The stench of blood was thick enough to choke.
Gunfire.
Explosions.
The dull thud of blades sinking into flesh.
Dying screams.
Countless sounds churned madly above the settlement's streets, weaving into a symphony of death that set scalps prickling.
It was impossible to tell who was fighting whom; the killing spread and burst like a plague in every corner.
Bounty hunters who just yesterday had slung arms over shoulders and drunk hard in the tavern were now jamming scalding gun barrels against the brows of former comrades and squeezing the trigger.
The couple who just yesterday had whispered sweet nothings and nuzzled by the campfire were now stabbing each other with knives, faces twisted, every blow cutting to the bone—oh, God, let the reason for this tragedy not be that the woman demanded half the assets in the breakup...
BOOM—!!!
A blinding orange-red fireball erupted without warning at the densest part of the crowd; the shockwave of the assault high-explosive charge, like an invisible giant hammer, smashed and tore everything nearby flat.
Even the several recon drones circling a hundred meters up were flung away by the violent blast, plummeting as burning wreckage.
Countless severed limbs, like petals torn off by force.
The viscous blood was no longer a liquid but more like sticky oil paint, gurgling through the cracks in the flagstone road, winding across the ground into countless hideous rivulets.
"..."
Caelus and the Stelle-Asta fusion stood on a relatively intact platform, watching the utter chaos below, more than a little dumbfounded.
"What's going on?"
"Did we skip a version?"
"Or did King Crimson erase the part in between?"
"Don't tell me the Simulated Universe launched a carnival battle-royale limited-time event? Where's the announcement?"
The Stelle-Asta fusion stared, somewhat dazed, at the battlefield before her that was clearly R18-rated.
"Hahaha~"
Below, a bounty hunter drenched head to toe in blood and looking possessed roared as he swung his slime-coated chainsaw sword hard down at a giant beetle that was tearing at a corpse.
The chainsaw roared; flesh and blood flew.
A sharp blade gleaming with cold light stabbed in from behind him without warning, piercing the heart with precision, the bloodstained tip emerging from his chest.
"Die, you bug!"
The one wielding the blade was, of all people, another bounty hunter whose eyes were just as bloodshot with killing.
The stabbed hunter collapsed; the blade-wielding hunter bellowed at the top of his lungs:
"Did you see that! Did you see that! Kel! I avenged you!"
The Stelle-Asta fusion frowned.
Bro, come on—weren't you the one shouting about killing bugs?
How'd you end up whaling on your own teammate?!
And besides...
The Stelle-Asta fusion blinked, her little face full of pure confusion, and pointed at the blade-wielding hunter below:
"So, are he and Kel sworn brothers who'd die for each other, or... uh... that kind of couple?"
Earlier she'd seen the man walk into a dim little alley with Kel.
"Is now really the time to be thinking about that?"
Caelus shot her a sidelong look, exasperated.
He paused, then added in a flat, academic tone, as if discussing the weather:
"Actually, telling gay men from straight men is simple. You just check the butthole—as they say, largely the same, minor differences."
Watching and recording silently from afar, Herta, Ruan Mei, and Screwllum nearly lost their composure at that.
The Stelle-Asta fusion's eyes lit up as if she'd received some peerless secret manual, and she pointed eagerly at the chaotic battlefield below:
"Great idea! Caelus-cub! Quick! Get down there and check while it's fresh!"
Caelus took half a step back, expressionless, hands in his pockets:
"...No way."
These bounty hunters were clearly in a bad way, trapped in some eerie half-crazed state, treating former brothers-in-arms and even innocent bystanders as bugs to be exterminated.
"Did playing the codex-compilation game leave them unable to tell humans from bugs? Or did something happen earlier?"
The Stelle-Asta fusion struck a solemn pose like the great detective Di Renjie, and turned to Caelus with a blazing gaze:
"Yuanfang, there's something fishy about this. What do you make of it?"
"Why not go ask the Magic Conch Shell?"
Caelus shrugged, offering the suggestion in SpongeBob's tone.
"Right, we can go find Seraphina!"
At that, the Stelle-Asta fusion clapped her hands, as if she'd spotted Watson's blind spot.
The woman had already been under suspicion of being Aha; with an incident like this happening, she was the prime suspect, no question about it.
"Hold on, how did she get that meaning out of that line?"
A few question marks popped up above the Herta dumpling's head.
