Chapter 128-The Manga Pariah's Guide to Self-Salvation
The black dragon glided slowly, drifting forward like a bank of storm clouds, casting vast shadows over everything in its path.
The group soon caught up to it. The wide canyon was shrouded in lingering wisps of white mist, and the dragon-bodied humans carried the white spine aloft as they advanced, turning the canyon below into pitch-black night under the shadows.
Ye Zheng looked up to survey the surroundings. This wasn't a suitable place to intercept them—dealing with a flock of aerial creatures in a canyon wasn't wise. But given the current situation, they couldn't allow them to press on unchecked.
"Once we exit this canyon, we'll soon enter the North District, where many people live."
Percy held the map, his voice laced with concern.
"Halt. Kill them here."
Sykes, at the forefront, stopped in his tracks, and the group behind him came to a immediate halt. A knight hesitated before speaking, "Your Highness, this isn't ideal for engaging them. Should we..."
"His Highness Sykes cherishes his people and wishes to avoid further incidents. Let's resolve this swiftly."
Ye Zheng smiled, interrupting the knight's advice.
Sykes stared at the enormous black shadow overhead. He was utterly fed up with this place and just wanted to deal with them quickly.
For some reason, the closer he got to this flock of monsters, the more irritable and exhilarated he felt, as if something were drawing him in. Sykes furrowed his brow as he watched the faintly visible white amid the black horde—what exactly were they transporting?
A small squad advanced first. A tall male knight stood at the front, raising both hands and chanting incantations. A ferocious tornado assailed the black shadows above, disrupting the orderly formation. The creatures screeched as they plummeted.
Black specks scattered in all directions, and the mountain-like white spine lost its bearers, crashing down with a thunderous boom that shook the earth. The rising dust instantly blanketed the entire valley; everyone instinctively raised arms to shield their eyes.
Amid the violent quake, Percy nearly lost his footing. The ensuing wall of smoke blinded him, but he couldn't erase the shocking glimpse he'd caught just moments before—
What was that massive, pale thing like a snow-capped mountain?
What exactly were they transporting?
In the billowing yellow dust across the hills, Ye Zheng half-covered her eyes with her hand, realizing this was a prime opportunity. She turned her head, slowly blinking at Wen De behind her. Wen De, eyes half-open, immediately caught the signal and quietly turned toward the back of the formation.
Seeing Wen De slip away with Sierra as planned, ready to coordinate at her cue, Ye Zheng turned to check the front—only to have a massive black scaly claw lunge at her face through the churning yellow smoke.
Ye Zheng reflexively crouched to dodge, but realizing others stood behind her, she straightened and drew her sword in a flash. The black scaly claw grazed the blade as it passed.
These dragon-bodied humans had excellent vision, Ye Zheng thought; they could spot her sword draw even through the flying dust.
Soon, shrill screams rose one after another. The dragon-bodied humans, their collective activity interrupted, seemed thoroughly enraged. One by one, they circled above the canyon, locking onto their prey and instinctively hunting amid the chaos.
It wasn't until a wind ability user mustered strength to blow away the dust that visibility returned. The disordered group勉强 regained some order.
"Your Highness, don't walk too fast!"
The knight who had spoken earlier finally took in the surroundings. The Crown Prince, in his fresh red attire, strode urgently ahead. A dragon-bodied human swooped toward him, tightening the knight's heart in tension—but the Crown Prince merely blocked the black giant claw with one hand, and the monster instantly disintegrated into ash with a screech.
The knight patted his chest in relief. Regardless, the Crown Prince was the Empire's once-in-a-millennium 3S-rank genius; with such strength, he could surely lead them to swiftly eliminate these eerie monsters.
Percy was locked in combat.
As he fought, he observed: the dragon-bodied monsters varied in size—some as large as a villa, their wingspans blotting out all sight; others merely two or three meters tall, the size of a room.
Even the smaller ones exuded immense pressure on ordinary people.
