Su Lin showed no sign of stopping. Hatred had long since robbed him of his reason…
Under the influence of the hallucinogen… Yueye’s words sounded like a provocation to him instead.
“Go on, kill me! Humans are the most cowardly creatures in the world… Do you really think you can bring yourself to lay a hand on me?” From Su Lin’s perspective, madness filled the golden, slit-pupiled eyes of Yueye…
In those brief few seconds, Yueye watched calmly as Su Lin charged toward her… She didn’t know what kind of self everyone had seen in the insect monster’s illusion—what kind of person could make them go so mad… make them hate so much…
The monster they spoke of… Was she really any different in the real world? For a moment, Yueye felt a trace of sorrow…
The only difference was that, in the real world, she meant them no harm… But she was destined not to be human… destined to become the monster they spoke of…
“What do I even have left that’s worth fighting for…? Why did I rush in to save them?” The light faded from Yueye’s pale blue eyes… As she looked at the disgust and fear in her teammates’ eyes, a chill of desolation settled over her…
“If this is reality… If I really become the monster they call me… will they treat me the way they treated the Yueye in the illusion? Even kill themselves just to take me down with them?” At that moment, Yueye finally understood that her team would never accept her as long as she wasn’t human. She also understood that if her identity were exposed, the whole team might lose faith in her…
“But… but… why did I rush in to save them without even thinking…?” Yueye remembered that instant when she’d charged forward to stop her teammates from hurting one another… She hadn’t hesitated at all…
“So I still can’t leave this team behind… I was worried about whether I’d still belong here in the future, not about what life would be like as a monster…” In those few short seconds, Yueye seemed to understand something…
“I still want to live with this team! I still love being here! Even if I’m no longer human, even if you might reject me… I don’t care about any of that!” Yueye shouted at Su Lin… And, as if answering her cry, the water element nearby began to stir.
At that moment, Yueye felt a connection form between the elements… It was as if something had awakened within her. The pride of a higher race burst forth from her bloodline…
【You who would cast me out of this team! Die!】The sound that came from Yueye’s mouth wasn’t human. It was a language steeped in the weight of history, with a deep tone and solemn, complex pronunciation—and the words carried the rumble of a dragon…
A terrifying aura burst from Yueye as she spoke… At that moment, the mist in the air seemed to awaken… churning wildly through the atmosphere…
“Screee!” Suddenly, the insect’s shrill cry pierced everyone’s eardrums.
Green blood sprayed through the mist, trailing a cloud of green… A cluster of ice crystals suddenly burst from the damp ground, piercing straight through the invisible creature. As the boiling blood sent up curls of steam around the ice, the creature’s outline slowly came into view.
Su Lin was still charging Yueye in a suicidal attack… But before he could reach the Yueye in his illusion, the piercing “screee” cut him off…
With that piercing cry, the Yueye covered in black scales before him turned into a frail little girl in a blue dress… Her skirt was already soaked with blood, and she looked utterly pitiful…
“Cough, cough…” She spat out a mouthful of blood. Her pale blue eyes rested on Su Lin, utterly calm…
“You didn’t even pull the safety pin! Of course it wouldn’t explode… idiot…” Yueye saw the grenade in Su Lin’s hand, its safety pin still dangling from it, and gave a helpless smile. Her vision slowly dimmed… The pain in her abdomen grew worse and worse, until she could no longer hold herself in that half-kneeling position. Her body lost its balance and toppled toward the grass…
“What?” Su Lin couldn’t make sense of what had happened… The pistol clenched in his other hand was an unmistakable reminder of everything he’d just done…
Then he thought it through. He saw Wang Qian unconscious on the ground behind him, Zhu Yue standing nearby, and the huge insect corpse at the back of the group… He began to realize what he’d done.
His arm trembled slightly… He looked at Yueye lying in the grass, her skirt already soaked through with blood. She looked like a fallen flower, ruined and broken…
“What have we done…?”
“Confirmed kill: Level 4 monster [Illusory Poison Bug]. Team assist reward: 1,500 points. System assessment: the team provided the contribution for this assist kill. The reward will therefore be issued as team points and credited to the team captain.” The system’s reward announcement rang in their ears…
“…What have I done?!” Su Lin ignored the system announcement and ran wildly to Yueye’s side…
“Yueye!” Zhu Yue had only just come to her senses after escaping the illusion, and she was still shaken by what had happened… But when she saw Yueye lying in a pool of blood… her heart clenched. In her own mind, Yueye had been the one who killed her. But now…
“What happened?” One by one, the others awoke from their hallucinations… Once they realized what foolish things they’d done… nearly everyone fell silent.
At that moment, everyone felt the relief of having survived, along with a sense of guilt toward Yueye… Their pistol magazines were already completely empty.
The illusion of Yueye slaughtering her teammates was still vivid in their minds, just like a real memory… They didn’t want to admit they’d been misled by what they’d seen, but it had still affected them…
The others silently helped Su Lin and Zhu Yue tend to Yueye’s wounds, praying that there was still time to make things right… hoping Yueye could still be saved… and hoping what had just happened would never become reality. The hallucination had left nearly everyone on the team with a nightmare they couldn’t shake…
“Exchange for a critical injury recovery potion…” Without even asking his teammates, Su Lin exchanged the potion and injected it into Yueye. Before this, they couldn’t have afforded it even if they’d spent every last point they had.
“She should still be savable…” As the red potion flowed into her, Yueye’s breathing gradually steadied… The bullet hole through her body slowly began to heal.
“Thank goodness!” Several people cheered in unison. Yueye was in this state because of them, after all, and seeing her improve made everyone breathe a sigh of relief. Even though they all knew the medicine was worth 1,000 points, not one of them objected… Their actions were the complete opposite of how they’d behaved in the illusion…
There was no denying that the illusion had been a trial for them all… and an extreme test for the team.
