Chapter 97: Are They Still Human?

Su Miao was startled by the sudden appearance of the figure. She instinctively gripped the silver umbrella at her side and touched the Type 95 assault rifle. In such freezing weather, getting her down jacket soaked by a sudden, torrential downpour would be disastrous.

Shui Kun stood ten paces away, his heart filled with seething rage as he watched Su Miao huddled in the corner.

*Heh.*

Who would have imagined that the one to destroy the Star Base was not an army of humans, but this single human girl? The corpses controlled by her had even nearly threatened the Mother Goddess.

Unforgivable! She must be executed!

In the past, a girl like this would have been captured to be parasitized by his kin, but for Su Miao, Shui Kun decided to destroy her with his own hands. He reached out, preparing to summon a violent torrent of water to kill her in a single strike.

However, as he struck a dramatic, chunibyo pose, the expected raging current failed to appear.

*My ability... it’s unusable?*

...

*Bang! Bang! Bang!*

Su Miao spotted Shui Kun, and the intense malice radiating from him made her tremble. She raised her Type 95 assault rifle and opened fire. The bullets swept across the space, each one locked onto Shui Kun’s head. Shui Kun stared at her movements and dodged repeatedly. Every single bullet missed.

*He can dodge bullets? Isn't this something that only happens in anime?*

Su Miao felt her worldview being shattered; this was the sort of thing that belonged in fantasy films. A moment later, Shui Kun charged before her, snatched the rifle, and pointed it back at her. "Shoot! Don't you love shooting?"

With the assault rifle aimed at her, Su Miao’s body shook even more violently. She was terrified. *How is this even possible?* At this speed, even if she drew her umbrella-sword, she wasn't sure she could land a hit.

"It's... it's out of ammo..." Su Miao reminded him with a trembling voice.

Shui Kun pulled the trigger and realized the rifle was indeed empty. Along the way, he had seen many of his kin killed by headshots; he had wanted the culprit to suffer the same fate, but now, there were no bullets left?!

*Damn it!*

Shui Kun rubbed his hands together, crushing the Type 95 rifle into a lump of scrap metal. He focused his gaze on the magic book floating in front of Su Miao, and the blood crystal hovering above it. Within that crystal lay the blood essence of many of his kin—an incredibly evil aura.

He tried to invoke his ability again, but there was no response. This was too bizarre, far exceeding his understanding. He stared at Su Miao, forcing down his rage. Until he could see through her tricks, he would not strike. Humans were too cunning. If he hadn't been fast enough just now, he likely would have had his head blown off.

In his eyes, Su Miao’s body was shaking uncontrollably, looking terrified, yet when she fired, every shot had locked onto his head. It was frightening. Most importantly, the Mother Goddess had specifically warned him that this human girl was terrifying.

He understood now. She was playing weak—it was a trap!

"Why did you do this?" Shui Kun demanded. "Do you know how many people you've killed?"

Su Miao looked at him, her voice trembling. "You wouldn't let me pass, and you wanted to capture me. I was very scared."

One dared to ask, the other dared to answer; the atmosphere in the blood-soaked hell grew increasingly eerie. The more afraid Su Miao appeared, the less Shui Kun dared to act. *Scared, my foot.* He didn't believe it for a second. As for the answer, he found it absurd; had he known such a ruthless person was passing through, he would never have provoked her. He would have just killed the guards at the gate and let her through to avoid all this trouble. The Star Base wasn't invincible yet; he and his kin needed time to grow.

Shui Kun looked at the silver umbrella by Su Miao’s side, his gaze narrowing. "Is this your trump card?"

Su Miao shook her head, looking very innocent. "No."

*Heh.* Shui Kun smiled. He sensed an even more evil aura from that silver umbrella. Even if he couldn't use his abilities right now, did she really think such petty tricks could fool him?

But, in truth, Su Miao was genuinely terrified. Up until now, she had been thinking about how to kill Shui Kun. The assault rifle wouldn't work. The umbrella-sword wouldn't work. That left only magic. But how could she achieve a one-hit kill?

Su Miao glanced at the *Blood Magic* book, thought hard, and came up with a plan.

"So," Shui Kun asked, "what is your trump card?"

Su Miao shivered, looking up at the sky. "Look up there."

Shui Kun sneered and looked toward the sky, curious to see what trick she had up her sleeve. The next second, Su Miao drew her umbrella-sword and pointed it at the magic book. "Dissolve the hell, restrain him!"

In an instant, the blood crystal above the *Blood Magic* book flashed with a strange crimson light. The light enveloped Shui Kun, transforming into countless blood-red threads that bound him tight. The change happened in a heartbeat, catching Shui Kun completely off guard.

He was restrained. But could such threads really hold him? Shui Kun was furious and began to struggle. At first, he felt he could break the threads, but they didn't just bind his body—they pierced into his flesh.

"Argh!" Shui Kun let out a scream; the power he was about to unleash dissipated under the piercing pain. He had assumed that since Su Miao was using firearms, she was unable to use her abilities while maintaining this bizarre domain. He hadn't realized that the magic book was still fully operational.

