Chapter 46

The hostility Blood Wing was trying so hard to suppress was all too obvious to a Zerg as powerful as Ariel. Ariel sensed Blood Wing's distinctive metallic scent in the air, and his true body, deep within the distant hive, couldn't help but wriggle.

He was suddenly a little hungry.

Looking at Blood Wing baring his fangs and claws in the library, Ariel hesitated briefly.

Normally, he would have had a snack by now (snack = any Zerg who tried to defy his will or simply happened to appear before him at the wrong time), then gone back to sleep in boredom deep within the hive.

But during his conversation with Su Lin today, he had learned that male humans generally didn't want their partners to be too fat...

Ariel thought about his true body, which was growing larger by the day, and fell silent.

"All right."

Just as Medises had prepared himself for an attack from Ariel, he heard an utterly dejected sigh from the monster of a Zerg King candidate before him instead.

"That's really quite sad."

Ariel spoke with great sorrow.

The "girl" gave the young man he had stopped earlier a reluctant look.

The person who had once blushed and fumbled awkwardly at the sight of him was now left with nothing but trembling and fear. As a result, a trace of strange, inexplicable dejection welled up in the awkward and innocent Zerg "girl's" chest.

The strange sadness suddenly left Ariel feeling listless.

"I really do like you."

Su Lin stared at him in horror, even his lips nearly drained of color.

"Th-thank you for your affection, b-but I..." Su Lin desperately searched his mind for words. Yet even his swindler teacher's advanced courses had never covered how to handle a situation like this.

"Forget it. I'm leaving."

Ariel stared at Su Lin's ashen face. After a moment of silence, he spoke stiffly.

Then he watched as Su Lin, as though he had received some kind of tacit permission, went straight past him and rushed toward the weak, disabled member of the Blood Wing Colony.

Ariel: ...

Sure enough, a Zerg was still a Zerg.

A voice in Ariel's heart seemed to tell him so.

So it didn't matter at all. No matter how cute this larva called Su Lin was, he still couldn't compare to his Little Grove in the end.

After all, if it were Little Grove, and he had made his feelings this obvious, Little Grove would surely have come over to comfort him and cheer him up, in all earnestness and gentleness.

Ariel the Saint's departure was as ghostly and silent as his arrival.

Su Lin had only just caught his breath behind Medises. When he nervously peeked out again, the innocent (?) and delicate (?) girl (?) was already gone.

"Ah, wh-when did she leave?"

After such a fright, his nerves suddenly relaxed, and Su Lin felt so weak that he nearly sank to his knees on the spot.

Medises was also looking at the place where Ariel had stood, his expression unusually grim.

"What you saw was only Ariel's psychic projection. His true body is still inside his own hive," the silver-haired Zerg said. "Also, that wasn't 'she,' but 'he.'"

He corrected him.

Every expression and movement of Su Lin's froze instantly.

Wait, if it's not "she" but "he," does that mean...

"That was Ariel the Saint, and he's also the next Zerg King."

"So that was a male Zerg? Such a pretty girl was a... a guy? And he might even become your Zerg King?"

Su Lin hardly knew which truth to have his heart shattered by.

Just as he refused to give up and tried to confirm it with Medises again, the silver-haired Zerg turned around and pulled Su Lin tightly into his arms.

"Mm, mmph, senior?"

Su Lin was trapped in the Zerg's cold, hard embrace. Medises was holding him so tightly that Su Lin almost felt as though his senior was about to press him, alive, into his own body.

"That hurts a little, senior. What are you doing-"

Su Lin instinctively complained to Medises in a tone that was half familiar and half fawning, but when he looked up and saw Medises's expression, the rest of his words caught in his throat.

There was something frightening about Medises's expression to Su Lin.

"Maybe I should still..."

Su Lin heard a very hoarse, indistinct whisper.

Instinct drove him to listen closely at once, but Medises pressed his lips shut and said nothing more.

His senior's body was tense.

Su Lin could feel it. In fact, as far back as the Border Planet, Su Lin had noticed that his senior's entire body was hard. Now that they had reunited, his senior, having become a Zerg, had muscles and a chest that felt even harder, like iron.

But now, pinned motionless in Medises's arms, Su Lin was still keenly aware that the tension in his senior's body was completely different from before. Strictly speaking, he was almost like... like he had been scared out of his wits?

Even Su Lin himself found the thought absurd and funny when it entered his mind.

After all, no matter how he looked at it, neither He Zisen nor Medises could be associated with the words "scared out of his wits."

Su Lin laughed at his own fanciful thoughts inwardly, but at that very moment, his hands rose as though they had a will of their own. By the time he realized it, Su Lin found that he had managed, with great difficulty, to put his arms around Medises in return.

He instinctively stroked the Zerg's exceptionally hard, cold back.