She was certain the two hadn't opened any encrypted comms channel, yet they'd pulled off an exchange of information that transcended human linguistic logic.
She didn't know whether to call it absurd or just plain abstract brain-wiring.
"Let's go."
Caelus and Stelle set off at once, trying to skirt the main district where the fighting was fiercest.
But in a settlement fallen into collective madness, avoidance was only a pretty wish.
Blood-crazed bounty hunters, like sharks scenting blood, kept lunging out from shadows and ruined walls, and stray bullets swept through the narrow lanes like a downpour.
Luckily, the Stelle-Asta fusion's power ranked among the very top of this crowd of hunters; the maniacs who lunged at her were usually knocked flat in a couple of moves.
And whenever a blind stray bullet was about to touch Caelus's body, a solid, gentle amber-colored energy shield would flash into being in that instant, and the bullets struck as if against walls of bronze and iron.
The Fire Trailblazer's Skill that grants teammates full-version damage reduction, kid.
Making their way through the blood-flooded buildings of the settlement, at last, at the edge of a relatively open little plaza where several side roads met, Caelus spotted the target.
That extraordinarily charming gold was dazzling even amid the chaos and smoke.
Seraphina seemed to sense the gaze; she turned to look up at the building's terrace off to the side, her brilliant golden hair and gun-blade glittering in the sunlight that filtered through gaps in the gunsmoke, her smile as graceful and stunning as ever.
"I'm about seventy percent sure now."
Caelus's gaze passed over Seraphina and landed on the hat-wearing bounty hunter across from her—the very one who'd interrupted their conversation earlier, the one hopelessly infatuated with Seraphina.
"Even though I don't want to believe it..."
The bounty hunter named Oz spoke hoarsely, each word seeming squeezed from torn lungs; he gripped his hunting rifle, knuckles white from the strain, the muzzle trembling faintly.
"But tell me, Seraphina! All this madness... did you do it!?"
"That's right. It was me."
With a smile as brilliant as sunshine, Seraphina admitted it frankly, her voice light.
"I used Bug-Powder Witchcraft on them, throwing them into a delirious state."
Smile radiant, Seraphina confessed without the slightest reserve.
"Why?!"
Oz's roar carried a blood-weeping despair, his eyes burning with the flame of collapsing faith and hysterical anguish:
"Why would you do something like this?! Why destroy everyone?! Destroy all of this?!"
"At this point, discussing 'why'..."
Seraphina tilted her head slightly, golden hair cascading:
"does it still mean anything, my dear Oz?"
Those bewitching eyes, ever so subtly, turned in the direction where Caelus stood and gave a light flutter—a wink laced with teasing and invitation.
Then, gracefully and without hesitation, she raised the twin pistols in her hands, the pitch-black muzzles aimed steadily, coldly, at her former admirer's heart.
Into that stunning smile was now blended a touch of tender sorrow and deep regret, as if she were about to bid a long, mournful farewell to the love of her life:
"Look, how cruel fate is."
"Today, on this plaza... only one person can walk out alive."
Her gaze locked onto Oz's pained, struggling eyes, and she softly breathed out an urging like a lover's whisper:
"You—pull the trigger."
"Eighty percent."
On the receiving end of the wink, Caelus narrowed his eyes at the tragic drama unfolding before him—'lovers with guns pointed at each other, a beautiful, sorrowful farewell.'
"Eighty-five, ninety... no, at this level there's no point guessing anymore."
This bastard was actually practicing her craft!?
The craft of acting in a romance film!
Honestly, with acting this perfect, if you filmed that scene just now and released it out in the wider world, it'd absolutely be a movie that blew up across the Galaxy!
BANG~!
With one crisp gunshot.
This lucky hunter lost his leader, and also lost his freshly minted 'love.'
Seraphina was dead.
Oz was half-mad.
"Blood... hunters of different bounty Paths... the color of their blood is different! Look at it! Look at the color of that blood! Hahaha...!"
Oz flailed his arms, babbling incoherent Ravings of unclear meaning, and stumbled backward in flight, leaving behind only a mad murmur drifting away on the Wind.
Caelus hopped down beside Seraphina's corpse and, without a shred of tenderness for the fair sex, kicked at her head like it was a soccer ball:
"Bro, fooling yourself is fine, but don't go trying to fool me too."
Honestly, Caelus had rather been looking forward to Aha spinning him around on the romance front.
