"Long... Qian... Qian..."
The name was dragged from between Corvath’s tightly clenched teeth. It was cold, violently trembling, and laced with a sliver of dread he himself hadn't even realized he possessed.
That high-tier mimic demon—which had clearly been reduced to ashes in the subterranean depths of Shanghai, its heart pierced by his black-and-red blade and its regenerative core utterly destroyed—was now standing right before him. Wearing the exact same face, she stood shyly in the flickering firelight of the "Abyss of the Forsaken," looking at him from across the cavern.
"Screeech—!"
Claude abruptly poked his head out from Corvath's trench coat collar, every single one of his pitch-black feathers standing bristled on end as he let out a series of harsh, frantic shrieks. His crow eyes were locked onto the young girl, as if beneath that deceptively delicate shell churned some horrific, unnatural entity that only a familiar could perceive.
"This is impossible..." Corvath muttered under his breath. He forced himself to stand, but the agonizing pain from his wound wrung a stifled groan from his throat, forcing him down back onto his knees in utter humiliation. "I watched with my own eyes as your core was burned to ashes by demonic embers... What kind of monster are you really?"
Frightened by his violent reaction, the girl’s delicate frame trembled violently. Panicked, she took half a step back, cowering behind a armless old man beside her. Her voice was as faint as a mosquito's buzz:
"S-Sir... do you know me? I only escaped from the third basement level of that research facility a few days ago... Because I couldn't endure the endless, cruel experiments, I was taken in by everyone here, covered in wounds... I don't know who this Long Qianqian is, and I don't remember anything."
She timidly added, her eyes reddening as they brimmed with tears:
"Your expression is so terrifying... Did I... do something wrong?"
Corvath stared intently at the face—identical down to the last detail to the one in his memory. His right eye, a magical crystal, spun madly as he attempted to capture even a trace of residual magic. Yet, he found nothing.
Clean. It was clean to a chilling degree.
The person before him bore no trace of the horrific aura of a high-tier demon that had once devoured countless living beings. Instead, she truly seemed like a frightened, fragile, and innocent young girl.
Beside them, the Scavenger shifted his gaze back and forth between Corvath and the girl, the scar across the bridge of his nose twitching slightly.
Lowering his voice so only Corvath could hear, he murmured:
"Detective... judging by your face... do you know this child?"
Corvath didn't answer. He simply kept his eyes glued to those innocent, timid eyes, his heart pounding wildly against his ribs. Was this the same monster he had personally executed wearing a new skin, or was a completely different soul sleeping beneath this shell?
Just then, the surrounding flickering firelight suddenly dimmed.
It wasn't that the flames had died out, but rather as if the intense heat had been instantly sucked away. A eerie, piercing cold swept through the deep, narrow tunnel, causing even the pair of withered black bone wings behind the Scavenger to quiver violently in unease.
"Oh my... It seems I haven't arrived at a very good time."
A familiar, lazy, and teasing voice drifted down without warning from above their heads—gentle, seductive, yet as cold as raw silk soaked in ice water.
Everyone instinctively looked up.
Amber Panthera hung upside down from the edge of the damaged sewer ceiling, one hand gripping a rusted steel pipe. Her dark gold hair cascaded downward, refracting a dangerous metallic sheen in the dim yellow firelight.
Her hind legs, transformed into a cheetah's form, were lightly curled. Her black feline eyes looked down from above, gazing with deep amusement at the entire "Abyss of the Forsaken"—the broken residents, Corvath slumped against the wall, and the girl hiding behind the old man.
"For an occasion like this, should we call it a long-awaited reunion, or... should we say it's time for farewells, Detective?"
Amber casually parted and closed her red lips, her tongue lightly licking across her teeth as if savoring the sheer malice of her own words.
Before her words even faded, her form darted down from the ceiling like a streak of silent golden light, landing firmly less than five steps in front of Corvath! The muscles in her cheetah-like hind legs instantly tensed, ready to burst forth with speed capable of tearing through space itself.
