She stepped on my chest barefoot: "You are mine, you're not allowed to run."

The wind speed was roughly three hundred kilometers per hour.

Chen Mo was flown through the air by Android 18 gripping the back of his collar, his entire face being blown into all sorts of shapes.

His lips flipped inside out, his eyelids tugged toward either side.

Androids did not need to consider passenger comfort.

He had tried struggling.

Android 18 pinched the back of his collar with two fingers, the force so precise that it was just enough not to strangle him—but there was no way he could break free by even half an inch.

He had tried talking. The wind was too strong.

The moment he opened his mouth, cold wind poured straight into his lungs.

He gave up.

He hung from Android 18's hand like a tattered flag, fluttering in the wind.

They flew for about twenty minutes.

The ground changed from scorched plains to hills. Farther north, the outline of a city appeared.

It was the ruins of a city.

Android 18 slowed down.

She began descending, passing through a belt of dead forest before stopping in front of a shopping mall with half of it collapsed.

Then she let go.

Chen Mo went into freefall.

He dropped from three meters up onto the gravel-strewn ground.

He landed on his butt. A splitting pain shot through his tailbone.

"You could've warned me in advance." Chen Mo rose to his feet, baring his teeth.

Android 18 landed lightly in front of him.

Her toes touched down first, without making a sound.

There wasn't even any air pressure.

"We're here."

Chen Mo rubbed his lower back and looked around.

This city had been destroyed thoroughly.

Every building had collapsed, with rubble and broken rebar scattered everywhere.

But it had been destroyed differently from West City.

West City had been blasted by energy waves, leaving scorch marks from intense heat everywhere.

There were none here.

The buildings here looked as though they had been smashed apart by something.

Many of the walls had penetrating holes two or three meters across.

Entire walls had been punched through from one side to the other by something.

And there was something very wrong on the ground.

Slime.

Dried, yellowish-green slime.

It covered the rubble and dirt, completely dried out like a layer of skin.

Chen Mo crouched down.

The smell was awful.

The stench of rotting organic matter was mixed with the pungent reek of chemicals.

His hands began to tremble.

"Why did you bring me here?"

"To see something." Android 18 walked ahead. "Keep up."

Chen Mo followed her through the ruins of several collapsed buildings. The slime traces grew denser and denser.

In some places, the rubble was completely covered in slime, and the soles of their shoes stuck when they stepped on it.

They entered a broad street.

There was a massive pit in the middle of it.

It was irregularly shaped, its edges curled outward, as if some enormous creature had burrowed up from underground and left it behind.

The walls of the pit were also covered in that layer of yellowish-green slime.

Android 18 stopped at the edge of the pit.

"Look."

She lifted her chin and pointed to the other side of the pit.

Chen Mo walked around.

Then he saw it.

It was a shell.

Transparent. Huge. Humanoid.

More precisely, it was a shed skin.

Like a cicada's molt, it had perfectly retained the shape of the original creature. About 1.7 meters tall.

A slit ran down its back from top to bottom.

Its head had two large, round eye sockets.

Clear segmented patterns covered its torso.

Its tail had a long, hollow tubular structure.

Chen Mo's heartbeat quickened.

He recognized that shape.

Cell. The shell left behind when his first form evolved into his second form.

He had seen it in the anime. He had seen it in the manga.

Now it stood right before him. A real object. Real. Still covered in undried mucus and reeking of decay.

But that was impossible.

Cell in this timeline should still have been in the incubation tank. He should still have been an embryo.

The incubation tank had been moved away two years ago. Even with accelerated growth—

No.

Chen Mo's mind began to race.

"Do you know it?" Android 18 spoke behind him.

"...I do."

"Explain."

Chen Mo did not answer immediately.

He crouched down, moved closer to the shed shell, and examined it carefully.

Parts of its surface were still wet. It had not dried completely.

The stench of mucus was so thick at close range that it could make someone pass out.

This molt had happened less than a week ago.

"You told me before." Android 18 walked over to his side and looked at the shell as well. "Dr. Gero created something called Cell. It was meant to absorb Android 17 and me."

"Android 17 and I went to the lab. The incubation tank was gone. I thought someone had moved it."

"Three days ago, I passed through this city and found this."

She lowered her head to look at the transparent empty shell.

"This is Cell?"

"Not exactly." Chen Mo stood up.

"Explain clearly."

Chen Mo took a deep breath.

"Even if the incubation tank from this time had been moved elsewhere, Cell couldn't have grown to the point of needing to molt within two years at a normal rate of development."

"So?"

Chen Mo looked at the shell. At the hollow tubular structure on its tail.

That was the organ Cell used to absorb androids.

