Rules Ch.365

Chapter 365: The Fountain of Youth (End)

With his memories of the past resurfacing, Grant stared at the familiar face of the woman in the mirror, seized by a terror unlike anything he had ever experienced before.

It was the face Rolinta had worn just before her death.

Her face was covered in wrinkles from psychological trauma and repeated childbirth. Her skin was sallow, and her once-golden hair had long since turned gray. Cold sweat beaded across her forehead, while blood from the beatings stained the bridge of her nose and the corners of her mouth. A broken tooth protruded from her half-open mouth, thin strands of blood still seeping from it.

She wore that hideous, twisted face as she stared at him without blinking, malice filling her eyes, the corners of her mouth stretched into an incongruous smile.

“Grant…” she said, her voice low and hoarse, like sandpaper scraping against his eardrums. “I told you. You will die. You will die when you’re only one step away from success. Heh heh heh…”

The string of laughter stabbed into Grant’s heart like a series of awls, making his heart pound violently and sending a chill down his spine. The hairs on the back of his neck stood on end.

Would he die? Die just when he was about to succeed… die now?

Throughout Grant’s long life, there had never been a person or thing capable of making him afraid.

Except death.

Only death was the nightmare Grant could never escape.

No matter how many bodies he changed, no matter how great his accomplishments became, the shadow of death always hung over him. The fear and anxiety in his heart could never find peace.

And Rolinta—the Rolinta who had once driven him to the brink of death—was another source of terror forever intertwined with death itself.

In the mirror, Rolinta watched Grant’s cold sweat with satisfaction. Then, her tone suddenly changed. Her voice softened, becoming extraordinarily gentle.

“Grant, haven’t you realized it yet? All these years, I’ve been silently watching you from inside your body, waiting for you… waiting for the day when you’ll come down to hell and join me!”

As she spoke the final words, tears of blood streamed from her eyes, and her expression once again transformed into something terrifying and ghastly, like a vengeful ghost.

Grant’s pupils trembled.

The desperate battle that had lasted three days flashed before his eyes. It had been the closest he had ever come to death. If he had been even slightly slower in summoning outside help, Rolinta’s consciousness would have torn him to pieces.

If what Rolinta said was true—if it really was true…

A terrible sense of unease washed over him. The veins on Grant’s forehead throbbed as he clenched his teeth and shouted at the mirror in a complete loss of composure, “Impossible! I devoured and assimilated you long ago. There’s no way you could still be alive!”

Rolinta laughed again.

As her smile slowly spread, her face began to change as well. Her wrinkled skin became fair and smooth, her teeth grew neat and white, and her eyes became bright. Her soft golden hair reflected the sunlight like cascading lengths of satin.

She transformed back into the carefree young girl she had once been, giggling as she beckoned to Grant.

“Why is it impossible? I’m right here, inside your body. Look. Look at me…”

Look at her. Look at her. Hurry, look at her…

A voice whispered in the depths of his mind.

Only now did Grant suddenly realize that another voice had appeared in his consciousness sometime earlier. She had been impersonating him, subtly manipulating his every move, causing him to unknowingly walk step by step toward the edge of a dangerous precipice.

Who was it? Who… Was it you, Rolinta?!

In a state of extreme panic, Grant plunged into his consciousness and summoned every ounce of courage he had to look toward the source of that voice.

He saw a monster.

It had no face or features, nor did it have any limbs. Its entire body resembled an enormous swollen sac of flesh, spreading across the ground like a tide.

The surface of the fleshy sac was covered in countless tears, the edges curled outward to reveal dark-red scraps of flesh crusted with dried blood. Dense clusters of black-and-red strands of flesh protruded from the tears, dangling like countless limp tentacles. As the sac moved forward, they rubbed against one another and stretched into sticky threads, producing a constant, wet rustling sound.

“Waa… waaa…”

The fleshy sac stopped in front of Grant and split open. Accompanied by shrill cries, one dead infant after another, their faces swollen and purplish-blue, crawled out of the opening and clambered along the tendrils of Grant’s consciousness, soon covering his entire body.

Foul-smelling umbilical cords still dangled from the dead infants’ bellies. They were the very strands of flesh Grant had seen earlier.

And the enormous fleshy sac was a womb that had given birth to countless dead infants.

Sharp pains began to shoot through Grant. Looking closely, he discovered that the dead infants covering his body were viciously biting into his consciousness with mouths filled with sharp teeth.

