IABI – Chapter 86 Teamwork

That was a very clear and unmistakable sensation.

The soft, human-like skin began to turn rough. Chi Xin could even feel a scaly, abrasive texture beneath her fingertips.

Out of the corner of her eye, she caught sight of Holay—who, despite his wife turning into a zombie, did not hesitate for a second before lunging forward and pulling her into a fierce embrace.

Taking advantage of his movement, Chi Xin used the momentum to execute a backflip and then kicked Pei Jiade squarely in the chest with all her strength.

With the power of her legs, Pei Jiade was sent staggering backward several steps, nearly tumbling into the glowing halo behind him.

But then, a horrifying transformation began to take place on his body.

Pei Jiade’s once-handsome features bulged grotesquely, distorting into something sharp and monstrous. His body began to expand uncontrollably as if something was forcing its way out from within. At the same time, he dropped to all fours, his figure elongating unnaturally.

“Holay!”

Chi Xin shouted, trying to snap him out of his daze. At the same time, a flash of cold light gleamed in her hand—her Tang blade was drawn, slicing through the air toward Pei Jiade!

She wasn’t like those so-called righteous movie protagonists who waited for villains to complete their transformations before attacking. She struck when it mattered—before the enemy’s strength stabilized—when he was still at his weakest.

The razor-sharp blade cut through the air, leaving behind a chilling silver arc. Chi Xin swung her arm with full force, bringing the weapon down toward Pei Jiade’s still-human-looking head!

Clang!

A piercing metallic ring echoed. Chi Xin’s pupils contracted sharply. The instant she sensed danger, she abandoned her strike midway and leapt backward.

In that very moment, Pei Jiade’s upper limbs had shot forward, elongating into chitinous forelegs like those of an insect. From their ends, hardened pincers emerged, gleaming with deadly menace.

Her blade had been caught squarely between those pincers. Had she not reacted in time, the other claw would have pierced straight through her waist.

Chi Xin steadied herself and looked up. Pei Jiade’s body was now upright, his entire form covered in dark crimson scales. Countless segmented limbs sprouted from his sides, writhing and curling.

“Roar——!”

His agonized bellow reverberated across the cliffside, echoing down into the abyss like a mournful cry.

Pei Jiade—or rather, what had once been Pei Jiade—had turned into a gigantic centipede, several tens of meters long. Only the faint remnants of his human face remained visible on the creature’s head, barely enough to recognize that this monstrous abomination had once been a man.

“This… is the form you chose to destroy ‘monsters’ with?” Chi Xin muttered. “How ironic. You wanted to rid the world of monsters, but in the end, you became one of the most repulsive yourself.”

“As long as I achieve my goal,” the centipede rasped, his voice now guttural and hoarse, “no price is too great to pay.”

He gazed down at the human before him, so small and fragile in comparison, his massive pincers grinding together with a teeth-aching screech.

“For all these years, I’ve dreamed of killing Holay. First him, then those outside the island—one by one. Someday, I’ll make this world normal again.”

“If you’d ever bothered to read a book,” Chi Xin said calmly, holding her blade horizontally in a defensive stance, “you’d realize how laughable that sounds. Do you really think it was the gifted who made this world abnormal? If the world had truly been ‘normal,’ why would so many people risk their lives for power? Your anger is misplaced, Pei Jiade. If this is your true belief, then you’re no different from those who created the monsters in the first place.”

“You’re a monster,” the centipede hissed, rearing up another towering segment of his body like a skyscraper toppling toward her. “Of course you’d defend your own kind. Say whatever you like—enjoy your final words while you can.”

Chi Xin tilted her head back, meeting his half-human, half-beast eyes without a trace of fear. The corner of her lips curved into a cold, almost taunting smile.

“Do you know where your beloved brother is?” she asked softly. “He’s become one of the very monsters you swore to destroy. If you saw him now… would you still make that same face—and kill him with your own hands?”

The centipede froze.

His enormous pincers halted midair. “You’re lying.”

“Believe what you want,” Chi Xin replied evenly.

Her ears twitched. Behind her, she could hear the faint, rustling sounds of movement.

The giant centipede’s entire body shuddered violently. His twisted face contorted with something between laughter and sobbing, bending low in torment.

“You’re lying… you’re lying… you’re lying…”

He kept mumbling the same three words over and over, his mind slipping further into madness.

And that—was exactly the moment Chi Xin had been waiting for.

Lowering her stance, her eyes gleamed with the fierce focus of a predator locking onto its prey.

Aiming for the exposed, fragile carapace atop the centipede’s bowed head, she shouted with all her might—

“Now!”

She surged forward, leaping up from the spot and, aiming at that soft-shelled area, brought her blade down with all her strength!

Her afterimage and the gleam of the knife intersected and flashed together, making it hard to tell whether that slight sparkle came from the blade—or from her.

The centipede was high up; just a second before Chi Xin would have fallen to where she stood, solid ice formed beneath her feet. She stepped on it to gain purchase and climbed higher!

At the same time, ice spikes and machine-gun rounds came in succession. Together with her blade they struck hard at the centipede’s crown.

Seeing that her teammates had grasped her hint even in the face of such danger, a trace of a smile slipped into Chi Xin’s eyes.

She’d said so much to buy time. If Jing Xiubai hadn’t understood her, she would have suspected he wasn’t the real deal.