The one before Percy was middling in size. He craned his neck, barely making out the human-like upper body at its peak. Black scales unevenly covered the pale human skin, creeping up to the neck; above that was the smooth human jawline of a woman. He couldn't see her face clearly.
But he knew that face—aside from eyes devoid of whites—resembled an ordinary human's in every other way.
Fragmented memories from his childhood flashed in his mind: the women in the base who had gently cared for him, the twisted-faced researchers, and... them.
Wind whistled past his ears as the giant claw lunged again. Percy merely parried with his metallized arm, his body shoved backward uncontrollably.
He couldn't bring himself to strike! In the painful recollections of his childhood, he remembered a woman who loved teasing him, the base's only child, hiding him away time and again to thwart the researchers' searches.
Later, she underwent the experiment, implanted with dragon bone, and became...
Percy could scarcely breathe. Caught off guard, he was flipped onto the ground—yet the razor-sharp claw tip didn't strike him. Instead, it pinned the knight beside him, who had been battling another dragon-bodied human. The knight's chest was pierced in an instant!
Percy's pupils contracted. He watched the bloodied black claw withdraw from the corpse, guilt trembling through his hands as he turned to the monster. His other arm also transformed into a cold, sharp longsword.
They were no longer human, Percy admonished himself. After turning into monsters, their human self-awareness had vanished.
The black-scaled giant claw swung at Percy again. This time, he didn't hesitate, leaping sideways and backward. The black claw smashed into the earth, carving deep gouges. Percy vaulted onto the claw, using it to spring upward, his blue eyes reflecting the cruel metallic gleam.
He knew their weakness: the human torso at the top—heart, head... Killing them wasn't hard.
"Percy, if I ever turn into a monster, and you get the chance... end my suffering, please..."
In his memory, the gentle woman clasped his still-childish hand, teaching him how to end the suffering of someone turned monster.
Percy leaped high, his metallized arm forming a spear, its tip aimed straight at the monster's heart. In the instant before penetration, he faltered, his gaze shifting upward. His dilated pupils reflected that magnified human face.
His throat went dry, silently calling out the familiar yet alien name.
"Aunt Mingyue—"
In that single moment of hesitation, black wings lashed out with irresistible force, sending Percy crashing to the ground like a broken bird. He coughed up blood, struggling to rise, when a heavy force pinned him again, the sharp, elongated claw pressing against his throat.
That familiar face loomed overhead, its all-black eyes devoid of any emotion.
Percy stared up in stunned silence. Over a decade had passed, yet the face bore no trace of aging—which only made him acutely aware: it wasn't human, wasn't Aunt Mingyue anymore.
Sensing the lethal threat at his throat, Percy closed his eyes. If not for creating existences like him, these tragedies wouldn't have happened...
The clamor in his ears suddenly gave way to a piercing roar. Percy opened his eyes, staring in disbelief at the scene above—
The massive black form dissipated from bottom to top, like paper set ablaze, until even that familiar face vanished entirely.
"Percy, get out of my way."
Sykes passed through the drifting black ash, his proud face unmoving, merely glancing sidelong at the man on the ground.
Percy staggered to his feet, wiping the blood from his lips, staring at him in disbelief. "You killed her... she..."
Halfway through, Percy fell silent. What could he say? Shouldn't Sykes have killed the monster? If not for Sykes's timely intervention, he might have died at the hands of the monster that was once Aunt Mingyue.
"Fool."
Sykes didn't spare him another glance, tossing out the two words as he strode past.
Percy covered his face. He needed to snap out of it—he had promised Aunt Mingyue not to let her suffer as a monster.
He turned, scanning the black figures around him, his heart aching. Alive, they had been treated as caged lab rats by the base; dead, imprisoned in monstrous bodies. How could such gentle, kind souls allow themselves to become nothing but killing machines?
Percy raised his metallized right arm again, his face heavy with resolve. This time, he wouldn't hesitate. He would grant them true release, then seek vengeance for them—the Hope Project base was destroyed, but he knew the Curia was the true force behind the experiments.