Every bite tore away a piece of his consciousness, leaving behind a bluish-black wound. The dark patches spread like ink dropped into clear water, rapidly expanding across the surface from the size of a coin until they were as large as a football.

Grant could feel the connection between those areas of his consciousness and his core becoming obstructed.

They were rebelling.

They wanted to escape!!!

History was repeating itself.

Those he had devoured, those who had once served as nourishment for him, those who had become stepping stones on his road to immortality—all of them were once again breaking free of his control under the summons of the monster and the infants.

They awakened their own wills, bared their teeth and claws, and launched their revenge against Grant.

Huge lumps began bulging outward across the smooth surface of his consciousness. Countless indistinct human faces strained against the bluish-black flesh from beneath the surface.

They were like moths trapped inside a cocoon, or malformed fetuses growing within a womb. Beneath the taut surface, they cried, howled, struggled, and writhed until, finally, the human cocoon imprisoning them was torn open. The faces broke free, stretching out long necks before turning and biting down on Grant’s consciousness.

“Ahhh! Aaaahhhhhhh!”

On the platform, Everly’s body suddenly arched backward like a bow. She threw her head toward the sky, her entire body convulsing as wave after wave of agonized screams poured from her mouth.

Her unfocused blue eyes were like mirrors, reflecting the opened dome overhead and a circular aircraft that was growing larger and larger.

Within the world of consciousness, Grant was besieged by dead infants and the remnants of countless souls, once again thrown into a desperate battle.

This time, with no outside interference to save him, the accumulated consequences of all the evil he had committed over the years had finally come back to consume him.

Everly’s consciousness hid behind Rolinta, watching everything unfold with a mixture of fury and satisfaction.

After plunging into the deepest reaches of Grant’s consciousness, she had not only discovered the long-forgotten memories he had deliberately buried, but had also unexpectedly found the remnants of Rolinta’s consciousness.

It was incredibly weak and its form was highly unstable, but it truly was Rolinta.

For decades, she had hidden alone at the bottom of that dark, filthy abyss, struggling desperately to survive. She had never truly surrendered.

With the “Blessing” of the Sacred Tree Bracelet, Everly had successfully awakened this soul that had endured unimaginable suffering.

And now, the time for revenge had come!

The more powerful Grant’s consciousness had been, the more ferocious the counterattack from the consciousnesses he had split off became. In a matter of seconds, he had already been torn apart, reduced to a battered and fragmented wreck.

“The beast is at its weakest right now. This is our moment to strike. One blow, straight to the heart—clean and decisive. Attack! Now!” The hunter’s voice rang out in her mind.

“Understood!”

Everly gave a quick response and, following the “Blessing’s” instructions, abandoned her disguise and spread her consciousness throughout the body.

This was her body!

Her consciousness had been born from this body. Her body existed to serve her consciousness, and together they possessed the most perfect compatibility in the world.

The reason Grant had been able to forcibly seize her body was because his consciousness was simply too powerful. He was like an armed thug who had stormed into Everly’s home with a gun. Unable to defeat him, Everly could only hide and wait for an opportunity, effectively surrendering her home to him.

But now, the thug was wounded and had entered a weakened state. The invisible barrier that had previously separated Everly from her body had disappeared as well.

As the rightful owner of the house, Everly naturally had to seize the opportunity and drive the intruder out!

Using the transformation ability she had only recently learned, she spread her will into an exceptionally thin layer of gauze, draping it over her body and allowing it to seep inward layer by layer, from the surface of her skin down into her deeper blood vessels, nerves, and bones.

Through this delicate web, Everly sensed her heartbeat, the flow of her blood, the contraction of her muscles, the rise and fall of her chest…

She had lived in this body for more than twenty years. She remembered everything about it.

And her body was doing everything in its power to respond to her.

Her heart beat faster and faster. Her blood surged more violently through her veins. Her muscles contracted and relaxed with renewed vitality, while her chest rose and fell dramatically.

Because of her approach, her entire body—from tissues to cells, inside and out—was swept up in an unprecedented frenzy.

Yes.

She remembered her body, and her body remembered her.

They had always been one and the same!

Everly’s spirits soared. She concentrated fully and continued spreading and infiltrating her consciousness, from point to line, from line to plane, strand by strand, thread by thread, layer by layer…

Finally, within her world of consciousness, a web formed from the resonance between spirit and flesh appeared.

