Watching Lucia in such agony, Su Yaoyao felt as if countless fine needles were stabbing deep into her heart, and tears stread uncontrollably from her eyes.
"I know, it’s my fault. I shouldn’t have been so cowardly. I didn’t consider your feelings."
She took a step forward, her eyes filled with heartache and self-reproach. "But please believe , from now on, I won’t run away anymore. I want to walk the path ahead... with you."
A tremor ran through Lucia’s eyes, as if a giant boulder had been tossed into a calm lake, and his heart began to shake violently.
He looked at Su Yaoyao, his lips trembling slightly. It seed he had a thousand things to say, but the hesitation and pain in his heart choked them in his throat.
Just then, the "Masked Su Yaoyao" beside him grabbed his wrist and urged him on, "Don’t believe her lies. Look at how many Beast Husbands she has. She doesn’t need you. In the end, she’ll just abandon you without a second thought."
A smile of false tenderness played on the lips of "Masked Su Yaoyao" as she continued to bewitch him. "Only here, with just you and , can we be free of those other irritating males. I will love you with all my heart and stay by your side forever and ever."
Su Yaoyao was frantic. She quickly turned to Lucia and said loudly, "Lucia! I do have many Beast Husbands, and I can’t promise to love only you. I won’t lie to you about that. But I ca to your Spirit World, risking everything, just to tell you, loud and clear, that I’m not going to run away from what’s between us anymore."
Su Yaoyao took a deep breath, mustering all her courage to say firmly, "Lucia, I like you. My feelings are genuine, please believe ."
Lucia’s eyes quivered again, glistening with what looked like tears. A faint, bitter, self-mocking smile touched his lips.
With that smile, the beautiful scenery around them, including "Masked Su Yaoyao," shattered like bubbles and vanished, revealing the true state of Lucia’s Spirit World—a fiery inferno filled with lava.
A wave of scorching heat washed over them, and a great chasm instantly opened up between them.
No longer able to maintain his human form, Lucia reverted to a battered and scarred Nine-tailed Red Fox. Bloodstains mottled his fur, and his wounds continued to bleed freely. He sat curled on the ground, his golden eyes fixed on Su Yaoyao. He made no move to heal himself, as if he couldn’t feel the pain—or perhaps he simply no longer cared about any of it.
After a mont of silence, Lucia spoke, his voice low and hoarse. "If... if you can reach before my Spirit World collapses completely, I’ll go back with you."
A spark of hope ignited in Su Yaoyao’s eyes. Without a mont’s hesitation, she took a step forward. The scorching lava imdiately and rcilessly seared her feet, and pain shot through her entire body.
But just then, a cacophony of whispers suddenly flooded her ears:
"Lucia’s Rage Value is too high! He’s a completely unpredictable factor! Who knows when he’ll go on a rampage again!"
"He injured Ak just yesterday! Who’s going to be next?! We all need to watch our backs!"
"He’s the one who hit first! I was just defending myself!"
"Shut up! You’re S-Class and Ak is just B-level. When he hits you, it’s like a tickle, but when you hit him, it’s a death sentence!"
"If an S-Class goes berserk, they could wipe out our entire clan. None of us can afford such a devastating outco."
"Cast him out! We can’t have soone so dangerous in our clan!"
"Right! Cast him out! We can’t let him threaten our safety!"
The words were like sharp daggers, stabbing viciously into Su Yaoyao’s heart.
She finally understood. This was Lucia’s past—the story of how he was rcilessly cast out by his own people. These were the deep, unhealed wounds in his soul.
Gritting her teeth, Su Yaoyao endured the twofold agony in her body and soul as she walked toward Lucia, one step at a ti.
With every step, she felt as if the flas were searing her heart, the pain so intense she was on the verge of collapsing.
Though each step was an imnse struggle, her gait only grew more determined.
Just then, in the real world, the Nine-tailed Red Fox began to tremble again, letting out a low, agonized roar.
Su Yaoyao’s heart clenched. She knew Lucia’s body was about to give out. She had to race against ti to wake him up and stop his rampage.
Su Yaoyao bit her lip until it bled, enduring the excruciating pain racking her body as she ran desperately toward Lucia.
At that mont, however, the entire ground began to tremble violently, as if unable to bear the strain. A terrifying rumble echoed as the ground began to collapse.
Huge boulders tumbled into the lava, sending towering waves of fire into the air.
When Su Yaoyao was just a single step away from Lucia, disaster struck. Without warning, the ground before her fractured, torn apart as if by an invisible, giant hand. With an earth-shattering tremor, the broken section of ground collapsed, sinking into the churning, incandescent lava below.
Su Yaoyao skidded to a halt, stumbling back a few steps.
Lucia saw it all. It was another vicious stab to his already ravaged heart, and the pain was so intense he could hardly breathe.
A look of utter despair flashed in his eyes. He thought that in the end, just like everyone who had abandoned him before, Su Yaoyao had chosen to give up on him too.
But Su Yaoyao was not one to be defeated by a desperate situation.
She took a deep, heaving breath, then planted her feet firmly. Gathering all her strength in her legs, she burst into a sprint and launched herself across the terrifying chasm.
Her figure seed so small against the backdrop of fiery light and swirling dust, yet she radiated a resolve that was impossible to ignore.
The fox, who had been lying on the ground in despair, seed to sense a powerful and familiar presence and slowly lifted his head.
His golden eyes filled with the sight of Su Yaoyao’s figure soaring over the gap.
Only then did he understand: her retreat hadn’t been an act of fear or abandonnt, but a move to gather montum for the jump.
Looking at the small figure before him, an unprecedented sense of peace washed over Lucia. It was as if, in this collapsing Spirit World, she was his only source of warmth and solace.
Su Yaoyao landed steadily in front of Lucia. Without a second’s pause, she threw her arms around his neck, hugging him with all her might. Her voice trembled with a mixture of excitent and exhaustion. "Lucia, I’ve got you! I did it!"
Su Yaoyao was now covered in blood. The wounds seared into her skin by the lava gaped like the maws of hideous monsters, bleeding profusely.
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