After seeing Aunt Mingyue's face again, more lost childhood memories resurfaced. The base had kept Fallen Breed not out of benevolence, but for their formidable combat power. The Curia seemed intent on amassing their strength to challenge the royal family.
Percy gritted his teeth. Facing another dragon-bodied human swooping at him, his right arm no longer hesitated to block—instead, the sword-blade tip directly sheared off a claw finger.
Pressing the advantage, he leaped onto the massive dragon body, pressing the sword tip against the human heart and thrusting forward—
A metallized arm shouldn't feel sensation, Percy thought, yet he sensed a chill resistance halting his motion.
"Percy, why did you change your mind?"
"Is killing them truly the right thing?"
A soft sigh fell by his ear. Percy turned in shock and suspicion to see Ye Zheng, who had somehow landed behind him, her water lines entwining his arm.
"Ye Zheng? Why... No, you shouldn't be stopping me."
"They're already monsters now—living on will only harm the innocent. I just faltered once, and it cost the life of someone beside me..."
Percy's thoughts churned in chaos as he shook his head. He'd just sorted his resolve, and now Ye Zheng had disrupted it all.
"You didn't cost a life because of faltering—it was because you weren't strong enough."
Percy widened his blue eyes.
"Not being strong enough isn't your fault, Percy."
By his ear, Ye Zheng seemed to lower her voice. In the haze, he almost heard another familiar voice, one from a moonlit night stirred by a gentle breeze, saying something similar.
"Lower your hand. Help me—I can save them, and save you too."
"Save the pitiful, manipulated puppet..."
The soft voice fell like a feather on his pounding heart. Percy's rigid metallized arm trembled faintly.
"You really have a way, you..."
Percy's expression softened, his other hand pressing his forehead.
"No—no, you're Ye Zheng, from the Curia, the enemy, the antag—"
Suddenly, Percy's pupils dilated blankly, devoid of light, his voice stiffening.
Ye Zheng impassively took in every anomaly.
Before her eyes, besides Percy's silenced face, hovered a line of red text.
[Warning! Warning! Plotline correction in progress... Protagonist behavior detection in progress...]
The red text branded itself onto Percy's pale face; he was oblivious, turning to look at Ye Zheng. His eyes regained their luster, grief mingled with a trace of doubt.
"Ye Zheng, you're raised by the Curia, and your ties to Zhou Yun, who exploited them, are suspicious. Can I really trust you?"
"Of course you don't have to trust me."
Ye Zheng's voice grew even softer.
The sky had begun to drizzle unbeknownst to them, fine rain falling on the pair. Suddenly, a drop landed below Ye Zheng's left eye, like a crystalline teardrop tracing her cheek, adding an odd sorrow to her pitch-black eyes.
But when Percy looked to her right eye, it was pure, utter black—ruthless and resolute to the extreme.
The icy, unyielding gaze pierced Percy's heart, sending a shiver through him. Before he could think further, agony exploded over him.
"Ah—"
In his daze, he saw a bloodied arm flying away, unable to stifle a cry of pain before clamping it down, staring at Ye Zheng in shock.
"You don't have to trust me."
"But you can't stop me."
The Ye Zheng who had severed Percy's arm leaped from the dragon body, not glancing back. Yet after a few steps, she abruptly lost all sensation for an instant.
When she opened her eyes again, Percy stood before her, his expression complex as he stared.
Ye Zheng looked to his arm—intact.
"Ye Zheng, are we truly enemies?"
Hearing Percy's hoarse voice, Ye Zheng lifted her eyes, looking at him helplessly.
"If you insist on standing in my way, then yes, I am."
The pattering fine rain drummed on them both. In the increasingly suffocating air, Ye Zheng raised her hand to manipulate the rain lines, while Percy expanded his metallization.
The real battle was about to ignite.
Author's Note:
Zheng: Quick on the draw—took out the villain, the villainous second male lead, and the protagonist male lead all at once. (quick hands, meaning impulsively striking them down)
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