Chapter 200 ·Cocoon
Chapter 200: Cocoon
The gray-skinned monster, with no facial features and only a vertically split mouth in the center of its face, let out a shrill scream. Dropping to all fours like an oversized, deformed lizard, it kicked off the decayed soil beneath it.
Its speed was absurd.
In Xiao Hong’s beast-like pupils, the thing was nothing more than a gray-white afterimage.
Before even the nauseating stench could reach them, that row of uneven yellow teeth, smeared with unknown slime, was already thrust right up to Lilia’s nose.
“Roar——！”
The foul wind rushed straight at her face.
Bulara, standing beside her, remained calm. Her neck made cracking sounds, as if calculating the optimal cutting angle, with absolutely no intention of blocking for Lilia.
This woman was definitely doing it on purpose.
Lilia stared at that vertically split mouth magnifying endlessly in her pupils. She could even see the strands of meat stuck between its teeth.
Disgusting.
Truly.
After staying around someone as exquisitely perfect down to every strand of hair like Hera, Lilia’s aesthetic standards had been elevated to an unbelievable level.
Something like this—growing however it pleased, completely disregarding the viewer’s sanity—was enough to make one lose their mind just by looking at it.
If something like this touched her, she’d probably have to scrub off a layer of skin with disinfectant when she got back.
Didn’t want to move.
Didn’t want to be splashed by that disgusting slime.
Even less did she want any physical contact with this walking pile of biohazard trash.
Lilia stood there expressionlessly, not even blinking.
She didn’t even draw the short blades at her waist.
Just a fraction of a second before the monster’s claw touched her bangs—
Deep within Lilia’s pupils, that previously lazy crimson suddenly shrank into a needle point.
——【Time Stop】.
Buzz.
The world lost its color in that instant.
The howling wind, the monster’s roar, Xiao Hong’s scream, even the faint sound of gears turning inside Bulara—all were forcibly cut off by an invisible hand.
Utter silence.
The entire Dark Forest became a gray-white, frozen three-dimensional painting.
The gray-skinned monster, suspended mid-pounce, looked like a paused frame in a glitchy video, hovering less than ten centimeters from Lilia.
A drop of thick saliva hung from its mouth, suspended in the air, meant to fall under Newton’s laws but pinned firmly in place by frozen rules.
Lilia slowly exhaled.
It was the last breath she had taken before time stopped.
She stepped back in disgust, avoiding the monster’s “breath attack.”
“What a unique face.”
Lilia clicked her tongue. Her voice sounded dull and strange in the frozen world, with no echo.
She leisurely rolled up her sleeves and drew the two black short blades from her waist.
These were toys gifted by Hera. Though she had mocked them as dinner knives before, they turned out to be surprisingly handy for cutting meat.
Sixty seconds.
No—for this kind of trash mob, even sixty seconds was too much.
Lilia moved to the monster’s side.
Even in its frozen state, its gray-white skin gave off a slick, nauseating impression, like a slab of pork belly left out too long and gone moldy.
“To keep my clothes clean…”
Lilia muttered, twirling her blade in a graceful flourish.
First cut.
The black blade sliced across the connection of the monster’s cervical spine.
No blood sprayed—because even the flow of liquid was frozen.
Second cut.
Her wrist flipped, the tip precisely severing the ligaments in the monster’s right shoulder.
Third cut, fourth cut…
Lilia counted the seconds.
Five seconds.
The monster’s limbs were already separated from its torso, though they still floated in place, maintaining their original posture.
Seven seconds.
…
Nine seconds.
Lilia stopped.
She checked her apron, confirming not a single drop of filth had stained it, then nodded in satisfaction.
This wasn’t even a battle.
“Good enough.”
Lilia sheathed her blades with a crisp “click.”
She even had the leisure to tidy her wind-tousled bangs before gracefully stepping back three meters, finding a relatively clean rock to stand on.
Ten seconds.
“Release.”
A snap echoed within her consciousness.
Color flooded back into the world.
Sound surged in like a tide.
