Brothers in adversity, life and death in fate's hands

The blue Dump Truck jolted along a narrow road on the outskirts of Prosper City...

The snow had not stopped.

Ever since that thing had been awakened, the snowflakes had grown larger and fallen thicker.

All of Prosper City looked like a kingdom blanketed in ice and snow.

Chen Mo lay motionless in the truck bed, his breathing faint.

The ice spike had left a bloody hole straight through his left shoulder.

The cold had frozen his blood into a ring of dark red ice crystals around the wound.

"Mo? Mr. Chen Mo? Are you still awake?"

Li Xia's voice sounded over the truck's speakers again and again, carrying a deliberately anxious edge.

There was no response...

The truck was frighteningly quiet, with only the squeak of its wheels rolling over fresh snow.

Several more minutes passed, and Li Xia's gentle voice began to tremble.

"Mr. Chen Mo... if you don't answer... I'll... I'll stop the truck..."

The man lying in the truck bed gave no response.

He lay motionless like a corpse, his lips frighteningly white.

Creeeak-

Red Hare Two turned into a dark alley and slowly stopped. Its headlights went out, and its engine shut off.

Another half hour passed. Snow covered the blue Dump Truck, making it blend completely into its surroundings.

"Mr... Chen Mo?"

Li Xia called out tentatively again.

Still, there was only deathly silence.

A wisp of black vapor slowly seeped from the center console, twisting and gathering in the air.

Finally, it formed a black human face the size of a palm.

It was Li Xia!

Li Xia's face stared fixedly at Chen Mo, who lay beyond the passage.

She slowly floated into the truck bed.

She could clearly sense that Chen Mo's presence had grown extremely faint.

A strange power filled with extreme cold emanated from his body.

The transcendent power that made her tremble in fear had almost gone out as well.

As far as she could sense, Chen Mo's current condition was little different from that of an ordinary person on the verge of death.

The black face circled the truck bed a few times, trying to make something out of the man.

The man really seemed to be done for...

The man who had wreaked havoc in Hualian Supermarket, kidnapped her from the Supermarket, and fused her into the Dump Truck was lying right there.

And that donkey, Donkey, who had tortured her mechanical body beyond recognition, was gone too.

Now, only she and this dying man remained.

Li Xia's face slowly began to twist.

Her face twitched, her gaze flickering between fear and greed.

She feared Chen Mo.

She feared him from the depths of her soul.

This man was calm and cruel, willing to do anything to achieve his ends.

He was like a gambler staking his life. So crazed that he terrified everyone.

Li Xia still remembered the way Chen Mo had looked at her, cold and appraising, as though looking at a tool.

She feared that donkey even more.

That vile, wicked donkey.

He could always dream up unheard-of ways to torment her soul.

Now, a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity, one Li Xia had never even dared dream of.

Lay right before her.

As long as she possessed this man's body, she could escape her fate as a tool! She could regain her freedom!

Then there would be no more rules of the Supermarket to bind her, no more oppression from Chen Mo and Red Hare.

She would no longer be an intelligent system anyone could push around!

She could even... inherit the transcendent power remaining in this body and reach new heights!

At that thought, Li Xia's face twisted, and she could no longer keep ecstatic delight from curling her lips.

"You forced me to do this!"

The face formed of black vapor suddenly swelled and lunged at Chen Mo's face!

Meanwhile.

At the other end of Prosper City, in an alley buried in snow.

A black-and-white donkey wore a pair of oversized pink shorts and carried an enormous woman's head on his back.

His four hooves churned so fast they left afterimages.

He darted back and forth through the alleys.

Behind the donkey, an enormous white cicada kept closing in through the air.

Red Hare listened to the buzzing of wings behind him.

He flung the head into the distance and picked up a little more speed.

As Red Hare sprinted, he cursed furiously in his mind.

Move, you damned legs!! Run!

Fuck!

I never should've gotten greedy over that head!

He could feel that terrifying presence behind him locked onto him. No matter how he ran, he could not shake it.

A cool female voice rang out, tinged with amusement.

"Little donkey, let me taste what a Variant among Variants tastes like."

"You can be proud of escaping me once."

"But the game's over."

Red Hare's hair stood on end, and he shouted without looking back.

"Big sister, please let me go!"

"No, no, no! Mommy, spare me!"

"Spare this little donkey just once, and I'll work myself to the bone for you! I'll be your mount! I can even warm Mommy's bed and play Valorant with her!!!"

The female voice behind Red Hare laughed, a touch of tenderness entering its cool tone.

"Pfft. What an interesting baby."

"Stop struggling."

"Absolute Zero."

The instant the female voice fell silent, time froze, and the entire area slowly ground to a halt.

Great sheets of frost spread wildly along the buildings.

Red Hare was instantly covered in ice crystals, still poised in mid-sprint.

In the blink of an eye, he became a lifelike ice sculpture.

The expression on his donkey face froze completely.

At the mouth of the alley, an enormous white Cold Cicada slowly landed and folded her wings.

Her white jointed limbs touched the snow without leaving any traces.

Cold Cicada walked up to Red Hare's ice sculpture, extended a thick jointed limb, and tapped it gently.

Seeing the funny face Red Hare had made as he froze.

Cold Cicada gave a soft laugh.

Her enormous mouthparts curved into something resembling a human smile.

"What an adorable baby."

"What a perfect creation."

"Once I've eaten you, I'll take my time admiring that three-fingered brat."

"Watching his despair as the silent extinction cold poison turns him into shards of ice, little by little."

"His courage in drawing a blade against me deserves the most agonizing death."

"Just thinking about it makes me a little excited."

As she spoke, the enormous Cold Cicada opened her mouthparts and stabbed them into the ice sculpture without hesitation.

A long feeding tube slowly pierced Red Hare's donkey head.

The next second.

The enormous Cold Cicada abruptly froze.

The sweet flesh-and-blood energy she had expected never came.

Instead, a revolting taste of old sludge mixed with rank livestock dung and urine flooded her taste buds.

"Ptoo! Ptoo! Ptoo!"

"Bleeergh!!!!"

Cold Cicada violently yanked out her feeding tube and frantically vomited liquid onto the ground.

She suddenly recalled the fleeting, faint fluctuation of energy when Red Hare had called her Mommy.

At the time, the thought of a Variant's delicious taste had gone to her head.

She had actually failed to see through such a cheap little trick.

Under Cold Cicada's gaze, the "Red Hare" pulling a funny face slowly melted.

In the end, he became a puddle of foul-smelling black sludge.

"Hehehehehehehehe."

Cold Cicada's cool female voice erupted into crazed laughter.

It traveled far, far away through the freezing air.

"Very good. Hide well."

"Because big sister is going to..."

"Grind! Your! Bones! To! Dust!"