Chapter 30 - 28: Why Aren’t You Dead Yet

Chapter 30: Chapter 28: Why Aren’t You Dead Yet

Back then, after Yin Zhen silently chanted, "I feel something is wrong," a riot broke out outside. She had thought this would make Lucia panic and drop her guard, but she had underestimated the woman’s ruthlessness.

To some extent, Lucia and Yin Zhen were very similar, indeed sharing a high degree of compatibility.

The pressure caused Lucia to lose her reasoning, and her consciousness body began to mutate. She tore at Yin Zhen in a manner that almost guaranteed mutual destruction.

When Cannon Fodder’s Intuition was triggered, Yin Zhen "saw" that three seconds later, her and Lucia’s consciousnesses would entangle, disintegrate, and die simultaneously. Every time Cannon Fodder’s Intuition triggered, her will to survive squeezed out Yin Zhen’s full potential. Her brain worked at its absolute limit, searching for the key to breaking the deadlock.

Thinking back on it now, even if she hadn’t made that attempt, Lucia would still have died. The only difference was that she was one step faster than the external forces.

In those few seconds, she had been acutely aware that even with the Spiritual Enhancer, even after putting all three attribute points into Wisdom, and even with the chaos outside, she was still no match for Lucia. Fighting head-on meant death, and she couldn’t die!

The "Exploit the Enemy’s Weaknesses" her father taught her when she was young suddenly exploded in her mind. Avoid Lucia’s solid points—her ruthlessness and combat instincts. Attack Lucia’s weak points. What was her weakness? It was the mutation!

Super Sensing acted like an electric shock, bringing that sentence from Ian’s files right before her eyes: Whether resonance on a spiritual level possesses mimetic capabilities has yet to be explored due to a lack of research.

Yin Zhen made a prompt decision. She stopped tearing and resisting. Instead, just like using her resonance ability when sucking blood, she accepted Lucia’s invading consciousness and imitated her. Blood Source Resonance truly deserved to be a protagonist’s standard loadout. She succeeded!

In that moment, her memories were no longer Yin Zhen’s, nor were they S717’s. The carousel of flashing images all became Lucia’s. She had also become Lucia, an identical Lucia.

In the world of consciousness, the blonde woman opposite her suddenly stopped. She stared at Yin Zhen, stunned.

"We succeeded," Yin Zhen spoke, using Lucia’s voice, Lucia’s tone, and Lucia’s hoarseness of having survived a calamity. "We’ve occupied this body. Now, as long as we make the mutated parts completely disappear, we can be reborn in this new shell."

Lucia’s eyes wavered for a moment.

"The mutated parts..." Lucia muttered, looking down at herself. What met her eyes weren’t normal hands and a body, but twisted fleshy tumors, rotting skin, and tentacles drilling out of her shoulders. "No..." Lucia retreated in terror. "No, this isn’t me, this isn’t me!"

Yin Zhen could feel that terror. Having killed Mutants for over a decade, Lucia knew better than anyone what the fate of becoming a monster entailed. Over the past week since she started mutating, every second had been torture. By enduring until today, she was already infinitely close to the brink of collapse.

"Disappear..." Yin Zhen’s voice was like a bewitchment, light and slow. "Let the mutated parts disappear and we can be reborn. A clean, pure rebirth."

Lucia looked at this other version of herself. Her gaze shifted from terror to struggle, and from struggle to vacancy. "Let the mutation... disappear... rebirth..."

Lucia’s consciousness had been torn apart for too long. The mutation was eroding her, the chaos draining her. The explosions outside sounded one after another like death-knell drumbeats. She was tired—even more tired than Yin Zhen!

Seizing the opportunity, Yin Zhen lunged forward and tore apart that carrion-like consciousness in one fell swoop. Just as she herself had hoped, Lucia made the mutated parts disappear completely. Along with herself!

...

In the lounge, Yin Zhen let out a low chuckle. The tension that had kept her nerves strung tight these past few days fully unwound. Her exhausted body sank into the soft sofa, supported and enveloped. Now, it was time to check the fruits of her victory!

The Extraordinary Catalyst previously lying dormant in her body had been thoroughly stimulated. Blood Source Resonance had upgraded to A-level, the resonance ability Level cap had risen to A-level, and the number of allowed resonances had increased to six.

