He is the leader of the Tantric sect in Chagdu.

Chapter 92 Please Kill Me First

Filthy things.

After a moment of stunned silence, without much thought, Ai quickly realized what the word referred to.

"Those treacherous shelled species—"

He spoke softly, then suddenly looked up at Miya, opened his mouth but was immediately covered by a hand, forcing him to swallow the "name" he was about to say.

"Well, actually—"

Ai still wanted to speak, but when he stared into the girl's shimmering eyes, licking the fear and despair flowing within them, in an unsettling silence, the fox finally nodded in resignation, "Fine, you go first."

"call----"

Miya finally breathed a sigh of relief and cautiously scanned her surroundings, as if she were on guard against something that might crawl out from some corner at any moment.

"Do not utter their names—those monsters who defy the gods."

She spoke softly, her trembling voice like that of a lone wild animal hiding in a cave. Her family had placed her here because of some inexplicable disaster, instructing her to avoid the name "monster," to dig deeper into the cave, and to block the way to the outside world—to curl up in the silent darkness, close her eyes, and shut her ears—to see nothing and hear nothing.

—Until the end of the catastrophe.

Until the entire ethnic group was lost to the times.

"How old are you?"

Ai tilted her head and looked at Miya in front of her suspiciously. Although she was reluctant to admit it, this young snake was fierce, big and scary when it fought, but when it curled up into a ball, it looked quite small. If you ignored its slender snake body, its upper body didn't seem to be much older than Ai's apparent age.

—Damn, am I committing a crime?

He rested his chin on his hand and thought to himself—though it was a bit out of place, perhaps this line of thinking could explain Miya's origins—when she was recalling, she claimed to be the eldest daughter of the "Falou Clan"—for a noble family, that at least sounded like a "princess" or "young lady."

In the deathly silence, Ai heard the little snake secretly swallowing, and after hesitating for a long time, it finally squeezed out a soft, delicate "One hundred and forty-six years old —"

A blush rose on Miya's face as she stammered, emphasizing, "I'm not an adult yet—"

"?"

'

Ai Yi's lips twitched. He felt that age was a difficult metric to measure for a non-human girl. After a few seconds of distraction, he finally brought his attention back to the main topic.

"How much of your memory has returned? About the Uso nobility, about your origins—"

"Uso is a lineage that once worshipped the dragon, a horned serpent, and the oldest lineage—originally following Eden, the ruler of the heavens, and obtaining the right to reside in Paradise. But after the dragon tore the sky down, they began to seek the teachings of the Lord of Scales. We are born to enjoy the favor of the principles of revelation—we leave a illustrious mark in every era, spreading the serpent's totem and heritage throughout the Red Pool and the present world—"

Miya poked the short horns on the top of her head. "These are the horns of the Uso nobility, modeled after the form of a dragon—although we have never actually performed this veneration."

"Alright, let's change the subject then."

He said solemnly, "What I want to know more about now is about those monsters and the disaster that has befallen the Uso nobility."

Upon hearing Ai's request, Mia's face immediately went blank, then froze into confusion and sorrow, her beautiful, cat-eye-like vertical pupils slowly widening—

Through her tear-filled eyes, she moved her lips, but her dry throat could only taste the blood. She clenched her fist so hard that her palms were scratched—Miya could only utter a hoarse, soft voice with all her might: "Everyone is dead," she said.

"Mom and Dad, everyone, they all became nourishment for those monsters to grow, a breeding ground for their hatching—"

Only now did the young girl realize that she had been banished by history and time, and that this era no longer belonged to the Uso nobility, nor to her.

"Blind faithless ones, blasphemers of the light—monsters have torn open the gates of our kingdom and poured in through the wide-open doors—"

Her eyes were filled with deep fear. Recalling the events was undoubtedly torture for her, but under Ai's gaze, Mia still whispered the details of the "massacre".

"The first to show signs of abnormality was the anointed statue in the family—the eldest sister of the snakes—one of the magnificent deities who was born from the serpent horde and rose to power, and also one of the contenders for the Crown of Revelation."

—Is the Crown of Enlightenment another name for the Star of Enlightenment?

Ai silently noted down this information and compared it with what she already knew: the current Qi Zhi Si Chen is not a symbol of the snake—but a deer, a deer head that can be seen in almost every department of the Countermeasures Bureau.

—The eldest sister of the snakes was—a being who failed to grasp the grand principles that led to this great undertaking.

Miya continued to recall: "It was a very ordinary day—it started at the tribe's church, where everyone smelled a putrid stench. After finding its source, we pinpointed a high stone statue with a serpentine apex, which was the symbol of the eldest sister."

"Strangely, the stone and wax, which were originally inorganic materials, no longer appeared hard to us—but instead possessed a disgusting texture—collapsed and flowed like rotten meat." So we knocked open the statue's outer shell and found a lump—a monster—in its belly.

She said softly, "A clump of insects tightly intertwined with each other, wriggling, twisting, and even strangling each other."

-insect.

Ai Yi seemed to be deep in thought.

—Even his own image has been invaded, and he hasn't reacted yet—this is not the attitude of a "god".

"He was killed?" Ai couldn't help but ask, then frowned. "It's unlikely. Even at the lower stages, Enlightenment beings are hard to kill, let alone a Grand Enlightenment being."

"The eldest sister may not be dead—no, she must not be dead—even though the monster gnawed out her statue, even though she was disemboweled, her wounds are still open and sacred. Wounds are established rituals, and as long as the scars still have power, she has power."

"but----"

Miya took a deep breath.