Sure enough, he had—decisively—used the moment to rescue Yu Xiang and Jiang Congyun, and he had seized the timing perfectly.

When Chi Xin needed it most, reinforcements suddenly appeared. Frost and bullets rubbed against each other as they targeted the centipede’s vulnerable spots.

“Roar—”

Under that barrage of attacks the centipede emitted a miserable, ear-piercing scream.

Chi Xin, who was closest to it, noticed something wrong first.

She had indeed struck its head; the blade had felt the crunch of hard shell under it. But the centipede did not fall—instead it erupted with powerful counterforce!

Chi Xin’s eyes flickered. She watched as, between the two halves of the severed head shell, a tongue-like soft body reached out!

She instinctively took a step back, nearly forgetting she was dozens of meters up in the air. Luckily Jing Xiubai reacted fast and extended the ice beneath her feet so she could land solidly.

The sudden turn stunned everyone.

“What the hell is this thing!” Yu Xiang shouted from below. “You said we were to kill the monster—shouldn’t he be the one to be killed?!”

More concentrated fire lashed at the centipede’s huge body, but its whole body was covered in hard armor; it took repeated hits to hurt it.

The centipede paid the bullets no mind. It lazily flicked its tail toward where a few people were standing, then returned its murderous gaze, locking straight onto Chi Xin.

Chi Xin’s expression hardened. With the crisis alarm blaring in her head, she could only choose to trust Jing Xiubai. Just like on land, she rolled on the spot.

The solid ice shifted under her movement and there was a sharp, brittle crack—huge pincers slammed heavily down where she had been, shattering the ice into powder.

One strike, and the centipede seemed even more enraged. Its two pincers and the huge tongue on its head rose together—three attacks launched simultaneously, all aimed at Chi Xin!

“Chi Xin!”

“Xinxin, watch out!”

“Dong—”

Amid her companions’ cries, Chi Xin raised her knife with one hand and barred herself—no attacking thing could advance an inch.

She suddenly lifted her gaze. The blade’s sheen shone in her eyes, and through a narrow opening she fixed her stare on the centipede’s eyes.

Soon she sensed what was off.

Although the giant tongue had not struck her, a sticky fluid from the tongue’s tip dripped down in threads at such a close airborne distance—and unavoidably splashed onto Chi Xin’s skin.

Where it landed, Chi Xin first felt a burning, stinging pain, then a violent dizzying sensation.

“Careful! Its slime is poisonous!” someone shouted.

Chi Xin shook her head hard to stay conscious and called out to warn her teammates.

The toxin was vicious; it spread rapidly through her body. Not just a head-spinning dizziness—the hand that held the knife began to tremble, weakness exploding through her limbs.

Against her growing weakness, a murderous hate flared in the centipede’s eyes as its pincers edged closer to her.

This was bad.

A bitter, helpless smile welled up inside Chi Xin. She never would have thought that, having come to this world for only a day and a night, she might be defeated by a centipede.

Just as she was about to lose her grip on the long blade, a milky white halo suddenly manifested, wrapping her entire body.

Chi Xin froze. She felt the violent toxin in her run from her like a mouse seeing a cat—ruthlessly chased out. Heat and warmth replaced the previous burning pain.

She glanced down and saw the places on her arm that had been smeared with the slime—redness and swelling were rapidly subsiding; the skin that had already begun to rot was healing.

Jiang Congyun.

The name surfaced in Chi Xin’s mind.

“Don’t you dare hurt Xinxin!” Jiang Congyun’s furious voice rang up from below. Chi Xin had never heard such a gnashing, venomous tone from her—like someone’s precious treasure had been attacked; she looked as if her hair would stand on end from fury.

Chi Xin turned her head in time to see Jiang Congyun—who normally wore a gentle smile—staring at the ugly centipede with an utterly fierce expression.

Her hands were raised, her healing abilities pouring out unceasingly as if her life depended on it.

Yu Xiang and Jing Xiubai fell silent for a moment.

Chi Xin didn’t see that scene, but the strong support from her companions returned unlimited strength to her. Courage and gratitude swelled in her chest, and she threw her head back and laughed.

“Is that all you’ve got?” Chi Xin rose from the ice, her long blade carving a huge arc. “You couldn’t even deal with a few of our ‘monsters’—and you dare say you’ll wipe us out?!”

She didn’t bother to dodge the pincers aimed at her. She targeted that hateful tongue and chopped it off with a single stroke!

“Thud! Thud!”

A thin yet sturdy sheet of ice condensed into a shield in front of her and blocked the pincers that lunged at her.

At the same moment a cold, deadly gleam flashed—and a limp, soft thing fell from high above as the centipede screamed in pain!

Its tongue had been cleaved off by Chi Xin.

“Ah—ah—hiss—”

The centipede’s cry changed pitch. It flailed the severed tongue in a frantic, chaotic way but could not replace the missing part.

“Chi Xin… Chi Xin… I’ll make you die…!”

Bloodshot eyes wide with rage, the centipede’s pincers lunged toward her with deadly intent!

“Since I came to this world, there have been too many people who want me dead.”

Chi Xin flipped through the air without concern—wherever she moved, reinforcements would arrive and would prevent her from falling.

“—If you want to kill me, go stand in line in hell!”