Chapter 118: Turned into Bubbles

Chapter 118: Dissolved into Bubbles

Luolimasi's voice had grown incredibly faint, barely audible to Su Bai, who held her close.

"Luolimasi wanted to tell you," Su Bai said, looking at Garan, who appeared increasingly aged and broken by the emotional shock, "that she once promised, even if you left her first, she would love only you through all the long years. Her life is ending; she was so close to fulfilling that promise."

"But she is sorry, because in this final moment of her life, she has begun to hate you."

Alas, it was already too late.

Su Bai carried the increasingly weightless Luolimasi toward Peng Zhen and the others, who sat slumped on the ground. He then knelt and placed the two syringes before Peng Zhen. Though labeled "99%," Su Bai knew that figure represented the progress of Luolimasi's experiment more than a success rate.

Before subjecting Lian Xiangyu, the exceptional specimen, to the final filtration, the difference between a 99% success rate and a 0% success rate might not have been so vast.

The meat and syringe reagents Cheng Xun had publicly made his subordinates and volunteers consume earlier were likely from the same batch. Thus, Cheng Xun must have known precisely what would happen once these reagents entered Lian Xiangyu's or others' bodies.

As Peng Zhen instinctively reached for the two syringes, his and the other former subordinates' previously blank eyes suddenly fixed on Cheng Xun, not far away. Cheng Xun was also human—a human who had lost Luolimasi's protection, possessed little combat ability, and was physically much weaker than naturally gifted players like Lian Xiangyu.

In other words, if this reagent were injected into Cheng Xun's own body…

Su Bai could guess what Peng Zhen and the others would do. It was also what he had wanted to do when his emotions were still calm, and the reason he had brought the two syringes out of the laboratory.

But now, Su Bai's state of mind was not fit for such actions, for his mind was consumed by a single thought—

To utterly burn down this defiled hotel, to incinerate all this filth!

Su Bai walked past Peng Zhen and the others, blue flames flickering around him, heading toward the lobby exit. For at this moment, the unbearable defilement was not confined to the hotel's interior. The test subjects previously controlled by Luolimasi still lay in the red rose sea beneath the red moon, with its metallic scent of blood.

Before leaving, however, Su Bai forced himself to stop and glanced back at Peng Zhen.

"Save one dose for Subject One over there. It's something I promised Luolimasi I would do," Su Bai said, taking another step forward. "Please ensure he joins Mr. Cheng Xun's company."

Su Bai trusted Peng Zhen would understand his meaning.

Just as Su Bai walked toward the hotel entrance, opened by Lian Xiangyu and the others, carrying the weakened Luolimasi through the blue flames, he heard bloodcurdling screams from behind. The voices seemed to belong to Cheng Xun and Garan.

One had initiated Luolimasi's experiment, and the other had likely completed it. Garan and Cheng Xun were arguably the two people in the hotel who most yearned for the elixir of life. Now, they had gotten their wish.

「Su Bai…」

As he walked out, Su Bai heard Luolimasi's voice, barely a whisper due to her weakness.

「I was able to bring those humans into the hotel because the mermaid race has the innate ability to perceive fissures.」

「Those are… fissures between worlds. To us, they are as familiar as the ocean.」

「Since childhood, I could see these fissures, and I learned from others how to create crude, bubble-like artificial cracks. So after Cheng Xun said he needed people for experiments but wouldn’t harm them, I took those humans from the dark fissures and trapped the hotel within one, until I saw that sea of red roses… I watched it all, yet for love—for that illusory, bubble-like emotion my people described—I pretended not to care…」

「And that administrator… I don’t know who he is, but I could feel that from the moment I trapped the hotel, a pair of eyes had been watching this place. That gaze wasn't frightening; instead… it felt somewhat nostalgic. His power should have been enough to puncture the false fissure I created, but for some reason, he never did. He just… sent you here, didn’t he?」

"Yes."

「Thank you.」

「After I’m gone, the false fissure here will disappear.」

「Finally, thank you for letting this hotel and Garan accompany me in my departure. After all, this is the only and last gift Garan ever gave me.」

「Thank you… and I’m sorry…」

Su Bai felt the weight in his arms grow lighter and lighter. Looking down with his blue-flame eyes, he saw the fragmented mermaid form in his hands instantly dissolve into bubbles. Transparent bubbles scattered under the glow of the flames and the red moon—some flying toward the sky, some toward the sea of flowers, some toward the burning hotel behind, and some toward Su Bai’s body.

A mermaid, who could have had a long, immortal life, dissolved into the most fragile bubbles after death.

"Ah."

Though it was a sorrowful scene, Su Bai, though moved, could not express much grief. After all, when Luolimasi departed, she felt little regret or pain. Her departure was even by her own choice, as she had given her remaining life force to Su Bai.

But in this hotel, those test subjects being burned by the flames and those buried beneath the roses, their names unknown—how much regret and pain must they have felt in their final moments? It was likely something a being like Luolimasi could scarcely imagine.

Su Bai felt sorrow for this, yet he was powerless to change it. All he could do was… purge it all with fire!

Luolimasi's life force gave Su Bai, who had been nearly depleted, renewed strength. The moment he stepped out of the hotel lobby, blue flames roared upward like a heatwave, completely engulfing the entire hotel, which had been saturated with filth.

At the same time, the blue flames at Su Bai’s feet spread across the blood-drenched earth of the garden. As if possessing a life of their own, they avoided Lian Xiangyu and the others, who stood staring in stunned silence watching the flames rise, and continued spreading along the flower branches, igniting the entire sea of roses.

For a brief moment, before the fragile roses were completely consumed, Su Bai stood surrounded by a roaring blue inferno of flowers. The blue flames even devoured the red moonlight, casting Su Bai’s pale face in an eerie, godlike aura.

This scene was burned permanently into Lian Xiangyu’s mind.

But the next moment, as the life force given by Luolimasi had not been fully absorbed by Su Bai, the power Su Bai could wield was ultimately exhausted in the relentless consumption of the blue flames.

At that moment, Su Bai’s vision went black. The surroundings, once illuminated by blue flames, instantly turned dim. He felt his body, unable to support itself any longer, collapse straight toward the ground.

Just then, the little black kitten, which had been missing earlier, suddenly appeared by Su Bai’s side. The small figure with dark red cat eyes transformed before Lian Xiangyu and the others into a figure wearing black robes, instantly catching the falling Su Bai in its arms.