Amidst his daze, Lucivita seemed to sense the lingering presence of a reunion. The female who should have instinctively entered a deep sleep for self-repair forced his upper body up, yet as he swept his gaze across the room, the narrow chamber remained dead and silent, devoid of any familiar figure.
He thought of the female with the uncanny facial resemblance, unable to determine whether what had transpired within his mental landscape was reality or mere illusion.
Lucivita opened his hands. Crystal-clear teardrops lingered on his fingertips, as though they still carried the warmth of another’s body.
Was it you? Lucivita thought he had long since stopped harboring illusions; his current state was a tightrope walk where a single misstep meant utter destruction. Though he knew full well that the female who had appeared before him might merely be a hollow, disguised shell, he still found himself unable to suppress a shred of hope.
Ever since Lin Yin’s death, Lucivita had never caught a glimpse of him within his mental landscape again. He was entirely convinced that it was because he was too utterly useless, failing to hold onto even that single fragment of memory sheltered within his mind.
Today was the first time. The first time since Lin Yin’s departure that his rut had passed without being entirely agonizing.
Lucivita realized that despite the passage of so many years, those memories had not faded in the slightest due to time; instead, they had grown only more deeply etched into his bones.
That winter had been biting cold.
The raw, bitter air sucked straight into his lungs carried the chill of sleet sweeping from top to bottom through his entire frame. Reflected off the falling snow, the glow of the nighttime streetlamps felt piercingly harsh. Most residents were huddled indoors keeping warm, save for the occasional field mouse unique to this remote third-tier star darting swiftly across the snowdrifts.
The snow never ceased, seeping through the gaps between high-rise buildings down into the gloomy, freezing alleyway. At the dim mouth of the alley, a streetlamp flickered. Between the shift from dark to light, the silhouette of a figure holding an umbrella materialized.
He gathered a thin, slender hand around the black umbrella handle, resting it casually across his shoulder. His cascading golden hair served as the sole splash of color breaking the dark night. His bangs fell slightly too long, casting shadows over his features and obscuring the expression in his eyes. A simple short jacket and denim trousers accentuated his tall, upright posture, maintaining an effortless, striking elegance despite his casual stance.
At that moment, Rhein was engaged in an irritable exchange with a glowing sphere hovering in midair.
“Since I’m already here, if you have any complaints, you might as well just haul me straight back to the Bureau.”
“How could I possibly do that? The mission hasn’t even started yet.”
“You know it hasn’t started yet?” Rhein let out a cold laugh. “Right now, I can’t even use the system store if I wanted to. You don’t expect me to survive on thin air at home, do you?”
058 felt a twinge of guilt, but still muttered defensively, “You could have stayed in the capital star instead of running all the way out here and kicking up such a fuss.”
“I didn’t want to stay in that kind of environment.” He paused for a beat before adding, “058, I don’t like it.”
“I know, I know. That’s why I let you run off, didn’t I?” 058 replied. “But! Let me repeat myself once more—”
“First, this identity is entirely independent and has zero connection to Rhein Eletis. Second, it mustn’t interfere with the mission’s completion. I’ve already fled all the way to a third-tier star, what more do you want from me?” Rhein preempted the lecture with a helpless sigh before swatting the little glowing sphere away with a wave of his hand.
“Go find somewhere to sleep inside the space system and stop bugging me.”
As 058 vanished into thin air, the Zerg sent to guide Rhein out of the alley finally arrived. The Zerg cast a cautious, appraising look at Rhein, confirming he was indeed the client.
“Follow me.” A raspy voice sounded. Rhein trailed behind the Zerg through a winding labyrinth of street corners before finally halting in front of an open patch of ground.
“Right here.”
An iron plate buried beneath the snow was abruptly yanked open, revealing a set of dark, descending stairs. Closing his umbrella, Rhein unconcernedly hopped down two or three steps at a time. The moment his boots hit the ground below, a massive wave of roaring cheers washed over him.
