The Reverse Shedding
The reverse shedding had already begun. The initial shock had passed. The throbbing, the hesitation, that first vibration of something flipping inside—all of it was already behind me. What remained was the sensation that followed. The directionless poison was wandering through my insides. The lump of power crammed in from the Light Boundary battlefield clung to it like it was tearing into it with teeth, refusing to let go. The two alien forces gnawed at each other inside me, trying to forge a new pattern. A pain like eyes being twisted and squeezed from within shook my skull. My pupil throbbed in time with the Ouroboros spinning backward. The legs of the insect swarm crawling over my scales dug even deeper, but even that sensation arrived late. The inside was collapsing before the outside.
"Grhh..." It was the guttural beast sound that came when flesh and breath were crushed together. One insect pried open a wound like it was widening a gap with its jaws. A cold, hard sensation scraped inside my flesh. Legs covered the scales, and tentacle-like tips churned my bare skin. An attack that would have ended me before was already over. Yet this time, I didn't crumble right away. Instead of the poison spreading, it was being sucked somewhere deep inside me.
Thud.
This time, it wasn't just my heart—the whole body contracted inward with the pulse. There were no bones, yet I felt them twisting. Severed meridians writhed like they were seeking new paths amid the scent of burning. That's when the hallucination hit.
—Throw it away to live.
My master from my past life. That old voice that always smacked my ear when I swallowed Yodan or went berserk. But this time, it was distant. Muffled like a mouth opening deep underwater. Over it layered something else.
Run. Crush. Devour.
All three. The modern man's memories said find the crack first when you're boxed in. Get out if you want to live. That was common sense. The arrogance of my daoist days couldn't accept it. Dying crushed under these lowly things was intolerable. The snake's instincts flicked their tongue, mocking both. Devour the intruder. Chew, tear, absorb, turn it into power. It wasn't mere hunger. It was gluttony.
The three tore at each other. For a brief moment. Then, strangely enough, they saw the same thing. Don't strike first. But if struck, leave nothing. Flee from the strong. Swallow anything to survive.
"I survive."
The moment those words dropped, the master's voice cut off for good.
Crack. Crunch.
My insides split open in earnest. Fluorescent poison and the rough remnants of yokai force boiled black with the venom and sloughed off like shed skin. The revealed scales were different from before. Pale. Not pure white. A cold, dead gray under light. My jaw's shape had changed too. The head shortened, the body compressed into something slender and supple. Less like shrinking, more like shedding excess.
One insect noticed the change first and immediately thrust its jaw. Crunch. It didn't hurt. I was already gone from where the pain should have been. Just before its jaw pierced between scales, my body flattened, twisted, flowed. A thin line traced out, leaving only the result.
Crunch.
My jaw severed its neck first. Black fluids burst, soaking my scales. A foul stench. But this time, it wasn't just revolting. I could read the flow. Which one's poison was thickest, which individual bound the swarm's structure. Dongshu unfolded without force, and it came to me. I sensed the thickest line. At the swarm's center. Highest on the wall. All others lunged, but one didn't move. An individual with an especially large cluster of eyes, thick chitin joints. It sensed I'd changed too. The weight shifted as it dropped from the wall. Thud—the floor shook. The eye cluster flared open, spraying black fluid.
This time, I didn't retreat. Dongshu. The pattern turned once, slow, and its massive body overlapped faintly. A half-beat-off afterimage layered on the main form. Its eye cluster aimed a bit off from where I'd been. That half-beat was enough. I crouched low. The poison line grazed past, sizzling the floor beneath. I slid under it like riding the melt. One of its legs dropped to crush my head. The gap between joints stood out like spreading ink. I twisted into its side. The vital spot gleamed clear in my Ouroboros-marked golden eye. Jaws closed.
Crunch.
Severed to the core. The eye cluster twisted in unison, shuddering madly. The surrounding insects froze as one. I didn't miss it. Twisting my jaws deeper split the joints, slamming its huge body to the floor. For the first time, gaps appeared in the legs covering the entire wall.
I can live.
I fought no more. I didn't know how long this new body would hold. I turned. Beneath the gap the dead one had torn open, where wall met floor, a narrow metal groove appeared. Not a natural cave. Smooth metal path. Regularly spaced grooves. A faint vibration echoing from far away. A sleeping road. I threw myself in.
The moment I slipped into the narrow metal crevice, dozens of legs gouged the entrance behind me. They couldn't follow to the end. A space that would have trapped my old body headfirst. Now, the shrunken form seeped through like water. The scraping of legs on metal dragged long, then faded. Darkness swallowed me again.
Not the scattered contamination weave like on the surface. A straight line of a dead road. The Ouroboros pattern spun quieter than before.
The battlefield at the Light Boundary was losing form. The red eyes' gravity field poured down once more. The Irregular knight's liquid armor writhed from within to resist the pressure. Black energy leaked from the spiral mask. The red eyes didn't wait. One step. The distance between vanished. In the next instant, his hand gripped the knight's mask. He neither pressed nor crushed. Just held. The armor screamed. From the gripped point, it caved inward. The liquid exoskeleton hardened from the solid parts and shattered where it did. Crack. One arm detached at the shoulder joint. Then the other. Wherever the red eyes' palm passed, the joints surrendered on their own. The spiral mask crumpled in his grasp. A handful. Something dark red burst from the mask's gap, soaking the floor. Not blood, not energy— the mix of both.
The red eyes released. The remaining armor collapsed to the ground. The battlefield paused. Right after a knight-class fell without a single real resistance. The contamination swarms, maddened by the aftershocks, reacted first. They surged to cover every inch of remaining space. In that gap, the red-eyed man's bleeding daughter and the one-eyed remnants vanished into the smoke. A long-range warhead dropped from high altitude. Boom. Explosion mixed light and dust, devouring the traces.
All remaining forces scattered. Silver hair swayed. Rin stared down at the crumbling afterimage, saying nothing. The dragon phantom had vanished long ago. By calculation, by sense, no flow remained inside. Too clean. That grated more than anything. Her gaze caught. Beyond the explosion debris, at the spot where the knight was torn apart, red eyes stood. Slowly raising his head through the dust. That gaze reached Rin. No words. The air grew one layer heavier. The levitation barrier of Rin's flying artifact shifted faintly. The gravity field reached even this distance.
Dare.
One word transmitted without sound. Rin didn't lower her eyes. But she quietly pulled the artifact back one step. Beyond the gravity field's range. The red eyes turned away. Withdrew the gaze. Rin's lip corner twisted faintly. That was it for today.
A faint vibration hummed from the cryo-healing pod loaded behind the flying artifact. Karin's fingertips trembled weakly inside. Pale lips parted and closed.
"Still..."
Rin's gaze turned there. Beneath half-closed lids, Karin's pupils shook hazily. Not fully conscious, not clear speech. Yet the voice held near-certainty.
"It's not... cut off."
Rin didn't reply. Karin drew a ragged breath. Ice-cold exhale fogged the glass inside.
"Even if it's distant... it's still there."
A short silence flowed. Rin's eyes narrowed faintly. No surprise, no denial. Like she'd expected this reaction from the start, she glanced down at Karin once, then lifted her gaze back to the darkness beyond the battlefield.
"My instincts were right after all."
Low and dry voice. She'd never cared for phantoms. It was the way the real one vanished—the too-clean severance—that bothered her. Nothing visible. Yet the absence of what should be there was, this time too, crystal clear.