99: Chapter 99 I Need You

Deep in the starry sky, that slender hand, as if carved from the finest mutton-fat jade, paused slightly.

Its index finger curled nonchalantly, as if flicking away a speck of dust from its fingertip, and gently tapped towards the boundless void below.

"Hum —"

Accompanied by an ethereal vibration, the brilliant sea of stars before it instantly rippled, like a lake surface brushed by a gentle breeze, sending out visible rings.

Immediately after, a tremendously clear, massive holographic scroll slowly unfolded before Zhou An's terrified gaze.

It was the medical bay of the [Cloud Top Fortress] after the "Demonic Contract" judgment was reached.

In the scene, as that irreversible contract was forcibly executed, Zhou An watched with his own eyes as his forcibly stripped Tier 5 Peak life essence, those hundreds of millions in foundational resources, and even the last remaining energy of the fortress, all transformed into a pure stream of vital light, rushing madly into Luo Ning's broken and ruined body like a hundred rivers returning to the sea.

A miracle occurred under the scouring of the light of life.

The disgusting, long-haired tentacles on Luo Ning's body dissolved rapidly like spring snow exposed to the scorching sun, turning into fly ash.

Her festering, upturned flesh regrew and healed at a speed visible to the naked eye, covering itself with skin as fair as jade.

Those characteristics belonging to the "Mother of the Black Goat" were completely and thoroughly stripped from her body, root and branch!

But, a transaction is always equivalent.

The terrifying karma representing the supreme corruption of the "Mother of the Black Goat," after leaving Luo Ning's body, poured entirely into Zhou An's body!

In the scene, that "Zhou An" who took on everything in Luo Ning's place let out a scream.

His body was undergoing a terrifying physical mutation.

His tough human skin was instantly torn from the inside out, and hundreds of thick black tentacles, mixed with foul-smelling, viscous purple-black pus, burst directly out of his body!

"Crack! Crack!"

The bones in his legs made a teeth-grinding sound of shattering and restructuring; his knee joints were forcibly snapped, twisted in reverse, and transformed into long-haired goat hooves treading on dark purple flames.

And most hair-raising of all, a dozen giant eyeballs were scrambling to squeeze out from the flesh of his forehead, cheeks, and even his neck, greedily peering at this world!

"Zhou An! Wake up! Look at me!"

In the scene, Luo Ning, having just regained her human sanity, opened her eyes wide.

When she saw everything happening before her, she didn't even care about her own extremely weak body; like a madwoman, she threw herself recklessly at the "Zhou An" who had completely devolved into an indescribable monster.

She hugged Zhou An's arm, which was covered in sharp barbs and tentacles, tightly, letting the barbs cut through her newly healed skin, blood flowing freely.

Tears gushed out like a bursting flood as she cried out his name in heart-wrenching agony.

However, the "Monster Zhou An," whose sanity was completely dominated by the Mother Goddess's will, could not hear her pleas at all.

That pair of clear eyes that originally belonged to a human had long since vanished, replaced by turbid slit pupils in which only extreme, chaotic madness and the instinct for destruction remained.

"Roar —!"

The monster let out a piercing roar, violently shaking off Luo Ning's grasp, and threw her heavily against the metal bulkhead.

Its massive, mutated body lunged forward, and that hand, now completely transformed into a sharp bone claw, devoid of any past tenderness, mercilessly struck towards Luo Ning's fragile, snow-white neck!

The scene... came to an abrupt end at the tip of the pus-dripping bone claw, just half an inch away from Luo Ning's pulsing carotid artery.

Subsequently, with a crisp "pop," this picture, frozen in despair and death, shattered into thousands of pieces like glass struck by a hammer, completely dissipating into the void.

"No!!! Luo Ning!!!"

Zhou An could no longer maintain the resignation of sitting on the ground as he had just moments ago. He sprang up, his eyes instantly bloodshot and turning deep red.

He glared at the high and mighty jade hand above the dome: "What have you done to me?! That is my body! That is my life! Let me go back!!! Do you hear me! Let me go back!!!"

Facing Zhou An's frantic, maddened roar, the ethereal voice in the starry sky showed no anger, only a slight displeasure at having its stargazing interrupted.

"Shh."

An extremely faint breathy sound exploded directly in the depths of Zhou An's soul.

The tip of the jade hand tapped gently towards the space where Zhou An was.

"Boom —!!!"

The originally deep, beautiful, and tranquil starry sky was ruthlessly torn into countless fragments, replaced by overlapping, indescribable things.

Tens of billions of giant eyeballs squeezed out from the dense void cracks in every direction, like an ocean composed of eyeballs, all staring fixedly at Zhou An in the center!

There was no substantive physical attack.

But the convergence of these tens of billions of gazes caused Zhou An's fragile human brain to be instantly stuffed with a massive amount of information!

"Aaaaaah —!!!"

An ultimate, agonizing pain that no human language could describe instantly pierced through every one of Zhou An's nerves! His eardrums shattered on the spot, and blood flowed uncontrollably from the corners of his eyes, his nose, and his mouth.

Even though his only remaining second-awakening talent, [Last Stand], was running frantically, locking down his last line of rational defense, this instead became a form of torture — this extreme agony of having his soul torn apart, crushed, and pieced back together bit by bit made it impossible for him to even lose consciousness; he could only consciously endure every second of hellish torment, having almost lost all control over this body.

Just as his consciousness was about to completely collapse under this terrifying dimensional gaze.

"Swish —"

The suffocating tens of billions of eyeballs and twisted space around him vanished without a trace, like receding seawater.

The vast, tranquil, and softly glowing starry sky once again gently enveloped him, as if the hell just now was merely a dream.

"Thump!"

Zhou An slammed heavily onto the invisible floor of the void.

His entire body was thoroughly soaked in cold sweat and the blood flowing from his seven orifices, as if he had been fished out of a blood pool.

He was like a dehydrated fish, lying on the ground, convulsing violently. He greedily gulped down the air in the void, his knees completely losing the strength to support him, and he knelt limply on the ground.

The gap was too large. So large that one couldn't even muster the strength to despair.

Just a "quiet warning," so slight it couldn't be slighter, made him truly understand what a real ant was.

But, Zhou An did not bow his head.

He struggled to use his still-spasming hands to hold himself up against the void's floor.

Because of the excessive force, his fingernails even curled back, almost digging into his flesh. Bit by bit, bearing the lingering tearing sensation deep in his soul, he forcibly lifted his blood-stained face.

He stared fixedly at the dome above.

"What... exactly... do you want..."

Deep in the vast starry sky, that ethereal voice slowly sounded again.

"I need you."