In the original story, Android 17 had been sucked in through that very thing.

"So this Cell may not be from this timeline."

Android 18 turned to look at him.

"Go on."

"There's something called a time machine. It can travel to different timelines." Chen Mo chose his words carefully. "Cell from another timeline killed Trunks from that timeline and stole the time machine. Then he traveled here—to our timeline."

"After arriving here, it needed to molt and evolve. This shell was what it left behind when it evolved from its first form into its second form."

Android 18 was silent for three seconds.

"You mean there's a monster from another timeline that traveled into ours."

"Maybe."

"Its goal is to absorb me and Android 17."

"Maybe."

"Now it's already evolved once."

"Maybe."

"What about the incubation tank in that lab? What about the embryo?"

Chen Mo thought for a moment. "Two possibilities. First, Trunks really did destroy the incubation tank beforehand. Second..."

He paused.

"Second, this Cell that came through time destroyed it. It wouldn't allow another version of itself to exist."

Android 18 said nothing.

The wind swept through the ruins. That shed shell swayed in the breeze.

Its transparent carapace reflected the setting sun, looking like a massive cicada molt on display.

"It's in its second form now?"

"Yes."

"How strong is it?"

"Stronger than you alone," Chen Mo said. "But weaker than you and Android 17 working together."

"What if it absorbs Android 17?"

"Then it becomes Semi-Perfect. Much stronger than you. Then it'll come for you, absorb you, and reach its Perfect Form."

"How strong is the Perfect Form?"

Chen Mo hesitated for a second.

"Stronger than all three of you combined."

Android 18's expression did not change.

"You knew all this." Android 18's voice suddenly went flat—a kind of flatness more unsettling than coldness. "You knew a year ago."

"Yes."

"You knew something was coming to absorb me. You knew it was dangerous. You knew everything."

"And then you went off and trained for a year."

"You trained for a year. What's your power level?"

"...One hundred."

"One hundred." Android 18 repeated the number.

"Cell's second form has an estimated power level of at least two billion. You're at one hundred. How were you planning to help? By using your head?"

Chen Mo said nothing.

Because she was right. There was no way to answer that.

Android 18 walked up to him.

Her hand pressed down on his shoulder.

Chen Mo was forced to his knees on the rubble-strewn ground.

The strength of one of Android 18's hands was enough to keep him in any position she wanted.

She bent down and took off her shoes.

Left foot, right foot. Both sneakers were kicked onto a pile of rubble beside them.

Her feet were white. Very white.

Her toes were slender, her nails a pale pink.

One bare foot rose and stepped onto Chen Mo's chest.

The pressure was very light.

Pinned beneath her foot, Chen Mo fell backward onto the rubble-strewn ground.

The back of his head struck a chunk of concrete, and pain flashed before his eyes.

Android 18's foot rested in the center of his chest.

The sole felt cool, her skin smooth.

With his power level of one hundred, beneath that foot, he was no different from a decoration.

"You keep running." Android 18 looked down at him. Her short blonde hair hung down, obscuring half her face and revealing only one icy blue eye.

"The first time we met, you ran."

Her toes shifted slightly against his chest.

"The second time, outside the shelter, you ran too."

The pressure beneath her foot increased slightly. Chen Mo's chest was compressed, and his breathing hitched for half a beat.

"Just now, in the air, you ran again."

"Did you think you could outrun me?"

"I couldn't." Chen Mo's voice was muffled beneath the pressure.

"You knew you couldn't, and you still ran?"

"Instinct."

"Your instincts are bad," Android 18 said. "Fix them."

Her foot slid from his chest to his chin.

Her toes pressed against his chin, forcing him to lift his head and lock eyes with her.

"From now on, you're not allowed to run."

"If you run once, I'll blow up a city."

"There aren't many cities left on Earth—"

Her toes pressed down a little harder. Chen Mo's words were forced back down his throat.

"Then I'll blow up a shelter," Android 18 said.

"That supermarket basement you stayed in before had dozens of people inside. What was it called again? Old Zhang? And there was a woman too."

Chen Mo narrowed his eyes.

She remembered. She remembered everything.

"You don't need to look at me like that." Android 18 withdrew her foot from his chin and planted it back on his chest. "I'm just telling you the rules."

"You're mine. Don't run around."

[Target emotional fluctuation detected: possessiveness (extremely strong) + sense of control (strong) + obsession (moderate). Emotion Points +95.]

[Current Emotion Points: 95/500.]

Chen Mo lay on the ground.

Broken stones pressed into his back, while a bare foot rested on his chest.

Above him was a face so exquisite it hardly seemed human.

He was afraid.

