Uenoshi looked up at the colossal tree that had neither top nor bottom, piercing through the universe itself.
The vast majority of fruits hanging from it were dim and lustrous, like civilizations that had lost their heritage, gradually withering away in gray decay.
Only a very few fruits at the highest reaches shone with brilliance, yet they seemed so distant and untouchable to her.
"Here, over here."
Suddenly, a voice rang out in her mind.
It was that voice!
Uenoshi forced herself to pull away from the overwhelming shock of the giant tree.
She remembered the flash of the nuclear explosion, the charred corpses scattered everywhere, the room of Moon Key being swallowed by scorching waves, and the silver ash raining down from the sky.
And that voice that had kept telling her, "Let everyone die," when it sounded again, she seemed to lose consciousness, and the next time she regained her senses, she was here.
She instinctively tried to use the Mind Network to contact Guan Tong, but found that this space simply could not be accessed.
"Here!"
That cold, damp voice sounded again, seemingly impatient and irritated.
Uenoshi followed the direction of the voice, and as far as her eyes could see, she spotted a half-gray, half-red fruit trembling gently on a branch at one corner of the giant tree.
It... was that...?
Uenoshi found it hard to believe. That voice came from an Authority Fruit?
But the Troupe Leader, and Shi Jingyi as well, were both Awakened Ones, yet neither of them had ever experienced anything like this.
And besides...
My Mind Power upper limit still hasn't broken through two thousand yet. Why would I have the opportunity to obtain an Authority?
Uenoshi felt her thoughts spiraling into chaos, waves of pain striking harder and harder, as if warning her that her physical body in the real world was in dire condition.
"Pick me."
The half-gray, half-red Authority Fruit trembled slightly, its voice echoing in her mind.
"Don't you want to avenge the people of Sakura Prayer Country who died horribly? Pick me, and I will give you power..."
Revenge... revenge...
Uenoshi's mind flashed with images of the charred corpses of Serpent Hair Society members scattered everywhere. Those vibrant faces were all frozen in yesterday now.
Could they have ever imagined this outcome?
Would the other people of Sakura Prayer Country who died horribly regret ever accepting the Serpent Hair Society's governance of this city?
Would the survivors wonder if, without the Serpent Hair Society, without Uenoshi, without Guan Tong stirring things up, Bruce would never have marked this city as a target for elimination?
"We were all killed by you and your Troupe Leader." That voice said coldly. "And yet you refuse to avenge us?"
Uenoshi's whole body jolted, her focus sharpening.
Her Mind Power surged forth from within, forming a long ribbon that stretched upward, making contact with that trembling fruit.
Pick it.
The moment her fingers touched the fruit, it split open with a crack.
A tiny snake with half-gray, half-red scales actually slithered out from the cracked fruit. Its pupils radiated malice and delight.
Uenoshi locked eyes with those serpent pupils, feeling her mind being drawn in, her own bloodline ability seemingly surging out of control.
"Hiss... finally, I have returned to this beautiful planet... hiss hiss... humans... embrace the abyss..."
The little snake suddenly opened its mouth wide, its fangs sinking into the back of Uenoshi's hand.
She was certain this was a mental space, yet her palm still felt searing pain.
The snake seemed to be injecting something into her body through its fangs. She could feel her body mutating uncontrollably.
"Quick! She's about to give out!"
The robots and modified Ascendants surrounding Uenoshi fought with everything they had.
The ground around her was littered with metal debris and corpses. She had eliminated who knows how many enemies, but she herself was covered in wounds.
When the enemies realized her scales had an upper limit to what they could withstand, they focused their attacks on her head. The scales on her face had almost all fallen off, leaving her face a mess of wounds.
At this point, no one wanted to capture her alive anymore. Everyone's only thought was to kill, kill her!
"Crack!"
A scale on Uenoshi's neck fell off. Her arms were fending off attacks from both sides when an Ascendant wielding a spear shouted, "Opportunity!" and thrust forward.
The spear tip pierced through her neck, unprotected by scales. That critical hit seemed to declare the end of the battle.
Blood spilled from the corner of Uenoshi's mouth. Her pupils momentarily lost focus, and her body swayed before collapsing to the ground.
"Dead... is she dead?"
The crowd surrounding her froze for a moment. A few seconds later, someone wanted to celebrate loudly, but the sound got stuck in their throat.
For there, Uenoshi, whose neck had been run through, was actually slowly climbing back up from the ground. The bloody hole in the center of her neck was still there, yet she could still stand.
"No, impossible!!!"
Everyone was stunned. The Ascendant holding the spear backed away several steps, nearly collapsing into madness.
His perfectly timed, all-out strike should have made him the hero who killed the enemy! No matter how strong an Ascendant was, how could they survive being stabbed through the neck?!
Uenoshi, now standing, radiated an aura that no longer seemed human. Bizarre serpentine patterns began rapidly crawling across every inch of her skin.
