Although her Achilles tendons had snapped, the girl refused to give up. She bit her lip hard and crawled forward with a whimper!
But the snapping sound rang out again. The tendons in her wrists and elbows severed in the same way. Her limbs’ muscles turned soft as cotton, and the recoiling tendons felt like she’d been kicked, bringing a sense of inner collapse and utter despair.
The girl let out a wail and crawled forward like an insect, using her chin and the contractions of her chest and abdomen!
Just a little further…
If she could just crawl over that bulkhead…
I want to go home…
At that moment, footsteps approached unhurriedly from behind her.
“Ten seconds left, keep crawling,” Coleridge’s voice dripped with mockery and malice. “If you cross that line, you’ll get your happiness. Five seconds… four, three, two, one! Hahaha! Looks like you didn’t fully get into the insect role— you didn’t crawl fast enough!”
As the countdown ended, the girl’s body trembled. Her eyes reddened, and the taut string in her heart slackened. She collapsed to the ground like a broken doll.
Coleridge scooped her up from behind. His fingers gripped her arm and squeezed hard. Without tendons to hold it, the skin, flesh, and fat yielded like soft cheese, oozing slickly between his fingers.
“You can never escape my grasp. Stay obediently in my collection room.”
The girl didn’t respond. She let him manipulate her as a single tear slowly traced down her cheek.
—
So he came after all?
Ashley sneered inwardly as ‘Time Bird’ recorded the ability.
This was an open conspiracy.
If Coleridge let her go, she would impound the cruise ship, request a transfer order, and rescue the hostages.
If he didn’t, conflict was inevitable— the perfect chance to weaken him.
As a civil servant who produced nothing, Ashley knew well whose six pounds a week paid her salary and whom she served.
When money had been tight, that salary had kept her comfortable and dignified.
If she couldn’t even protect the people who paid her, she’d be utterly useless.
She checked the cylinder. The ability ‘Time Bird’ had copied was called “Sure-Kill Sticky Star.”
When activated, the body shrank into a barbed seed that shot out silently, clinging to clothing— undetectable and perfect for assassination.
And right then, one such killer hung on the back of Ashley’s clothes!
The olive-sized, lightweight seed— like a cocklebur— suddenly swelled and deformed, extending an arm wielding a dagger!
The dagger’s shape was bizarre. Its blade was a sinisterly curved spike, translucent and shimmering with agate-like patterns.
The forearm contracted sharply, driving the dagger straight toward her back!
Crack!
Before the dagger could strike, fluid metal burst from her clothes, forming a spike that pierced the wrist first!
A shrill scream echoed in the air. The killer released the dagger, its body inflating as it was forced back to its original form!
Ashley spun around, caught the falling dagger, and recognized it at a glance as a B-Grade Relic— “Human Ball.”
Once stabbed, all the body’s water was forcibly expelled, compressing the victim into a highly dense meatball!
Water made up about seventy percent of the human body. A 100-pound person would shrink to thirty pounds after being stabbed— bones and flesh condensed into a fist-sized, high-calcium protein lump.
This Ancient Relic had originally been used to make dried seafood, freeze-dried food, and compressed biscuits. But like a chainsaw meant for cutting trees being far more efficient at killing, “Human Ball” left no crime scene traces in assassinations. The expelled pure water simply evaporated, as if the person had never existed.
Ashley’s face remained expressionless as she stabbed the killer who had appeared behind her right in the chest!
In an instant, an explosive mist blasted away the ground’s dust, forcing her to squint. Before she could look closely, the killer’s face twisted into patterns on the compressed meatball.
Super effective!
Ashley jolted in shock. These beasts had gone straight for the heavy artillery against her!
I’m still just a kid, damn it!
She looked up at Coleridge, who leaned against the ship’s railing watching the fight, and made a throat-slitting gesture at him.
This grudge was set. Ashley held a simple creed of revenge— you try to kill me, I kill you.
The man draped in white python skin looked grim. Kantelo had been his killer for years, plucked from a primitive tribe in the Isolated Lands. His battle record was flawless, yet he’d been slaughtered like a pig right in front of him. What the hell was this girl’s background?
Still, Kantelo wasn’t even one of the stronger guards— just an assassination specialist. Coleridge didn’t see her as a real threat.
At that moment, the butler reminded him, “Master, the guests have arrived.”
A group approached from afar— guests who had heard the Garden of a Hundred Beasts had docked and come for their appointment.
Irritation surged in Coleridge’s heart. Of all the times…
He turned to the old butler. “You handle it. That loli’s not bad— she has value as a collectible. Bring her back.”
“Yes, Master.”
The butler vanished on the spot, leaving only a trail of blue smoke from his shoe soles friction-rubbing the floor at high speed.
Another one?
Ashley sneered inwardly. They really didn’t learn— they had to test her limits.
This wasn’t a stealth assassination but a mad bull charge, straight at her with no regard for the noise. They’d torn the mask off completely.
The old butler’s explosive power was immense. When he kicked off, it was like stepping on a landmine— the ground detonated. In a few strides, he broke the sound barrier, the shockwave ripping roof tiles from the streets into the sky!
No ability recorded— this was the sheer shock of superhumanly enhanced flesh!
But Ashley didn’t panic. Enhancement without tech was just a clumsy elephant.
If it were the Tribunal’s Iron King tech, it could hit over ten times that speed silently.
And far more agile, not this pit-stomping, inertia-locked cannonball style that couldn’t turn easily.
Ashley feinted a weight-shift to fake him out. They crossed paths, and as she glanced back, she saw him skid uncontrollably, plowing two deep furrows in the ground.
His expensive handmade leather shoes shredded and curled. His tailored trousers ripped into rags, exposing monstrous, talon-like gripping toes and thighs twisted like rebar!
Tech lacking? Relics to the rescue!
The butler twisted a ring on his index finger— shaped like cordyceps!
Ashley recognized it immediately as an A-Grade Relic!
“Fetal Treasury Mandala”!
Whoosh!
Four black anomalous points appeared above the Blue-Haired Loli’s head and on the ground, forming a regular tetrahedron. They instantly bloomed into pitch-black petals that layered over her, enveloping her.
Then, the anomalous points contracted inward and vanished.
The butler pressed the ring, relieved. The Blue-Haired Loli was now imprisoned in the “Fetal Treasury Mandala’s” imaginary space.
This powerful relic was meant for containing superhuman creatures— overkill for a single loli.
The butler clasped his hands behind his back and strolled toward the cruise ship, utterly at ease. But he didn’t notice the cocklebur seed clinging to the back of his clothes.
Ashley grumbled inwardly, Do you think I’m some frail old lady who can’t run? Captured just like that?
Before the petals closed, she’d fired the copied “Sure-Kill Sticky Star,” which rebounded and stuck to the butler’s back, ready to infiltrate the ship.
Fighting the Card Court Society without copying a single ability had been frustrating. Now, she was back in her familiar rhythm.