To escape the clutches of the Eletis family, Rhein had put in quite a bit of effort. A major factor working in his favor was his ability to consciously suppress the release of male pheromones and spiritual filaments. At the very least, as long as Rhein wished to keep it hidden, no Zerg could ever guess he was actually a male.
Disguising himself as a female brought the distinct advantage that the probability of exposure dropped close to zero, while the glaring downside was the suffocating oppression directed toward females within Zerg society. Rhein was hardly the type to stoop and endure humiliation quietly; his personal philosophy revolved around doing whatever he pleased.
Case in point: just yesterday, he had thoroughly beaten up a trashy male who attempted to harass him, maxing out the credit card he had brought along in the process to the point where his household was now struggling to afford the electricity bill.
With few options left, Rhein knew that death-matches between females were spectacles relished by the vast majority of males and females alike. Though the Empire officially outlawed such pastimes, the underground culture persisted unchecked from the nobility down to the common folk.
On his very first day in this mission world, he had been forced to sit through three separate bouts of brutal combat between females, arranged as casual entertainment by aristocratic males who would personally select contenders to toss into the arena, letting the losers face torture and death.
It was utterly repulsive.
At the same time, winning a match in these underground civilian black-market fighting rings offered a hefty cash prize provided one actually survived long enough to collect it.
After mulling it over, Rhein approached a broker and announced his intention to enter the tournament, directly challenging the previous round’s reigning champion.
A single match would yield a massive payout, which Rhein calculated to be a worthwhile trade.
For the organizers, an attractive female foolishly throwing his life away served as great crowd-pleaser, so they deemed it a worthwhile trade as well.
Though 058 let out a piercing shriek of distress and frantically attempted to remind Rhein that he was currently registered as a male, it failed to sway his stubborn resolve.
In truth, operatives within the villain department typically possessed formidable combat prowess, having survived countless missions barring a sickly mastermind who relied entirely on intellect, and a certain idiot whose battle-power algorithm operated on an entirely different plane of reality from everyone else.
Even though Rhein was currently masquerading as a male, 058 harbored zero doubts regarding his actual fighting capability, ultimately conceding with a reluctant sigh.
Thus unfolded the scene from moments earlier: Rhein dropping straight from the surface into the underground arena, greeted by a tidal wave of malicious cheers from the surrounding audience.
Floodlights converged on Rhein from every direction, casting a glare that began to grate on his nerves. Unfazed, he calmly removed his round-framed glasses and lifted his gaze toward his opponent.
A muscular, heavily built female was rolling his shoulders, flashing a blood-stained, menacing grin. “The name’s Marcus tell me, how do you want to die tonight?”
“Lin Yin.” Rhein offered a polite, courteous smile, gave the black tip of his umbrella a subtle twist, and the moment the referee announced the start of the match charged straight forward.
While it was designated as an underground fighting ring, the use of cold weapons was permitted though bringing an umbrella into the ring crossed the line into sheer humiliation. Marcus slammed his fists together with a roar, his massive frame bearing down on Rhein like an avalanche.
Rhein’s current physical conditioning naturally fell short of a true female’s baseline stats, but fortunately, he possessed extensive combat experience from his early years, compounded by centuries of casually grinding through fighting games back at the Spacetime Administration. He had digested martial arts techniques spanning ancient and modern eras alike.
Against an opponent possessing Marcus’s overwhelming momentum, Rhein’s strategy relied entirely on redirecting force and applying leverage to move heavy loads with minimal effort. Combat between Zergs typically relied on raw, brute statistics, but when facing a strength-and-speed boss in a video game, what mattered most? Kiting and spacing.
Rhein weaved and darted across the compact ring, periodically flicking open his umbrella to cleanly block Marcus’s line of sight. After a few minutes of this back-and-forth, the spectators began to boo. Enraged, Marcus threw his arms wide, his fingernails lengthening into sharp talons as he plunged directly into a full insectoid transformation.
