Chapter 333: The Purest Maiden

Fundamentally, the core purpose of holding such a fundraising gala was singular:

To reduce the auxiliary squad’s workload.

To prevent the members from expending too much energy on financial concerns.

The cleanup squad’s mission was to handle Anomalies, and the auxiliary squad’s efforts should revolve around that core. Every extra ounce of energy spent on fundraising was one less ounce devoted to what truly mattered.

Thus, this single event would suffice. From here on, the funds needed for the cleanup squad’s operations would essentially be secured. That was the true focus of this evening.

As for these wealthy individuals’ specific investments, the myriad promises they made to her...

Pandora held no interest whatsoever.

In a Fragment World, the promises of ordinary people—even the offer of the world’s highest throne—meant little to her. Not to mention, these were merely such mundane, tedious promises. Money, power, fame, profit. She lacked none of them. She needed none of them.

And yet, Pandora did not leave early.

To ensure the banquet achieved its intended effect, she circulated among the guests as the auxiliary squad had requested.

Like a masterful player, she graciously accepted every flower offered to her, but allowed none of them to so much as brush the hem of her clothing, much less take root in her heart.

To every flattering remark, she responded with a perfectly measured smile. Every business card, she accepted without a single glance. Probing questions were deftly parried with the most impeccable phrasing, leaving no loose thread for anyone to grasp.

Amidst the crisp clinking of wine glasses, she maintained her poised smile, yet her eyes remained terrifyingly lucid. That lucidity formed an absurd contrast against the guests around her, their faces flushed with desire and greed.

Until...

That clear gaze settled upon the very center of the crowd.

There stood a girl. Utterly sweet. Utterly lovely.

She was at the age of nineteen, barely an adult, still carrying a hint of unripened innocence. A white floor-length gown, simply cut and devoid of superfluous ornamentation, perfectly accentuated the soft contours of her figure, not yet sharpened by the passage of years.

Her smile was innocent and radiant, her eyes seeming to hold an entire galaxy of stars. Unlike the meticulously adorned, jewel-bedecked matrons surrounding her, she was like a white camellia that had wandered by mistake into the mortal dust.

She was, without doubt, the purest, most beautiful presence at this banquet.

Perhaps, also, the only sweet fruit truly worthy of Pandora devouring herself...

The maiden shyly approached Pandora. With a gaze of untainted innocence, she extended an invitation to share a drink.

She offered a glass of champagne, her cheeks faintly flushed, as though she had summoned every ounce of courage just to make such a gesture.

Pandora smiled and accepted her invitation. She took the glass, clinked it gently against the girl’s, and drained it in one draught. She allowed the other to quietly loop an arm through her own.

The tale has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.

………………

The banquet gradually reached its climax. The lighting grew softer, the music more intoxicating.

Under countless gazes—some envious, some astonished, some lost in wild speculation—they departed the banquet hall together, passed through the corridor, and entered a suite the hotel had long prepared.

The suite door closed behind them. The clamor of the banquet hall was cut off, sealed in another world by the heavy door.

Inside the suite, fragrant smoke curled from a censer in the corner, the air thick with a heady atmosphere. The scent was cloying and warm, like the fragrance of some tropical flower blooming deep in the night, dense to the point of suffocation.

Smiling, the two entered the luxurious bathroom together.

In the vast bathtub, warm water gushed in, billowing into a hazy steam that refracted a suggestive luster beneath the lights.

Smooth skin. A slender neck.

Warm water cascading down, the young maiden, shrouded in steam, appeared almost flawless. Her skin, moistened by the heat, flushed a faint pink, like the most tender peach blossom petal on an early spring branch.

Pandora embraced the girl from behind. The gesture was intimate and tender, her chin resting lightly in the hollow of the girl’s shoulder. The maiden tilted her head back slightly, baring that impeccably smooth, utterly defenseless neck.

She allowed Pandora to reach out, to stroke that vulnerable spot where, beneath the translucent, delicate skin, one could almost feel the faint pulse. Beneath her fingertips, the rhythm of the beating pulse was crisp and palpable. Rapid. Forceful.

This moment.

She was a goddess. She was the forbidden fruit of Eden. She was...

An Anomaly draped in the skin of a pure maiden.

A sudden flash of pain.

No time to react.

Pandora’s hand had already—gently, cruelly—sliced open her skin.

In the posture of a tight embrace from behind, both hands pierced through the neck, slipping past the collarbone...

The sensation was strange. The moment her fingertips pierced the skin, no warm blood gushed forth. Instead, there was a texture that lay somewhere between human flesh and something far more alien.

The searing pain made the girl tremble. In this instant, she was fragile, pitiable.

Pinkish, diluted blood-water trickled down her neck, winding along the arc of her collarbone, yet only making her exude an even deadlier allure. She threw her head back, as if she might collapse entirely into Pandora’s arms.

She seemed to want to demand an answer, but could only tremble helplessly and force out a single word—

‘Why?’

Her voice was filled with utter disbelief. Filled with the sorrow of betrayal by one she had trusted.

Pandora, however, smiled.

Without the slightest hesitation, she tore away that layer of flawless, lily-white human skin.

Like peeling open a ripened fruit. Like ripping off a worn-out garment.

The layer of skin began to disintegrate from the gash at the neck, dissolving like pigment bleeding into water, rapidly sloughing away.

Where was the naive, innocent maiden now?

Before her was nothing but a giant, gaudy moth, shimmering with iridescent, multicolored wing-dust!

Its massive wings, coated in fine scales, refracted a dizzying iridescence under the bathroom lights—a glow beautiful yet eerie, like the fluorescence of certain venomous deep-sea creatures.

Fuzzy antennae sprouted from its head, replacing what had been silky hair. The slender human form was supplanted by a segmented torso covered in fine down.

Clearly, it was an Anomaly.

And the designation the auxiliary squad had assigned it was—

【Butterfly】.

“You knew I wasn’t human?”

The girl’s voice had changed. It was no longer that shy, sweet tone from before. The fear in that voice was gone, replaced entirely by mockery. Like a child whose game had been exposed, simply flipping over the chessboard in frustration.

Its fuzzy wings flared open in an instant! The span far exceeded what the bathroom could contain, yet somehow, they distorted and crammed themselves into the entire room. The moth wings, laden with toxic scales, completely sealed off any retreat through the bathroom door.

Tiny, powdery scales sifted down from the wings, drifting through the steam. They mingled with the warm mist, forming a cloying, dangerous scent.

It twisted its head around. The angle of rotation was something a human cervical spine could never achieve.

Its massive compound eyes reflected countless images of Pandora in the steam. Each image was fragmented into tiny pieces by a thousand crystalline lenses, yet each fragment held her whole.

A long, curved, needle-like proboscis extended from the center of its face. The tube was thin and elongated, hollow, its tip so sharp it seemed capable of piercing anything.

With a whistling shriek, it drove straight toward Pandora’s eye—aiming for the pale, sweet brain matter behind it.

She was an Anomaly. An Anomaly that humanity feared. An Anomaly that wore human skin, and by doing so, possessed a measure of intelligence derived from her host.

She knew her existence should inspire terror in humans.

And now, she would pretend no longer.