Lin En stared at her with dead-fish eyes, as though he had just heard a very stupid question.
"Of course I could take you, but sorry, I don't particularly like forcing people to submit that way. So lucky you."
He turned around again.
"Of course, if you think that reason sounds far-fetched, you can just consider it an act of kindness."
He closed his eyes, standing amid the billowing black mist.
But for some reason, at that moment, he suddenly thought of himself with a hint of self-mockery.
"Turning into a monster is already hard enough to accept, isn't it? And if you let your mind become a monster too, that would be a complete and utter failure. So if you can still hold on to a little humanity, I think that wouldn't be so bad. Because at least that way... you can temporarily forget the fact that you've already become a monster."
The girl's body jolted, and urgency flickered in her eyes.
She gazed toward Lin En from afar, her eyes trembling, too stunned to put anything into words.
But she couldn't see Lin En's expression.
Only...
Lin En had his back to her.
"Go back. But I still have to remind you that in a world like this, you won't always be as lucky as you were today."
"You won't meet someone like me every time."
"The stronger you become, the more your name spreads, the more people will covet you. They might want to kill you, or they might want you to serve them. And yes, you might be able to kill them time and again, but if you lose just once... a cruel fate will await you. Because you have no one backing you. Because you can't stand invincible against the entire world."
Lin En glanced