But the system told him that Android 18's strongest emotion right now was not killing intent.

It was possessiveness.

An artificial human regarded as a monster by the entire world.

She had been created for slaughter.

No one cared what her name was, who she had once been, or whether she had wanted to become this way.

Then, out of nowhere, a human appeared.

He knew her name. He knew her past. He knew something was coming to kill her. He was even trying to figure out a way to deal with it for her.

She didn't want to kill him. She wanted to clench him in the palm of her hand.

The kind that wouldn't let go even if she crushed him to death.

"Fine," Chen Mo said. "I won't run."

Android 18 stared at him for two seconds.

"You agreed too quickly. I don't believe you."

"Because your foot is on my chest. My bargaining room is zero."

The corner of Android 18's mouth curved upward.

She was smiling.

Android 18 removed her foot from his chest and crouched beside him.

Her posture was casual, one hand resting on her knee as she tilted her head and looked at him.

"About Cell," Android 18 said. "Where is it now?"

"Not sure." Chen Mo sat up from the ground and rubbed his aching breastbone. "But its shed shell is here. That means it was active around here at least."

"Can it find us?"

"You don't have ki. Ordinary ki detectors can't find you." Chen Mo thought for a moment. "But Cell is different. Dr. Gero implanted a cellular database into it. It can sense the electromagnetic signatures of the perpetual energy engines inside you. Same basic principle as this detector of mine."

He patted the detector in his backpack.

Android 18's expression changed.

"It can track us?"

"In theory."

"Then your device can track it too?"

"It has a bio-energy signal. It should be able to. But I need to confirm its energy frequency."

"Check now."

Chen Mo pulled out the scanner and switched it on. The screen lit up.

He scanned the area.

Android 17's signal was to the northwest, over six hundred kilometers away.

Android 16's signal was in the east, stationary.

Android 18's signal was right in front of him, so close that it appeared as an overlapping point of light on the screen.

Then he switched to life-energy detection mode.

Many more tiny points of light appeared on the screen—the survivors scattered in every direction.

Among them was one point of light.

It was north-northeast.

About two hundred kilometers away.

That point's energy reading was abnormally high.

And it was moving.

Slowly, it moved south.

Toward them.

Chen Mo's fingers paused.

"What is it?" Android 18 noticed his expression.

Chen Mo handed her the scanner.

"North-northeast. Two hundred kilometers."

Android 18 took the scanner. She glanced at the screen.

Her expression did not change.

But she stood up.

"Two hundred kilometers," she said. "It's getting closer."

"Yeah."

Android 18 tossed the scanner back to him. Chen Mo caught it in a fluster.

"Android 17 is northwest. Six hundred kilometers away," Android 18 said. "We need to meet up with him first."

She bent down, picked up the shoes she had thrown onto the pile of rubble, and put them on.

Then she looked back at Chen Mo.

"You fly too slowly."

"At full speed, I can do around a thousand."

"Too slow."

She walked over and grabbed the back of his collar again.

"Wait. Can you carry me differently? Last time you held me like this for twenty minutes, and my neck almost snapped."

Android 18 gave him a look.

Then she changed her grip.

One arm wrapped around his waist, tucking him beneath her armpit.

Like she was carrying a bag.

"Like this?"

"...That's not much better."

Android 18 ignored him.

She pushed off the ground and shot into the sky with Chen Mo.

She flew even faster than before. The wind shrieked so sharply that he could hear nothing else.

Clamped beneath her arm, Chen Mo's face pressed against her side. The denim vest brushed against his cheek.

He twisted around to look behind them.

The sun had completely set. That ruined city had shrunk into a gray speck in the darkness.

That shed shell was still there.

The transparent empty husk stood alone in the deserted street.

Like a warning.

And two hundred kilometers away, the thing that had crawled out of its shell was heading south.

Back in the direction they had come from.

Chen Mo closed his eyes.

Before Cell found Android 17 or Android 18, he had to become stronger.

Ultra Divine Water.

The Ultra Divine Water atop Korin Tower.

Ultra Divine Water with a ninety-three percent mortality rate.

"Android 18," Chen Mo shouted into the wind.

"What?"

"Before we go find Android 17, I need to go somewhere first."

"Where?"

"Korin Tower."

Android 18's flying speed did not change.

But she lowered her head and glanced at him.

"What for?"

"To drink something," Chen Mo said. "It might make me much stronger. Or it might poison me to death."

Android 18 fell silent for two seconds.

Then her arm tightened. The force with which she held him increased slightly.

"I told you already."

Her voice came down from above, shredded somewhat by the wind, but every word was clear.

"You belong to me. You're not allowed to die."