Skinwalker Belle – Chapter 529 – When did I start— caring about them?

“Hesitation?”

Lin Fan repeated those four words.

It wasn’t a rhetorical question, nor was it anger.

She stood still, all expression fading from Yui’s innocent face, leaving only a blank void.

The Dragon Emperor didn’t pursue.

He simply hovered in midair, hands tucked into his sleeves, his golden vertical pupils calmly watching her.

As if time meant nothing to him at all.

“You’re waiting for me to take it off?” Lin Fan suddenly asked.

The Dragon Emperor didn’t deny it.

“Your true body is beneath this Skin. Your rules, your physical capabilities, your Mental Strength—all of it is suppressed by this layer of Skin.”

The Dragon Emperor’s tone was flat.

“What you can use right now is less than half of your full power.”

“So you’ve been provoking me all along.”

“Not provoking you,” the Dragon Emperor said. “I’m giving you a way out.”

Lin Fan let out a laugh.

Not Yui’s sweet, clear laugh—a cold laugh squeezed from deep in her chest, laced with fire.

“You sure worry yourself sick over me.”

“Mhm.”

The Dragon Emperor nodded, his tone absurdly serious.

“After all, if you die here, I’d be in quite a bit of trouble.”

Lin Fan’s smile vanished.

She lowered her head and glanced at her legs, clad in black thigh-high stockings.

Yui’s body. Yui’s face. Yui’s talent.

Useful, but not enough.

Far from enough.

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Her gaze swept across the ground.

Long Yi lay sprawled in a pile of rubble, the life energy in his wristband barely sustaining his breathing.

Long Teng lay on his side, sword still clutched in his hand, his knuckles covered in blood.

Long Yan crouched behind a broken wall, his Runic Longblade planted in front of him, only kept upright by gripping the hilt.

All three of them were watching her.

Their eyes held expectation, trust, and something else that was hard to define.

That something was called “we’re putting our lives in your hands.”

Lin Fan gritted her molars.

Was she afraid of the Dragon Emperor?

No.

What she was afraid of was something else.

If she peeled off Yui’s Skin right now, what would Long Yan see?

A living girl being stripped off her body like clothing.

Skin separating from bone and flesh, features sliding off a face, one person becoming another.

What would Long Teng think of?

Was his daughter, Long Wu, also made into a Skin like this?

And what about Long Ningshuang?

Long Yan didn’t know Long Ningshuang was dead.

He thought she was still alive somewhere safe.

If he saw Lin Fan’s process of shedding the Skin, connected it to Long Ningshuang, and then to Long Wu…

“Are you done thinking?”

The Dragon Emperor’s voice came from above.

Lin Fan looked up.

“Your enemy is standing right in front of you, and you still have room in your head to worry about how others see you?”

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The Dragon Emperor tilted his head, his dark golden Dragon horns tracing two arcs through the darkness.

“You’re just like I used to be—placing far too much weight on so-called relationships.”

“Shut up.”

“You’re afraid that once they discover the truth, they’ll stop trusting you. Afraid they’ll learn that you devoured their kin and their loved ones to gain the power you have today.”

Finally, a clear emotion surfaced in the Dragon Emperor’s golden vertical pupils.

Contempt.

“But you’ve forgotten one thing.”

“You were never a good person.”

Those words circled in Lin Fan’s mind twice.

She wanted to argue, but her mouth opened and closed without a single word coming out.

Not because she was choked up. It was because she knew in her own heart—there was nothing wrong with that statement.

She had killed more people than the Dragon Emperor knew.

Chen Yao, Lei Li, Liu Ruyan, Long Wu, Long Ningshuang, Long Xueqi, Long Xuan, and countless pitiful female slaves in the Slave Market…

Behind every Skin lies a living, breathing life.

She had never once felt a shred of guilt for it.

But now, things were different.

She lowered her head and looked at her own hands.

When had it started?

When had she begun to care about these things?

“Have you made up your mind?” The Dragon Emperor’s voice descended from above.

Calm and unhurried, like a teacher waiting for a student to turn in their exam.

“Since you’re hesitating so much, let me help you make the choice.”

The Dragon Emperor raised his right hand.

The Death Rule poured down without any warning.

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Not the diffuse domain suppression from before—this was focused, concentrated, a torrent of death aimed squarely at Lin Fan alone.

Gray-black energy descended from the sky carrying the stench of decay. Wherever it passed, moisture in the air was drained dry, and drifting dust shattered into finer powder mid-air.

Lin Fan instinctively activated the Hymn of Life.

The Life Origin within her surged once, attempting to draw energy from the surrounding environment to form a defense.

But then it stopped.

Dead.

All life force within a hundred meters had been completely devoured by the Death Rule. The grass was withered, the soil was dead, and the air carried nothing but the smell of rot.

The Hymn of Life’s mechanism was to absorb life energy from the surroundings to nourish its user.

But now, everything around her was death energy.

Absorb it? Absorbing it would be poison.

It was like a person who had fallen into a cesspit being told to open her mouth and breathe.

Lin Fan gritted her teeth and forcibly severed the Hymn of Life’s absorption circuit.

The gray-black torrent of death crashed down before her.

Yui’s Skin reacted with violent resistance.

Under the impact of ninth-tier Rule power, visible cracks began to appear across her body’s surface, like a dried-up riverbed.

“Lei Jie!” Long Yan lay sprawled in the distance. His voice cracked when he saw this.

Long Yi struggled with everything he had to stand, but the Dragon Emperor’s Death Domain pinned him firmly in place. Blood seeped from between his clenched teeth.

Long Teng did not shout. He only gripped his sword tighter, the veins on his knuckles standing out one by one.

Lin Fan took a step back.

The Death Rule surged toward her faster.

A second step.

Her back slammed into a broken wall.

Nowhere left to retreat.

Strip the Skin.

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Right now, tear off Yui’s Skin and return to her true form. Two hundred fifty thousand in physical constitution, two hundred fifty thousand in Mental Strength, three seconds of Time Stop, Cultivation-Absorption Domain at full release.

Even if she couldn’t win, she could at least withstand it. At least she could get Long Yan and the others out.

But…

Lin Fan’s gaze crossed the gray-black torrent of death and landed on the three figures sprawled on the ground in the distance.

Long Yan.

If she stripped off Yui’s Skin right in front of him, transforming from a young girl into that woman with starlight flowing through her white hair…

What would he think?

He would think of Long Ningshuang.

That woman he regarded as his confidante, his benefactor, the only one in his life.

He would wonder why Long Ningshuang, who once followed behind him like a shadow, had suddenly become that cold, powerful woman.

Because that Long Ningshuang had died long ago.

Standing before him had always been Lin Fan.

Long Teng.

He would think of Long Wu.

His daughter. The pampered girl he had raised in the palm of his hand, who had suddenly transformed into the female city lord standing alone in Border Dragon City.

Everyone praised Long Wu for growing through her trials.

But if he saw the moment the Skin was torn off…

Would he suddenly realize that his daughter, too, was merely a Skin worn over someone else’s body?

And the people from Blue Star in the city.

The survivors who had followed Lei Li through life-and-death struggles since Fragrant Hills International.

They believed in Lei Li.

The leader who had carved a bloody path for them when the post-apocalypse descended.

Not a monster that grew stronger by devouring others’ faces and bodies.

“When did I start… caring about them.”