Chapter 93: Winter’s Dillema (4)
Winter’s eyes narrowed into sharp, dangerous slits as she inspected the Human Beast more thoroughly.
She then cast a quick glance toward her Vampire Butler, issuing a silent command through her cold glare.
Who did this pathetic creature think he was lying to? If he felt compelled to invent a wild excuse to save his skin, he should have at least come up with something that didn’t sound completely impossible.
However, Winter hadn’t entirely scrapped what she had just heard. A microscopic sliver of genuine consideration flickered deep within her mind, but the dominant emotion reflecting across her stoic face was overwhelming frustration.
Receiving her silent command, the Vampire Butler once again reached out and brutally gripped the guardian’s neck, squeezing tightly until the Human Beast began to choke and gasp for air once more.
Seeing absolutely no remaining hope of surviving this encounter, the 23rd Guardian could only roll his eyes upward toward the damp, pitch-black "sky" of the subterranean cavern. As heavy, genuine tears began to stream down his pale cheeks, Winter felt a momentary surge of hesitation before pressing him any further.
"You are not lying to me?" Winter asked, her voice dropping an octave as she sought to verify the truth before ordering her beast to snap his neck.
The Guardian shook his head furiously, his trembling body pleading for mercy until the crushing grip on his throat was finally released.
"Remove the web trap," Winter commanded flatly.
The Vampire Butler hesitated for a brief second, casting a protective glance toward its master before obeying her order and dissolving the sticky blood threads holding the man against the rock face.
Winter let out a long, weary sigh while slowly shaking her head.
The entire claim was fundamentally impossible. No living creature could ever magically transform into a real human, regardless of possessing an uncanny, human-like physical appearance. Beasts were beasts, and humans were humans.
Even if an entity’s internal anatomy underwent strange biological modifications over time, those shifts were strictly superficial visual variations. A creature’s underlying mana signature was the ultimate, unalterable factor that definitively determined whether an entity was classified as a wild beast or a human being.
"How on earth did you come up with such an absurd conclusion?" Winter demanded coldly.
The Human Beast sulked where he sat, his dark, miserable expression casting deep shadows across his pale face before he slowly lifted his head. He had collapsed pathetically onto the damp cavern floor the second the Vampire Butler completely released the web trap.
"It started not too long ago..." the Guardian whispered, his voice trembling. "When I first realized that I could no longer do anything to suppress the rapidly expanding Nexus Network."
Winter clicked her tongue sharply in annoyance. "So what does that actually mean for the city?"
"It means I can no longer harvest the volatile mana reserves down here," the Guardian confessed, staring at his trembling hands. "I can no longer absorb the floating energy before it materializes into physical dungeon rifts."
"And if that process continues unchecked, what will ultimately happen to you?"
"I will eventually turn entirely into a human..." the Guardian admitted with a bitter, defeated tone. "And this entire floor will permanently lose its official Guardian. On top of that, I won’t even have the power to transfer the sacred title to another high-tier beast—unless it happens to be an entity closely related to my specific bloodline."
Winter slapped her palm directly against her forehead, intense frustration biting at her lower lip as her mind processed the nightmare scenario. This was the absolute last thing she wanted to hear today.
She quickly gathered her chaotic thoughts, desperately trying to analyze the situation and come up with an immediate solution.
The Guardian was the singular entity actively protecting the Hanging City from being completely swamped and swallowed alive by rogue dungeon rifts. Without his continuous protection and the ancient binding pact forged nearly a thousand years ago, the entire population above would eventually be forced to abandon their homes and migrate into dangerous, unknown territories.
Winter could already vividly imagine the terrifying chaos and mass destruction that would inevitably follow.
Overwhelmed by cold anger, she reached down, grabbed the guardian tightly by his leather collar, and yanked him upward until their faces were inches apart.
"If you are bullshitting me right now, I will personally kill you on this exact spot," she growled, her icy breath hitting his pale skin. "If you die right here, our family will simply be blessed with a brand-new guardian based on the sacred pact my ancestors forged with your kind!"
Pure, unadulterated fear painted itself across the guardian’s face the instant those words left her mouth.