Males possessed no such secondary transformation. Figuring the warm-up was sufficient, Rhein casually tossed his umbrella to the floor beside the ring, ducked his torso, and slid into a low knee-bend to dodge Marcus’s lunging strike.
Leveraging the brief opening created as he slipped behind the female, Rhein instantly clamped a chokehold around his neck and vaulted upward into the air. Such agile, precision-strike maneuvers aimed squarely at vital points were rarely witnessed here, drawing an explosive eruption of cheers from the crowd. Spinning gracefully through the midair arc, he used his momentum to drive Marcus down onto the canvas, landing squarely atop his opponent’s vital point.
Rhein’s attacks always appeared deceptively light and effortless, yet anyone who experienced them firsthand quickly realized that every seemingly gentle motion packed a devastating, irreversible impact.
“Kill him!”
“Kill him! Kill him!!” The deafening roar crashed against Rhein’s eardrums. Muttering a low, muffled curse under his breath, he ultimately chose to spare Marcus’s life.
A light layer of sweat now dampened Rhein’s bangs. Annoyed, he brushed them back, though he ultimately left them hanging over his forehead, picked up his discarded glasses, and hopped down from the platform.
Appreciative cheers, applause, and clamoring demands for another round echoed back and forth. Spotting the organizers hurrying over from a distance evidently intending to settle the payout while badgering him to take another match Rhein’s attention shifted instead toward the second female being dragged onto the platform, causing his brows to slowly knit together.
The organizers blocked his path, their tone dripping with fawning obsequiousness while remaining utterly inflexible. “Mr. Lin Yin, just one more match fight one more round, and the prize money doubles. This female has already lost three matches in a row, leaving his financial backers deeply displeased. Some high roller placed a wager: whoever manages to beat this female to death inside the ring tonight gets a massive bonus across the entire venue.”
They genuinely couldn’t find amusement unless they were tearing a life apart.
While calculating how to collect his winnings and slip away without causing an excessive commotion, Rhein glanced up at the stage and frowned deeply.
Unlike participants like Marcus and himself who entered voluntarily for cash, Rhein could tell with ninety percent certainty that the female on stage was different. The child was far too young, clearly un-adulterated by adulthood, lacking even a confirmed secondary insectoid form. His entire body was a tapestry of injuries puncture wounds, slash marks, a canvas of overlapping pain.
Someone had deliberately thrown him in here to suffer.
Glancing at the organizers, who had fallen abruptly and uncomfortably silent, Rhein gave a curt nod and said fine.
He stepped back onto the platform. Originally, he had intended to tell the kid to simply forfeit he had no interest in harming a child. Yet the moment the bell rang, the kid lunged forward with a reckless, suicidal fury, fighting with a desperate abandon as though he wanted to tear a chunk of flesh straight out of Rhein.
Figures… losing probably meant death anyway; he might as well try his luck at securing a single miraculous victory to hold onto his life.
The sheer, stubborn tenacity of the child earned a flicker of genuine respect from Rhein. In reality, the kid stood zero chance of touching the hem of Rhein’s clothes; his broken body frail as a discarded, unwanted doll would repeatedly collapse only to stagger back up, his blood-filmed red eyes carrying a heartbreaking desperation. Eventually, even if Rhein stood entirely motionless, the child might not have the strength left to reach him.
This won’t do… Rhein thought to himself. Guess my luck’s just terrible today. I’ll forfeit the prize money, is that enough?
Yet even if he walked away, another fighter would simply step up to slaughter the kid. Rhein didn’t fancy himself a bleeding-heart savior, but after a momentary pause, he watched the child pitch forward, collapsing heavily right at his feet, his blood-smeared face still stained with tears.
I give up. Rhein felt like he was genuinely being scammed by this little troublemaker.
Standing still, he stared down at the child’s chest, which rose in a few faint, erratic twitches before falling completely still. He crouched down and gathered the small female into his arms.
“Don’t make a sound,” he murmured softly beside the small ear. “I’m taking you with me.”
The words were resolute, brooking no argument, carrying the weight of an unwavering promise.