Chapter 42: Congratulations on Being Fooled Again

Moyu roared, "Kill me!"

Alice covered her mouth and chuckled, "When you fall into my hands, death becomes a luxury. Are you ready?"

"If you have the guts, kill me! @#%#￥!" Moyu snapped, completely losing his composure and hurling abuse.

The more he acted like this, the more excited Alice became.

This proved her guess was correct.

She pinched Moyu's chin, observing him from side to side, and said, "No wonder my precious treasure is wavering. Thank goodness for her mercy~ I'll transform you into something else, so you can stay by her side forever."

Two rabbit-beast chimeras appeared, hoisted Moyu up, and carried him away. They followed Alice onto an elevator that descended all the way down.

Moyu kept cursing the entire time.

"What kind of shape should I remodel you into?"

Alice circled around Moyu, extending her fair little hands to stroke him up and down, as if caressing a piece of raw jade.

The elevator reached the bottom.

Moyu suddenly fell silent.

Alice looked up in confusion, only to see Moyu smiling.

The smile of a victor.

"Congratulations on falling for it again, little idiot. See you next time, and I'll make sure you take on my shape."

Before Alice's astonished gaze, Moyu vanished into thin air.

One of the rabbit-beast chimeras issued a warning, detecting an intruder on the first basement level. Shocked, Alice pulled out a tablet to check the feed, and nearly crushed the device in her grip.

The surveillance footage showed:

Moyu standing in the warehouse, closing the crate containing the serums, making a face at the camera, raising his middle finger, and grabbing the crate as he bolted toward the exit.

Alice immediately shouted, "Stop him! Quick!"

Two translucent phantoms materialized out of thin air—skeletal specters draped in cloaks and wielding scythes. They plunged into the walls and vanished.

Alice stared anxiously at the monitor.

One phantom phased through a wall, swung its scythe, and cut Moyu in half at the waist in an instant. Right before hitting the ground, however, he mustered all his strength to fling the crate forward.

Alice breathed a sigh of relief, but the next second, a maddening scene unfolded on the screen: multiple copies of Moyu simultaneously appeared in the footage. Catching the crate, they hurled it with all their might toward yet another Moyu further ahead. The two phantoms swung their scythes, executing slashes at maximum speed, yet they still failed to prevent the crate from being thrown onward.

Countless iterations of Moyu formed a relay team, tossing the crate through the air. Defying the pursuit of the two phantoms, they forcefully relayed the crate out of the basement and hurled it clear of the mansion.

The crate sprang open.

The remaining eighteen inducing agents were snatched up by eighteen Moyus, who scattered them in different directions outside the estate.

The twin phantoms rushed to the scene, swinging their scythes to weave a dense web of blades. Eighteen Moyus were shredded to pieces, and seven vials were intercepted, but the remaining eleven vials flew out from the estate in all directions.

"No!!!"

Alice let out a piercing shriek. She knew very well that with the inducing agents stolen, her precious treasure was going to turn into a cream puff, molded into the shape of that hateful wretch.

Her masterpiece would no longer be flawless, a reality she simply could not accept.

She issued the most frenzied commands, smashing the tablet in her hands and executing program after program.

"Kill him! Kill him for me! Cost what it may!"

Deep underground, incubation pods popped open one after another. Countless deformed monsters awakened, surging outward through the open access tunnels.

...

On the apartment balcony.

Moyu pulled open the balcony door, stepped outside, and lazily stretched his body with a sigh. "What a long day. I'm exhausted."

He leaned against the railing, gazing into the darkness below.

Five seconds later, a metal thermos flew up from downstairs. He caught it effortlessly and tucked it against his chest.

The entire process was completely silent.

Inducing agents, acquired.

He had transferred the inducing agents into a different container to prevent any tracking devices hidden on the original vials, and during the escape, he employed an aerial relay strategy—tossing the containers through the air to bypass the city's complex terrain. Under such methods, it was utterly impossible for Alice to track him down.

Moyu felt utterly spent.

He needed sleep.

He wouldn't recover unless he got a solid day of uninterrupted rest.

He hid the inducing agents inside Alpha's abdominal cavity, instructing the creature that if Yilisi discovered them, it should wake him up even if it meant detonating early. Only then did he crawl under the covers and fall fast asleep.

The next day, at noon.

Moyu woke up yawning. He wanted to sleep a little longer, but figuring Yilisi would grow suspicious, he forced himself to get out of bed.

Yilisi and the maid were indeed in the room.

The two of them were huddled together looking at a tablet.

As usual, Alpha was crouching beside Moyu's bed, remaining constantly vigilant against any actions from Yilisi.

"Good morning," Moyu greeted, asking out of curiosity, "What are you looking at?"

"Something happened last night. The Ripper led people into Alice's estate, and then a horde of bizarre creatures poured out of the grounds. Every witch hunter and security squad in the city is converging on that area, and the authorities have even ordered the evacuation of civilians within the city," the maid translated through her proxy explanation.

It appeared the disaster triggered by Alice was terrifying. The authorities hadn't even ordered an evacuation during the vampire rampage, merely commanding residents to stay indoors and not go outside.

Moyu said in astonishment, "There's such a thing happening? What should we do?"

"We'll follow the crowd and leave," Yilisi sighed before making her decision.

It was evident she was deeply resentful.

Originally, everything had unfolded according to her design: using the rioters to spark a massive conflict, exposing the Nani family's strategic concealment to trigger a comprehensive encirclement by the witch hunters. The Nani family would directly incite a riot, seemingly for revenge, but with the true objective of cutting off their own tail to secretly evacuate core members. All she had to do was wait a while, apply a little guidance, and she could trick the witch hunters into driving both major families to their doom.

Then, she could ambush them along their evacuation route, reaping the rewards of murder and plunder to bring about a perfect conclusion.

Unfortunately, plans could never keep up with changes.

Alice's estate was like a bottomless pit, continuously spewing forth an endless stream of powerful creatures, threatening to overwhelm the entire Black City. The witch hunters no longer had the bandwidth to clean up vampires; compared to the crisis at hand, the vampire troubles seemed rather insignificant.

Yilisi's plan had failed.

She stood up, walked over to the bed, and sat down heavily.

Moyu instinctively clutched his blanket and retreated slightly.

With a pouting expression, Yilisi reached out a hand toward him and made a beckoning "hmph" sound.

After a moment of hesitation, Moyu tentatively extended his arm.

And then.

Then he was bitten.

"Hiss! Easy! Easy! It hurts!"

"I'm unhappy, I need to eat something good," Yilisi replied with muffled words.

"Hisss-ha! You're going too far! Hiss!~" Moyu bared his teeth in a grimace.

It hurt, yet it felt strangely exhilarating.

His entire arm went numb. With this level of stimulation, if she had bitten him somewhere else, he probably would have burst right open. After being 'tortured' for ten full minutes, he finally escaped, vigorously shaking his arm to dispel the numbness.

Yilisi said, "Pack your things. We're leaving early."

Moyu suggested, "There are too many people right now. Let's leave a bit later; we can still catch the spectacle."

"Alright then," Yilisi agreed.

Moyu had an ulterior motive.

He needed the rioters to 'rise from the dead' for a moment.

Through the frantic slaughter of the past week, he had accumulated a massive amount of points for the trio, and he needed to cash them out before leaving.

His target was the magic cultivation technique.

With the inducing agents in hand, he could take Yilisi away and steer clear of Black City.

When the time came for his mandatory return, he could simply set a trap for Alice. Alice's combat prowess relied entirely on her creations; once he brought her back to the primary timeline, she could be easily manipulated at will.