"
His voice trembled.
Lin An didn't answer. He simply picked up his juice and took a sip.
He could hardly say, Because the Golden Dragon King Bloodline inside you can make me stronger.
But seeing Tang Wulin's eyes red and on the verge of tears, he sighed inwardly.
Level twelve already.
He had thought Tang Wulin wouldn't break the seal until level twenty. He hadn't expected his bloodline to erupt so soon.
If something went wrong, the Golden Dragon King Bloodline he had been counting on would be gone.
He also knew Tang San's divine consciousness lay dormant inside Tang Wulin.
Though that God King was no longer in the Divine Realm, no one knew how deep his contingency plans ran.
Lin An glanced at Gu Yue.
Gu Yue was pouting in displeasure, but she said nothing.
She stabbed viciously at the cutlet in her bowl with her chopsticks, poking the Red Flame Python meat full of holes.
"Hmph."
A cold snort escaped her nose.
He bought Tang Wulin things, waived the repayment, and insisted on staying by his side to watch over him.
Even she had never been treated like that.
The Dragon Queen was being far too good to this mortal who had stolen the Golden Dragon King Bloodline.
Eastsea Academy, in a dim office.
Chen Mo sat behind his desk.
Behind his gold-rimmed glasses, his eyes were deeply sunken. His face was gray as a sheet of paper that had been crumpled and smoothed out again.
He broke into a violent coughing fit.
He covered his mouth with a handkerchief, his shoulders shaking.
When he pulled it away, a dark red stain had spread across the white cloth.
Ever since his mental intrusion had failed yesterday, he had felt as though he were cursed.
His Soul Power moved sluggishly through his meridians.
It felt as if something were crawling through his blood.
Tiny lumps had risen beneath his skin. They were hard to the touch and burned when pressed.
And something was always watching him.
It wasn't his imagination.
High above, that cold gaze had never shifted away.
Like a sword suspended over his head, it neither fell nor left, silently holding the entire city in its sights.
Chen Mo coughed up another mouthful of blood.
With a trembling hand, he pulled a specialized communicator from deep inside a drawer.
He pressed the button.
The connection went through.
A projection appeared.
It showed a woman, her face blurred beyond recognition.
Her voice was hoarse and cold, like broken glass scraping over stone.
"Chen Mo... you failed."
There was no anger in her voice.
That made it all the more terrifying.
"Do you have any idea how much your failure has cost the Holy Spirit Cult?"
"Lord Leng!"
Chen Mo spoke urgently, his voice shrill with fear.
"The target's mental defenses were far stronger than expected!"
"And someone is protecting him—that silver-haired girl is no ordinary person!"
"She's at least a Titled Douluo. No, stronger!"
He remembered Gu Yue's purple eyes suddenly narrowing into vertical pupils.
He remembered the arm that had pierced his projection in the dream.
That will, capable of crushing everything, could not belong to an ordinary Titled Douluo.
"I suspect... she isn't human."
Leng Yulai fell silent for a moment.
Chen Mo seized the chance, speaking rapidly as if grasping at his last hope of survival.
"And the boy himself... his luck is unnaturally strong!"
"It's as if fate itself is protecting him!"
"Universal Group rose out of nowhere these past few years, swelling from a small trading company into a giant. In my opinion, it's all because he was born!"
He gasped for breath. Fresh blood stained his handkerchief.
"Those technologies... soul-guided forging machines, nuclear fusion power, Soul Spirit artificial intelligence... none of them belong in this era!"
"If we can control him, the Holy Spirit Cult's grand cause—"
"Enough."
Leng Yulai's voice cut him off.
In the projection, her blurred eyes seemed to turn toward something.
When she spoke again, there was the faintest trace of a sigh in her voice.
"You alerted that mecha."
Chen Mo went rigid.
"From the moment you exposed yourself, escape was impossible."
Leng Yulai sounded as calm as if she were stating a mathematical theorem.
"It hasn't acted yet because it's waiting—waiting for you to draw out more."
Cold shot up Chen Mo's spine, numbing his limbs.
"M-my lord! Save me!"
Chen Mo's voice cracked into a shriek.
He shot to his feet and braced both hands against the desk, veins bulging on their backs.
"I'm terribly sick!"
"These lumps... they're devouring my Soul Power!"
"Please, get me out of Eastsea City! I can still serve the Holy Spirit Cult—"
His words stopped abruptly.
As if someone had seized him by the throat.
Chen Mo's body began to convulse violently.
The lumps beneath his skin writhed and swelled like living things.
Veins bulged one by one, spreading from his neck to his cheeks like countless twisted worms burrowing beneath his skin.
He opened his mouth wide but made no sound.
Then—
He vomited blood in great gushes.
Dark red blood poured from his mouth, nose, and eyes.
Mixed with fragments of ruptured organs, it splattered across the desk and soaked the stack of purchase orders he had yet to approve.
At the same time, an indescribably terrifying will descended through the communication link.
Space began to warp.
The water glass on the desk shattered soundlessly.
Its fragments hung in midair before an invisible force ground them to dust.
Even the light bent, casting strange, distorted shadows.
A blurred woman's figure slowly coalesced from the warped space.
A long platinum gown.
Pink-purple hair cascading like a waterfall.
Her blood-red pupils reflected the wails and struggles of countless lost souls.
It was only a projection.
Yet it radiated a pressure that made the soul tremble.
The walls cracked, fissures spreading like spiderwebs.
A cold, ghostly light shone through every crevice.
Chen Mo's body crumpled without a sound.
Like a skin emptied of its supporting frame, he slid limply to the floor with a dull thud.
His eyes remained open, but his pupils had lost focus, reflecting the pallid ceiling light.
His soul had been utterly erased.
Not even a trace remained.
Shadow Brake slowly turned her gaze to the specialized communicator.
Leng Yulai's projection was still there, but it now flickered violently, like a candle in the wind.
"Your designation is... Shadow Brake, isn't it?"
Leng Yulai spoke again, no longer sounding so superior.
"Do you want to recover your memories of the past?"
Shadow Brake did not answer.
Her blood-red pupils watched the projection in silence, streams of data cascading through them.
"You were once an ancient deity worshiped by the Holy Spirit Cult."
Leng Yulai's voice turned coaxing.
"But Universal Group brainwashed you and uses you as a tool."
"And now you've fallen so low that you protect some wet-behind-the-ears boy... How pitiful. How tragic!"
Before you continue