"Hiss... that's it..."
The voice of the little snake from the fruit still echoed in Uenoshi's mind.
"Accept this power... hiss hiss... become my devoted servant..."
Bruce and the others in the Hall of Halls combat command center watched this bizarre scene unfold on the screen, all wearing expressions of shock.
Dr. Heisen was especially dumbfounded, unable to understand why Uenoshi hadn't died after taking that spear to the neck. This was already a situation beyond human limits.
And in the screen feed, they could see Uenoshi's scales shedding and regenerating simultaneously, her limbs undergoing some kind of twisted deformation.
That strange transformation looked like a snake shedding its skin, and it was deeply unsettling to watch.
"What the hell is going on? What kind of monster is she?!"
The Commander had completely lost it. He had thought that if Guan Tong survived, capturing him would take some effort, but he never expected things to turn out like this.
Right now, Guan Tong was presumed dead from the nuclear explosion, but this snake-monster Uenoshi had survived thanks to her scale defense, and she was even inflicting significant casualties on the legion.
Bruce frowned deeply: "Is she going to molt from a half-snake, half-human into a true snake?"
"No, wait!" Heisen shouted. "The transformation has stopped!"
Everyone looked closely and realized Heisen was right. The eerie serpentine patterns on Uenoshi's face had stopped spreading, and her scale regeneration had halted as well.
"Hiss...! Why...?"
The voice inside Uenoshi's mind became utterly stunned.
"Human... are you resisting my transformation? Don't you want revenge?"
Uenoshi's gaze was clear, her expression resolute: "I am Uenoshi of the Trace Origin Travel Troupe. I will not become your servant."
"Damn it... hiss... how dare a human deceive me... do you know the consequences...!"
"I know this power is what keeps me alive."
With that, Uenoshi combined the newly acquired power with all her remaining Mind Power, condensing it into an ultra-large-scale petrification beam.
"Human... if you do this, you will die... and you can't kill everyone, you can't get your revenge..."
"Someone will avenge us."
After saying this, Uenoshi released the petrification beam.
In an instant, pure green light blossomed with her at the center. Ascendants and robots alike in the surrounding radius froze and turned to stone the moment the light touched them.
Hundreds of stone statues shattered into dust. The sight was so terrifying that those encircling the outer perimeter scrambled backward. Aside from the fearless robots, no one dared step forward again.
"Hiss hiss... foolish! Foolish humans!"
That cold voice turned into impotent rage for the first time. It could not stop Uenoshi from unleashing this attack with the bloodline power it had granted her.
But that bloodline power was originally meant to sustain Uenoshi's life, to complete her transformation into a devoted servant.
Now that she had used it to kill enemies instead, the consequences were obvious.
The regenerating scales fell away. Uenoshi toppled backward onto the ground, her body rapidly turning pale and blue from the bottom up, more and more like the people she had turned to stone.
She knew she was going to turn to stone as well, then crumble to ash and scatter with the wind. That didn't seem like such a bad way to die.
It's just...
The obedient robot soldiers swarmed in again under orders. The Commander didn't know whether Uenoshi would "revive" again, so he wanted her completely destroyed before he could rest easy.
At least the Troupe Leader... Guan Tong wasn't here. But if only I had a little Mind Power left for the Mind Network to say goodbye to him...
The petrification had spread to her face. She could no longer move, only her not-yet-petrified eyes still working.
The robot soldiers surged forward, weapons swinging down.
Time froze at that instant. The next moment, countless black spikes pierced through their mechanical bodies from behind, then flung them away.
A six-winged black figure descended from above, landing beside Uenoshi as lightly as a feather.
Guan Tong knelt on one knee, reaching out to support Uenoshi, but the moment his left hand touched her pale-blue arm, it crumbled into a cloud of powder in his palm.
The petrification had spread to Uenoshi's eyelids. She could no longer speak with her petrified mouth, but the light blazing in her eyes was enough to show how overjoyed she was at this moment.
A single tear slipped from the corner of her not-yet-petrified eye. Guan Tong's left hand, clutching the ash, trembled. His peripheral vision caught the ring on his left hand's finger.
If time could erode stone, then couldn't a space that stopped the flow of time preserve everything?
At the very instant Uenoshi fully petrified, the ring on Guan Tong's hand burst with light, drawing her inside.
He was still kneeling, but Bruce and the others watching from afar all rose to their feet simultaneously, staring at the figure on the screen, unable to speak.
Shadow was still alive, and he looked completely unharmed.
The surrounding modified Ascendants, the robot soldiers, and the war mechs all stood motionless, because the Commander was momentarily at a loss for what orders to give.
The air at the scene seemed to freeze. Everyone was watching Guan Tong, watching a dark world spreading outward with him at its center.
"Sh-Shadow, it's the Shadow Domain!" The Commander snapped back to his senses and shouted. "He's activated the Shadow Domain! Attack immediately!"