"After that, the disaster struck—"

Like chewing on shards of glass, swallowing them with a bloody taste, the little snake choked twice, but finally forced itself to speak, "The snake originally lived with my elder sister outside a sealed gate—"

"According to their mission, they guard this door called 'The Scar of Overthrow'—ever since their eldest sister disappeared, strange things have begun to happen in the tribe—"

"First, the door started to move strangely, and the noble guards who were watching it closely said that they began to hallucinate, hearing faint sounds of soft-bodied animals crawling in their ears at all times—then they began to fall ill, starting with the guards, then the clergy, the supplicants, and finally, it spread to everyone."

"Initially, I was weak."

She closed her eyes, forcing back the pain of the memories: "Everyone started to lose strength, and then slowly lost the ability to move. They couldn't lift their arms—each scale weighed a ton. Their tails were immobile. Their flesh and soul were like parts that no longer fit together. I don't know which part lost control."

"Then the next stage: people begin to rot."

"The owner of the wound no longer cares for us. Even the power of the scales no longer works. After the flesh and blood that died from being unable to move for a long time shed, what grows from our wounds are putrid and foul-smelling pustules and rotten scars."

Ai listened quietly, then thought of the deceased Holy See.

Even in the Nest's time—having transformed himself in some way into this half-human, half-snake form—he still could not escape the fate of decay.

This seems to be a curse that hangs over the "species".

"Soon—more and more people stopped moving, fewer and fewer people were healthy, and we couldn't escape. Someone tried to run away, but the entire kingdom was enveloped by a twisted mass. Those monsters wouldn't let us leave, and even prayers to the King of Scales couldn't get out—after all, even my eldest sister was almost left here, how could we possibly escape—?"

Miya began to tremble slightly.

"I was also very scared, scared to death because my mother also got sick, very seriously. At first, there were doctors taking care of her—but later the doctors all died, and my father became the one taking care of her. He wouldn't let me see my mother, locked me in a sealed room, and set up a lot of complicated rituals around me, none of which I could understand—he said he wanted to protect me."

"When Dad left—I saw something emerge from his stomach, a big, moving mass, fall to the ground, wriggle, and disappear."

She took a deep breath.

He also said—I might be Uzo's last hope.

As Ai listened to Miya's increasingly faint moans, which then turned into loud sobs, and finally into indistinct whispers, he helped wipe away the tears streaming down the girl's cheeks and sighed softly.

He imagined the scene: an ancient tribe that was once incredibly prosperous, but in a short period of time, suffered annihilation.

The worshipped gods have lost contact, and the people are dying en masse in a bizarre plague. An invisible slaughter is inescapable, and more monsters are hatching from the rotting corpses of snakes—

Just imagining it is enough to make one despair.

"Unfortunately, that was a very, very long time ago."

Ai sighed, "Your tribe has been lost to history—but as your father said, you survived, untouched by the curse of decay, healthy and beautiful—perhaps this is the hope he spoke of?"

"Maybe----"

Miya couldn't deny it, and finally managed to calm herself down amidst the overwhelming sorrow. She looked at Ai Yi and forced a smile.

"It's strange to ask this, but I want to know where this place is, and what I look like now. I'm sorry, perhaps the long slumber is making me a little uncomfortable."

"That's easy to do."

Ai casually snapped a picture of the battlefield on the real world side and popped it into her head. "Since you're rational, that's good—I've already taken care of that damned Holy Throne for you. As the original soul of this body, you can unconditionally take over your own activities, so there shouldn't be any fighting."

He snapped his fingers and chuckled, "Any other questions?"

1

The little snake extended a trembling finger, pointing to the content on the screen, its voice so soft it was almost inaudible: "Is this me?"

—What is this?————

She looked at the other side of the world, at the discordant thing on the girl's graceful body, her bloated belly almost transparent.

Ai watched her quietly, her gaze gradually becoming strange and profound, before giving another silent nod.

"No----"

Miya was completely gripped by fear. She looked pleadingly at Ai Yi in front of her, then looked around again and again at the helpless girl sinking into the deep pool and about to drown.

Finally, her self-light solidified on the "pattern" beneath her, a picture that could not be buried by the wind and sand: as time went by, these inanimate sands seemed to begin to twist silently—this was a completely irregular curling and writhing, clearly endowed with the privileges of living things, yet giving rise to disorder and ugliness that contradicted all intelligent life.

Just looking at it makes one feel an irresistible nausea rising from the stomach.

Extreme evil that is in opposition to order.

"cough-

'

A hoarse retch escaped Ai Yi's lips, but he remained unresponsive. The blue in his eyes intensified as he silently watched the girl prostrate herself on the ground, spitting out a mouthful of thick, writhing, foul blood. Her eyes had lost all their former liveliness and color.

"So—I was their conduit."

Miya murmured.

—It turns out I've never escaped their influence.

Those monsters are like parasitic life forms that lay their eggs inside others, then release them into a safe environment, letting them return to their nests, and then determine their coordinates.

It was another invasion that avoided the radiance, avoided the dragons, was extremely obscure and avoided all prying eyes, and thus silently crawled in.

"No!" This was a cry of despair.

The tragedy of the Uso nobility must not be repeated here. Those monsters, even after traversing a long history, have not been eradicated—they still display a pure and unreasonable malice towards this world.

—We must stop them.

Miya thought to herself.

It's a small act of revenge, but it's all I can do.

In her final moments, driven by noble pride, the glory of being the eldest daughter of the Varou clan, and the final ode to the name of Uso, the little snake made her decision with ease after only two seconds of contemplation.

"If you want to know more about us, and more about them—"

The next instant, with an irresistible tremor, the Vessel Land forcibly severed its access to the intruder by severing its cognitive abilities and intellect. In a daze, Ai was kicked out of it.

Slowly opening his eyes again, he was met with the "snake's" murky and chaotic gaze, its rapidly trembling pupils seemingly resisting some kind of conflict.

Ai sighed, and he heard a whisper that came directly from his mind.

"Please kill me first."

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