Chapter 68: As Long As I Have A Human Heart

In a distant, otherworldly space.

The night was dim; torches crackled in the stagnant air. Amidst the flickering flames, a bluish-gray circular sacrificial altar stood at the center.

A group of believers knelt before the altar, wearing blood-red robes, their eyes smeared with fresh blood, their hands forming strange mudras.

Below the altar, rows of bluish-gray mummified corpses circled it like petals surrounding a flower's stamen.

Some were not yet dead; their faces were filled with longing and yearning, as if they had witnessed the most perfect scene of their lives.

Yet as the altar continuously drew from them, their faces gradually turned green, and their once-fleshy skin slowly withered, like tender fruits quickly shriveling and drying in the arid air.

From the crowd scattered across the ground, wisps of indistinct energy rose, converging at the altar's center to condense into a sphere of life source brimming with vibrant vitality.

The altar was covered in bizarre, incomprehensible patterns; within those patterns, blood seemed to flow, or perhaps a shifting, uncertain energy, as if responding to the believers' devout prayers.

Only after every human around the altar had been drained did that sphere of life source slowly sink into the altar's patterns and vanish.

At the very front of the blood-robed believers, a man gazed devoutly and madly at the life source disappearing into the altar, a look of complete satisfaction on his face.

"Most Supreme Lord, I hope You are satisfied with this sacrificial offering," he murmured.

After a while, a translucent shadow appeared beside him, gradually solidifying into a physical form. Upon closer inspection, countless rays of light seemed to refract within his body, suggesting this was merely a projection of his, not his true body.

"Vede, the Lord has felt your sincerity," he said, his tone extremely strange, not a sound produced by a human, but a simple imitation of the human vocal system.

"Lord Argos," Vede said fervently, "to personally present a sacrificial offering to the Lord is my greatest honor."

"But this is far from enough. Among the myriad worlds, Earth is but a tiny sapling in the Lord's pasture, not yet worthy of the Lord's gaze being cast upon it. You must do more..."

Suddenly, Argos's words halted; he abruptly raised his head to look at the dark night sky, as if sensing something.

"Someone is calling the Lord's name... though only the first syllable..." Argos's tone was inexplicable, "and it is on Earth..."

Vede was startled. "To speak the Lord's name directly! He is mad; he will destroy Earth!"

"Find this person immediately..." Argos's tone was unfathomable, "No matter what it is, anything that dares to speak the Lord's name directly must pay the price!"

&&

Above Mist City, the bright moon hung high.

Moonlight, like water, poured its clear radiance over the entire city, giving this long fog-shrouded city an unexpected sense of transparency.

Yang Yi landed on a high mountain peak, calming her emotions and readjusting her body once more.

What happened this night was too sudden; originally she had only tried to locate that two-thousand-person collective monster, yet unexpectedly she had directly encountered the mastermind behind it all—and moreover, she had unknowingly acted as the bait.

'Look at you now, enduring the temptation of human life source every day; for the sake of your so-called bottom line, you must feed on monsters. Compared to humans, you yourself are more like a monster!' it said in a sarcastic, two-faced tone.

'As long as I have a human heart, I am human.'

Yang Yi twisted her stiff neck strangely; having just restored her deformed body to its original state, her body felt odd.

'What, are you now using this line to hypnotize yourself? If your so-called peers—these people—knew that the deformed monster in the sky was you, would they still consider you human?'

'I have the appearance of a human, speak human speech, and do human deeds; who can say I am not a human?'

Her face twitched; she forced herself to smile, yet her body still had some minute details not quite adjusted, making this smile appear somewhat unfamiliar and strange.

'The moment you speak these words, you drift further and further from being truly human...'

It chuckled, its laughter carrying a peculiar meaning.

Fortunately, all the city's people had been forcibly put to sleep by her; she was completely naked, for her original clothes had been torn apart when her body twisted.

Yang Yi was forced to play the role of a thief, casually using her telekinesis to steal a set of clothes nearby, then returned alone to the Lotus Hotel.

Mist City welcomed a long-overdue peaceful night.

After one night passed, on the morning of the second day, people discovered something was different.

Not only had the fog diminished, but that eerie atmosphere had also vanished.

Only when the sun appeared, and no one in the city was missing and no strange monster attacks occurred, did people recall a news report: "The only S-class Awakened, Yang Yi, came to Mist City yesterday to resolve the threat of anomalous creatures."

"Could it be this fast? I heard Wuming City faced the same A-class threat, yet Miss Superwoman took three days to resolve it!"

"Moreover, our Mist City was more severe; the number of dead was more than double that of Wuming City! How could it be resolved on the very first day..."

"Perhaps the type of anomalous creature was different?"

"Facts speak louder than words! Yesterday's news said Yang Yi arrived; I originally thought it would take at least several days. Who knew that when I woke up this morning, I felt something was off! It was too peaceful!"

"So many Awakened ones have been bragging and killing monsters in the city every day, yet for so long nothing was resolved. Ms. Yang resolved it on her very first day!!! Xia Country can lack all other Awakened ones, but it absolutely cannot lack Ms. Yang herself!"

"The God of Humanity is awesome!"

"Miss Superwoman, I love you! You are the God! You are the Light! You are the only myth..."

"My grandmother said she wants to set up an eternal tablet for her! I dare not even say I'm fantasizing about her in secret, for fear my grandma will beat me..."

"Family, who understands? Every day I watch the national news just to catch a glimpse of her! That calm, serene gaze of hers is about to kill me with charm!"

"... Crawling in the shadows, every day I can only go mad looking at her photos, screaming, imagining her high above, looking down on me with that cold gaze; my whole body trembles. Ah, if she were to glance at me as if I were mere straw with that disdainful look, I feel I would burst into flames from excitement on the spot..."

"The person above, please have some self-respect!"

At this moment, whether on the streets or online, everyone following the Mist City crisis was discussing the extraordinary peace of Mist City today, discussing Yang Yi.

The Awakened ones who came to support Mist City had mostly stayed out all night last night hunting monsters, yet inexplicably fell asleep on the streets, suffered nightmares all night, and upon waking in the morning found the fog had thinned and the monsters were gone.

Moreover, last night's nightmares had felt absolutely thrilling, yet upon careful recollection, nothing could be remembered; truly, it was strange beyond words.

When they returned to the Lotus Hotel and learned from Wei Chang'an, who had come with Yang Yi, that Yang Yi had indeed gone out alone last night...

So, was it truly her doing?

How did she manage it? What did she do?

The Awakened ones, who had been running themselves ragged for several consecutive days, felt a thousand mixed emotions they could not express.

So many Awakened ones, busy for a whole week, had not even uncovered the cause of the monsters' emergence. Yet Yang Yi, on her very first day, resolved the crisis that had panicked the entire city and even the whole province.

Yang Yi was still sleeping in the hotel at this moment, unaware of the outside world's reaction.