Even more terrifying was Su Miao. A blinding blue light erupted from the silver sword in her hand as she slashed down at him.

*Boom!*

The umbrella-sword, coated in small blue fireballs, sliced through Shui Kun like a knife through tofu, cutting him in half. Everywhere the blade passed, the flames continued to burn his remains. Shui Kun looked at Su Miao with disbelief before collapsing.

He was dead. The jellyfish parasite in the host's head had even been roasted to a crisp.

Su Miao stared blankly at the corpse, thinking this guy must have been some kind of leader in the Star Base. If she had entered the base on her own, she probably couldn't have killed him. She was lucky he had come to her. She recalled the swarms of red dots that had vanished before his arrival, and the terrifying speed he had shown. He had been a formidable enemy.

With Shui Kun’s death, Su Miao vaguely heard a strange sound from within the Star Base—a sound that seemed to come from the deep sea, from hell.

In the Mother Goddess Hall, the bulletproof glass of the deep-water tank suddenly shattered. A massive jellyfish burst through the building, scooped up several high-potential human subjects, and headed straight toward the aquarium near the zoo. The aquarium was dangerous—that was where the giant jellyfish had originally emerged from—but it had no choice. It had no confidence in facing that dangerous witch again. It was better to run and return when there was an opportunity.

But halfway there, the giant jellyfish stopped. A yellow tabby cat appeared on its path. The cat was perched on a wall, its stripes making it look like a tiger. The moment the giant jellyfish appeared, the tabby cat locked onto it. After weighing the difference in power, the giant jellyfish decisively turned back the way it came.

The tabby cat squinted, watching the jellyfish retreat without taking further action. In reality, it had just finished a meal at the aquarium; it had no interest in a jellyfish.

...

Inside the Star Base, without Shui Kun to keep order, more and more corpses began to run wild. Corpses with guns fired, those with cannons blasted, those with blades hacked, and those with nothing left to use bit and clawed.

Theoretically, if the fighting continued like this, it would end quickly. However, as the giant jellyfish returned, many of the parasitized corpses suddenly collapsed. Even if other corpses shot or hacked at them, they remained motionless.

The giant jellyfish returned to the Mother Goddess Hall and, despite the lack of water, floated effortlessly in mid-air. Invisible tentacles radiated from its center, piercing the brains of every parasitized corpse.

In an instant, a void-like explosion occurred, and the dome of the Star Base building was blown away by an invisible force. The giant jellyfish let out a horrific shriek. Under its scream, a young female subject slowly floated toward it. The girl opened her eyes, her face filled with pain and resolve. "Great Mother Goddess, please use this body. I am willing to offer everything."

The giant jellyfish stared at the girl for a few seconds, as if to memorize her completely. The girl closed her eyes. The next second, a transparent tentacle grew from beneath the jellyfish, drilling straight into the girl's navel. Strange threads covered her spine and brain, taking control of her entire body.

After doing this, the giant jellyfish floating in the air seemed to lose its soul, falling into a profound silence.

The girl opened her eyes once more. She gently stroked the sleeping jellyfish, turned, and resolutely walked out of the hall, heading barefoot toward Su Miao’s location. Many corpses noticed her and unleashed a hail of bullets. The girl merely raised a hand, and the bullets stopped in mid-air before shattering into dust.

A moment later, an extremely terrifying power swept through the entire Star Base, crushing every moving corpse and painting the facility in blood.

Outside, Su Miao watched the miniature magic array above the *Blood Magic* book. The red dots that hadn't been controlled vanished in large numbers, followed by the controlled red dots and the surviving green ones being wiped out entirely.

She froze. *What on earth is happening in there?*

[Your Highness, there is no one alive inside, but a big one is coming. I will unfold the Blood Hell for you.]

The magic book provided an immediate alert, while frantically absorbing the blood from inside the Star Base. That last attack by the girl had practically cleared the entire facility. It was the perfect opportunity to condense a second blood crystal—something it couldn't let Su Miao know about.

Su Miao saw the prompt and nodded. She held her umbrella-sword and stood up, looking toward the base.

Inside, the jellyfish-girl saw Su Miao and stopped.

"Human, why did you destroy our base and kill my kin? Are the lives of the Water Clan not lives?" the jellyfish-girl asked.

Su Miao blinked, failing to understand the girl's logic. She had just wanted to pass through as quickly as possible to find a temporary shelter from the blizzard, yet she had been met with wave after wave of attacks, including mortars and rockets. How did she get blamed for the "lives of the Water Clan"? This was clearly a group of jellyfish that ate human brains and turned them into living puppets.

Su Miao instinctively went to reach for her Type 95, only to remember it had been crushed into a metal ball by Shui Kun. She had other guns in her magic space, but looking at the girl, she pulled out a new Type 95 and opened fire.

She was socially anxious, but her intelligence was perfectly intact. Arguing this point with a non-human that enjoyed eating human brains was simply insane.

