Skinwalker Belle – Chapter 439 – I am Zhu Yan! I am human!

The eighty-meter-long dark golden dragon trembled violently on the ground.

The dragon’s head suddenly snapped upward, flinging the gray dragon that had been pinning her skull clean off.

In those eyes, the dark golden vertical pupils shattered.

Through the cracks, human black pupils were revealed.

The dragon’s body convulsed once.

The eighty-plus-meter golden dragon began to shrink rapidly. Scales sloughed off, bones contracted, limbs reorganized.

Five seconds. Ten seconds.

All that remained on the ground was a naked, blood-soaked woman with golden hair.

She knelt on one knee in the scorched earth, her left arm hanging limp—clearly dislocated. Her right hand braced against the ground, fingers caked with mud and blood.

But she lifted her head.

“I am not Zero.”

Her voice was hoarse, every word trembling.

“And I am no Dragon Clan.”

A ball of light in her chest was expanding at terrifying speed.

All the energy in her body was converging toward a single point.

The precursor to self-detonation.

Long Kui stood twenty meters away, watching that growing sphere of light, his expression shifting.

“She’s going to self-detonate! Everyone pull back and prepare defensive positions!!”

“I am Zhu Yan!”

The golden-haired woman threw her head back and screamed at the sky.

“I am from Blue Star! I am human!!”

The light surged to its critical point.

Golden energy formed a spherical membrane around her body. The ground cracked. Gravel floated into the air.

Every ounce of energy at the peak of the Seventh Stage was compressed without reservation. If this thing detonated, nothing within a kilometer would survive.

All five Dragon Clan members retreated.

Chen Dingjun stood atop the wreckage of the aircraft, lips trembling, unable to speak.

Wang Shan crouched behind the defensive steel door of the Black Palace, his face full of bitterness.

The woman about to self-detonate had nothing to do with him—but if those five Pureblood Dragon Clan members were blown to bits, he’d be implicated.

Yet there was nothing he could do. This battle was far beyond anything he could intervene in.

Everyone present was running or seeking cover.

Only one figure was walking forward.

Tap. Tap. Tap.

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The sound of white embroidered cloth shoes stepping on rubble was soft.

But at that moment, everyone heard it.

A figure in pale blue-white stepped unhurriedly out from behind the ruins beside the Black Palace.

The hem of her cyan ice-silk hanfu swayed back and forth with each step, the dark patterns woven into the fabric rippling with a watery sheen under the light.

On her feet were short socks trimmed with lace.

Her hair—white to the point of radiating light—was coiled up and pinned at the back of her head with a celadon jade hairpin bearing a dangling ornament. A few loose strands hung by her ears, brushing across her collarbones whenever the wind blew.

Her entire person was unnaturally white.

Not the white of pallor.

It was a white that glowed on its own.

Wherever she stood, everything around her seemed to dim by comparison.

Long Kui’s hand gripping his heavy sword froze mid-air.

As a top figure of the younger Dragon Clan generation, he had seen unparalleled beauties of countless races. But he had never seen anything like this.

It wasn’t a question of beauty.

It was that the moment she stood there, his knees began to go weak.

That sensation came from suppression at the very depths of his bloodline.

It was the instinct of a lower being submitting before a higher one.

The white figure walked up to the golden-haired woman.

She crouched down.

The sphere of energy was still expanding between them. The golden light fell upon that head of white hair, reflected into a soft, warm glow.

The air within a kilometer was trembling.

Any normal person getting this close to someone about to self-detonate at the peak of the Seventh Stage wouldn’t even leave ashes behind.

But the woman crouched among the rubble, her skirt spread out across the ground, not a trace of tension on her face.

As if this weren’t a battlefield.

As if flowers had bloomed in her backyard and she’d just come over to take a look.

A hand reached out.

Her palm pressed down on Zhu Yan’s golden hair.

A surge of emerald light poured from her palm—warm, carrying the fragrance of grass and trees—wrapping around Zhu Yan’s entire body.

The golden orb of light on the verge of losing control seemed to be seized by someone. Its rapid expansion halted abruptly.

Then it began to recede.

Zhu Yan’s eyes flew wide.

“Don’t move.”

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The voice was soft, pleasant to the ear, carrying a languid, lazy quality.

Zhu Yan’s body stopped involuntarily.

Not by force.

It was something in that voice that made every taut nerve in her body relax all at once.

Like walking through a frozen wasteland for a very, very, very long time, and suddenly someone draped a coat over her shoulders.

Emerald life energy seeped into her body.

Broken bones realigned. Torn muscles knitted together. The dark-gold blood that had pooled on the ground stopped flowing.

The two consciousnesses that had been tearing at each other inside her Mental Sea fell silent as well.

Zhu Yan looked up.

Up close, she could finally see that face clearly.

She’d lived over twenty years. She’d seen the most beautiful female officers in the military district. She’d seen the most exquisite synthetic faces in the laboratory.

None of them came within a millionth of this face.

Not even close.

Those eyes looked at her. Within the black pupils, nebulae swirled.