“Ahhh—help! Heroine, save—”
Xiao Hong’s shrill scream had only just begun before it was abruptly cut off, like a rooster strangled mid-cry.
Bulara’s arm, which had just been raised to make a show of helping, froze midair.
Even the monster’s roar hadn’t fully escaped its throat.
That terrifying creature, which had looked capable of biting off a human head in one gulp—
Hung in midair, still some distance from Lilia.
Crash——
Like a toppled tower of blocks.
Its gray-white body instantly collapsed into dozens of chunks of flesh.
Only after the pieces hit the ground—
Splurt!
Dark red blood mixed with gray pus finally burst out from the smooth cuts, splattering across the ground into a grotesque piece of violent abstract art.
Thud, thud, thud.
The sound of flesh hitting the ground was dull and dense.
One half of a head rolled to Xiao Hong’s feet.
The vertically split mouth remained open, its forked tongue twitching twice from residual nerve reflex.
The forest was left with nothing but the creaking “creak—creak” of the hanging skins swaying in the wind.
Xiao Hong remained in her head-clutching posture, her eyes wide as copper bells, her mouth open wide enough to fit an ostrich egg.
She looked at the pile of unrecognizable flesh on the ground, then at Lilia standing a few meters away without a single wrinkle on her clothes.
Her brain completely crashed.
What… just happened?
She had been watching the whole time!
She hadn’t even blinked!
That maid hadn’t even drawn her blades… no, wait—when did she draw them? And when did she sheath them?
“So smelly.”
Lilia covered her nose in disgust and stepped back another two paces.
“Hey.”
She flicked a small pebble with her toe, hitting Xiao Hong square on the forehead.
“Snap out of it.”
Xiao Hong shuddered violently, nearly jumping on the spot.
Now the way she looked at Lilia carried a hundred times more fear than when she had looked at that monster.
That creature had been terrifying, sure—but at least it had to pounce and bite.
This woman… she could make you die without you even knowing how!
“H-heroine…” Xiao Hong’s voice leaked air as she spoke, her legs trembling. “Wh-what are your orders?”
“This thing.” Lilia jerked her chin toward the pile of flesh. “Recognize it?”
Xiao Hong swallowed and forced herself to take a closer look.
After just one glance, she shook her head wildly like a rattle drum.
“N-no! I don’t recognize it! I really don’t!”
“I’ve been roaming the Dark Forest for years, and I’ve never seen anything like this!”
“So.”
Lilia’s gaze turned cold as she recalled what Xiao Hong had mentioned earlier.
“This thing only started appearing after those gray-robed people showed up?”
Xiao Hong froze, then seemed to realize something, her face turning pale.
“You mean…”
She pointed tremblingly at the flesh on the ground, then at the crooked tree behind them covered in skins.
“Y-yes…”
“Before, this place was just a mass grave… there were only some Resentful Spirits and zombies…”
“But ever since those gray-robed people occupied the depths of the forest and started capturing the Resentful Spirits… these kinds of monsters began appearing…”
Her voice grew quieter and quieter, clearly frightened by her own conclusion.
“They… they’re making monsters…”
Mass-producing these deformed weapons.
Lilia looked at the other writhing skins hanging on the tree.
If each cocoon contained one of these creatures—
If deeper in the forest there were thousands upon thousands of such trees—
A chill ran down Lilia’s spine.
“Immortality Society…”
Lilia murmured the name, her fingers rubbing the ring on her left ring finger.
Last time in the Dark Moon Canyon, they were digging up Old Gods.
This time in the Dark Forest, were they creating new gods? Or just cannon fodder?
Whatever they were doing, if Hera found out, her cleanliness obsession would definitely lead her to uproot this entire forest—and scrape off several layers of land for good measure.
“Looks like slacking off isn’t an option this time.”
Lilia sighed, took out a handkerchief from her system space, wiped her hands, and casually tossed it over the pile of flesh, covering that nauseating mouth.
She turned to look at Bulara and Xiao Hong.
In her previously lazy eyes, there was now an added trace of impatient killing intent.
“Let’s go.”