*Bang! Bang! Bang!*

The jellyfish-girl raised her hand, and a curtain of water appeared before her, blocking all the bullets.

"Humans, you are as cruel as ever. You used to lock us in aquariums, forcing us to perform disgusting tricks. Now that we can finally come out, the first thing you think of is to exterminate us!"

"Even now that I have a human face, you still won't let me go. Why?!"

The jellyfish-girl let out another eerie shriek. Su Miao clearly saw ripples appear in the Blood Hell. This sonic attack was impossible to guard against; without the Blood Hell and the magic space array, she dared not imagine the consequences.

As a return gift, Su Miao reloaded and emptied the entire magazine at her. The bullets were blocked just as before.

...

The jellyfish-girl fell silent. Su Miao wasn't saying a word to her—it was nothing but attack after attack. Most importantly, her own attacks were failing to inflict any effective damage on Su Miao.

Both sides fell into a stalemate, staring at each other. Only the *Blood Magic* book worked diligently to absorb the blood mana.

...

Further away, at the Physics Research Center building, Mu Cheng and Liang Jin, two special forces soldiers, were observing the Star Base. They had watched Su Miao control over eighty corpses to lay waste to the base. Gunfire and artillery had echoed incessantly. The once-pristine Star Base had been reduced to a smoking ruin in less than an hour.

They had seen Shui Kun emerge from the building and destroy dozens of corpses in a single strike—he was terrifying.

"She's in danger," Mu Cheng said, pulling out her heavy sniper rifle, wondering if she should provide support. But doing so would reveal their location. As she thought this, they saw Shui Kun charge at Su Miao. Su Miao emptied her magazine, not hitting him once, and had her gun snatched away.

The crisis had reached its peak. Mu Cheng was about to fire when, the next second, Shui Kun crushed the rifle into an iron ball. Even more absurdly, Shui Kun seemed to lose his mind, getting split in half by Su Miao's sword, dying on the spot...

They were baffled. They had been watching the whole time, yet they couldn't understand what had happened in between.

Furthermore, through their binoculars, they clearly saw Su Miao shivering after killing Shui Kun, looking as if she were terrified. If they hadn't seen her lead eighty corpses to destroy the Star Base, and seen the terrifying leader Shui Kun killed in minutes, they might have actually believed it.

Everything defied their understanding.

"What kind of ability is controlling corpses?" Liang Jin muttered. "The destructive power is too terrifying."

Mu Cheng shook her head. "I don't know."

The military had its own awakened soldiers, but compared to what they were seeing, those abilities seemed far weaker. But whether they were ability users or not, they would still die if shot or hit by artillery—that was, at least, a piece of good news.

With the leader of the Star Base dead, they wondered what the girl would do next. As they thought this, they saw the dome of the Star Base split open. A beautiful girl wrapped in a sheet walked out. Every corpse that tried to attack her was instantly blasted into a mist of blood.

Even from their distance, they felt an inexplicable sense of suffocation, as if they would burst apart just by facing her.

"Who is that?"

"She's not in our intelligence reports." Mu Cheng’s face changed. Liang Jin was in worse shape; he had collapsed to the ground.

After the pain subsided, they worried for Su Miao and immediately checked through their binoculars. They were stunned. Unlike the fight with Shui Kun, Su Miao stood her ground, firing her Type 95 at the jellyfish-girl. The girl simply raised her hand, summoning a curtain of water to block the bullets.

"Are they even human?" Liang Jin asked.

Mu Cheng shook her head. There was one more thing she hadn't mentioned: ever since the standoff began, there hadn't been a single gunshot or artillery blast from inside the base. It was as if only Su Miao and the jellyfish-girl remained. They didn't know it, but that was indeed the case.

...

Su Miao looked at the jellyfish-girl, her heart racing, but she managed to keep a straight face. Her gaze was cold as she calculated her next move.

[Your Highness, you can kill her if you swallow the blood crystal!]

Bloody text appeared on the magic book. Su Miao blinked. She didn't believe it for a second. *Once this fight is over, I'm burning this book.*

Suddenly, a miserable cry came from the sky.

"Please, don't kill me! Don't kill me..."

"Caw! Keep running, you idiot!"

"Keep running!"

"..."

?

Both Su Miao and the jellyfish-girl were distracted. A beautiful hill myna flew over from the direction of the zoo, but there was nothing chasing it. Perhaps seeing the two figures below, the bird landed on a nearby branch.

"Jellyfish, jellyfish, the jellyfish scared silly by the tabby cat, caw caw caw!"

"Shut up!" The jellyfish-girl’s face turned green instantly. She hadn't seen this foul-mouthed bird when she tried to escape to the aquarium earlier.

"Jellyfish fear salt! Jellyfish fear salt! Caw caw caw!" The myna hopped around on the branch, looking quite happy.

The jellyfish-girl’s expression darkened further. Su Miao looked at the bird, then curiously at the jellyfish-girl.

"Jellyfish? Fear salt?"