Chapter 42: Unbearable (Revised)

And in the shadows beneath the auction house's scattered seating area, Lin Hao curled himself into a ball, tugging at his clothes to wrap himself tightly.

He wore an ill-fitting oversized suit, sitting inconspicuously in the corner.

His clenched fists were hidden in his sleeves, the joints whitening from excessive force, trembling slightly.

Each time the cold bidding voice came from those lofty private boxes, it felt like a red-hot branding iron, searing his heart fiercely.

That was a living person, his companion, now placed up there for people to bid on.

Calm...... Lin Hao, you must stay calm!

A weak yet persistent voice echoed deep in his mind, the last bastion of his remaining rationality.

Now is not the time!

If he acted rashly now, he wouldn't just fail to save Ye Lin; he'd drag himself down too!

Wait, wait for a better opportunity...

This constantly repeating voice had been the pillar that kept him going over the past few days.

After Ye Lin was taken away, thick despair nearly drowned him completely.

But he couldn't collapse; now only he could go save her.

And after countless setbacks, he found the path that could grant him power the fastest—yet also led to self-destruction.

Mutation.

All he needed was a mutation source, plus the potent inhibitor he'd obtained from the black market.

When his mutation value reached a certain threshold, his body would begin to mutate, growing nonhuman scales, tentacles, horns, and the like.

The inhibitor sold on the black market could let him retain his intellect after a mutation surge, even allowing him to master the power that mutation brought.

He succeeded, but at a cost.

But his body was no longer entirely his own; dark red energy patterns would uncontrollably surface beneath his skin, even writhing, as if live parasites dwelled within him.

Worse still were his emotions, like sitting on a volcano's rim—anger, agitation, sorrow, despair...

All negative emotions were amplified by the mutation, overwhelming him; pain he once endured silently now burned his intellect like toxic flames, often driving him to urges to destroy everything.

Look at them...

A voice full of malice kept echoing in his ears—this was the mutation's whisper.

What did they treat Ye Lin as?

A commodity! A number!

Those people hiding behind the glass didn't care at all whether she lived or died!

His gaze locked firmly onto the massive life-support pod on the auction stage.

Through the transparent cabin wall, he could see Ye Lin's peaceful sleeping profile, just as tranquil as ever, as if she were merely asleep.

But he knew she could only "sleep soundly" in this setting because she'd been injected with a powerful anesthetic.

She knew nothing—she didn't know she was being auctioned as a commodity, nor that her friend was gradually descending into the abyss to save her.

We had said we would survive together, find the way home together...

Memories surged like a tide, bringing bitterness and warmth, yet they stimulated Lin Hao's increasingly sensitive nerves all the more.

He saw Ye Lin smiling brightly at him in the real world, and saw the tears glinting in their eyes when they first arrived in this strange world and encouraged each other.

He also saw her being roughly dragged away by the people of the Undercurrent, looking back at him with eyes full of fear.

"230 million!" a new bid struck like a heavy hammer, slamming into Lin Hao's heart.

Home...

That beautiful vision that once sustained them now seemed so distant, so ridiculous.

Perhaps when they first arrived in this world, they had naively thought they were the protagonists of some transmigration tale.

But reality immediately told them in the cruelest way that, in this so-called game world, they couldn't even qualify as cannon fodder without sacrificing dignity and life.

They weren't the story's protagonists; they might not even qualify as cannon fodder.

No way back...

The world with familiar sunshine and air, their ordinary daily life—all gone beyond return...

He had never realized this so clearly before, and the despair brought by this realization instantly drowned the rationality he had been clinging to.

The mutation energy forcibly suppressed within his body, like a flood breaking through a dam, began to surge and roar wildly once it sensed his host's spirit had completely collapsed.

"Ugh ah ah—!"

A roar he could no longer suppress burst from his throat, hoarse and inhuman.

Lin Hao jerked his head up, revealing a face twisted into extreme ferocity.

The whites of his eyes were instantly covered in blood, his pupils contracting into the cold, vertical slits of a predator.

On half his cheek, keratinous scales with an iron-gray metallic sheen were sprouting at a visible pace, and he could even hear the sound of his bones shifting.

The rationality he had struggled to maintain shattered completely at this moment.

In Lin Hao's mind remained only one crystal-clear thought:

Destroy all of this! Take Ye Lin away! Tear every obstacle to shreds!

He no longer tried to restrain this power; instead he deliberately opened the floodgates, letting the mutation run rampant, detonating the "Mutation" seeds he had secretly planted at several energy nodes in the auction house beforehand.

"Boom——!!!"

An invisible yet soul-shaking mental shockwave, mixed with wildly amplified fear, brutality, suspicion, and other negative emotions, centered on Lin Hao, swept across the entire auction hall.

"Ah! My head! It hurts so much! Something...... is drilling in!"

"What the hell?! I suddenly...... feel like killing someone!"

"Get lost! Don't come near me! It's all mine!"

"It's area-wide spiritual pollution! Guard your mind!"

In just a moment, the originally orderly auction venue fell into utter chaos.

Those with weaker minds either clutched their heads and screamed, or attacked everything around them with bloodshot eyes; even Special Ability Practitioners had their inner power affected, losing control and running amok, able only to barely protect their own consciousness.

Tables and chairs were overturned, with roars, screams, and pleas rising and falling, together weaving a chaotic symphony.

And Lin Hao, who was at the center of this storm, had his body taken over by the awakened beastly instinct within him.

He let out a roar utterly inhuman, and his body underwent a further mutation in the horrified gazes of the crowd.

"Crack!"

A faint cracking sound rang out, and pallid bone spurs pierced his clothing, grotesquely sprouting from various parts of his body.

His back arched abnormally, his whole body's muscles bulged up like inflated, straining his ill‑fitting clothes into shreds, through which a dull gray scale covering could be faintly seen.

In an instant Lin Hao's body swelled by nearly a full circle, ultimately transforming into a terrifying half‑human, half‑dragon‑lizard monster.

"Ye Lin—!"

Using his voice now completely hoarse and transformed, he strained to roar out the only name that could move his heart.

Without any pretense or hesitation, he brutally smashed through every obstacle in his path, with a single goal.

On the auction stage, the life‑support pod that imprisoned Ye Lin.

The chaos became his best cover.

The obsession to save drove his already mutated body toward the destined convergence of fate.