Tragedy is this: you smash something beautiful right in front of them and make them watch.

The lovelier the thing, the more the shatter stuns like porcelain breaking on stone.

The farther you live from the abyss, the harder the tumble when you roll into the ravine.

The stronger and purer the hero, the crueler the dragon he becomes when he rots.

“Monstrosity is exactly that,” she said, fingers gliding over Philia’s porcelain-pale cheek like a moth’s wing. A dream-bright smile opened like moonlight. “The more you press it down, the tighter you pack it—when it blooms, the firework goes off white-hot and clean. Philia carries that kind of spark.”

“Every day, the village looks at her with eyes full of fear. Every day, she watches her brother eat humans. And every day, she still forces a sunrise smile.” Her voice flowed like poison into a still well. “The black matter inside her piles up like storm clouds. Then one day, the vessel cracks, and it explodes—ah, what a spectacle, like winter sky split by lightning.”

Rapture glazed the woman’s face, like a drunk under lantern light.

“What kind of sick joke is this?!” Owen’s teeth sounded ready to crack. His face twisted like a ghost mask.

“You won’t get it, brother.” She looked at Owen; her smile thinned like a blade. “Because you’re trash. Even as a Monstrosity, you’re weak. You’ve got a Demon Core, yet no Monstrosity Art. You’re truly weak.”

“But you’re different,” she said, eyes cutting to Ye Weibai with a curious tilt. “You smell strange. If you hadn’t shown your fangs, I wouldn’t believe you’re a Monstrosity.”

“No. You’re wrong. Owen does have a Monstrosity Art.” Ye Weibai glanced at him, cool as water.

[Preserve Humanity]—that must be his Monstrosity Art.

“Whether he has one or not doesn’t matter. Either way, both of you are just catalysts for Philia,” she said with a soft laugh, like silk sliding over glass. “But your [Hyper-Regeneration]—that intrigues me.”

Her gaze measured Ye Weibai like a butcher weighing a cut of meat on a hook.

He didn’t flinch. He only changed the wind of the talk. “And Philia? What Monstrosity Art will she awaken?”

“That’s what I’m looking forward to.” She stretched her neck and flared her nostrils, drinking the scent at Philia’s pale throat like a snake tasting rain. “What will it be?”

Her tongue, red as a serpent, slipped out. It traced from the sleepwear’s open collar along the fine collarbone up to the needle-point chin, leaving a shining trail like snail-silver.

It was a lover’s motion, but from her it curdled blood, naked hunger crawling like ivy.

“Compared to a human, you’re the more fitting Monstrosity,” Ye Weibai said, voice flat as winter water.

“But that’s what I am,” she answered, a strange light on her lips. “In my complete state, I housed seven Demon Cores. My body’s more Monstrosity than human by weight. Besides—Demon Exorcists were never the low-tier species called ‘human.’”

“Complete state,” Ye Weibai repeated, tasting the words like iron on his tongue.

“I can tell you,” she chimed. “All my Demon Cores shattered in the last siege on the First Monstrosity.”

“You can’t imagine that massacre.” Fear flickered in her eyes like a candle guttering. “Seventeen top Exorcists, me included. Six months of planning like chess. We thought we pinned her in a dead-end. In truth, we sealed ourselves in a coffin.”

Her pupils trembled as if the vision walked out of smoke again—a woman in a red dress, peerless as a blood moon.

“Fifteen minutes. Only fifteen. She stayed human. She didn’t even unfold a Monstrosity state. Everyone died.” Her breath thinned like frost. “If not for my [Feign Death] Demon Core, I’d be ash. Even so, I felt it—the step that crossed my body, and that smile. She said, ‘I’ve played enough today. I’ll spare you—little bug.’”

“Ha… ha… ha. Little bug?” Her smile warped like heated ink. “One day, I’ll make her learn who the bug really is.”

“So,” Ye Weibai said, words steady as falling snow, “you’ll raise Philia into a Monstrosity beyond measure, kill her, seize her Demon Core, and take revenge. But how do you know you won’t be the one gutted by the dragon you hatch?”

“I’m sure I can kill her the instant she becomes a Monstrosity. But you—” She looked at Ye Weibai, her smile turning oblique like a crescent. “All these questions. You want to save her?”

“Why overthink it? Isn’t this what you want too—dragging time out, so your threads can circle me tight?”

Ye Weibai’s eyes swept the edges of night like a hunter reading wind.

White threads slipped through the blackwood like ghosts, stealthy and cold, weaving a ringed snare.

The threads knitted into a giant web. The spider queen sat in black robes at the center.

Ye Weibai was the moth caught mid-flight, dust on the wind.

“I took a measure of it. I’m still stronger. With only this, I might break loose.” He smiled, sun through winter cloud. “So let’s drag it out a little more. Let’s talk, so you’ll have a better chance to kill me.”

Her smile finally folded shut. Her pupils tightened like a drawn bowstring. She stared hard, trying to see if this Monstrosity was iron calm—or simple mad.

After a long breath, she said, cold as knives, “What else do you want to ask?”

“Why did you bring Daisy?”

“Oh, that.” She flicked a glance at the body on the ground, casual as dusting ash. “To feed it.”

She pointed at Owen, who was bleeding out, swaying like a tree in storm.

“Philia’s almost at her limit. Only the last step remains.” Her voice laid down cruelty like a frost. “She watches her own brother eat her best friend—then Philia will bloom with the brightest flower.”

“I see.” Ye Weibai’s face didn’t ripple. “One last question—how do you make sure you kill Philia first?”

She watched him in silence. Her lips slowly curved, the hook of a smile.

“Got it,” Ye Weibai said with a nod. “You’re afraid.”

If she were certain she could kill him, her nature wouldn’t bother hiding anything. The dead can’t talk.

“Ha ha ha ha ha.” She laughed until tears glittered like beads. “Afraid—”

Bzz, bzz, bzz, bzz, bzz—!

Before the last syllable fell, the air screamed with a storm of sonic rips.

A thousand threads sang at once, a choir of blades so sharp it hurt to hear.

White threads crisscrossed and buzzed, like a storm of pale lightning knifing past Ye Weibai.

The night flashed white.

Squelch—!

Ye Weibai’s body shuddered like a struck bell.

Cracks spiderwebbed over him.

Arms, neck, ankles, waist—each joint seemed slid out of place, like a puppet cut loose.

Blood geysered from each seam like fountains, painting the grass scarlet in a heartbeat.

“Ha.” She lifted a hand and covered her mouth, smothering her smile like a candle. “Who fears a dead man?”

Her laugh stopped on a knife-edge.

“I told you. This won’t kill me.” The body that should have been in pieces jolted once. Blood ran back against gravity, muscles surged like tides, veins reknit like creeping vines. In a single breath, the dismantled form stood whole.

But his body was changing.

His limbs lengthened like shadow at dusk. His skin darkened, bruised-violet like stormcloud. His eyes filled with red like rising tide. His voice sank to a drumbeat.

Monstrosity state.

Unlike Owen, who had swollen into bulk, Ye Weibai grew lean and long, a predator’s line.

He stretched to a height of one-ninety. His arms hung low at the waist. His toes tipped up, the whole of him like a long spear coiled to strike.

“Try again, Exorcist,” Ye Weibai rumbled, thunder low in his chest. “Try to kill me. I want it so, so much.”

“Then die for me!!!”

Boom—!