The scorching-hot web spread downward, its glowing surface like a branding iron, trapping the completely defenseless intruder within its grasp.

Then Everly reached out.

The dead infants pushed with their hands and feet. Rolinta’s bloated body pressed forward. Even the remnants of the dead who were struggling to break free twisted and contorted their warped forms, straining to push against the web with their heads.

All the consciousnesses worked together, using the last of their strength. In a silent cry, they slowly, bit by bit, strand by strand, tore that filthy, corrupted mass of foreign consciousness away from Everly’s consciousness and viciously forced it out of her body—

“Vmmm…”

The unfocused look in her eyes cleared, while a dizzying ringing filled her ears. The first thing Everly noticed was the strange sight in the sky, but she had no time to pay attention to it.

The instant she regained control of her body, just as she had rehearsed in her mind, she snatched up the mirror and shouted at her reflection:

“Bloody Mary!”

“Heeheehee… Here I come…”

A girlish giggle came from the mirror. In the circular glass, Everly’s face suddenly transformed into another round mirror.

The two mirrors reflected one another. Mirrors appeared within mirrors, reflections nested inside reflections. Countless mirrors overlapped, growing smaller and smaller and stretching farther and farther away, forming an endlessly extending corridor of mirrors.

The instant the corridor formed, a powerful suction force swept over her. Everly’s legs went weak, and she felt herself become weightless.

She closed her eyes for only a moment.

When she felt something hard beneath her feet and opened her eyes again, she found herself inside a dark, dilapidated mirror space.

Mirrors were everywhere—above her, below her, in front, behind, to her left and right. As far as the eye could see, mirrors of all different shapes and sizes filled the entire space.

Most of them were shattered. Their dull surfaces were black and filthy, as though coated in a layer of soot, and they reflected nothing at all.

In the vast space, only one small round mirror floating in midair was glowing.

Judging by its size and shape, it was presumably the mirror Everly carried with her.

Everly walked over to the little round mirror and watched the situation outside through its surface.

She saw Bloody Mary standing in her place outside the mirror. The witch had clearly been caught off guard by Everly’s sudden summoning and had yet to figure out what was going on.

While Bloody Mary was still dazed, a mass of sludge-like matter, somewhere between solid and phantom, suddenly materialized out of thin air. Its bloated, hill-like body launched a surprise attack from behind and enveloped the witch completely.

Everly recognized it at a glance.

Having just driven it out of her own body, she knew exactly what it was—Grant’s consciousness.

Even after the fierce battle it had just endured and despite being severely weakened, Grant’s consciousness remained extremely aggressive. Like a predatory octopus, it extended mental tendrils covered in fleshy growths. The moment they wrapped around Bloody Mary’s head, they began burrowing inward.

Grant was a monster, but Bloody Mary was no less monstrous.

Her back was turned to Grant, so he had yet to notice her expression. Faced with his attack, the witch did not resist. Instead, she slowly extended the tip of her tongue and licked her lower lip in barely concealed excitement, a suggestive smile curling across her lips.

Just as the two monsters finally came into conflict, with neither yet knowing who would emerge victorious, the flying saucer Everly had spotted earlier finally arrived.

Through the open roof overhead, it flew closer amid white flames so intensely hot that even the surrounding air warped from the heat. It emitted a low-frequency vibration as it hovered in the air not far above the mountaintop.

It was so enormous that it resembled a mobile city. Its vast shadow descended, draining all color from the world below.

A circular opening directly beneath the craft rotated open.

A beam of blinding white light shot straight downward, enveloping the stunned witch and Grant completely.

The moment they were enveloped by the white light, it was as though someone had pressed the “pause” button on a movie.

Both Bloody Mary and Grant stopped moving.

One person and one consciousness froze like wax statues, completely motionless. Unable to resist, they slowly rose into the air within the beam of white light, eventually drifting into the opening at the bottom of the craft.

The silver-white metal doors closed behind them. The white beam vanished, and a ring of white flames appeared around the edge of the craft.

Just as suddenly as it had appeared, the strange craft—far beyond the limits of human imagination—rose from the ground with the flames propelling it upward. In only moments, it disappeared into the distant silver-gray sky.

In less than half a minute, nothing remained on the ground except Everly’s discarded clothes and backpack. No trace of anyone else could be seen.

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