Tears soaked the cold floor as Jingliu slowly curled into herself.
"You big liar…"
"If you had told me sooner… I would rather have died than watch you turn into that…"
Even in death she would never have wanted to see that upright, indomitable man become so lowly and miserable for her sake.
A long time passed.
Not until her voice had gone completely hoarse and her tears had nearly run dry did Jingliu, with trembling hands, light the Jade Sign once more.
She did not dare look, yet she had to.
This was everything her master had done for her, and everything she now had to bear.
In the images, the transplant surgery was successfully completed.
Jingliu lay on the bed, her breathing steady and deep, her chest rising and falling gently. Her sleeping face was serene. The incisions on her body had completely healed, leaving not a single scar.
Perfect.
Truly perfect.
This was the result Kanzaki had wanted.
Kanzaki leaned against the bedside, gasping for air. He raised a hand as withered as tree bark and gently stroked Jingliu's restored face.
A faint smile slowly appeared in his cloudy, aged eyes.
It was gentler and purer than any expression she had ever seen on him.
There was no pain, no resentment, and no regret.
There was only quiet pity, and the deep affection Jingliu had sought for many years yet never received.
There was also the soft light of someone who loved another to their very core, willing to be ground into powder for them and finding even that sweet.
Jingliu felt a lump rise in her throat as she watched.
It turned out that everything she had craved for a thousand years, she had already received…
"Sleep now…"
Kanzaki spoke in a barely audible voice, the corners of his mouth lifting slightly.
"When you wake up… everything will be fine. You can be like a normal person and chase after everything you want."
"Lord Kanzaki…" Hanya looked at him with concern.
"It's fine. As long as she is well, it doesn't matter what becomes of this monster." The smile remained on Kanzaki's lips.
Jingliu stared blankly at that faint curve.
In that moment she heard the sound of her mental defenses completely collapsing.
It turned out that in her master's heart she had never been a burden or a bargaining chip to be weighed.
It turned out that after the destruction of the Xianzhou Cangcheng, the person who belonged in the softest corner of her master's heart had never changed from beginning to end.
It had only ever been her.
[When will Jingliu wake up?] Xueyi asked.
[Three days at the shortest, ten days at the longest.]
Kanzaki felt his condition recover slightly and then said:
[The aftereffects of losing the inner organ are more severe than expected. I need to leave for a while.]
[Little sister, go with Lord Kanzaki so you can look after each other. I'll stay here to take care of Jingliu.]
Xueyi knew what he was leaving to do.
[What do you think, Lord Kanzaki?] Hanya looked at him.
[Very well.]
The two quickly put on loose robes and departed without attracting any attention.
Jingliu wiped the corner of her eye and realized the reason her master had left was to hunt Abominations of Abundance in order to nourish his body.
With every blessing he plundered, his appearance grew a little younger.
He slaughtered for seven days and seven nights across several planets teeming with Abominations of Abundance before he roughly returned to his familiar appearance, though his face remained deathly pale, devoid of any color.
What followed should have been his return to the medical room to wait for her to wake up.
Recalling the scene when she had woken then, some of the doubts in Jingliu's heart were resolved.
No wonder she had always been able to smell a scent of blood on her master that seemed to have soaked into his very bones and blood, impossible to wash away.
In a short period he had slaughtered at least tens of billions of Abominations of Abundance.
That was right. Not long after that, the IPC had broadcast related news.
It claimed that several planets of the Abominations of Abundance had been purged in a short time… yet there had been no intervention from the Xianzhou Alliance military. The methods were unknown, and it was suspected to be the work of a Lord Ravager.
Years ago, the Lord Ravager Celenova had threatened the Xianzhou Zhuming, demanding their assistance in besieging the world of the Wingweavers.
The Zhuming had naturally refused and instead repelled Celenova.
This had shown that the Lords Ravager were not above acting against the Abominations of Abundance. At the time, most people in the Alliance had felt the matter was related to Destruction.
Who would have known… that it had actually been done by Kanzaki alone…
But even the power plundered from tens of billions of Abominations of Abundance could not fill the void left by his lost inner organ.
Having lived for a thousand years, Jingliu still could not imagine exactly how much he had lost.
Her master's love had never been something he let her see. It had always been silent and nourishing… always burying all tenderness beneath a surface of severity and ruthlessness.
Her master had meddled with Xianzhou taboos, acted like the Abominations of Abundance, and considered himself a monster…
By now, Jingliu's previous assumption—that Kanzaki had been unwilling to face his feelings and had rejected her—was likely true, without any overly complex secrets.
But she could never have imagined that while the real reason was not complex, it had been lethal enough.
Just as Kanzaki returned to the medical room, his body suddenly froze.
His pupils were covered in crimson, emitting a chilling bloodlust. He stared fixedly at the still-unconscious Jingliu, his breathing quietly becoming heavy.
Before the two sisters could react, he had already appeared in front of Jingliu, opening his mouth to bite toward her neck.
Just an instant before his fangs could pierce her skin, he struck his own head fiercely with a fist, and it shattered with a bang.
Although his head restored itself in the next second, it was enough for him to retreat violently, moving to a corner where his whole body trembled.
[Quick! Pin me down with the Heart-Eroding Spikes!!]
Kanzaki roared at Xueyi and Hanya, his voice filled with urgency.
Before he had even finished speaking, several bone blades burst from his body, piercing his shoulders, skull, and abdomen.
Although the two did not understand the reason for the sudden change, their trust in Kanzaki drove them to act without hesitation.
Two long, thin spikes shot from their palms, piercing through his heart.
Kanzaki's body was still trembling, but not as violently as before.
Jingliu stared blankly at everything that had happened in the blink of an eye, not understanding why her master had suddenly become so manic.
He was pinned to the wall, his eyes full of bloodthirsty longing. Fangs unique to the borisin had actually grown in his mouth, gleaming with a cold light, and saliva even began to spill from the corners of his mouth.
[…What's happening?! Lord Kanzaki!]
[It's that Moon-Eroding Calamity…] Kanzaki's voice carried a sense of endurance.
It was clear he was doing his best to resist some impulse as he quickly explained.
[It was originally the heart of a borisin warhead. After merging it with the Self-Actualization Aspect Method, I hadn't noticed anything unusual all these years.]
[The inner organ cannot regenerate. After losing it, the Moon-Eroding Calamity taken from Ussa took over its functions.]
[As a result, the side effects that had never shown themselves in previous years have finally erupted.]
[Now that she and I share the same blood and the inner organ is inside her, my subconscious keeps urging me to tear her apart, to devour her… to take back everything that belongs to me…]
The two sisters understood.
Nourished by the blessing of abundance from tens of billions of lives, the Moon-Eroding Calamity had become even more powerful, and its side effects more pronounced.
It had not been much before seeing Jingliu, but once in close contact—
That desire to feed was like throwing a lit match into a sea of gasoline, instantly igniting an unquenchable, towering inferno…
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