Su Wan's voice was soft, yet it echoed endlessly in Lin Xiyue's heart.
She lowered her gaze to the "trophy" she had just severed from their enemy.
The severed end was sealed with a perfect layer of ice, crystal clear and translucent, like a limited-edition collectible meticulously packaged in a high-end display case.
Lin Xiyue's eyes instantly lit up, and she reached out without hesitation to take it.
A chilling sensation spread from her palm as she touched it.
Then, the fluffy, silky texture pressed against her skin, carrying the wondrous warmth of a living creature.
"Whoa!"
Like a child who had just acquired a rare, out-of-production figurine, Lin Xiyue completely ignored her surroundings and the people around her.
She hugged the massive fox tail—thicker than her own arm—and buried her face deep into its fur.
Oblivious to everyone, she took a deep, intoxicating breath.
So fluffy, so soft.
The exquisite sensation made her squint in satisfaction. She nuzzled her cheek against the smooth fur, letting out a contented sigh.
The air around them fell deathly silent.
Xia Lian covered her face in despair.
My heavens! That's a body part you just hacked off an enemy!
How can you inspect it on the spot like you're shopping at a fur market—and look so utterly captivated?!
Watching Lin Xiyue's unabashedly genuine reaction, the doting smile on Su Wan's lips deepened.
However, in the next second, Lin Xiyue abruptly lifted her head, still clutching the fox tail.
Her sparkling eyes, utterly pure, locked onto Su Wan. Her clear pupils reflected only Su Wan's exquisitely beautiful face.
Then, in a tone that was both incredibly earnest and slightly mischievous, Lin Xiyue asked loudly and clearly:
"Little Wan, is this... a token of your love for me?"
"!!!"
BOOM—!
It felt as if countless magic circuits in Su Wan's brain had short-circuited at once.
All composure and rational thought evaporated, leaving only a scorching, blank void.
The icy, domineering aura she had projected while wielding her greatsword moments ago shattered instantly, vanishing without a trace.
A searing heat surged up her fair neck, flushing her cheeks and spreading to her delicate earlobes at an alarming speed.
Her lips trembled, her throat tight and dry, but she couldn't force out a single complete syllable.
A... a token of love?
Xiyue... how could she say that in front of so many people?!
The [Truth] rule!
It must be the [Truth] rule's fault!
Su Wan's mind flickered wildly between crashing and rebooting, desperately trying to reclaim a sliver of her Mage's composure.
But her heart, pounding like a war drum due to the [Echo of the Heart's Abyss], had already pulverized all her dignity and grace into dust.
"Oh dear, Little Wan, calm down."
Lin Qingyue, ever the instigator, lazily raised her hand and fanned the air in Su Wan's direction, a wicked grin playing on her lips as she teased, "Look at you. You're about to boil the ice crystals around you."
She pointed toward Su Wan's feet.
Due to her loss of emotional control, Su Wan's Magic Power was leaking unconsciously, causing fine ice crystals to form in the air.
In the next instant, they were melted by an invisible heat.
The two opposing forces of ice and fire clashed violently around her, emitting a faint sizzling sound and releasing a cloud of misty vapor.
"If this keeps up, I'm afraid you'll turn the Clock Tower Square into a sauna. Is it exclusively for you and Xiyue?"
"Sis!" Lin Xiyue protested, tucking her tail away and glaring at her sister.
Xia Lian, standing nearby, couldn't bear to watch any longer. She awkwardly covered her face with her hands and silently shuffled back a few steps, attempting to physically distance herself from this "public love confession."
So embarrassing! I'm definitely never confessing in public!
Lin Qingyue chuckled and stopped teasing her nearly overloaded "future sister-in-law."
She sensed a gaze, heavy with decay and malice, descending from the top of the Clock Tower. Its focus was squarely on Su Wan, whose Magic Power was leaking due to her intense emotional fluctuations.
The smile vanished from Lin Qingyue's face, replaced by a lazy yet dangerous curve of her lips.
"Alright, Xiyue."
Lin Qingyue gently patted her sister's shoulder, interrupting the "love-pledging ceremony" over there.
"It seems our main course can't wait to be served."
-
The atmosphere at the top of the Clock Tower was the stark opposite of the sweet, ambiguous scene below—it was bone-chillingly cold.
"Useless! You absolute waste!"
Marcus kicked Adela away as she scrambled back to him, the force of the blow sending her battered armor rolling across the floor.
His expensive leather shoes were stained with the foul blood from her wounds, and the disgust in his eyes almost solidified into a physical presence.
"Lord Marcus! Save me! Please, I beg you, save me!"
Adela completely broke down. Ignoring the pain, she crawled on all fours back to Marcus's feet, clinging desperately to his leg as she wailed, tears and snot streaming down her face.
"My tail... My tail is gone! Please, you're a Proxy of the Gods, you must have a way! As long as you can make it grow back, I'll pay any price! Any price!"
Her words were a jumbled, shrill cry, filled with endless terror for the future.
Without her tail, she couldn't even walk steadily. How could she possibly carry out missions?
And the fate of a useless subordinate who couldn't complete her tasks...
"Price?"
Marcus sneered, slowly raising his foot and kicking Adela away again in disgust.
"A waste like you, who couldn't even take down the target—what right do you have to talk about price?"
He elegantly raised his hand. At his fingertips, an ominous, viscous, purple-black mass of light swirled, seeming to devour the very light around it.
"However, you are my dog, after all. A broken tail must be reattached—otherwise, it won't look good when you wag it."
As he spoke, he flicked his finger.
Swoosh!
The mass of light shot into the wound at the base of Adela's spine like a living creature.
"AHHH—!!!"
A wave of pain a thousand times more intense than when her tail was severed surged through her entire body!
Adela's body arched violently, a non-human shriek tearing from her throat.
Her flesh began to writhe and proliferate in a bizarre, frenzied manner, accompanied by wet, sticky, squelching sounds that made one's scalp crawl.
Under the horrified gazes of the other fox-women, a new tail began to "squeeze" its way out of the gruesome wound at a visible speed.
The agony came as quickly as it went.
A few seconds later, Adela collapsed to the floor, gasping for breath, her body drenched in cold sweat.
She felt the familiar weight behind her, and a wave of ecstatic relief washed over her—the joy of surviving a near-death experience.
Trembling, she reached back to touch it.
She made contact.
However, the moment her fingertips met the slimy, warm, rubbery texture, the ecstatic joy on her face froze solid.
Wrong...
This texture is wrong!
She stiffly twisted her head to look behind her.
A brand-new tail had indeed grown out.
But it was completely bare. Its skin was a translucent pink, characteristic of new tissue, and covered in a layer of mucus. Not a single strand of fur grew on it.
It looked like a giant, peeled sausage, lying limply on the ground, twitching slightly with her body's tremors.
Ugly. Bizarre. Nauseating.
Adela's pupils shifted from ecstatic joy to stunned disbelief, and finally to a dead, lifeless void.
This permanent, unhideable, ugly brand would be more vicious than any scar, reminding her day and night of today's humiliation.
She had lost.
Utterly and completely.
"Pfft—"
A mouthful of blood sprayed from her lips. Adela's vision went black, and she collapsed into unconsciousness.