The Creatures That We Are

Chapter 553: Collaboration

On top of the Green Mountain, a great fire blazed and died half of the night sky red. There were many wilted trees in the mountain this deep into autumn, and they were perfect fuel for the fire, which was going to burn the entire mountain down.

A minute before, Tails created a large explosion—not an elemental explosion triggered by Smoker, but a result of detonating the two tons of dynamite they had stored halfway up the mountain beforehand.

Their plan was to make as much noise as possible to lure the awakeners of Li City, thus drawing them away from the real target.

The reason they chose Green Mountain was twofold: first, it was tall and would allow all to see the explosion, and second, the mountain was large, thus conducive to their escape.

“We’re all done here. Should we go?” Xing Kong, whose eyebrows were as sharp as blades, came over, the tanned skin of his topless body gained a hint of red from the blazing flames.

“We wait til we make sure they’re all here,” Madam Wu said seriously. She was now the leader of the Tails, and to be frank, she didn’t like the title much.

Edmond had been their leader, and he was good at it. With Hyena coming up with the concrete plans for Edmond’s decisions, the others executed the plans, and the team had been doing well.

While Tails served the Godbearer Cult, they were independent, and each teammate had different goals and ambitions. However, Edmond could always bring all of them pack of mad dogs together, and he cleaned up the mess when they got in trouble.

Now, though, both Edmond and Hyena were dead, and Madam Wu had to take on their mantle. After all, she was the relatively normal one among the surviving members.

“I’ve come to believe that it isn’t a good idea to work with a life monster.” Xing Kong, the deputy, had more or less figured out Edmond’s secret mission.

It turned out that under the Cult’s order, Edmond had decided to work with a life monster.

Su Xi.

She had sought out Edmond of her own initiative. She had known that the Tails had been creating holy water with the body of a life monster and were planning to find and hunt a living one. Su Xi proposed a collaboration in exchange for protection.

She admitted that during pregnancy, she was weak and had less than tenth of her usual strength. To prove her goodwill, Su Xi told Edmond parts of the truth about life monsters—while it would be naive to just take her at her word, the Godbearer Cult had concluded that she was telling the truth based on what they had learned.

After Edmond’s death, Xing Kong and Madam Wu had learned those facts about life monsters, too, and after some discussion, they decided to continue the dangerous mission Edmond left them with.

According to Su Xi, life monsters came from another world, but she hadn’t said what it was and where it was.

Every twenty years, three life monsters would enter the Mist World with a mission: to sow seeds and to give birth.

For the former, the life monsters would go around the world during the decennial Crimson Tide to activate the power of the altars, sowing the energy seeds of dead wanderers through the blood fog to implant them in the living wanderers. Then the wanderers would, in a manner of speaking, give birth at a certain time to produce monsters.

With all three life monsters working together, they could sow all the seeds in one night.

However, a pregnant life monster couldn’t take on the work, and in the worst-case scenario, there could be only one life monster capable of sowing seeds; then the ordeal would take seven days.

That was why a Crimson Tide lasted seven days.

Regarding the mission of giving birth, the life monsters were allowed to choose their partners—they must be an awakener or a regular human—and they would have a child at the price of the life monster’s life. Through coming together with a human, a life monster could get pregnant and give birth.

They could produce three kinds of offspring: Divine Scion, Forlorn Ghost, and Malediction.

More simply, they were known as the Blessed Child, Lost Ghost, and Cursed Offspring.

A life monster was most likely to give birth to Forlorn Ghosts, and there was a 50% chance for twins to be born. The life monster could immediately sense it if she was pregnant with Forlorn Ghosts since they were neither human or monster, but cursed outliers.

During the pregnancy, the life monster would usually go into hiding to avoid being detected by awakeners or elite monsters, giving birth secretly before welcoming her death.

Why? Perhaps a life monster would come to love her child like a human mother would for some inexplicable reason, and not wanting her child to be killed by elite monsters or awakeners immediately after birth, they had no choice but to hide.

As a result, Forlorn Ghosts often came to this world without parents, without name, and they grew up alone and lost, overcoming great difficulties. They didn’t know where they came from, and neither did they know where they were going.

All they had was their hunger and the instinct to feed on awakeners’ energy. One meal was enough to last them for years.

Still, Forlorn Ghosts were inexplicably linked and drawn to each other, and they found their way to their kins for companionship. That was how the Spectres were formed.

Spring was most likely the first Forlorn Ghost of the Mist World, the first child of the first life monster.

And Su Xi was among the last trio of life monsters coming to the Mist World, and she was the youngest and the last to become pregnant.

She knew that she wasn’t pregnant with a Forlorn Ghost, which meant she would either give birth to the Divine Scion or the Malediction.

All life monsters before her had failed, giving birth to Forlorn Ghosts, while Lin Yue and Zhuang Mei had become lost in their false lives in the Mist World, fearing death too much to come together with a human. Thus, they didn’t get pregnant and give birth to children. That was how they survived and retained the great power of a life monster.

Now, Su Xi was pregnant. She believed she must be pregnant with the Divine Scion.

It was fated to happen. It was the will of God. No one could change that.

Lin Yue didn’t react to Su Xi’s pregnancy, while Zhuang Mei became jealous and afraid. Thus, she decided to stop Su Xi and even tried to kill the unborn child.

While pregnant, Su Xi was no match for Zhuang Mei. To protect her unborn child, Su Xi had no choice but to work with the Godbearer Cult.

She asked the Tails to take her away and hide her well until she gave birth. In exchange, she would provide Tails with real holy water.

That was an offer the Tails and the Cult couldn’t resist, especially the Tails.

They believed that by consuming true holy water, they would be able to overcome the level limit of their Talents and reach level 7, or even level 8. Then they would stop being vermin to be driven away or the undesirable bottom listers, but the top 1%.

A deal was struck through the Cult. Edmond sent all members of Tails to kidnap Su Xi.

To their surprise, though, Seven Shadows and his companions had quickly tracked them down, and Zhuang Mei played the oriole to the mantis capturing the cicada.

Zhuang Mei was more powerful than they had expected.

With her ability to silence Talents, she had caught Edmond completely off guard and grabbed Su Xi, heading to the Island Nation to kill Su Xi’s child with the power of the altar.

Thankfully, the awakeners stepped in.

It was said that Dragon, with the top Talent, had killed Zhuang Mei.

It was terrifying that Dragon was capable of killing Zhuang Mei on his own. Perhaps only the Heavenly Godbearer would be able to deal with him.

“Fire! Such great fire! Muhahaha! It’s burning. It’s all burning...”

Cockroach’s excited shouting broke Madam Wu out of her thoughts.