He shook his head frantically, his body trembling violently as his mind raced to find an alternative way out of this deadly confrontation. Suddenly, an idea surfaced in his memory—something he had desperately wanted to ignore and suppress before. But looking at Winter now, backed by an exceptionally powerful and intelligent beast, he realized that making it a reality might not be entirely impossible after all.
Winter instantly picked up on the subtle shift in the Human Beast’s body language. It was a fleeting, almost imperceptible change in his expression, but her sharp eyes caught it immediately—he knew something crucial.
"Please...! I beg of you, don’t kill me!" the guardian pleaded frantically, his hands rising in a posture of complete surrender. "I still desperately want to live! I cannot die without properly fulfilling my sacred role first! I refuse to become an eternal disgrace to my entire bloodline!"
Winter tightened her firm grip on his collar, her knuckles turning white. "What are you hiding in that head of yours?"
"I... I really didn’t want to mention it because it sounds completely impossible to accomplish!"
"What is so damn impossible? Spill it!" Winter pressed harder, shaking him aggressively.
The Human Beast let out a long, shaky sigh, forcing himself to recall ancient memories from before he was originally incarnated as the guardian of this deepest subterranean floor beneath the cracked earth.
Long ago, the original kin of the Human Beast had formed a solemn covenant when they first appeared on earth as peaceful, non-aggressive entities. They were fundamentally different from the ferocious, bloodthirsty monsters that actively preyed on human settlements.
These Pacifist Beasts had built close, harmonious relationships with the very first human tamers thousands of years ago. Soon after, a sacred binding pact was created to safeguard the long-term future of humanity.
It was during that ancient era that the very first guardian assumed its noble role as a Spirit—a unique classification of beast that swore an oath never to harm a human being. Their sole purpose was to harvest and neutralize the fluctuating mana signatures of unstable rifts until their physical forms expired, after which they would return to their original spiritual state and pass away peacefully.
Following their death, another guardian would naturally reincarnate from a suitable beast within the bloodline, seamlessly continuing the cycle of ultimate protection. All those who successfully fulfilled their duties as a guardian beast were promised eternal life in a bountiful, heavenly realm on the other side—the sacred paradise reserved strictly for Spirits.
However, to qualify as a full-fledged Spirit, a beast was required to fulfill its complete quota as a guardian before dying. If a guardian perished prematurely without reaching that required threshold, they would transform into nothing but a shameful, lingering husk—forced to wander the earth as a disgraceful failure for the rest of their existence, forever denied entry into the higher realm.
"If that’s the case, then killing you right now really is the cleanest option..." Winter threatened coldly, signaling her beast.
"No! Please... no!" The Guardian screamed out in absolute desperation, his voice echoing frantically down the cavern walls.
"If you don’t want to die here, then stop wasting my time and spill everything you know right now!"
The Guardian let out a ragged, defeated sigh, realizing he had no choice left but to lay out the dangerous truth.
"I still desperately want to fulfill my duty as guardian, but with my physical body slowly turning more and more human by the day, continuing my duties normally is going to be completely impossible. My only remaining option is to manually transfer the sacred title to another entity."
"I can still achieve that exact same result by simply killing you where you sit," Winter countered ruthlessly.
"It doesn’t work like that!" the Human Beast yelled out, shaking his head. "If you kill me in my current corrupted state... I won’t be able to reincarnate at all! The next version of me will fail to manifest and take my place! Because I haven’t harvested enough raw mana to complete my quota, my soul lacks the energy required to trigger a forced reincarnation at this point!"
The Human Beast squeezed his eyes shut, as if preparing himself for the terrifying reaction his next words would provoke.
Winter didn’t hesitate, her gaze piercing right through him. "Then what the hell am I supposed to do about this? Looking at the state of your eyes, it seems you’re completely useless on your own."
"If... if you can personally enter the depths of the Nexus and locate the hidden double rift inside," the Human Beast whispered, his voice barely audible over the cavern ambient noise, "the one that directly connects to the ancient ceremonial realm where the very first guardian and your noble ancestor originally sealed the covenant... you will find the sacred core gem hidden there. If that gem is retrieved and consumed by another high-tier beast, the guardian title will immediately transfer over to them. However, that sacred mechanism can only ever be activated once. If another disastrous anomaly like mine occurs again in the distant future, it will mean absolute, unavoidable doom for the Hanging City."