Just imagining that scene made him feel... super fun!
Being played is one of the higher grades of amusement, too, but the thing is~
Caelus glanced at the earring beneath the Stelle-Asta fusion's earlobe.
With that thing around, It was going to have a hard time pulling it off!
"Caelus-cub~"
The Stelle-Asta fusion sidled up to Caelus, winked mischievously, poked the still-warm arm of the corpse on the ground, and teased with a cheeky grin:
"Rare chance—do you want to... while it's still warm?"
"Get lost."
Caelus was about to lift his foot and kick her, but taking the Asta part of her into account, he delivered a merciless flick to the Stelle-Asta fusion's smooth forehead instead!
"Ow!"
The Stelle-Asta fusion clutched her forehead and yelped theatrically.
"Still..."
Caelus drew his hand back, sweeping his gaze across the chaotic battlefield:
"A development like this isn't so bad, actually."
Now, a pack of bounty hunters caught in collective frenzy, unable to tell human from bug, roamed the ruins like beasts gone out of control.
The Sieglaidien army and Mitri, who intended to conquer Verminstar, were sharpening their claws and fangs.
And there was still the Sieglaidien army and Mitri, who wanted to conquer Verminstar.
So, unsurprisingly, the frenzied bounty hunters, weapons flailing, crashed like an unchecked flood straight into the army's fully prepared positions.
War!
An unprecedented, utterly gruesome massacre erupted with a roar across the blood-colored land of Verminstar!
Gruesome, of course, from the perspective of the bounty hunters and the bugs.
The army's combat strength was barely dented; the bioengineering team had already fulfilled the order handed down by the General: to turn the swarm itself into the most terrifying biological weapon!
The cold command passed through the army's network.
"Target Identification Protocol—disabled!"
Whether what stood in the way was a hideous bug or a despairing human, the swarm simply killed.
Just kill and be done!
Just conquer and be done!
Crush every obstacle!
Bugs' chitinous shells shattered under the bombardment of energy weapons; human limbs were flung about between the swarm's sharp claws and fangs.
Viscous green bug blood and scarlet human blood, mixed with bodily fluids and charred crumbs, flowed and merged freely across the ground, giving off a nauseating sweet-metallic reek and a burnt stench.
At the very center of this mill of flesh and blood, a battered bug, its shell webbed with cracks, struggled its way out from a heap of corpses of its own kind and humans.
Its compound eyes reflected endless death and Destruction—it was the last surviving individual of Verminstar's Coleoptera clan.
An unprecedented, bone-chilling hatred and loneliness shot through its simple nerve cord like an electric current.
Then, something even more staggering than the hell before it happened!
On the battlefield, all the remaining swarm seemed to receive one supreme command at once, ceasing their futile fleeing and killing in an instant; ignoring the hail of gunfire and the trampling, they poured their last vitality madly into—reproduction!
Bzzzz—!
Countless bug eggs condensed out of nothing amid the gunsmoke and gore, swelling and bursting; uncountable newborn bugs of every form surged out like a tide.
Then the last member of Verminstar's Coleoptera charged toward the sky out of the blood, shattered shells, and slime, leaving behind all the chaos, the slaughter, and the gunsmoke without end.
At the very instant it broke free of Verminstar's gravity—as if by some unseen power, the entire star system seemed to hold its breath.
"Here it comes!"
Herta's voice cut through all the background noise.
"Is this... the moment of Its birth?"
A rare, unmistakable excitement crept into Ruan Mei's tone.
"With this, the cosmic biological lineage turns to a brand-new page."
Screwllum's mechanical voice, steady, carried the gravity of one witnessing history, the data streams on the screens circling around him rushing like waterfalls.
Caelus raised his head, gazing at the giant eye in the cosmic vault, and shouted on its behalf, declaring the mood of the moment.
"Beelzebul, I have ascended to godhood!"
"No, no, no—Tayzzyronth's crimes don't warrant that."
The moment the Stelle-Asta fusion finished saying this, her body radiated white light, intense yet not harsh, wrapping her like a gentle Cocoon.
The next second, in the soft parting of the white light, the Stelle-Asta fusion's figure split in two, becoming two utterly different girls.
One with gray hair, her face still holding the vivid expression from her earlier quipping.
One with pink hair, eyes lively, carrying the thrill of an adventure in progress.
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