Not pity. Not sympathy.

More like… having appraised something quite fine, then offering a verdict of quiet approval.

But the words that came out were so gentle that Zhu Yan’s eyes reddened instantly.

“Good child. You are simply yourself.”

Not a dragon.

Not Zero.

And certainly not material.

You are simply yourself.

Zhu Yan’s lips trembled twice.

She’d stopped crying long ago. She didn’t cry when she ran until she vomited blood on the training ground. Didn’t cry when hundreds of needles pierced her on the experiment table. Didn’t cry when the chip crushed her consciousness to the very bottom.

But when those words came out, the tears fell.

Like a broken string.

She wanted to speak, but her throat was full of the taste of blood, and not a single word could squeeze out.

Lin Fan pulled a small glass vial from her bosom, twisted off the lid, and pressed it to Zhu Yan’s lips.

“Drink.”

A pale green glowing liquid flowed past Zhu Yan’s lips and into her mouth.

The moment it entered, an indescribable sweetness exploded through every limb and bone. The churning turbid waves in her Mental Sea were soothed by a gentle, moistening force. The shattered memories, the conflicting consciousnesses—it was as if an invisible hand had rearranged them back into place.

Long Yi’s genetic instinct no longer roared.

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It rested quietly at the depths of her Bloodline. Like a tamed beast, curled in a corner with its eyes closed.

And Zhu Yan’s self-awareness finally stood firm.

Lin Fan rose to her feet and brushed the dust from her skirt.

She glanced at Long Kui, who had reverted to human form in the distance, along with the four Pureblood Dragon Clan members.

Long Kui gripped his greatsword, unmoving.

Not because he didn’t want to move.

It was that the moment that white-haired woman stood up, the aura radiating from her sent his Bloodline instincts into frantic alarm.

More terrifying than the golden dragon’s pressure.

Far more terrifying.

“Bloodline Suppression of this degree.” Long Kui spoke in a low voice. “Who are you?”

Lin Fan didn’t acknowledge him.

Her gaze passed over Long Kui and landed on Wang Shan, peeking out from behind the black palace’s stone wall in the distance.

He looked one second longer.

The corner of his mouth twitched slightly.

When Wang Shan saw that face clearly, his whole body felt like it had been electrocuted.

It was her.

In the Kunlun Mountains.

The white-haired woman who had broken through his underground base.

The capital defense base.

The monster who had single-handedly fought through ten thousand defenders.

Why was she here?

Wang Shan’s back slid down against the stone wall. His legs had already stopped obeying him.

But his brain was still spinning.

No more than thirty seconds had passed since she appeared. In those thirty seconds, Wang Shan had already run through every possible escape route in his mind.

The conclusion was that there was no escape route.

Run? She could suppress even a peak Level Seven self-detonation. Where could a mid-Level Seven like him run to?

Negotiate? The grudge from Kunlun Mountain was right there, and he had even schemed against this woman once before.

Use her? Let her tear into Chen Dingjun and those Dragon Clan members?

Wang Shan’s eyes darted back and forth twice.

This was the only thing he could hold onto.

Lin Fan was no longer looking at him.

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She looked down at Zhu Yan, who was kneeling on the ground with a tear-streaked face.

Her expression was calm.

In her mind, she was calculating a different account.

If it were before going to the Forest of Elves, she would still have craved Long Yan’s Golden Dragon Bloodline.

But now, Long Xi’s Ancestral Divine Dragon Bloodline was already in her hands.

Once she fused with Long Xi, the Golden Dragon Bloodline—a grade lower—would provide very limited enhancement to her.

Making it into a Skin would be too wasteful.

At best, it would yield a Mythic Grade, giving her nothing new.

But keeping it as a fighter…

Peak Level Seven physical quality, the exact same Golden Dragon Bloodline as Long Yi, plus a madman’s soul that never admitted defeat and could grind all the way from Level Two to Level Five.

A specimen like this, with a little training, would be an even better fighter than Long Teng or Long Yi.

Lin Fan bent down and reached out to wipe the blood and tears from Zhu Yan’s face.

Her fingers were cold, but her movements were very gentle.

“Can you stand?”

Zhu Yan gritted her teeth, braced herself against the ground, and rose shakily to her feet.

She didn’t know who this woman in front of her was.

But every cell in her body was telling her—this person could be trusted unconditionally.

When everyone called her “Zero.”

When everyone called her “material.”

This woman said, you are just yourself.

Lin Fan nodded with satisfaction.

Then she turned around.

Her gaze first landed on Chen Dingjun, whose face was grim above the wreckage of the aircraft.

Then it moved to Wang Shan, pressed against the wall in the distance, his mind full of schemes.

Finally, she swept her eyes over Long Kui and his four companions.

“It’s quite lively here.”

Lin Fan stretched lazily, tucking the loose strands of hair from her bun behind her ear.

“Perfect timing—everyone’s here.”

She smiled.

It was that kind of lazy, casual smile that didn’t even use much effort in the eyes.

“Saves me from having to track you all down.”