Last time, worried about being discovered, she had forcibly suppressed the power of the Extraordinary Catalyst. This time, she was simply forced into a corner and couldn’t afford to hide it. For now, it seemed she hadn’t been exposed. However, when it came to Ian, Yin Zhen couldn’t shake the feeling that there was something wrong with him.

What was somewhat regrettable was that Spiritual Resonance couldn’t resonate with Lucia’s A-level White Bone Thorn. If only the laboratory still had Lucia’s blood samples. Perhaps only Spiritual Extraordinary Abilities could be copied through Spiritual Resonance? This point remained to be verified.

Aside from the Blood Source Resonance Level upgrade, she had also obtained 9 Wisdom points from Lucia’s consciousness body. The Character S717’s total Wisdom had reached 17 points, which was even higher than her main Player body. Stacked together, she estimated that most Spiritual Extraordinary Abilities would be ineffective against her.

She wondered if the Blood Clan had any tricks or methods for utilizing spiritual power. The spiritual power wave Adeline had previously directed at the three members of the Bloodthorn Squad seemed to be one such application. Lucia’s memories should hold some answers too, but Yin Zhen currently had a splitting headache. Even though the side effects of the Spiritual Enhancer were gradually fading, she had no energy left to scour Lucia’s memories.

As for the attribute points awarded upon completing the assassination quest, Yin Zhen chose to save them for now and allocate them after returning to her own world. What remained were two Items, one Title, and a newly added Player Talent.

[A Piece of Paper]: A piece of paper~ used by an author to casually jot down inspiration. If you meticulously write down the name of a character who truly exists in the novel and is currently alive, you will soon meet them. (This piece of paper is very fragile; it appears it can only be used three times.)

[Explanation]: Every stroke of the name will cost the Player 100 words. The written name must be true and accurate. In the case of identical names, one will be summoned at random. You can also continue to spend word count to add more specific character descriptions.

[Friendly Reminder]: It cannot decipher cursive or connected handwriting. Also, don’t treat it like a Death Note, and there’s absolutely no guarantee regarding the posture or setting of your meeting. (They might crawl through a dog hole to court you, or they might descend from the sky to take your miserable life.)

...

[See You Next Chapter (One-Time Item)]: The cliffhanger troll Skills that readers hate the most—now you’ve learned them, too. Upon use, you can forcibly escape your current dangerous scenario and skip directly to the next Chapter.

[Explanation]: Please posture as hard as possible and say to your enemy: "We will see each other in the next Chapter!"

[Friendly Reminder]: If the beginning of the next Chapter starts with "Ten years later," guess what will happen?

...

[exclusive title ’Why aren’t you dead yet’]: Upon active trigger, targets within your line of sight will fly into a rage and uncontrollably roar at you, "Why aren’t you dead yet?!"

[Explanation]: When shouting this phrase, any actions the opponent requires continuous execution for will be interrupted, and their reason will be clouded by anger until you either die or escape. Cooldown: 24 hours. Can affect a maximum of 5 people at once.

[Friendly Reminder]: Those interrupted will subsequently develop an "obsessive overkill compulsion," and their aggro toward you will increase by +200%. (If they originally just wanted to injure you, they will now want to kill you. If they originally wanted to kill you, they will now want to chop you into mincemeat and burn you to ashes!)

If you can deliver a fatal blow within three seconds after the opponent says this phrase, and follow it up with, "Sorry to disappoint you," the Title’s cooldown will instantly reset. This reset can only be triggered once every 24 hours.

A novel without badass face-slapping plots will definitely flop!

After reading the Explanations for these Titles and Items, Yin Zhen’s forehead twitched. Recalling how she had shouted "I have experience" right to Adeline’s face last time, she felt so mortified her toes could curl into the floorboards.

"I want to draw a new Talent," Yin Zhen muttered in her heart. Immediately after, three bronze-colored cards appeared in her pitch-black sea of consciousness. Yin Zhen casually picked one.

[Talent]: I’m afraid of myself when I go crazy

[Effect]: Upon active activation, for the next 30 seconds, you will enter berserk mode. You will burn 50% of your Life Value, gain All Attributes +50%, reduce pain reception by -50%, and acquire the psychological buff of "killing one is a wash, killing two is pure profit," rendering you fearless against any Spiritual Attack.

During this period, you will involuntarily let out various villainous laughs and spout classic lines such as, "Come on!" "Is that it?" and "Just die!"

Cooldown: 1 time per round.

This had to be on purpose, right?! Did it really have to be an ability that caused such social death? Are they sure readers will buy into a novel written like this?!