The fox tail was brash and flamboyant, with peach-colored brilliance blooming in her eyes.
Watching Chu You float above the ground like this, Chen Xinyu paused in shock, then suddenly seemed to realize something, an expression of sudden enlightenment dawning on her face.
She split her lips into a grin, letting out a low, manic laugh, her tone enlightened: “So that’s how it is… Divine Oracle, Aberration, Monster, so that’s how it is…”
Before her words finished, the bone blades on both her arms stabbed violently into the ground.
The violent aura around her, a mixture of pollution and divine oracle, surged and intertwined with unprecedented intensity, as if brewing some terrifying transformation.
“Ka—chi… Ka—chi…”
A dense, teeth-grinding sound of bones rubbing echoed, as if thousands of insects were gnawing at once.
The next second, countless pale, sharp bone spikes pierced through her clothes all over her body, growing out madly.
These newly formed bone spikes were similar to the ones previously encasing her arms—like living, flowing mercury, they spread outward, weaving and covering at an astonishing speed.
In an instant, this pale bone matter completely engulfed Chen Xinyu’s entire body.
Amidst her roars and the explosive crackling of bone, her figure visibly expanded and elongated at a breakneck pace, in the blink of an eye reaching four or five meters tall.
A suit of exoskeletal armor, formed entirely of proliferated bone covered with hideous protruding spikes, encased her tightly, leaving only a pair of crimson eyes burning with madness through the slits of the bone helm.
Her form at this moment was like a gaunt, hell-born Skeleton Golem clawing its way up from the abyss.
The bone blades that once dragged along the ground now appeared even longer and more deadly against her enormous body.
A chilling gleam flowed along their edges; simply standing there, they radiated an oppressive, suffocating sense of malice.
In a life-and-death struggle, there was never any need for wasted words.
Boom—!
Completely aberrated, Chen Xinyu stomped forward, shattering the ground, her figure blurring into a streak of motion as she struck.
The massive, pale bone blades of both her arms swept down like the wings of Death itself, slicing through the air with shrill howls, forming a dense, inescapable curtain of white blades as they rained furiously toward Chu You.
Yet, faced with this overwhelming physical onslaught, Chu You’s figure became ghostly and elusive.
Just as the bone blades were about to strike her, her image suddenly blurred, leaving behind only a few slowly drifting, illusory fox tail afterimages formed of peach-pink light particles.
“Hm?” The figure in her vision vanished, causing Chen Xinyu’s bone blades to pause for a split second.
“Where are you looking!”
Peach-colored light in Chu You’s eyes flared brilliantly, and she suddenly appeared at Chen Xinyu’s left blind spot as if by teleportation.
Chen Xinyu instinctively turned her head to meet Chu You’s gaze.
An intangible psychic shockwave rippled outward like water, colliding precisely into the depths of Chen Xinyu’s crimson eyes.
Now!
Chu You’s toe tapped the ground lightly, her waist twisting as she spun upward into the air.
The military saber in her hand, cloaked in intense peach light, drew arcs of radiant, deadly brilliance through the air.
Swish!
Swish!
Swish!
Each time, the blade narrowly avoided the bone blades’ guard by a hair’s breadth, slicing precisely at the joints and root of the bone spikes on the exoskeletal armor.
Peach-colored light collided with stark white bone, erupting in a flurry of dazzling sparks and ear-piercing scraping sounds.
“Roar!!”
Chen Xinyu broke free from the psychic interference with a furious roar, her bone blades sweeping even more frantically.
But Chu You’s figure always seemed to dissolve into elusive streaks of peach light at the last possible instant, sometimes flipping lightly away like a feather, sometimes appearing at another tricky angle as if in teleportation.
As the former captain of the Seventh Tactical Squad at Swordbearer Headquarters, she finally shed the facade she wore when dealing with Lin Mo.
Chu You no longer held back.
Peach light trails lingered in her wake, sketching fleeting, dazzling patterns that disoriented Chen Xinyu’s eyes and mind.
Every stab and slash of the military saber was accompanied by powerful psychic interference, like invisible threads winding around Chen Xinyu’s will—agitating her, slowing her reactions, leaving her strength wasted and difficult to unleash.
“Just… die—!”
Chen Xinyu’s bone blades suddenly swelled, crossing together in a sweeping slash, trying to seal Chu You’s every escape.
But Chu You was unruffled.
Her figure split into multiple indistinguishable peach-colored afterimages, and in the blink of an eye, she attacked from all directions, each mirage radiating a lifelike killing intent and psychic disturbance.
Chen Xinyu’s crimson pupils shrank sharply, her bone blades pausing before she flailed about madly, attempting to shatter the bewildering illusions before her.
“Puchi.”
Yet the real killing move came from a blind spot.