"How did you..." Corvath's face turned deathly pale. Enduring the excruciating, piercing pain from his wound, he could only fall to one knee again.
A deep chill surged through his heart—the network of sewers on the surface was vastly more complex than anticipated. Amber had not only tracked him all the way here by the scent of blood, but had also precisely infiltrated this neutral subterranean abyss that even the Exorcism Public Security knew nothing about.
"Oh my, don't make such a face like you've seen a ghost," Amber raised her chin slightly with her index finger, the laughter in her feline eyes growing even more intense. "Did you think that hiding in a stinky drain like this would make my nose fail me? Detective, you underestimate me far too much."
Her gaze casually swept over the cowering residents nearby, her tone dripping with unhidden disgust:
"Though honestly... the smell here is truly choking. Failed experimental subjects, living corpses, all kinds of rotting, nauseatingly sweet reek mixed together. It actually took me quite a bit of effort to track you down here."
The Scavenger silently stepped half a pace forward, shielding Corvath and the residents behind him. A beast-like, fierce glow gleamed within his dark red eyes:
"This is the Abyss of the Forsaken, and outsiders are not welcome. You had better think carefully—if you make a move here, you won't just be fighting him alone."
"Oh?" Amber raised an eyebrow, the corners of her lips curling into a cruel, delighted arc as if she had heard the funniest joke in the world. "With this bunch of defectives who can't even stand straight, you think you're worthy of talking about 'fighting' me?" She casually licked the un-dried blood off the back of her hand—a trace left behind by Corvath earlier. "Though you are right about one thing. I indeed didn't come here today for a bunch of trash like you."
Her gaze locked onto Corvath once more, her cat-like eyes narrowing into dangerous slits.
"Higher-ups issued a strict order to settle this quickly—and while I dislike assignments lacking in romance, work is work." She slowly raised her right hand, the sharp claws at her fingertips glinting with a cold, ruthless sheen.
In that very instant, her peripheral vision casually swept past the girl hiding behind the old man, and her movements froze abruptly.
"Huh?" A rare crack appeared in Amber's expression, and her teasing smile eerily stiffened on her face. Staring at that face, her pupils contracted sharply, and for the first time, her voice revealed unhidden shock:
"Long Qianqian? How could you..."
"No... Don't take me back to that place!"
The girl suddenly let out a sharp, raspy scream filled with heart-rending despair.
Her hands clawed frantically at the gaps in the rough wall, her fingernails splitting and bleeding from the sheer force.
That research facility was her eternal nightmare—a place of endless, icy chemical injections, piercing steel needles, and infinite dissections and reconstructions. She would rather have her soul scattered into nothingness right here than ever return to that human-devouring hell.
However, watching this woman—who was usually so deep-thinking and calculating—now shivering like a frightened little beast and weeping openly on the spot, Amber was stunned for a moment. Then, as if she had just heard the most absurd joke on Earth, she threw her head back and burst out laughing.
"Hahaha! What kind of ridiculous act is this?!"
Amber slapped her thigh, her laughter echoing through the cavernous underground tunnel, sounding exceptionally grating and mocking.
She cut off her laughter, took a step forward, and grabbed Long Qianqian's chin tightly, forcing the girl to meet her suspicion-filled gaze:
"Long Qianqian, what kind of game are you playing at? Suddenly acting like a pure, innocent girl who's never seen the world? Where did that ruthless streak of yours that killed without blinking an eye go? I heard you were good at acting to deceive your prey, but isn't this performance a bit too convincing? Even a veteran intelligence officer like me almost bought into it!"
Long Qianqian slapped Amber's fingers away with a violent wave of her arm, tears streaming down her face as her eyes held nothing but bone-deep terror.
Amber didn't understand at all, nor would she ever comprehend—just what kind of abyss-like despair the words "research facility" truly meant to her.
ns216.73.216.47da2
and then Add to home screen.