Author: 年终 / Nian Zhong
Translator: Kinky || https://kinkytranslations.com/
Chapter 161: The Third Path
Myss stopped completely.
If he had never gained consciousness, he probably would have bitten down without hesitation.
Admittedly, Myss could think of plenty of possibilities, such as this thing needing to send part of its body outside to forage. But he couldn’t deny Salaar’s conclusion. As long as he killed this thing disguised as Marcela, the entire world would notice something was wrong.
Whether that situation had been deliberately arranged by some existence or was merely a coincidence, it would be extremely disadvantageous to him.
However, Myss didn’t want to spare it just because of that.
There was no kindness or mercy in the Archdemon’s dictionary. After a brief pause, Myss realized only one thing. He needed a more discreet method of murder.
He held the panting lump of Dragon Fae flesh in his left hand and examined its magical fluctuations again.
Sure enough, the Dragon Fae’s magical fluctuations echoed this thing’s from afar, like a single puzzle piece from an immensely complicated pattern.
Viewed by itself, the piece revealed almost nothing. But once placed among a pile of matching pieces, one could begin to see the pattern.
No wonder Dragon Fae favored gemstones rich in magic so much. This thing was clearly exceptionally skilled at absorbing magic too, perhaps even more skilled than they were. It wasn’t merely good at absorbing power, but at squeezing it dry.
The fog surrounding them was practically a gigantic smoky crystal.
At this moment, Myss could see everything clearly.
The flesh chunks were still connected to that “dandelion,” only not through membranes or threads of flesh. They were linked through extraordinarily concealed magic circuits.
The Dragon Fae truly were part of this thing.
For the Dragon Fae species to continue existing, this thing’s physical body had to remain “alive.”
What a troublesome opponent.
Myss’s remaining left eye turned toward Salaar, then toward the tightly wrapped flesh sphere.
He had no idea whether Salaar understood the look in his eye, but in any case, Mr. Hero gave a slight nod.
“Since killing it won’t benefit us, we can talk,” Salaar immediately raised his voice. “Maybe it knows something, right?”
“Yes, yes.”
Seeing that things might still turn around, Lawler hurriedly joined in with his hoarse voice.
His eyes were still tightly covered by the fleshy membrane. Perhaps from his perspective, human Myss had merely gotten into a scuffle with human Marcela.
Maybe it was a dispute between Kingdom Archmages, or perhaps some kind of conflict between nations.
What a lucky man. He couldn’t see the horrifying abnormalities right in front of him, and he never questioned his own ignorance.
The flesh sphere shifted slightly. Dark mist gathered once again and condensed into a twisted humanoid figure. This time, no one attacked it. The fog flowed slowly, and Marcela’s appearance became increasingly distinct.
It—she—still had skin and flesh twisted unnaturally across her face, twitching constantly.
Perhaps It simply had no idea how to use a human face, Myss thought disdainfully.
He had no intention whatsoever of returning to his original appearance. His transformed half-body still hovered loosely in the air like a snake’s open mouth, ready to swallow everything at any moment.
“…You.” Marcela turned toward Salaar and spoke in broken fragments. “What you said… is right. Kill me… and you will be exposed.”
Salaar didn’t even turn his head. “First question. Did you come here willingly, or…?”
Marcela’s facial skin twitched. She bared her mouth, but the only emotion that emerged was hatred. “Beaten half-dead. Thrown here. Left to die. You guess?”
She didn’t actually wait for Salaar’s answer. Then she raised her head and looked toward Myss. Her pupils trembled continuously, and her expression lost control again, looking somewhere between crying and laughing.
Myss found the expression difficult to describe. It was like an injured mouse watching a cat stroll slowly toward it.
“Kill me… and He will… discover you.” Her voice was saturated with unease. “You should… let me go. Hide for a few years.”
Myss: “In…” your dreams.
But before he could finish, Salaar cut him off.
“Second question.” Salaar continued almost coldly. “Where does this fog come from?”
Marcela fell silent.
Oh. That really was the kind of thing Salaar would focus on.
Myss blinked. Out of habit, he tried to scratch his head with his right hand, only for the enormous right half of his body to twist instead, the particles writhing even more cheerfully.
Dragon Fae absorbed the power of gemstones outside. That was certainly one source.
But that power was only enough for the Dragon Fae to sustain their own lives. It could never accumulate magic on this scale.
“Gemstone Lake…”
Tass forced himself to stay conscious. Faced with such an enormous shock, he still seemed somewhat dazed.
But to Myss’s surprise, he didn’t immediately side with Marcela.
“If… we really were born here, then this has to be Gemstone Lake… We…”
“Your corpses return to the lake, but even that amount of power still isn’t enough. Dragon Fae are too rare and live too long,” Salaar concluded mercilessly.
“To gather this much power, there must be a substantial number of magical artifacts and Magibases.”
Tass stared in shock. “But humans aren’t allowed into Gemstone Lake…”
Halfway through the sentence, he closed his own mouth.
Marcela, or rather, the thing playing Marcela, had experimental residences all across the country. She appeared and disappeared unpredictably, and coming into contact with humans was hardly difficult.