Chu You’s true body blended into the shadows, silently emerging beneath Chen Xinyu’s massive bone-bladed arm.
The military saber, coated in peach light, darted out like a viper, piercing unerringly into the thinner, less protected armpit joint of the exoskeletal armor.
“Arghhhh—!”
Black, polluted blood spurted again!
Chen Xinyu let out a howl of agony.
Chu You landed lightly, slightly breathless, a few strands of hair plastered to her brow with sweat, yet the peach glow in her eyes still blazed, and a bewitching curve lifted the corners of her lips.
She flicked the sticky black blood from her saber.
Behind her, the pristine white fox tail swayed gently, graceful and enticing.
Accompanied by a faint squelching, like flowing slime, the grotesque white exoskeleton encasing Chen Xinyu swiftly liquefied and melted away, receding like the tide beneath her skin, once more revealing her original form.
“Cough… pu!”
Chen Xinyu staggered, dropping to one knee, black polluted blood spewing from her mouth and dripping to the floor, pooling into a small, ominous patch of thick liquid.
Her aura had waned to its limit.
Though the wound from Chu You’s saber no longer bled, the flesh at its edge was still unnaturally ashen.
She slowly raised her head.
Only the purest venom and hatred, as sharp as a poisoned dagger, remained in those crimson eyes.
Just then, a halting, hoarse, almost static-filled voice, as if from a poor signal, suddenly sounded in Chen Xinyu’s ear, carrying the unquestionable tone of a command: “Professor’s directive… mission complete, withdraw immediately.”
Hearing this, Chen Xinyu gritted her teeth, unwillingness flashing sharply across her face.
She still stared hard at Chu You, refusing to answer.
That voice seemed to sense her resistance. Its tone suddenly turned severe and icy, with a warning edge: “You… dare defy the Professor’s will?”
This time, Chen Xinyu’s body trembled ever so slightly.
She no longer persisted.
Using her hand for support, she shakily got to her feet, not answering the voice in her ear.
Instead, she raised a black-blood-stained finger, roughly digging a small, delicate earpiece from her ear canal.
Without a glance, she tossed it to the ground and stamped down hard.
Crack!
The earpiece was instantly crushed.
She looked back at Chu You, pulling out a twisted, weak smile, her voice raspy: “…Chu You, aren’t you always… so nosy?”
Chu You pressed her lips tightly together, giving no reply.
She only gripped her military saber, still faintly glowing with peach light, ready for any sudden counterattack.
Seeing Chu You ignore her, Chen Xinyu’s smile turned ever more bizarre.
She raised a hand, pointing to the towering roller coaster track behind her, which at that moment loomed silent and still.
Especially the carriage suspended at its highest point, where the silhouettes of trapped tourists could still be seen, trembling in terror.
“Look… there are plenty of burdens hanging up there…”
A chill suddenly gripped Chu You’s heart, as if doused in ice water by an ominous premonition.
She no longer hesitated, gathering strength underfoot and dashing toward Chen Xinyu, trying to stop whatever action she might take next.
But Chen Xinyu was faster—she thrust a hand into her torn clothes, pulling out a black remote about the size of a car key.
The saber swirling with peach light slashed fiercely toward her, but Chen Xinyu’s thumb had already pressed precisely on the only red button atop the remote.
Beep—
A faint electronic tone sounded, and the numbers on the remote’s screen instantly started counting down from [180].
Whoosh!
Chu You’s attack struck only empty air.
Crack.
At almost the same time, Chen Xinyu crushed the remote in her hand.
“Three-minute countdown,” her face flickered with frenzied malice, “Good luck… hahahaha!”
“You’re seeking death!”
In her fury, Chu You’s saber, trailing a cold peach arc, slashed again through the air, aiming straight for Chen Xinyu’s neck.
But as soon as the button was pressed, Chen Xinyu had already staggered back several steps with the recoil, narrowly dodging the fatal blow.
She watched Chu You’s face tighten with rage and urgency, her own expression wild and ecstatic: “Hahahahahaha! Time’s running out…” You’d… better make your choice quickly~”
“Will you kill me…”
“Or save those… poor worms?”
With that, she spared not another glance.
Forcing a ragged breath, she turned and fled at speed in the direction opposite the roller coaster, quickly vanishing into the amusement park’s labyrinth of shadows.
Chu You came to an abrupt halt, glancing once toward Chen Xinyu’s disappearing silhouette, then looking up at the roller coaster hanging above, like a Damocles sword overhead.
The saber hummed faintly in her hand.
179, 178, 177…
Cold numbers ticked urgently in her mind, silent but insistent.
Chu You bit her lip, peach light blazing in her eyes, and with a forceful kick, shot skyward.
No matter what… she had to save them first!