If nothing else, considering their own experience, those residences were like mouths, swallowing everyone who entered and somehow causing them to appear inside the legendary “Gemstone Lake.”
How many people had vanished this way without a trace?
“…Since you refuse to answer, I’ll take that as confirmation.”
Salaar’s tone had never been this indifferent.
“Let me guess again. You chose to replace Marcela because she lived in seclusion and held a high enough position. High enough that even if your killings were exposed, no human would dare come after you.”
“I don’t want… to die,” Marcela finally said.
“Neither did those humans,” Salaar said softly.
“But you… are with Him.” Marcela’s voice suddenly turned shrill. “He… is the scourge!”
Salaar finally turned his head and looked at that twisted face. “Go on.”
At that point, Marcela abruptly fell silent. That highly unnatural smile appeared again.
“You are… fishing for information.”
“Yes. Just like you’re stalling for time, betting that we’ll weigh the costs and benefits and leave on our own.”
Salaar smiled and flicked his hand lightly. Something cool slipped into Myss’s clothes.
Myss instantly recognized the sensation. It was Knife.
“She didn’t come here willingly, so she probably isn’t working with V.O.R. She won’t actively reveal your existence.”
“She has an extremely strong survival instinct, but if pushed into a corner, she may kill herself and force a mutually destructive outcome.”
The little snake reported to Myss in a very proper tone. “Good luck. Salaar and I both believe in you!”
No, you really shouldn’t.
Myss’s head hurt even more, and the vortex making up the right side of his body twisted into wavy lines.
What was this supposed to be? He could kill It, but couldn’t kill It recklessly. And he couldn’t let the thing become too desperate either.
So many damned complications. At this rate, he might as well give It a massage and call it a day.
In the end, he still needed a way to kill It in a single blow. Then he could find some way to use the remaining corpse to slow the extinction of the Dragon Fae species.
Dragging things out for a year or two should be enough…
Tass squirmed faintly in his left hand, apparently thinking about something.
“Myss.” He suddenly spoke in a very small voice.
Myss looked down at him. Had the Dragon Fae finally processed everything and decided to plead for Marcela?
“Do you think she… deserves to die?” Tass asked softly.
“Of course. I think she deserves to die because she dared lay a hand on Salaar.” Myss answered as though it were obvious. “But if you’re asking about the whole ‘preying on humans in order to survive’ thing, I don’t care.”
Marcela had definitely eaten fewer people than the number who died during the Night Scourge. Myss had no interest in playing moral judge.
Just as Salaar had said, this was no different from animals fighting over territory. They killed humans to survive, and humans killing them in return was equally natural.
For the Dragon Fae, however, this was probably a harrowing dilemma.
Before this, Tass could happily live as an assassin who punished evil and upheld good. But discovering that the survival of his entire species had to be built on human lives made things far less simple.
In a sense, this being was the Dragon Fae’s true “species.” Giving up his own life would still be simple enough. But making a decision for the future of his entire race…
Tass remained silent for a long time.
“I don’t know.” When he spoke again, his voice trembled. “All of this is just… I don’t know…”
“She fits my assassination criteria, but… my people… my homeland…”
Tass spoke in broken fragments, sounding dazed and despairing.
After a long while, the Dragon Fae muttered miserably. “Am I ridiculous…?”
Under normal circumstances, Myss probably would have sneered at that kind of despair.
But when he looked at Salaar standing between himself and Marcela, Myss only felt as though several new folds had appeared in his heart, the kind that could never be smoothed out again.
An evil target that had to be destroyed. A cherished existence one couldn’t bear to lose. Fate split into two paths, and only pain waited at the end of either one.
That despair was far too vivid, so painfully familiar… And the judgment over all of it was held in his hands.
He could simply follow the path fate had already laid out. But for some reason, at this moment, Myss suddenly felt that “yielding to fate” would be an unbearable defeat. Just imagining it put him in a terrible mood.
Almost without realizing it, Myss began to think.
“…Hey.” After a brief silence, Myss turned toward the lump of flesh in his left hand. “If I can destroy it while keeping your species exactly as it is, how far are you willing to go?”
“Anything,” Tass said drowsily. “Even if you want my life…”
“What would I do with something that useless?”
Myss wrinkled his nose and looked toward Marcela not far away.
“As long as you’re willing to cooperate, that’s enough. I have an assassination mission for you, Tass Gwah the Unfailing.”
The Dragon Fae didn’t correct that outrageous mistake in his name.
The purplish-black lump of flesh merely pulsed faintly, like a heart that hadn’t yet fully formed.
“I accept,” he said.
Kinky Thoughts:
Just a note, for those who haven’t caught on. Myss doesn’t care about anything except for Salaar, so he doesn’t bother remembering names. When he’s calling people by their name, it’s not a typo but it’s because he doesn’t bother to remember what their actual name is.
However, in English, you can only have so many words that sound similar or are homophones vs Chinese where they are different Chinese characters that sound alike. I try to mimic it, but there are only so many ways I can misspell Kalen and make it sound similar to it.
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